Death, Taxes, And...

...Mark Prior and Kerry Wood on the disabled list. Seriously, hasn't that happened every year since 2003? It's up for debate as to the cause of these injuries, but I'm in the camp that all those 120+ pitch outings back in '03 certainly can't have helped things. The Cubs haven't won anything since Prior and Wood went down, and I have a hard time believing they will this year without either of them pitching remotely effectively. Ted Lilly? Jason Marquis? Yeah, good luck with that.

Thanks, Dusty; your gift just keeps on giving!

More of the Malaise

The sweep at the hands of the Pirates seems to have a struck a nerve with Cardinals fans. See Reverend Redbird or Deadspin, for example. Even Pip at Fungoes is annoyed, although he manages to direct most of his negative waves (appropriately) at Jason Marquis. I reached a similar conclusion right about the time Adam Wainwright gave up a two-run single on Sunday, or maybe it was when the Pirates telecast showed some shirtless guy wandering around PNC with a broom in hand.

Anyway, I'll frame my similar view a bit differently. I've been struggling with the projection method for a team that's basically the same talent-wise as the group that just won 100 games and yet looked dead in the water (again) in Pittsburgh. There's the old stats-versus-scouts debate or objective-subjective argument, but forget about analysis, statistical or otherwise. This season has been simply ugly. Mulder floating pitches to the Cubs and White Sox, Edmonds' lazy at-bats against left-handed pitchers, any Miles at-bat not involving Brad Lidge, Isringhausen's walks, Taguchi's defense, LaRussa tanking Marquis games to save his precious bullpen, eight relievers against the freaking Pirates, Duncan square-pegging Reyes, Encarnacion jogging after a ball, Molina fidgeting behind home plate as yet another 0-2 advantage turns into a 2-2 count... It's been ugliness all around.

Sure, there's precedent for a significant uptick this late in the season. The 2001 club, for example, also happened to have a 62-55 record. But if things continue the way they are, then this effort should not be celebrated. I've reached the point where'd I rather see the Cardinals play .700 ball the rest of the season and not make the playoffs than see this team go through the backdoor on the lack of merits of their competitors. If they win the NL Central playing this kind of baseball, then they're division champs in name only. A "2006" flag on the outfield wall or dugout roof would be a joke, and a division title would be less legitimate than 2001's infamous co-championship claim.

Other thoughts:

• Fungoes covered the Marquis ground almost to the point of overkill. Assuming Mulder does come back, what really is an argument for Marquis? Terrible ERA, terrible peripherals, as Dan of GUB noted his only decent pitch is now just average, we've been told repeatedly he doesn't listen to his coaches. What's he got going for him? The only thing I can discern is the wins stat. If the Cardinals brass doesn't understand the problem with that argument, then throw that decision in my ugly list above.

I suppose there is an argument against Reyes. Sorta. If the Cardinals are worried about his workload and if they figure this isn't exactly the season to go for it, then (gag) it would make sense to pull Reyes from the rotation. I'd hope some inside source would communicate that logic to the public if such is the case.

• Dave Duncan has announced there will be changes. By the time the Cardinals close the door, the horse is not only out of the barn, he's hitch-hiked halfway to his Uncle Ed's place. With Sterling Hitchcock unavailable, Chris Narveson is the most obvious candidate for immediate promotion.

• This could be one of those "Caption this picture" posts:

Aside from looking like he's not quite out of his Michelin man costume or jokes about his surgically re-attached left arm, this picture reminds me of something that I hadn't realized until my trip to Quad Cities. You can't tell it, or at least I can't tell it, from TV or from the 300s sections at Busch III, but Mulder's a big dude. He's 6'6" with a wide build, which makes him look thinner than he is.

The View

I've been to the new park only once and honestly had a better seat than I would've had for the same price in the old park. The new park has a nice view of the city, which obviously the old one lacked, and on the field it plays pretty fair, which is a positive. So I've been a little bit confused about some of the whining about the new park. Yeah, it's a mallpark with a hyper-active Build-A-Bear stand, but that's only a distraction if you let it. The press box is way up there, apparently upsetting Bernie Miklasz to no end, but that's not going to matter to me any time soon. So what is it?

CardNilly has documented his troubles, and he paints an ugly picture. It's a rookie park and I can excuse some mistakes as the club and the vendors (and the fans) figure out what needs to be fixed. What's inexcusable is the club ignoring the problem. This isn't a search for a 900-OPS, good-defense, under-30 outfielder. Taking care of the customer just shouldn't be that difficult. If the Cardinals want to keep calling St. Louis baseball heaven, then they've got some work to do. Otherwise Bill DeWitt's in danger of being known as the man who traded away the venerable cookie cutter because it was an old forty.

On the baseball front, after seeing Jason Marquis get lit up again, I got to wondering just how bad Jason Marquis's season is getting. Looking at his Marquis's peripherals, his K-rate has fallen below the pitching equivalent to the Mendoza line of 4.5 K per 9 IP, and of course he leads the league in homers allowed (Josh Beckett, of all people, is the only AL pitcher with more). So let's look at pitcher-seasons with bad K/HR ratios and compare them to Marquis's 2.65; since Marquis just crossed the 150 IP mark, let's set that as a minimum. Bottom Ten since 1955:

Well, that's disappointing. If Marquis is going to pitch horribly, then he could at least chase history. If the season ended today (or if Marquis was DFA'd tomorrow), then Marquis's season would be good for only 73rd since 1955, and Scott Elarton and Carlos DSilva have a shot at being worse. There are a couple of other familiar names further down the list, including Jose Lima, Bob Forsch, Don Newcombe and Milt Pappas in his final season, although many of them were on their last legs.

The Perfect Player?

Those of you familiar with The Onion ("America's Finest News Source") may have seen this one, but I find it too good not to share:

Mad Sabermetrician Creates The Perfect Baseball Player's Statistics

I'll resist the temptation to just post it in its entirety (it's very short), but I was both amused and a bit pleased to read the last line of the piece:

Neeman's earlier attempts to produce the perfect player's statistics failed, as each of his first eight results was identical to Albert Pujols' 2005 batting line.

After the Laughter

Buried under the latest greatness from Albert Pujols is the ongoing saga of Juan Encarnacion. I'm still turning over that one in my head, dealing with various statistical paradoxes. Anyway, buried under that, Mark Mulder was maxing out around 83-84 mph on Sunday. His curveball was effective the first time through the lineup (4 K against the first 10 batters he faced) however. Todd Coffey was clocking around 96, so maybe those Busch radar readings are accurate. Can Mulder survive on 68 mph pitches?

Derrick Goold goes into greater detail regarding Mr. Luna. It's a little backwards for a player's rate stats to benefit from less playing time. This is the analogue to the old Earl Weaver model for breaking in starting pitchers.

The Giants' scheduled starters in their upcoming series at Arizona are Jeff Fassero, Matt Morris, Matt Cain and Jamey Wright. I guess Travis Smith and Garrett Stephenson weren't available, and the Giants have to make-do with Cain.

The Cardinals are presently 29th in the majors in OPS with RISP. They've got a .204 BA with RISP and 2 outs. It's not your imagination that the Cardinals are struggling to find a clutch hit. Saturday when Yadier was at the plate with the bases loaded, the tension at Busch was palpable.

Baseball Prospectus has added a wrinkle to its playoff odds page. Now they're using PECOTA as their mean-reversion target. They haven't updated for Sunday's games yet, but either way the Cardinals currently stand around 40%. I'm probably deducting one point for each game where both Taguchi and Schumaker start. With Edmonds ailing that could happen a couple of times in Pittsburgh.

Anthony Reyes had an iffy start yesterday. It's never good to give up 5 runs in 6 innings, but the strikeouts (7) and walks (1) were still decent. Memphis fell to 1-10 in spite of an 5-run 8th to tie the game. Chris Duncan wore the sombrero. I'm starting to wonder if Nick Stavinoha can provide a couple of Jeff Francoeur-type months.

New Ballpark

Diaspora has one heckuva picture of the new ballpark. The skyline's great, although not quite PNC quality. And I think I count 8 ads.

There's this exchange over at GUB:

Dan: The most egregious happening is the opening of a Build-a-Bear Workshop in the concourses.

26th Man: Just wait until you have kids, dude.

Not only am I trying to blockout the games of the past weekend, I'm trying to blockout the whole new stadium deal. I can't help but feel that the owners are quite willing to manipulate us fans so they can suck away our money with plutonium-powered vacuum cleaners. That's not a pleasant thought, so I'm trying to focus on the fact that everybody's having fun, which is the point of following baseball after all. I really shouldn't complain since Mulder looked good again, in daylight and against a lot of right-handed hitters, no less.

Somewhat related, you may have seen some Houston Astros 2005 DVD ads over at Viva El Birdos and elsewhere, which is fine by me. What does bother me is that shop.MLB.com doesn't have a DVD for the 2004 NLCS champion. The other DVDs there look pretty good, but why can't they manipulate me with highlights from the Beautiful Summer of 2004?

If you want to satisfy a baseball urge during a strange off-day in April, Anthony Reyes goes tonight against the New Orleans Zephyrs at 7pm. The radio feed's live over WHBQ and amazingly MiLB has Gameday coverage. Junior Spivey went 0-for-8 last night in a 16-inning game.

Scott Rollin'

I may need to go to confession for that title. We're all watching Rolen, looking for tiny little markers of progress. The more important thing is that the Cardinals seem to be taking a calm, rational approach with Rolen's rehab, although I won't claim to recognize the full inventory of irrational approaches. This looks completely different from what they tried last summer, and as such it's got me excited for 2006. The thing that caught my eye from that link was this though:

"I had been facing live pitching right up until I came here," Eckstein said. "So it wasn't as different for me today as maybe some other guys."

The Cardinals shortstop had been working out in Orlando with other Major Leaguers, including Dan Miceli and Danny Graves, who pitched batting practice to Eckstein.

Great, now Eckstein's going to be swinging for the fences all through spring training. And this also grabbed my attention:

Weather report: Another bluebird day is forecast for the Redbirds workouts as blue skies with few clouds and temperatures climbing to the mid-80s are predicted for the morning workout.

Over the next two months about the closest I'll come to that is listening to ELO's Beatles-esque Mr. Blue Sky. Matthew Leach recently reported that the Cardinals-Yankees exhibition game was sold out a month in advance (think about that for a second), but I guess part of the popularity of spring training is the weather. I hope other folks are enjoying it, because my next big trip is to Detroit.

Spring Training Heats Up

We have our first set of real controversies for the 2006 season. These aren't Generation-X angst or recycled controversies either. These are genuine Corinthian leather-class controversies.

I was all ready to call Ricardo Rincon a slacker, based on the first report. But further reports suggest our government is making millionaires jump through hoops for unknown reasons. I do think it's strange that, according to that first link, Duncan hasn't spoken with Rincon since he signed. I would've figured that Duncan has a "welcome to the team" speech down pat, something like the manager's "hardest thing" speech in Bull Durham. I can hear Dan & Al blaming somebody's slow start on this or on participation in the WBC and maybe they'd even be right (it always comes down to cash, but I'd guess the WBC is doomed). It's also a bit strange that Deivi Cruz's phone is disconnected.

The second controversy is buried in another article from Matthew Leach. While discussing the need for a right-handed reliever who can strike batters out and won't wilt against left-handed hitters, Leach had this to say:

Fortunately, the two holes could be filled with one man. While the Cardinals are trying to put together a bullpen, they're also endeavoring to choose a fifth starter. Someone from that derby might well be pushed to the bullpen.

"We've talked about that (strikeouts)," said Duncan. "It would be nice to have somebody like that. And we may have somebody here that fits that role.

"You look at the competition between the three starting guys, and one of them will make it and two will not. So somebody in the bullpen could end up being one of those guys, and that could be a strikeout guy."

Sounds like Anthony Reyes is headed to the bullpen. Actually it sounds like Leach and Duncan had a [nudge-nudge]"speaking hypothetically"[wink-wink] conversation. I understand the need for depth and I understand the injury concerns with Reyes, but it's kinda sickening to see the organization's consensus top prospect, a pitcher with nothing left to prove in the minors, lose a battle to a pitcher coming off seasons with 5.30 and 6.21 ERAs. Oh, and that veteran pitcher punched a judge. Sometimes it seems the Cardinals make personnel decisions more to keep Dave Duncan busy than to win ballgames.

The third emerging issue is who'll be playing in left. Thus spoke LaRussa:

I just think a guy like So is going to play one of the three spots (in most games). Because of this sport, you pick the complete player. John could be hitting .500 and if he doesn't defend and doesn't run the bases, somebody hitting .300 who does both of those things is going to get the playing time.

So Taguchi is described as the incumbent. As for Rodriguez hitting .500 and sitting, I can't help but wonder if Taguchi would be getting be any kind of consideration if he had hit 238 / 330/ 420 last year instead of 288 / 322 / 412. What managers spout to the media in February ranks up there with Paris Hilton's views on energy policy in terms of irrelevance, but LaRussa has a history of rooting for players. I hope this is all just a motivational ploy to push Larry Bigbie.

Of course all this dire news is dwarved by the positive reports on Scott Rolen. Rolen hates all the questions surrounding his health, but there's only one way to shut everyone up.

Boiling Over

I had what was likely my biggest meeting of the year on Thursday, and while it went relatively well, I'm still dealing with the various consequences. That is to say, I've been too busy to focus on the Rockies signing Bo Hart or the latest non-developments during the darkest couple of weeks of the baseball year (it also means I missed Purdue's throttling of Michigan today). So forgive me, I'm a little behind.

Fungoes nails it with his response to Will Leitch's guest column at Baseball Prospectus. The basic premise for BPro's very existence has been that historical results do in fact have predictive value, and by any meaningful measure the current brass has done a fine job over the last ten years. Expanding on two points from Pip:

(1) Busch Stadium was ready to go. I liked the old park, although my last impression of it was "Darn, Casey Stengel was right, it really does hold the heat well." It had history and ironically baseball architecture had evolved to a point that Busch II actually was unique. Like many, I'm not keen on a copycat mallpark or the catering to corporate clients. That said, I've been to 40 or 50 ballparks the last five years, and in terms of "niceness" Busch II was in the bottom half of the list. Is is that unreasonable for a great baseball city like St. Louis to have a park at least comparable in quality to what they have in, say, Pittsburgh or Montgomery? (Yes, Montgomery.)

Certainly there are things to worry about with the new ballpark. But my concerns are the exact opposite of Leitch's: Tickets will be harder to come by, especially in 2006, they'll be more expensive and the crowd will be more interested in the cuisine and less interested in the game. That's not a problem from the Cardinals' standpoint however.

(2) As far as stat-heads are concerned, the offseason hasn't been that bad. See post #67 here, for example. Diamond Mind's projection is the definitive word and it won't be released until March, but there's little reason to expect ugliness. It's weird, compare Leitch's column to Leach's column on Rolen. The BPro writer is engaging in FUD and the writer for the Voice of MLB is quoting VORP and runs created. The times they are a-changing.

I will semi-disagree with one Fungo point. I think St. Louis fans are the way they are in part because Cardinals fans have had it pretty good, starting with the Branch Rickey days in the 1920's. Giving Sam Breadon five years to get the Cardinals' house in order after he bought the franchise, the Cardinals have the second-best winning percentage in baseball since 1924, behind only the Yankees. During the same stretch, they haven't had a 100-loss season, or a 95-loss season for that matter. Outside the 1994-95 strike-infested years, the Cardinals haven't had consecutive losing seasons since 1958-1959. There is some basis to George Will's silliness about Cardinals fans lacking the 'character' of Cubs fans. Of course it's also hard to envision the non-signing of JD Burnett, a mediocre month or two, and a couple of slow concession stand lines rolling back 80 years of good will.

It seems to me the 'winter of discontent' has it backwards, that the problem isn't so much with the 2006 team being that bad (or mediocre) as it is with the 2004 and 2005 teams having been that good. That those two truly great teams blew it in the postseason crapshoot in traditional LaRussa fashion only adds to the frustration. It does seem strange, however, to hold the overall success of the current regime against it.

Beat the Bucks

Joe Strauss tallied the 2005 and 2006 payroll as part of a larger story about the thin skin of Cardinals' ownership. Strauss totals up 2005 payroll to $90 million, which surprised me a little bit as the number usually cited is $94 million. Of course the Cardinals didn't pay all of Larry Walker's salary and they paid very little of Roger Cedeño's salary (good grief, Cedeño made $5 million last year to play like an A-baller), and Strauss reflects that. The problem is if you total Strauss's numbers up, you get $87.4 million instead of $90 million. There was a little more money spent on the John Gall-variety cups of coffee, but that's not covering the difference. I suppose you should throw in the deferred money to Woody Williams and friends.

Or should you? Cashflow accounting generally doesn't work well for large, sophisticated businesses -- consider the upfront cost of building an automobile factory, for example -- and the Cardinals are a large, sophisticated business. So when you try to account the "best" way, you start applying things like the matching principle, which says "Expenses are recognized not when the work is performed, or when a product is produced, but when the work or the product actually makes its contribution to revenue." In one sense it's hard to claim Woody Williams contributed to revenue in 2005, aside from getting bombed by the Cardinals in the NLDS. On the other hand, part of the reason the Cardinals sold so many tickets in 2005 was their success in 2004, and Woody most definitely contributed there. Then again, so did Mike Matheny and Edgar Renteria. Should we count some part of their salaries? Heck, somebody like Ted Sizemore might've contributed in some small way to 2005 ticket sales. Should we count his salary too?

There's an old line about accountants, ask them what 2+2 is and they'll tell you it's whatever you want it to be. The connotations are unfair, but there's some grain of truth here. With the paltry hard data we have at our disposal, it isn't easy to assess the present financial state of the Cardinals and even if we had complete information, it still would be difficult to assess the economics of the various options the Cardinals have (e.g., signing AJ Burnett). In essence, we won't know much beyond what the team wants us to know and dwelling on the matter is doomed to become an exercise in frustration.

I'm Ready For February

I spent the week following basketball, and my attentions were rewarded. Michigan had its best week since 1998 and it's now back in the Top 25 for the first time since then. I caught a Pacers game on Friday, my first viewing of LeBron James in person. He's a remarkable ballplayer, able to drive to the basket, to shoot jumpers without squaring-up (something he probably shouldn't do anyway), and to hit the open man even if he's 30 feet away. Even if you're a lukewarm NBA fan, I'd recommend seeing him if you get the chance, the same way I'd recommend listening to Willie Nelson even though I can't stand country music. I also saw Butler beat Wright State on Saturday. Butler isn't a bad team, around 80th in the latest Sagarins and they have a shot at making the NCAA Tournament if they can get around Wisconsin-Milwaukee in the conference tourney. But what struck me is that those Butler kids are the same age as LeBron and no individual could match LeBron in one single skill except free throw shooting.

Anyway, it's a slow time of year for Cardinals fans. Mark Mulder evidently won't play in the WBC; the Dutch team seems to have named its roster without consulting the players. Isn't that why we fought the War of 1812? Tony LaRussa is saying his usual silly stuff heading into spring training, and for now I just want to ignore it. Assistant GM John Mozeliak may be headed to Cincinnati, in which case the Reds' attempt to clone the Cardinals' organization will have begun in earnest. I don't know what exactly Mozeliak does, so that's not exactly pulling my eyes away from Michigan's upcoming schedule.

With my focus elsewhere and my lack of interest in Baseball Prospectus already present, I didn't notice that PECOTAs were released last week to subscribers. No real surprises there, as you'd expect from computer projections. PECOTA's not as bullish about Rule 5 pick Juan Mateo (5.14 ERA) as ZiPS, the only noteworthy number I could dig from the spreadsheet. I don't play fantasy baseball, so from my standpoint PECOTA's main advantage over its competitors is its pretty presentation, specifically the comparables. It feels like pseudo-science, but it fleshes out the projection to some extent. There are some odd ones. For example, in spite of a mediocre forecast, Chris Duncan's top comps include Derrek Lee and Nick Johnson. In spite of a good forecast (3.39 ERA), Chris Carpenter's top comps are Erik Hanson, Shane Reynolds and Jon Lieber. Hmm, Reynolds was a better pitcher than I remembered.

Pujols's top comp is Frank Robinson -- learn from your father's mistake, Mr. DeWitt. My favorite list is for John Rodriguez: Michael Tucker, Irv Noren and George Altman. I'll admit I didn't know much about Noren and Altman, but it's cool seeing J-Rod matched up with a couple of former All-Stars.

I did a little googling on PECOTA and found this year-old post at USS Mariner. It's a doubly cautionary tale about these kinds of projections. On one hand, as Zumsteg in essence says, it's just a model. It can't encompass all variables and even if it could, there's always the problem that reality won't be right (see Tony Womack's 2004 season). While many have understood this for a while, I'm just starting to appreciate fully the limits to modeling. On the other hand though, well, there's a subtext to that USSM post. Mariners fans love Ichiro and they liked the Beltre signing a year ago -- he was 26 and coming off an MVP-caliber season -- but they didn't love PECOTA's projections so much. In spite of its limitations, PECOTA pretty much nailed Ichiro (311 / 355 / 415 v. 303 / 350 / 436) and you know how things turned out with Adrian Beltre. Unless you do a boatload of research, you won't outsmart the model, especially with hitters. And if you're not careful, playing with the numbers could lead you to some awful conclusions.

Should the Pitcher be pulled

I havn't played with this much, but I wanted to put it up so people can look at it:

Should the pitcher be pulled. It's a data visualization tool to help managers decide if the pitcher should be pulled. As a web application it's great, but I'm not sure how usefull it is. Check it out and let us know what you think.

Cincinnati: the New Lou

Interesting article in the Cincinnati Enquirer about the new (if approved) owners of the Reds and their Cardinal influences.

Having recently moved to the Natty, I've noticed some similarities between the two towns (river towns, storied baseball pasts, large German Catholic populations). But when I was eating lunch at Dewey's Pizza (owned by Andy DeWitt) in Kirkwood during the holidays, I began to wonder if there is some sort of devious plan afoot.

Are Cincinnatians trying to take over Saint Louis?

That's Better

• Sean Smith, aka Chone Smith, projects the NL Central a bit differently than I did. He has the Cardinals at 93-69, the best team in baseball.

• Matthew Leach has a mailbag up. He expects Brian Daubach will make the roster. I can't see LaRussa giving a spot to a 1B-only, though I don't see much point in roster spots for multiple backup middle infielders who can't hit. Leach also has the dimensions of new Busch:

LF foul pole -- 336 feet
LF power alley -- 375 feet
CF wall -- 400 feet
RF power alley -- 375 feet
RF foul pole -- 335 feet

• Remember when the Cubs' mighty farm system was going to steamroll the Cardinals? Corey Patterson was dumped, and the swag is slightly more valuable than Ernie Broglio. Of course the joke goes that Broglio is 70 years old. I don't know what you do with Patterson. He needs at-bats and he needs some good coaching, and the Venn diagram for teams bad enough to give him at-bats and teams with good coaching probably doesn't have a big intersection.

• I suppose I should care about the Hall of Fame candidacies, but I'm in a personal state of flux with regard to the Hall. If I want "best value" or similarly best statistics, then paying any heed to a BBWAA vote doesn't make much sense for me. I can churn through the Lahman database or Dave Studeman's Win Shares spreadsheet more effectively than Rick Hummel or Peter Gammons could.

That isn't to say there's no place for the Hall of Fame for stat-geeks. Actually Ken Arneson's line that "Awards are not measurements. Awards are celebrations." is more appropriate for the Hall of Fame than for MVP or the CYA. For example, Bruce Sutter's split-finger fastball seemed like it was from another planet when he started throwing it. I like to see that remembered. Bert Blyleven was a good pitcher who had some run-support problems (and maybe some choking problems), and that should be memorialized, even though I worry 26th century anthropologists will spend countless hours trying to understand the Cult of Blyleven. Andre Dawson was overrated, but let's not forget just how real collusion was. Who gets selected doesn't matter as much to me as good ballplayers getting some due.

• Carlos Lugo's Dominican Winter League report threw a little love Carmen Cali's way, implying Cali was a candidate for pitcher of the year. The Cardinals could have a very lefty-heavy bullpen at the end of 2006. I thought Hector Luna went to the DWL also, but I can't find anything, perhaps because SportsTicker has wiped out some regular season stats or perhaps because Luna didn't play. On the flipside to John Rodriguez's good news, Yadier Molina's 281 / 343 / 405 line against AA/AAA pitching probably falls in line with his unimpressive ZiPS projection of 264 / 315 / 369.

Catching Up

A notes entry:

• Fungoes notes that Pujols projects to be the Triple Crown winner according to ZiPS. Dan Szymborski showed up and posted this long comment that's worth a look:

These are purely computer-generated projections - I like to keep what the computer says and what I think separate. What's taken into account is the past years (with the most recent past year with the heaviest weighting, as is typical with these projections), historical aging trends by player type (this is something I've been meaning to compress into a presentation for a while, but haven't gotten around to it) and historical aging trends for certain indicators. They are translated to the future team's park and my estimate of the run environment (I weight the last 3 years since I don't have a time machine!)... It seems sort of odd for someone who's developed a complex projection tool to be saying this, but I probably have less faith in projections than most of the big stat geeks.

Darn it, I really meant to use the phrase "starting point" in the ZiPS entry. Using ZiPS as a starting point, I'd guess the Cardinals are a 92-93 win team, but I don't have good reads on guys like Mulder and Bigbie. I can see Mulder winning the Cy Young, pitching like he did from 2001 to 2003 (compare Mulder's 2000 and 2005 seasons), and I can see Mulder being released in mid-July.

• Scott of CN has a bias series up. You know, Hector Luna does remind me of a rodent and I'm not exactly sure why. This merits further study. Scott touches on a point about first base coaches. What does Dave McKay do and why has he been doing it for Tony LaRussa for so long? I mean, I once attended a minor league game where the Chicken was the 1B coach for the home team. There's got to be more to Dave McKay.

Having just finished a book on the 1934 season, I've also been wondering what the gut reaction to Dizzy Dean would've been if the media complex had been then what it is now. He bragged, he put down some of his teammates and of course he also had his mid-season strike and suspension (unrelated to the strike). While what I read didn't portray any kind of mean streak, ole Diz would've been perfect fodder for talk radio and the Internet. In 1934 they'd chant "We Want Dean!" at games, but it doesn't take a big leap to see Dean popularly perceived like Terrell Owens in 2006.

A commenter at CN pointed out this weird picture of Pujols wearing a #68 jersey. The Cardinals front office is pondering the merchandising opportunities.

• I've been playing around with pitching numbers from Tangotiger's website and running them through his FIP formula. Some quick and dirty analysis suggests that pitchers as a group decline from Day One, basically putting on 5-10 points of ERA each and every year. Obviously you'll find the occasional Carp swimming upstream or a MattyMo going faster than the current, but it's a consistent slide from start to finish. Tango's charts for K-rates suggest the best way to get power pitching is to pick it off the tree, because after it's been in the barrel for a few years it's rotted some. Anthony Reyes, Anthony Reyes, Anthony Reyes.

Kinda related to what Szymborski and CN are saying, the more I look at pitcher numbers, the more sympathetic I am to the idea of going with your gut. The actuarial models like ZiPS don't seem to have a lot of use beyond serving as a sanity check to avoid a rotation back-end of Tomko, Stephenson and Simontacchi.

• I haven't lived in St. Louis in many, many years and when I go back, I generally don't venture far from the stadium. So I'm wondering if the Civic Courts Building is an inside joke. From Michael's Architecture Page:

On top of the pyramid are two aluminum griffins that are twelve feet tall. Unlike mythological griffins, they have human faces that symbolize human mercy tempering justice.

Wow. Somebody paid money to put those things on top of that building?

It Was A Good Read

The Birdhouse has/had a three-part chat with Jeff Luhnow, Cardinals VP for Baseball Development. Luhnow's a sharp guy and a good interview, and he also knows how to project a good image to us Internet jackasses. The articles left me, and most others I suspect, with the feeling that the front office knows what it's doing. The articles aren't free any longer, but there are worse ways to spend your Christmas money. Some talking points:

• The Cardinals are investing decent chunks of change in the farm system, particularly in Latin America. After reading the Post-Dispatch's series, this was a "no duh, Sherlock" item. The big point is that they seem to be following Napoleon's advice: If you're going to take Venezuela, then take Venezuela. Talent pipeline, trading chips, organizational depth, yadda yadda yadda. We can see where the post-Edmonds Cardinals are headed.

• They're getting more scientific about pitcher mechanics. The Cardinals' #1 pick in 1999 -- the Pujols draft -- didn't pitch in 2005, in large part because of injuries. The Cardinals #1-rated prospect from the 2004 Baseball America has pitched 25 innings the last two seasons. You get the idea.

• The stat guys have a voice. You know about MGL and his defense metric UZR. They also have Sig Mejdal, a (former?) NASA biomathematician. While I'm not sure what a biomathematician does, based on his work in the last two Bill James Handbooks, Mejdal comes off as Will Carroll with numbers aptitude instead of networking skills. These guys aren't amateurs.

The interview is reassuring, even if it's PR-work as the Cardinals seem headed in the right direction. Luhnow's asking good questions and finding good answers.

* * *

With that in mind, I'd feel even sillier than normal if I skewered the Juan Encarnacion acquisition. MGL's given the deal his stamp of approval, and if you're using OPS and defensive Win Shares to argue with him, then you're taking knives to a gun fight. Even discounting the UZRs, Encarnacion looks to me to be the Cardinals' second-best outfielder in 2006. The team is stronger on paper and I don't see how else they could've spent the money, so I'm not complaining anyway. I am surprised at how keen ZiPs is on Encarnacion, even if its creator isn't so sanguine. Evidently the Marlins play in a park that kills batting average.

Some secondary consequences of the Encarnacion and Spivey moves:

• Rick Ankiel's fate seems sealed. Not that he had much of a shot at the major league roster, but it's hard to see him beating Rodriguez or Taguchi for one of the final outfield spots, and it's hard to see the Cardinals going with fewer than four middle infielders or twelve pitchers. Ankiel needs hundreds upon hundreds of at-bats anyway.

• The Cardinals have three outfielders, plus Edmonds, who can man center competently. I suppose this flexibility allows for the unthinkable, an Edmonds trade. Assuming he stays, Edmonds might want to get into the habit of packing his first baseman's mitt, since he's the apparent backup to Pujols.

• Luna should take Spivey's signing as a kick in the pants. Luna's not guaranteed a roster spot as Miles can bat left-handed, something none of the other middle infielders can do, and there isn't much need for a backup shortstop with Cruz around. I don't know what happened to Luna at Memphis (224 / 294 / 332 in 223 at-bats), but if he's a pouter, then he could find himself unemployed a year from now.

• The right side of the Cardinals infield looks to be Bert and Ernie. What did Juan Encarnacion's ancestor do to get a surname that means Incarnation?

Pictures of Old Busch

Theres a flickr pool of pictures of Busch, anybody whose got some pictures should stop by and add them in. And if you don't have a flickr account... Wow... you have the whole world ahead of you.

thanks to Shoo for pointing it out in comments.

Zumsteg v. Bissinger

Derek Zumsteg over at USS Mariner just got to reading Buzz Bissinger's book Three Nights in August. Zumsteg doesn't like the preface, and I don't blame him. But in case you haven't read it yet, Bissinger's book really isn't about Moneyball or about how awful it is that the game's being taken over by twentysomethings with laptops, and this one gratuitous insult is the exception. The book's a portrait of LaRussa and the recent Cardinals, and as such it's much more valuable than these oft-quoted lines might lead you to believe.

How Bad Is It Really?

As I soon as I say the Morris news was good news, I read that MattyMo has kicked the Cardinals off the island. It's been that kind of offseason. I presume Rick Hummel got this from the horse's mouth and not a rumors site, so I'll offer best wishes to Morris. The same article promises that Ricardo Rincon will be joining the Cardinals shortly. Rincon's peripherals have gone into the toilet the last couple of years, but if John Hart ever takes over the Padres franchise, we could get Brian Giles for him.

Bernie Miklasz piled on. It's a bit unfair to blame the owners for the team's shortcomings four months before the next season's even started, but the signals are discouraging. With a new stadium going up, hardcore fans should be concerned that the Cardinals intend to move from a "great product/decent venue" model to a "decent product/great venue" model. One thing Miklasz could've added is that revenue sharing reflects spending on new stadia, which is to say the other 29 baseball owners effectively are paying part of the Busch III bill. Neil deMause has the details.

As if anticipating Miklasz's comments, Jocketty evidently had a press conference. "You'd like to think we've earned the benefit of the doubt," Jocketty says. On a more practical level, Jocketty's hinting that Luna will be the starting 2B in 2006. The way the Cardinals have handled 2B the previous two seasons and look to be handling it in 2006 got me thinking about something Chris Dial wrote three years ago. He found the difference between an average 2B and a replacement level 2B was pretty thin, and as he put it in the comments to his study, "Second base is probably the most over-paid position in baseball."

My final link, and a segue to some actual content, comes from Alan Schwarz at the New York Times. Says Mr. Schwarz:

Gardenhire’s optimism, not uncommon among managers and players, is rarely shared by the more statistically trained executives actually swinging these deals. Despite all the hype that trades and free-agent signings receive during December, individual signings, even astute ones, usually portend fewer victories than many people expect.

The converse is that players lost aren't as important as us whiners believe. So the question comes up, just how much have defections and trades hurt to this point? Well, let's crunch some numbers.

According to Baseball Prospectus, the Cardinals as a whole were 70.3 wins above replacement level in 2006. They lost the following players, their WARP1s, their batting outs and their innings pitched:

ROGER CEDENO       -0.8   51    0.0
EINAR DIAZ          0.2  105    0.0
CAL ELDRED          1.2    2   37.0
MARK GRUDZIELANEK   4.0  381    0.0
KEVIN JARVIS       -0.3    0    3.3
JIMMY JOURNELL     -0.4    0    4.3
RAY KING            1.8    0   40.0
JOHN MABRY          0.6  195    0.0
MATT MORRIS         2.7   60  192.7
ABRAHAM NUNEZ       2.4  311    0.0
BILL PULSIPHER      0.0    0    4.0
AL REYES            3.3    2   62.7
REGGIE SANDERS      3.5  218    0.0
JULIAN TAVAREZ      2.0    1   65.7
LARRY WALKER        3.3  227    0.0
GABE WHITE          0.2    0    8.3
TOTAL              23.7 1553  418.0

On the naive assumption that we can carry 2005 results directly to 2006, the Cardinals have lost about 24 wins from the 2005 team, so in my little rollforward they're presently sitting at 76+ wins. Of course we need to add some people on and give some returning players more playing time to make up those 1500 outs and 400 innings. I'll make some guesses at WARP1s, outs and innings:

GARY BENNETT      +0.3  +105   +0.0
LARRY BIGBIE      +2.5  +320   +0.0
DEIVI CRUZ        +1.8  +300   +0.0
HECTOR LUNA       +2.2  +240   +0.0
JUAN MATEO        +1.1    +0  +50.0
AARON MILES       +0.5  +100   +0.0
ANTHONY REYES     +2.2   +55 +180.0
RICARDO RINCON    +1.7    +0  +45.0
JOHN RODRIGUEZ    +1.5  +100   +0.0
ADAM WAINWRIGHT   +1.1    +5  +50.0
NON ENTITIES      +0.0  +325  +95.0
TOTAL            +14.9 +1550 +420.0  

Playing time for Bennett, Bigbie and Cruz is basically determined by Einar, the 2005 outfielders and Nuñez. Their WARPs are then pro-rated according to career WARP per career outs. Miles used a similar pro-rata, but his projected playing time is roughly what Luna got in 2005. Luna's extra playing time is supposed to put him close to Grudzielanek, give or take, and I've assumed he'll match his career WARP per career out ratio. Reyes is supposed to match Morris, for better and for worse. I've guessed Wainwright and Mateo would be half a Suppan, which isn't as hard as it sounds, since Suppan gave up a bunch of unearned runs. Wainwright and Mateo (who's well-liked by ZiPS BTW) more or less form a proxy for whatever mediocre pitching the Cardinals add. Rodriguez got pro-rated to a larger role versus 2005, which admittedly is something of a guess.

You can see the various problems with these assumptions, but I don't see anything here grotesquely unreasonable. This isn't exactly a team in freefall. At 91 or so wins, they're probably the best team in the NL Central by a few games, and that's before any possible fine-tuning with the bullpen or in the outfield and before considering what a healthy Scott Rolen should add.

Busch Auction

Ladies and gentlemen, I present a $400 trash can:

No word on whether the trash bag is included.

Lelands auctioned off a bunch of stuff from old Busch Stadium, and apparently the economy's in better shape than anyone realized. The visitor's hot tub does look like a bargain to me. I wonder how Skip Schumacher's jersey fetched the same price as Jeff Suppan's, as the former has had a cup of coffee and the latter beat Roger Clemens in Game 7 of the 2004 NLCS.

Slightly more disturbing, the Blue Jays reportedly have signed BJ Ryan to a 5-year, $47 million deal. Somewhere Mark Davis is sighing, "And they said I was overpaid."

The Offseason Is Here

The first sign is a Post-Dispatch report card on the 2005 season. Yadier Molina graded as a B+ even though he hit 252 / 295 / 358 this past year. It's like Mike Matheny never left.

The PD has another article with some financial particulars for 2006. You may want to copy and paste that one to STL_Budget.doc so that you can update the "2006" tab in STL_Budget.xls. I didn't realize Mulder's option had vested already.

Before you start filling out the Cardinals' roster for 2006, you might want to check Nate Silver's article on when it's smart to acquire big-money free agents. Even if you're a subscriber, you may have missed it, as early September is an odd time for Cardinals fans to be focusing on baseball economics. This kind of general research is something BPro does well, and in this particular instance Silver's main finding is worth quoting:

There is a very substantial, and very non-linear, increase in local revenues that a team can expect as a result of making the playoffs. More specifically, this increase is felt over the longer term. A single playoff appearance can result in a meaningful increase in both attendance revenues and local broadcasting revenues for as many as 10 years.

With a solid core already in place, I expect the Cardinals will try to find the cheapest way to 95 wins again.

I can't wait

Two hours and fifteen minutes to go, I'm casting around for some Cardinal related goodness to fill my time. Figured there are probably some people in the same boat so here goes:

New York Times article on the Busch Graffiti

A great long list of that graffiti over at Bird Land

An incredible shot of the stadium

Cardinals Pictures on Flickr (A bunch from the last regular season game)

I loved crossing this bridge, that was the point where it always became real to me that I was going to a game. (See also The Red Fountains, and the entire NLDS Game 2 Set).

The perfect pitcher

Interesting article in the New Yorker if you need something to occupy your mind.

Witte became convinced that he had divined a very important secret: how to safely and dependably throw a ninety-five-mile-per-hour fastball.

...

At first, he was a timid Galileo. One afternoon, Baur invited him on the field to watch Rick Ankiel warm up. “Is that beautiful or what?” Baur said. Witte kept quiet. “I didn’t want to be a nasty guest,” he said. “But internally I said, ‘Or what.’ I just knew he was never going to fulfill his promise.” A few years post hoc, Ankiel lost the ability to throw a baseball within the same county as home plate. He is now an outfielder.

While I'm dumping random links try this Map of Baseball fandom. Which geographic areas support which teams?

What they said

No ticky-tack bull shit. A straight up, 400-some odd foot home run.

I still believe all of that, but luck and crapshoots are fun when they're on your side.

Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow.

The Cardinals were playing ball like they still had bones left to break.

so this is what it's like to be alive. well i'll be damned.

And for those who were wondering. Yes, I was praying. Back to Busch.

I will fly to Sweden in order to have experimental elective surgery so that I can have Albert Pujols's child.

We get one more game. Win that one and we get one more. Just win the next one cards.

Interesting Speculation...

It's probably not economically feasible, but it's an interesting thought. From a John Brattain musing on the trials of being "A-Dog" in today's Hardball Times:

So what can Alex Rodriguez do? Well he has to remember that his image can’t get any worse. He’s going to have to let his game speak for itself. He’ll never satisfy all his critics but he can avoid adding more. He might consider simply not speaking to the media a la Steve Carlton and Albert Belle, since everything he says will be viewed with suspicion or scorn—just let his bat do the talking. If the Yankees brass decides he’s expendable, he should try to get out of the American League; his non-baseball reputation is slag [in many parts] of Seattle, Texas, Boston and New York. We’ve seen players like Roger Maris, Mark McGwire, and Jim Edmonds thrive in St. Louis—maybe A-Rod could find peace there.

55 minutes to go

Out of shame that I've neglected to formally point you all towards one of my favorite bloggers I've added a new blogroll to the sidebar. Not quite cardinal blogs, but blogs whose topics intersect the Cardinals in some way. So if you find yourself unable to screw around at work enough I'm pleased to offer a few more ways to make it possible.

Let me warn you that the above mentioned Mr. Fritz is a genius, and will entertain you to no end, but if you have some sort of restrictive filters on your work surfing you might want to wait till you get home for that one.

New Cardinals Blog

A new Cardinals just started up: Birds on Bat Girl. And she starts out Facing head on the nagging feeling I always get around playoff time:

The "sentimental favorite" is a team without the talent to be a favorite, period. The "sentimental favorite" has to get a little lucky to win. The "sentimental favorite" needs hot streaks, opportune rainouts, nearsighted umps, and grabby fans who interfere with all the right balls. Obviously, it's best not to be the sentimental favorite.

But how come we never are?

It seems so odd, because for the rest of the year Cards fans are the best, and the towns a great baseball town. But as soon as the playoffs roll around somebody else is trendy 'wouldn't it be swell' pick. I won't go into it becase she nails it so just read hers.

Related: If there are any Cards blogs that aren't linked on the sidebar or that I overlook you can always email me (josh at thebirdwatch.com), or just post a comment to this entry. Or you can tag anything on the web cardinalslinkblog and it will be posted here automatically. But please let me know because I'm always on the lookout for more reading material.

Baseball Reference Update

With no game until Wednesday, you could drive yourself crazy thinking about all the possibilities for the NLCS. Who would LaRussa pitch in the 19th inning? Do groundball pitchers do better at Minute Maid? Will there be a Jeff Suppan Word of the Day when he (presumably) starts?

One alternative is to check out the 2005 updates at BaseballReference.com. Here's some stuff to ponder:

* Roger Cedeno had a minus-2 OPS+ in 2005.
* No Cardinal pitcher on the post-season roster had an ERA+ below 100.
* Of current relevance, Minute Maid played as a pitcher's park in 2005.
* Almost as shocking, Albert Pujols leads all active players in slugging average.
* Congratulations to John Rodriguez, John Gall, Skip Schumaker, Chris Duncan, Brad Thompson, Tyler Johnson, Adam Wainwright and Anthony Reyes on earning their own pages at B-R. You might want to wait a couple of weeks before sponsoring them.

UPDATE at 7:40pm STL Time:
It's an interesting question how the Houston bandbox statistically played as a pitcher's park. Unfortunately at lunchtime I was too busy trying to verify a negative OPS+ makes sense (it does). Let's start with a chart of runs scored:

          Astros  Opponents
Houston    360       271
Elsewhere  333       338

The Astros split about where'd you expect, so we can blame this on the Astros' pitching (or maybe opposing batters just happened to hit worse in Houston). In particular, I'll blame it on Brandon Backe (3.41 v. 5.83), Andy Pettitte (2.12 v. 2.69) and Roy Oswalt (2.52 v. 3.38). In all likelihood, it's just one of those things, but Minute Maid does have a huge centerfield and Taveras can run all over the place.

Quiz

Fungoes has a quiz up, ex Cards in the playoffs.

Bird Land

A few days ago IBoros pointed out to me that the local fishwrap had a new blog out, and it was unfortunatly had the same name as our humble home.

I sent an email to the blog author (Derrick Goold), trying to remain as friendly and reasonable as possible while still staking out my turf. When something like this happens the long shadows a corporate media empire throws over a humble little blog inspire the worst kind of thoughts. But Mr. Goold (Derrick from now on) answered immedietly and sincerly that far from a nefarious plot to push out the independent blogger they just hadn't found us in their due dilligence searching. Derrick was embarressed and had immedietly began searching for a new name.

And today he's found it:Bird Land. Welcome to the blogging world Derrick, hope you enjoy yourself.

It took me a few days to get that message out and in that time a number of other bloggers used various channels to communicate the same thing to Derrick. I want to say thank you all, I appreciate it a great deal.

To get you going

Game today (duh), and here are some links to get you started:

Fungoes Reports on tuesdays game from the outfiel with this gem:

Sitting in the outfield loge, I got to appreciate the relationship Cards' fans have with their outfielders. After their home runs, Edmonds and Reggie returned to their positions and the exchange of the fans' ovations and the players' modest acknowledgements -- Reggie clapping into his glove -- made me realize how special it must be to triumph in a boys' game and receive glory from people who pay to watch you.

Viva El Birdos has a game time open thread with 7 hours to go before gametime they've already got 7 comments.

John Rodriguez has something going on, not quite a blog, not quite a diary, a recurring sequence of columns maybe?

Dave Pinto puts sweet words in my ear::

Pedro Astacio moves into the ace role for San Diego

Cardnilly brings news that peavy might be back for this series.

And the final say goes to Alex Fritz:

Three vendor lowlights:

1. After not seeing a beer man for about half-an-hour, Roommate Matt and I wondered off to the nearest beer stand to get some suds, and had to wait through an entire inning while the dude was pouring beers for eight people. Speed up!
2. A vendor carrying 2 warm bottle of Sprite and three bags of peanuts and mumbling "soda...um...peanuts" to himself as he wandered aimlessly around Busch.
3. Jason Isringhausen. What's that? He's not a vendor? Well he sure as shit pitched like it.

10/05/2005

Red Dawn: Cardinals Hold Off Padres to Take Game 1 -- The Hardball Times- Brian Gunn siting!
Posted by josh.schulz

Not without reason

David Pinto noticed the Super Cards Blogger Round Table and came away with:

For fans of the best team in baseball, they seem a bit worried

Followed by a comment:

I read through the entire discussion, and I agree, they seem a bit pessimistic.

To which I say: You saw last year right? Cards fans are a little gun shy that's all.

Viva Viva El Birdos!

Riverfront Times calls El Birdos the best blog, no qualifiers, just best blog.

Congratulations to IBoros

Why Rent When You Can Own?

So we get another data point to confirm that momentum really is tomorrow's starting pitcher. Anyway, seeing as the waiting is still the hardest part, to help get you through the day I recommend this Birdhouse interview with Bill DeWitt, the managing general partner of the St. Louis Cardinals. If you're looking for Mr. DeWitt -- the last group of people to be referred to as "Mister" will be baseball owners -- to pull a Steinbrenner and overrule a LaRussa decision with regard to, say, Ray King, you're out of luck though:

My view is - he’s the manager. I’m not going to give him any advice about the game on the field. Whether we have a squeeze play or a hit-and-run in the seventh inning, I’ll talk to him from the standpoint of a fan’s interest. Far be it for me to say, you know, ‘why did you do this or that?’ I mean, he knows what he’s doing and he runs a great game.

For those of us with slightly smaller net worths, my dad passes along this New York Times article (registration required) on the joys of owning a minor league franchise. No word yet from Alan Greenspan about regional bubbles or irrational exuberance for this investment opportunity.

Now that I've posted that, I can expect another thousand 419 spams.

New BlogToy to test out, guys!

Baseball Library has just come up with a most interesting (and potentially excellent tool) for basebloggers: the BaseballLibrary.com text linker.

Basically, the concept is simple. You enter your text into the box, and then this application searches the Baseball Library website for the ballplayers, teams and dates that you reference, and then generates HTML code for hyperlinks to the Baseball Library pages about those players, teams and dates.. For example, if I enter (and this makes no sense, whatsoever, I know) this into the box:

"Stan Musial, Ozzie Smith, Mark McGwire, and Bob Uecker of the 1964 St. Louis Cardinals on July 9, 1957"

the linker application comes up with this:

"Stan Musial, Ozzie Smith, Mark McGwire, and Bob Uecker of the 1964 St. Louis Cardinals on July 9, 1957".

Your output is "configurable"; you can tell the application to link any or all of dates, player names and teams (for teams you have to specify a year as well as a team name; merely "St. Louis", "Cardinals, and even "St. Louis Cardinals" weren't recognized by the application), and you can also specify if you want your links to open in a new window (I elected to use that for the example above). About the only thing you need to add is the "title" attribute to your hyperlink tags if you so desire.

Tres cool.

Freedbird

Apparently John Gall's been spending time as a WW2 medic. The homer last night had to feel good, but someone might want to tell Hector Luna he's supposed to take his time getting to the batter's box when the Busch faithful are trying to give a curtain call.

Whatcha doin' tonight? Nothing... Just Staying Here at 1st Base

Jason Stark, via his Useless Information Department, points out an interesting fact about Cardinal Catchers in this week's edition.

In case you hadn't picked up on this, nobody ever steals a base against the Cardinals anymore. They allowed just 26 stolen bases in their first 138 games -- which, as loyal reader Jason Pritchett reports, would put them on a pace to permit only 31 steals all year. According to Elias, only one National League team in the division-play era ever allowed fewer than 35 stolen bases in a full season. And that was Bench's 1972 Reds, also with 31.

What could have been

The Entire ALCS on DVD.

I would have bought the entire NLCS/Worlds series if it would have gone the other way. And I'd have watched it.

I was looking for the link to this: MLB Podcast feeds. They've got daily game summary's that run about 15 minutes each. Great for the morning commute.

Wake Me When September Ends

According to BPro, the Cardinals have a 100% chance of making it to the post-season. No rounding, fully 100%.

Not quite as exciting as actually clinching, I suppose.

07/27/2005

The Legend of Mike Laga
Posted by josh.schulz

07/14/2005

AN ACTUALLY DECENT (FROM A SABR STANDPOINT) PROGNOSTICATION ARTICLE!!!!
Posted by TOLAXOR

All-Star Residue

The ratings for the All-Star Game are in, and they're not very good. Perhaps the nation is finally waking up and realizing that making the game decide home field advantage for the world series still isn't going to make players care like they did in decades past. Watching the game the other night, you could tell that a lot of guys were just playing not to get hurt. So, the Cards got screwed out of home field in last year's Series, and that could quite possibly happen again this fall.

Unfortunately, the ASG-for-home-field scenario doesn't seem to be going anywhere fast. The current "solution" for the game was a result of a rock-bottom experience in 2002, so perhaps it'll take another one, in the way of free falling ratings, for Bud to figure out a new one.