Kyle McClellan, Starter
by DanUpBaby on Feb 8, 2010 6:00 AM EST
404 comments
This story seems to me, suddenly, to be rolling toward inevitability from implausibility in the same way that Skip Schumaker, Second Baseman did last year.
General manager John Mozeliak insisted after signing Hill to a minor-league contract last month that he did not envision additional moves until well into camp. That suggests an extended look for McClellan.
"I've been told to come in prepared to start," McClellan said. "Of course, that depends on the moves they make going forward. As of right now there's a fifth spot open. My whole mind-set is to come in and show I can start. Obviously, the last two years show I can pitch in the bullpen. Really it depends on where they see me and being the best fit."
Wasn't this exactly how it worked last year? We all thought Skip Schumaker looked and hit kind of like a second baseman; the Cardinals "considered" it; the Cardinals went through with it without offering themselves a lot of secondary options. The Cardinals have better fifth starters this year than they did second basemen last year, but even as we speak I can sense that John Mozeliak is preparing to acquire Adam Kennedy, declare him the de facto fifth starter, and then dump him.
404 comments | 1 recs |
Viva El WAR (Part 1: Hitters)
by vivaelpujols on Feb 7, 2010 3:33 AM EST
193 comments
Why do we use WAR?
No, I'm not going to do that stupid "What is WAR good for?!" crap and link to that goddamn video. WAR is good for evaluating players and it has nothing to do with stupid hippies. Sheesh.
Being serious now, WAR is a total value stat for a player. It attempts to measure how many wins a given player adds to a league average team above a "replacement level player". Wins, in this metric, are simply a constant division of runs (10 runs = 1 win, 20 runs = 2 wins, etc.) and don't preference certain runs over another. Given that WAR is a context neutral metric (runs in the 9th inning are just as valuable as runs in the 1st inning) that is fitting. The "replacement level" part of WAR, is simply the theoretical value of a typical player that you could find on the waiver wire or pull from your minor league system (think Joe Thurston). More on replacement level later.
WAR is simply the best stat you can use because it takes into account most quantifiable aspects of hitting/pitching, and converts that into the unit we all care about, wins. It allows us to compare players like Brendan Ryan with Adam Dunn, and solely look at players based on their value.
193 comments | 8 recs
the other other st. louis ballclub.
by tom s. on Feb 6, 2010 10:00 AM EST
187 comments
not the browns, not some antecedent of a major league team like the perfectos. the st. louis stars played from 1922 to 1931: throughout that time, one of the greatest baseball players ever, james "cool papa" bell played centerfield for the stars. and yet i wouldn't have been able to identify him or tell you much of anything about him until a week or so ago when i got the idea to do a series on the negro leagues and their role in st. louis baseball.
the history of the negro leagues and african-american baseball playerss before jackie robinson is fascinating and complex. the more i've read the more i am intrigued by this part of baseball history.
i'm not sure why we don't know more about the negro leagues than we do. i suppose part of it is that we lack the continuity of history, so when the post-dispatch asks who was the greatest second baseman of all time for the cardinals, the stars players aren't included in the question; not because anyone there is a flaming racist, but just because there is no continuity between the two clubs. another factor is the age of the negro leagues. on a related point, the lifeblood of appreciating historical baseball - statistics - is hard to approach for the negro leagues. rigorous statistics were not kept. most records come from daily box scores in newspapers of the times. no cumulative statistics were followed. in addition, the play of the league was irregular; exhibition games, games made up with patchwork squads taken from several teams, interracial games playing a white team or a collection of white stars from several major league teams made tracking statistics and determining what games "counted" a real challenge. even what stats we have are hard to compare to those of major leaguers.
another factor is that within a few years of jackie robinson's appearance, the negro leagues had declined to the point of near-irrelevance. when we talk about great players from the history of the negro leagues, we are mostly talking about players from the 20's and 30's. even major leaguers of that era don't fare so well in the collective memory. ronnie belliard is more likely to come to mind as a cardinal second baseman than rogers hornsby for most fans.
and, yes, i think the era of segregation, in baseball and the nation as a whole, is one that many baseball fans are just as happy to forget. it's hard to appreciate bullet rogan or oscar charleston without thinking at the same time about what was lost, what we missed out on. i can't read the history of the negro leagues and not wish i could have seen bullet rogan pitch to ty cobb or lou gehrig. of course, i've never really seen lou gehrig pitched to by anybody. what i mean is that the glory of the league and all its amazing athletes feel so bittersweet. the better they were the more you wish things had been different. it's easier to take your baseball history without the bitter aftertaste.
187 comments | 0 recs
David Freese Projection Results: The Average Players
by DanUpBaby on Feb 5, 2010 6:00 AM EST
318 comments
Our David Freese projections—we got 83 of them—were far less divided than our attempts to project Colby Rasmus. In keeping with Freese's anodyne image there was no 48 home run projection, hundred-point swing in batting average or slugging percentage, and generally no consideration given even to what a David Freese breakout would look like. Only four people suggested he would hit either more than 20 or less than 10 home runs; three each predicted a batting average below .250 or above .280.
The end result looked a lot like this. It might be familiar!
| AB | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | BB | AVG | OBP | SLG |
| 446 | 59 | 118 | 24 | 3 | 15 | 65 | 39 | .264 | .323 | .433 |
That looks about right. David Freese has no exciting hitting skills, but his only real flaw is a 20:40 batter's eye; everything else is Good Enough. Would you like to see something really creepy? If you gave the NL Average Third Baseman from 2009 446 at-bats, this is what his numbers would look like:
| AB | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | BB | AVG | OBP | SLG |
| 446 | 59 | 116 | 23 | 3 | 14 | 61 | 46 | .261 | .333 | .419 |
So nice job, Baseball-Reference Projection Robots: you got within two extra base hits. Here's what the other projections have to say about David Freese's Perfectly Average 2010 Experience:
| AB | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | BB | AVG | OBP | SLG | |
| VEB | 446 | 59 | 118 | 24 | 3 | 15 | 65 | 39 | .264 | .323 | .433 |
| Marcel | 193 | 26 | 54 | 11 | 1 | 6 | 28 | 19 | .280 | .347 | .440 |
| CHONE | 353 | 49 | 95 | 21 | 2 | 12 | 53 | 32 | .269 | .335 | .442 |
| Fans | 448 | 59 | 125 | 24 | 1 | 15 | 65 | 38 | .279 | .335 | .437 |
We are, in fact, less optimistic about David Freese than both Fangraphers at large and CHONE. Residual Jim Edmonds angst? A reflection of our familiarity with David Freese's stellar driving record?
318 comments | 0 recs |
Community Projection and Discussion: David Freese
by DanUpBaby on Feb 4, 2010 6:00 AM EST
933 comments
Here's my criteria for separating the enormous pitcher contracts from the more common big pitcher contracts: if I am able to make a snide remark about how much Kyle Lohse is being paid, it's big; if I am not able to do same, it's enormous. (Of course, having gotten Kyle Lohse's name in this way... well, I'm not prepared to deal with the implications.)
Justin Verlander's deal falls into the second category. Five years, $80 million is a higher annual value than Chris Carpenter gets in 2010 and 2011, at the top of his contract. As has been noted all over the place, it's basically the same deal the Mariners gave Felix Hernandez, which should make for an interesting pseudo-challenge-trade over the next several years. As for why long-term deals for pitchers make me dizzy, and why evaluating pitcher makes me vague, here's one timely reason: Verlander is several years older than Hernandez, which might actually make his deal better for the Tigers. No: I'll stick to hitters, thanks, where men are men and everyone peaks in their late twenties.
#
Speaking of hitters in their late twenties: We have been speaking of David Freese as the Probably-Average-ish Third Baseman for so long that it occurred to me, today, that I'm not sure what I expect that to look like for him. Players who get a late start in the minor leagues—and then a late start in the major leagues, as a result —confuse me like that, sometimes.
Regardless, it is time we put our collective understanding of The Cheap Third Baseman to the test. After the jump I have some MLEs and the link to the community projection form.
933 comments | 0 recs |
Spring Surprises, Circa 2010
by the red baron on Feb 3, 2010 3:30 AM EST
593 comments
Yes, it's that time of year again, when the light at the end of the offseason tunnel begins to grow eversoslightly brighter. The wait from endseason to Pitchers and Catchers Report Day is now measured in mere days, rather than the weeks and months we've walked down already. It's February, and that means baseball is just around the corner.
It also means this is the time of year we all begin to look a bit closer at the roster and construct elabourate fantasies of MVP performances from previously unknown quarters. And each year there are seemingly dozens of players willing to add fuel to that fire with Hall of Fame Marches. (See also Schumaker, Skip) Of course, April proves the cruelest month for most of these split squad superstars as the games get serious and their joyrides come to an end.
But still, there is fun to be had in watching, and dreaming of what might be if this Bo Hart fellow really is as good as he looks.
So that's what we're going to do this week. I've done this each of the last two years, and unlike my colleague Dan, I enjoye diving surprises from the spring training roster. (I'm also aware that's not exactly what he meant when he penned that statement, but it works for me to twist his words to my own nefarious purposes.) Thus, I shall continue the annual tradition of asking all of you to predict for me the players who will make the biggest splashes in spring training.
This is what I want: one position player and one pitcher who will come into camp (they may or may not be in the Best Shape of Their Lives; that's up to you), and suddenly just jump onto the tips of everyone's tongues. It could be a major leaguer already, a minor league guy (the most likely scenario, of course), or it could be the one groundskeeper who's clearly been working on his lawn-care techniques all winter. (I'll let you decide for yourself if that's a eupemism or not.) This does not have to be a player who even makes the major league roster; Francisco Samuel was one of the camp darlings last year and never sniffed MLB playing time. No, I just want the players who everyone is going to be talking about come, say, the middle of March.
I promise to keep some sort of track of these, and to occasionally check back both during spring training and perhaps a bit later, say mid-season or so, and see how we all did. There will be a fabulous (read: imaginary), prize for the person or people who do the best in this endeavour.
For reference, here are the previous iterations of the Spring Surprise Game:
I'll give you my own 2010 picks after the jump.
593 comments | 2 recs |
Spring Training Types
by DanUpBaby on Feb 2, 2010 6:00 AM EST
564 comments
I hate to say this, as a long-time Hot Stove fan, but I've never been a fan of divining future surprises from the Spring Training invites. There are simply too many variables to take into account—the need for extra catchers, the difficulty of distinguishing between prospects being given a look for the future and prospects being given a look for the near future, the tendency of teams to invite guys like Evan MacLane to the Major League camp, when he has the same chance as I do of making the team—to get a truly accurate picture of the team's needs. But let's be serious, here: Future Redbirds has in its hands a list of 55 players invited to the Major League camp. I have a desire to categorize them via a series of subjective lists. Everyone wins!
The catchers
Bryan Anderson
Tony Cruz
Charles Cutler
Robert Stock
Matt Pagnozzi
It's a good thing the Cardinals have already settled on retaining the replacement level services of Jason LaRue, because there is absolutely no data to be gleaned from a list of catchers who've been told to report to Major League camp. Nevertheless—this isn't a bad list of replacement catchers, is it? Bryan Anderson and Charles Cutler are reasonably interesting bats, Robert Stock is the Cardinals' great white high-upside/high-risk hope of 2010, and Matt Pagnozzi has worn catcher's gear before and will probably do it again, so he has that going for him.
Unfortunately for them, if you're a catcher at Major League camp and you don't have a contract in hand you're just a piece of meat to the Cardinals. So we can probably move to list two.
564 comments | 0 recs |
Top-End Talent
by DanUpBaby on Feb 1, 2010 6:00 AM EST
929 comments
The easiest way to slag the Cardinals' thin post-Walrus collection of prospects is to say that it lacks "impact" talent. (There are indeed a lot of ways, but that's the easiest one.) Several players in the average top ten don't strain the imagination as legitimate Major Leaguers, but it's seemingly always as a fifth starter or a backup infielder. Whatever you thought of Wagner Mateo—whatever you think of any sixteen year-old who is apparently worth $4 million—his eye problems robbed the Cardinals of their designated Brett Wallace replacement, and without him Shelby Miller is the lone Future Star in the bunch.
But there's something to be said for players who are close to the majors. If the Cardinals don't have anybody else who's likely to pile up wins before he hits his arbitration years, they are relatively flush with players who will keep them out of the trash heap over future Hot Stove seasons. In vague order of their proximity to the majors...
David Freese. I like to think I'm relatively open-minded about imperfect prospects, but even I am tired of talking about David Freese, who is three years younger than Matt Holliday. That said, he's already kept the Cardinals out of the market for a number of players, some of whom turned out, in this strange market, pretty affordable. Adrian Beltre or Felipe Lopez would probably have made the Cardinals better in 2010, but the way the team has held its wallet close of late makes it no sure thing that they ever planned on being able to afford a name-brand third baseman and Matt Holliday at the same time.
As a third baseman who's likely to be somewhere around average, if not quite at it, David Freese keeps the Cardinals out of the market for Joe Crede types at the low-end and imperfect above-average guys like Adrian Beltre and Mark DeRosa.
Jaime Garcia. I'm not sure if this is an unalloyed Good Thing or not, but by having kept the fifth starter job out of the hands of a Jon Garland-type, Jaime Garcia has already begun easing the team's free agent burden. We've been talking about Jaime Garcia being close to the majors since he was dominating the Midwest League, but even if he doesn't start the year in St. Louis, this looks like the year he'll finally be there to stay.
Garcia, the prototypical scoutspeak Third Starter, is the kind of player who leaves the idea of the "impact player" distended and unsatisfying. A real third starter looks something like Jeff Suppan, but if a scout thinks a player looks like Jeff Suppan (see Lance Lynn) there is almost no chance they'll use that terminology. In the next few years Garcia has a fair shot at an ERA under four, or an ERA+ over 110, and if that isn't an impact player I humbly present, as contrary evidence, the difference, in value, between Kyle Lohse in 2008 and Kyle Lohse in 2009.
Garcia kept the Cardinals out of the market for fifth starters this year; in the future he seems like a fair bet to occupy the Brad Penny spot.
929 comments | 1 recs |
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NL Central Standings
| W | L | PCT | GB | STRK | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
St. Louis
|
91 | 71 | .561 | 0 | Lost 6 |
|
Chicago
|
83 | 78 | .515 | 7.5 | Lost 1 |
|
Milwaukee
|
80 | 82 | .493 | 11 | Won 3 |
|
Cincinnati
|
78 | 84 | .481 | 13 | Won 2 |
|
Houston
|
74 | 88 | .456 | 17 | Lost 3 |
|
Pittsburgh
|
62 | 99 | .385 | 28.5 | Lost 2 |
(updated 2.9.2010 at 2:45 AM EST)
Certain photos copyright © 2010 by Associated Press or Getty Images. Any commercial use or distribution without the express written consent of Associated Press and Getty Images is strictly prohibited.
Most Commented
Community Projection and Discussion: David Freese
by DanUpBaby 4 days ago
933 comments | 0 recs
Spring Surprises, Circa 2010
by the red baron 6 days ago
593 comments | 2 recs
Spring Training Types
by DanUpBaby 6 days ago
564 comments | 0 recs
Kyle McClellan, Starter
by DanUpBaby about 23 hours ago
404 comments | 1 recs
David Freese Projection Results: The Average Players
by DanUpBaby 3 days ago
318 comments | 0 recs