and I think I agree with the results. I voted differently on a couple, but no biggie. The interesting thing about the Carp vote is I really think his chances of making an impact next year are about 50/50. I presume the optimist of the group took the top 50 and the “play it safe” type took the bottom 50.

I voted for Schumaker primarily because of Ankiel’s injury. Ank makes the most sense to move if you can get good value for him. I don’t think that is likely before spring training or during the season.

I want to move Skip before his bubble bursts a little. I think the defensive metrics have been pretty clear that those folks who have been praising his defense may need to watch a little more closely.

Is there a way to present future questions in a poll format that would automatically tabulate?

I especially liked the part about Franklin.

tell me more about Affeldt… also, is Beimel going to be too expensive? he was my choice in the “other” category… just wondering why he didn’t get his own option, among others.

also, to harken back to the rookies of the year post, I have to say Barton should get our rookie of the year, considering he basically had to skip the minors and go straight to the Big Leagues, where he showed lots of promise.

So with all the talk about Mo trading Ludwick for this player and that player….does Mo have a plan to replace Ludwick’s offense in the line-up? Say Mo does trade Luddy to the Braves for a middle infielder….who is going to give us the numbers that Ludwick gave us last year?
I know some will say Rasmus….but to me that would be a huge risk to count on and it would put a lot of pressure on the kid in his first year in the bigs.

If we do trade Ludwick will Mo go out and sign a free agent like a Adam Dunn or will they just hope Mather/Rasmus will give Albert some good protection in the line-up?
I know we need a 2nd baseman real bad…but trading our 2nd best hitter last year for one doesn’t really make me happy. I have a bad feeling that trading Luddy will be a decision Mo will regret by the All-Star break when Albert is getting walked every other at bat and the Cards are struggling to score runs.

Any takers in Cardinal Nation?

As long as SS & 2b play above average defense and you get good production from the rest of the line up what’s the big deal?

Story at Yahoo Sports. Maddon was a no-brainer, but I’m surprised at the margin Piniella won by over Charlie Manuel – it wasn’t huge, but Piniella certainly got more support than I expected.
La Russa got a single first place vote.

With a name like that, you know she’s got to be smokin’ hot.

Sorry it didn’t work out, RB.

What about Jeff Niemann? He essentially has 0 service time, he’s blocked by about 10000 pitchers already and there’s another 34,223 pitchers going to jump him in the Rays system in ‘09 so he’s available, he’s major league ready, he’s groundbally for LaDunc, he posted ~4.00 MLE FIP (I adjusted minorleaguesplits HR/FB% down to 10%—-not sure why they don’t regress that to the mean) last year, he’s 6’8 and throws hard. Ludwick for Zobrist + Niemann?

Our biggest problem last year was probably our inability to hold on to leads. Knowing this, I thought it might be interesting to get a statistical picture of just how effective each our bullpen guys were during save-type situations.

I went through the game logs on Fangraphs.com and parsed out any outcome that was: produced by a reliever; occurred in the 6th inning or later; & occurred with a 3-run-or-less lead and/or qualified as a save situation (4-run lead & 2 runners on, or 5-run lead & bases loaded). (Sometimes you can have a 3-run lead and it is not a save situation, but it wasn’t worth quibbling over.) Anyway, here they are:

WPA	Name	Out	Reach	Run	BS	Sv	IP	ROW	WHIP	Holds	K

-2.670	Team	416	219	88	31	42	138.2	5.71	1.58	106	112
-.179	Franklin	109	50	23	8	17	36.1	5.70	1.38	13	26
.951	McClellan	108	57	17	5	1	36.0	4.25	1.58	30	27
-2.921	Izzy	47	40	21	7	12	15.2	12.06	2.55	2	14
-.722	Perez	39	15	7	4	7	13.0	4.85	1.15	6	15
.511	Springer	31	13	4	2	0	10.1	3.48	1.26	15	11
-1.057	Flores	22	22	9	2	1	7.1	11.05	3.00	14	4
.059	Villone	20	11	3	1	1	6.2	4.05	1.65	16	6
.717	Motte	14	2	0	0	1	4.2	0.00	0.43	4	5
.295	Garcia	12	3	0	0	0	4.0	0.00	0.75	3	1
-.058	Thompson	9	2	1	1	0	3.0	3.00	0.67	1	0
.040	Reyes	5	1	2	0	1	1.2	10.80	0.60	2	3
-.306	Mulder	0	2	1	1	0	0.0	INF	INF	0	0

Going through the columns: WPA is Win Probability added, a measure of game impact (see Fangraphs); Out is the number of outs recorded during "save situations"; Reach is the number of batters that reached base; Run is the number of runs scored while a reliever was pitching (not to be confused with earned runs); BS is blown saves; Sv; IP; ROW is Runs On Watch Average, basically the Runs listed before, converted over like ERA; WHIP, similar to the normal acronym, except I included all batters who reached; Holds; & K

(I have no numbers to compare any of this to; I did all of this by hand, a few minutes at a time at work, so I haven’t gotten around to doing all of the teams. Unless someone knows how to easily pull up this specific data online, I probably won’t complete the "study".)

Picking through the numbers, Izzy shines like a beacon, or whatever the "I suck at this" equivalent is. He recorded 47 outs while putting 40 batters on base, allowing 21 baserunners to score. Plus his WPA would indicate that he cost the Cardinals almost three full games in the standings.

Flores was nearly as bad, matching up his 22 outs with his 22 batters reaching & plating 9 guys as well. His Hold total looks impressive, given how much time he missed, but it is important to remember – Tony would not leave Randy (nor Villone, really) out long enough in a tight spot to really screw things up on his watch. Going through each particular at bat with a 1-run lead, Randy faced 14 batters; he recorded 5 outs and put 9 guys on base, throwing a WP, allowing 3 stolen bases, & blowing two save opportunities.

Speaking of Villone, his Hold total (16) & one lone save are amazing considering he only recorded 20 eligible outs.

Franklin & McClellan have rather similar numbers (IP & K), so let’s compare the two. Franklin was just a touch below average, according to WPA, where Kyle was over a full win better. This can be greatly attributed to when Franklin blew his save opportunities (1 in the 8th inning, 5 in the 9th, & 1 in the 10th) vs. when McClellan did (1 in the 6th & 4 in the 8th). Also noteworthy is that Kyle was actually 31 for 36 in save opportunities, although he was only credited with one save (30 holds).

Perez wasn’t really that bad, especially compared to the team averages (better ROW, K-rate, much better WHIP). His blown opportunities rate was higher (27% v 17%), but he didn’t have the luxury of the LOOGY one-out-hold.

Springer was under-utilized despite terrific numbers. One reason that I can see for this is that Russ has exhibited problems in the past coming out for a second inning or consecutive days. Tony probably factors that into his role-selection and has to plan out Springer’s usage patterns a little more; someone like Franklin he can "abuse" a little more with fewer ill effects. (NOTE: Russ’ 8th inning numbers were rather poor, including both of his blown saves.)

The rest of the group was quite proficient (not including Mulder). Motte & Garcia combined allowed no runs & 5 baserunners while recording 26 outs. Thompson did fairly well, although he had one blown save and most of the outs didn’t technically qualify as save situations. Reyes only allowed one hit against 5 outs, but it was a 2-run HR (no real harm – it was with a 3-run lead).