Hardcore asked about Barton's number at the end of yesterday's thread. I figured I would copy my reply so it doesn't get lost down there since it is an interesting thing to know.

http://www.stltoday.com/blogzone/bird-land/bird-land/2008/03/ludwicks-wicked-case-of-deja-vu/
"For the numerologists out there: Barton will wear No. 54 when he arrives at Busch Stadium as a big leaguer Monday. Kyle McClellan will wear No. 46."

I like curves. The pitch is cool too.

Seriously, that is interesting. I hadn't thought of that but Carp throws a nice curve (don't know the percentages), so at least if he were healthy there would be two guys in the rotation. What about some of the guys waiting for their chance at Memphis? Parisi, Boggs, Ottavino? etc...

bring back TLR and his sidekick again? What a diva this guy is...Jeebus. He is simply not worth putting up with him and his schtick for another two seasons.

I have been an advocate of trading Reyes, but this spring the kid earned a spot in the rotation. Looper should be in the pen. I can see that from 1,350 miles away.

a very impartial and calm approach to this Reyes discussion on Futureredbirds, that you can find here.

To be noted the comment from poster Forsch31, that sees Mo's move from a different, interesting perspective.

GO CARDS!!!

LaRussa and Duncan are brilliant coaches in some key respects but their political strategies are very crude and transparent, including public criticism of players they don't want on the roster (which is their boss' decision primarily). It worked when LaRussa publicly stripped down Rolen. Mo had to trade him. Reyes, like Rolen for a long time, has refrained from rebutting TLR and DDuncan's very public critiques. But Reyes will get traded at some point because LaRussa and Duncan have an increasingly untenable relationship with him.

Still, It's good to see Mo take charge at this point and assert his ultimate authority in player assessment and assignment. Keeping Reyes on the team is essential to maximizing his trade value, giving Anthony a chance to demonstrate that he is ready to be successful against big league hitters.

Consider that Reyes in his first ML season he posted a 2.70 ERA (in only 13.1 IP) and in his second season his ERA was very respectable for a rookie, 4.68, in 84.2 IP, until the last day of the season, Oct. 1, 2006, when Reyes was thrown into a game with short rest (which makes most pitchers perform poorly) and on very short notice. Reyes last only one third of an inning, giving up 2 HR's, 5 hits, including 2 HR's, and 4 ER's, to raise his ERA to 5.06. LaRussa and Duncan started him 2 weeks later vs. the Mets only because they had no alternative. After a two-week layoff, Anthony struggled, but he kept the team in the game, giving up 2 ER in 4 IP, on 4 walks and 3 hits, including 2 HR's. Six days later Reyes came through when the stakes were as high as it gets, the World Series; he pitched 8 innings, allowing only 2 runs, on 4 hits, including a HR, and 1 walk, striking out 4.

His reward in 2007 was to be forced to conform to a style of pitching that did not fit him, versus major league hitters rather than AAA hitters. Yes, he did need to improve, of course, especially to get a better out pitch. But, as LaRussa said two days ago, Anthony is still a developing pitcher who should have still been at AAA to allow him more time to develop and refine his approach, like Wainwright got. It isn't Reyes' fault that Jocketty didn't have enough decent starters to allow Reyes that developmental opportunity. It would have been better to have traded him before the 2007 began, when Anthony's stock was at it's highest.

It will be very interesting to see how LaRussa and Duncan handle Reyes in the next month. If they handle him in a way that interferes with his success, as they did on October 1, 2006, and if they continue to criticize him publicly, they will just make it more difficult for Mo to trade him for good value. That would be politically stupid and contrary to the interests of the organization, which is finally using a rational, strategic approach to getting the greatest return on its young talent. It's not a question of scouting vs. stats, which would just flip the old Jocketty formula around. Mo's way is blending scouting and statistical analysis into the most powerful kind of analysis, which is clearly the most effective approach.

Mo seems inclined to take a stand that he will no longer discard players without receiving good value in return, as, for example, when Ray King was dumped, after LaRussa was annoyed by his public complaints about not getting playing time - which King truly had not earned at that point. Lefthanded relief pitchers were a valuable commidity, though. If LaRussa hadn't been so public and strident in his criticism of King, making it obvious to other GM's that the Cardinals were in the weak position of needing to get rid of King, maybe the Cardinals would have gotten more than Larry Bigbie and Aaron Miles....

on the roster though. Agreeing with 3bagger... Barton is in. That makes me happy. I also think that (possibly out of necesity) Thompson as a starter could be a positive. He was in TLRs doghouse for a while, but I have wanted to see what he can do as a starter.

I can see two sides to the Reyes saga. I think that he probably did not adhere 100% to the coachings of ladunc and being oldschool that did not sit well with them (which is how it should be in many cases)... He has had a lot of opportunities and has not flourished, but crashed and burned. On the other side, this is the year that you NEED to see what he can do, and what is the main downside if the cardinals play him.

Some good, some bad news about the 25.... I still think that TLR is starting to lose it though (Rolen, Kenedy, Reyes bashings...).

Very interesting radio yesterday evening, as TLR denied that a decision had been made and basically chastised Strauss for printing the initial article about Reyes getting sent down.

Bernie then put Strauss on afterward and he confirmed that there is a disconnect between the front office and the managerial/coaching staff. He said something to the effect of "well its obvious that the front office wants Reyes on the roster despite Tony/Duncan's preference to send him down."

I just don't understand how Todd freakin' Wellenmeyer beats him out for a spot, what with his 11BB/10K's in spring training.

but THESE couple of paragraphs stood out for me:

'Keeping Reyes would come at the expense of Kelvin Jimenez, who threw two scoreless innings in Wednesday's 8-2 win. Duncan is impressed with Jimenez's added maturity this spring.

"Jimenez has grown up a lot since last year. That's why we've got a tough call," La Russa said.'

Yipe? Can we all join hands and say that Anthony Reyes is probably not worse than Kelvin Jimenez?

is the most lethal weapon in a pitchers arsonal. Sandy Koufax would have been just another hard thrower if he had not developed a great 12 to 6 curve. He was wilder than Wellemyer and the Dodgers almost gave up on him before he developed the curve.

Kofax was the only pitcher I have ever seen that would not waste a pitch if he got ahead 2 and 0 in the count. He would come right back with that wicked curve that he could throw for a strike every time or a fast ball right down the middle. Usually the hitter was frozen either way.
Koufax credited Ron Perinowski with teaching him the curve when they were both pitchers with LA. and Perinowski went on later to be a great pitching coach for many years with the Dodgers. In his years as coach with the Dodgers he helped all young pitchers develop good curves and the they always had good pitching.
Along with Johnny Sain, they are probably the best two pitching coaches ever and Sain had a great curve and taught it. Far superior to Dave Duncan. What pitch has Duncan ever taught anybody.
The moral of the story being, for a pitching coach hire somebody with the art of teaching how to throw a good curveball

I haven't watched very many other teams, but perhaps the curveball has deminished all together, not just with the Cards. I might be blowing smoke, I don't have the stats to back it up.... just guessing.

I'm guessing the wear and tear of throwing the curve vs. other pitches has led to the decline. Perhaps a medical blogger can shed some light on phyisical strain of throwing the curve. A local sports talk show hosts advocates not letting kids under the age of 14 throw curve balls because of the damage it does to the arm over a period of time.

That really is the argument. I'm kind of tired of arguing FOR Reyes b/c it implies that I'm in denial as to how he's performed once he's been here. I'm not but it really is about going w/ young guys who MIGHT do something vs. going w/ "proven" vets. Now, Thompson's no old fogey but you do know what to expect from him and it's not good. It's probably better than Reyes' worst case scenario but, of course, much worse than Reyes' best case scenario.

At this point in the team's development, they need to be promoting and playing those whose best case scenarios are the best -- when they're ready, of course. It does us absolutely no good to run Thompson and Wellemeyer out there every 5 days. They're replacement level and provide nothing other than an improvement over the possibility of Reyes performing BELOW replacement level. If he does (Reyes) -- who cares? We lose 8-4 rather than 6-4 or, at worst, finish w/ 75 losses instead of 77. The best case scenario, OTOH, is that we find out we have a good, young pitcher we can keep or trade for something of value. The upside of pitching Reyes is MUCH greater than the downside. The same, BTW, applies to Ryan, Barton and other young players as they come up through the system. This same argument, obviously, applies to the Barton vs. Gonzalez situations as well.

my anecdotal evidence has Mulder throwing a lot of curveballs to compensate for his splitter no longer having the mph and control it needed.

It'll be interesting to see if he will trust that surgically repaired arm enough to throw alot of curveballs again.

The P-D is reporting the Reyes will make the opening day roster. Is there something else I don't know that makes it seem like it's not a done deal?

Anyone got it? I can't get it quite figured out.

Whenever Reyes is a topic here I always tend to ignore the debates. To me it just seems like we all have our beliefs and then we argue to justify them. Just like debates over the war in Iraq.

I also realized the A. Reyes is a lot like the Iraq war - booming early success (First 60 days = those 3 starts in Milwaukee, KC, and the 1-hitter in Chicago), then some failures with one bright success (capturing Saddam = WS Game 1). This is followed with the turmoil of 2007, terrible results, and lots of arguing (2007=2007).

Now TLR could be Bush or the Democrats, on one hand we have a case of failed strategy (2-seam = Don Rumsfeld) and on the otherhand he wants to give up on AR (Send to Minors = Withdrawal). Reyes is definitely Iraq (His Head= Provisional Government).

Whatever the case, I'm just hoping Mozeliak is McCain and that the push for the bullpen is what Reyes needs to hone his stuff. Look he has a huge 1st inning and RISP problem - and we haven't found a silver bullet in his pitching data to indicate why. I think it is psychological and maybe being a long reliever, coming in when the game is no longer close, is what he needs to fine tune his stuff at the ML level.

Not to say the surge is a success, but it is an improvement, and Reyes is worth the chance.

is anybody still enjoying the third consecutive day of rehashing why Reyes should or shouldn't be on the major league roster? Haven't we hashed all of the points:

1) Doesn't pitch well with runners on
2) Doesn't have "the stuff" to be a major leaguer
3) Does have "the stuff," but TLR/Dunc hate him
4) Does have "the stuff," but no run support
5) Better than Looper/Wellemeyer/Thompson etc.
6) Shouldn't run him down if you're going to trade him

Facts have been provided to prove that Wellemeyer and Thompson both pitched better last year. None of them are ever going to be better than a #4 starter or a long reliever.

Is there anything new that could actually make continuing this debate worthwhile?

est en fuego heute.

Three strikeouts after two innings makes me a happy fella. Way to go Mo for signing this dude.

Glaus walked to get on first, then got a little too eager on a hit-and-run with Molina batting. VandenHurk stepped off the mound, ran right to Glaus, tagged him out. Sounds like a base-running boner by Troy.

If you can't be fast, you gotta be smart.

If this really succeeds, any guess which team will follow first? My vote is the Pirates, they're so bad they'll try anything.

Your link about the intervention by the front office doesnt work...

We keep winning....is this some cruel joke? A way to make this season harder by raising my expectations? What ever it is, please keep doing it. I could get used to the Cards winning.

Is Barton out for a few days because of the hit he took yesterday, or what? I noticed he didn't play today, but I also read in Goold's blog that he was okay. Anyone know if he's playing tomorrow in Springfield?

Another great game by Lohse ... what a pick up ... I'd have to say ... this is the best Spring training I can remember ... lot's of questions answered (lead-off, outfield, middle infield, for the most part, Phase 1 starting rotation; though of course, their is a bit of controversy there, ya think?) ...

The bullpen looks as effective as ever ... what a surprise and another good outing by McClellan ... and the offense is the biggest news of all ... averaging nearly 6 runs a game ... the kids (Ankiel, Ludwick, Schumaker, Barton) seem ready ... should be fun to watch ...

Spring training is Spring training ... all you can really hope for is to finish it above .500, feel like your starters primed and ready ... and that the club feels good about itself ... I think the Cards definately accomplished all of that ...

Here's hoping it carries forward to Monday and beyond ...

He will be in AAA

http://www.baseballamerica.com/blog/prospects/?p=843

lboros, just noticed the title of the post, great reference to great Arlington, VA steak house.

Also staying back in Florida when the team leaves are the usual suspects — rehabbing pitchers galore, like Chris Carpenter, Mark Mulder, Matt Clement, etc., etc. — and Braden Looper. The righthander will make his next appearance down here Sunday, La Russa said. He’ll possibly pitch in a minor-league scrimmage.

Braden Looper and his 8.00 ERA, his nearly 1:1 K:BB rate won't have to worry about facing the Springfield lineup. He'll stay in Florida to face some lower level minor league players.

He hasn't pitched in a week. It would only add more fuel to the fire if Braden went out there against the Springfield team on Sunday and got shelled.

Izturis is tearing it up w/ an infield RBI single.

Gameday Link