I just wanted you to know, RB, that I’m probably going to have nightmares where Albert Pujols says “Would you walk me? I’d walk me. I’d walk me hard” over and over again, because of you. Thanks.

Literally. I have the worst cold ever. And I guarantee you it’s from sitting out there in the cold on Saturday and watching them lose. If they had won I wouldn’t have cared that I now have a cold. I still had fun and I was warm until the nice man on my right left. I didn’t realize how warm guys were until he left because then I was freezing.
I’m still sad and I’m finding it hard to care about any other team except the Yankees and in their case I just care to see them lose and that’s just not very healthy. But overall 2009 was a good year. I won’t be too upset by the end. I really hope we get to keep Matt Holliday. I would love to keep DeRo too. I don’t know how likely both of those are but they would be nice. And the best part about right now is I can pretend they’re both going to happen. I would like to live in this pretend world a long time, it’s nice here. At some point reality may tear it down (or maybe make it reality world… please) but for right now it’s nice.
Anyway since I have been absent for a few days that is my goodbye to Cardinals baseball for the winter (or the actual playing of it, I know there re rumors and stuff but I prefer it when they play).

The Holliday trade for Wallace was ok. It was worth the shot. DeRosa was not going to put us over the hump by himself and I wouldn’t have given up Perez for a shot in the arm.

But I can’t fault Mo. The Cardinals are either going to save up their fabrege (sp?) eggs for a couple of years (laying low as far as competing for a title) or else take risks. Those are the two ways I see them getting back to another WS. If one of the eggs hatches into a all-star we got it made. Without that you need to take risks. Mo took some risks and we had a much more enjoyable season than we would have.

I’m at work gotta run

But I’m rooting for an all-L.A. World Series

it was worth it. I think one of the most poignant points you made was that the farm system was able to absorb the trades that occurred without being entirely decimated, so the front office took that and went all in assuming everything would click. Unfortunately, everything clicked too early, but I suppose it’s hard to guarantee something like that won’t happen. Plus I’m still to this day not entirely sure what’s actucally clicking and unclicking, but I digress. In the end, the team was much more exciting than its 2007 & 2008 shadows, and it knocked the Cubs off their perch atop of the division. I felt that the team was a little disappointing the previous two seasons, especially after all the deep playoff and World Series runs. We’d traded for Rolen, Larry Walker, and Mulder (to name a few), and continued to do what was necessary to stay competitive until recent seasons. It was nice to see the front office get back to that type of “do what it takes” mentality, and at the very least, we made the playoffs this year and I’m not sure we would have otherwise.

I’m truly disappointed with the outcome, and I have my fits of rage & remorse about things like Holliday’s playoff performance and also negotiating a contract extesion with Franklin mid-season (though maybe that’s a topic for another day), but I can say that since the trade went down I was more excited to watch the Cardinals play every day, rather than mildly worried as I was when watching the team perform pre-trade. Knowing that Pujols is nearing the end of his contract and feeling like the organization needs to show him that it has the fire to keep winning, I think getting back to a “we will make the postseaon” mentality will be important for signing free agents in the offseason, and more importantly for keeping El Hombre in Cardinal red.

In the end, I’m glad they did what they did overall, and while I did not agree with every piece of the farm system that was given up, I hope that they set this kind of precedent going forward to show the players and the fans just what the organization is willing to do to keep winning. Great post red baron; very informative, funny, and it flowed nicely into my current mindset, sitting at work and mulling over what was and what could have been.

Looking back, I don’t think anyone at the onset of the season would have put honestly gained money on the number of positive trades made in the 2009 season. In short, all those trades were made in, and FOR 2009. AND, they worked out (except for a certain unnamed short-stop turned psychiatry poster-boy turned utility player). In retrospect, it feels kind of Jockety-esque, doesn’t it? Anyway, here’s my point: We can only speculate about next season, and given the short record, I have a lot of faith in the Organization and in Mo to bring in enough talent to compete.

I feel very much the same way you do, about just about everything there (with exception of no plan B). Especially the view of the Holliday trade. I didn’t like it either, but I can definitely see the rationale for doing it. You had a healthy Carp, you had Pineiro pitching beyond our wildest dreams, ditto with Franklin, you have Pujols at his prime, and you had a restless fanbase. I think if we hold on to those assets one more year we have a potential powerhouse developing, but that comes with risks of its own. Nothing is guaranteed, so there is a case for striking while the iron is hot. I just think the upside of holding on to our chips a little tighter for one more year might have been a little greater than the common fan realizes, but that is beside the point now anyway. They do have money freed up to spend, so I think there is a plan B to be found out there.

So it’s a tough call. Still I say it wasn’t worth it, as it turned out. We won the division running away, which in an odd way kinda supports my point of view. And we lost the crapshoot, which may not be anyone’s fault really but is probably the biggest factor in how such things are measured.

second, i am puzzled by the overwhelming angst over the departure of chris perez when contrasted with the almost complete absence of wringing of hands over luke gregerson (on a side note — my personal andy pettitte; is it three "e"s, or one “e”, two "o"s, or two "e"s, one “o”?). perez could still turn into something great, sure. gregerson was and is great, and shows no sign of not being great in the future.

right now, there’s no traded prospect who’s made more of his time in the majors than gregerson.

third, i would suggest that gregerson’s success should prompt us to reinvoke our TINSTAPP mantra and promote sanchez out of spring training next year. gregerson never pitched in AAA. if somebody’s throwing major league pitches with good control, especially if they project as a reliever, for god’s sake, get them on the mound.

I think it was worth it… because, at the time, Mozeliak was probably dealing with some pressure from Tony and just his overall reputation of not making the “big trade”. so you can’t fault the guy for wanting to do something, and he did just that. Holliday provided the impetus to get the team to the playoffs (well, without going down that road of saying we still coulda beat the cubs without him… it would have been hella close). he had no idea the club would go into a huge slump at the end of the season, and as you said you have to take advantage of the monster years from Wainwright, Carp, and Pineiro (not to mention Pujols continuing to be a god).

I think the trade for Derosa, as much as Iiked it at the time, will go down as the bad move (and of course signing Khalil Greene without figuring out what was going on with the guy, best of luck to him tho). Again, Mo had no idea that Perez would get it together after he left the team, but maybe he can bring that up when he has The Meeting with Dave Duncan (if he can survive deathgazes in his saving throw)

Matt Holliday is not the perfect player. He’s not Albert Pujols. But he’s a great player and if we can keep him in St. Louis with a deal that allows us to also keep Albert and also compete (needless to say, this is a daunting task), it will be totally worth it. We had two bonafide Cy Young candidates and a Cy Adolescent one as well, and one bonafide Albert Pujols to boot. It was as good a time as any to take the “bolster team with trades for playoff run” approach.
The bushels of RHRP we gave up is unfortunate, but that seems to be one of our organization’s chief agricultural outputs along with lefty outfielders (see, I’m taking the “farm” metaphor and running with it; this is good writing). Sure, if only we’d had some capable righties in the bullpen come October, maybe we’d still be in the playoffs, if only our offense had remembered how to score runs. I’m OK with the 2009 impact of the loss of relievers, it’s the 2010 and beyond that I find more important.
If we don’t end up keeping Holliday, I hope the team can get creative to make up the difference. Maybe shore up the outfield with underrated guys. Third base will be interesting.
Lastly, the ZiPS projections are already starting to come out on baseballthinkfactory.org. The offseason in the Internet Age isn’t such a bad time to be alive.

does anyone know where I can watch/download game 6 of the 2004 nlcs and game 7 of the 2006 nlcs? I found game 7 of the 2004 nlcs on itunes, bought it and then watched it. it was even better than I can remember. if anyone can point me in the right direction, it would be much appreciated.

The one I thought would hurt the most (Wallace) was in the end the least painful for me. I hated trading for Khalil but understood why people were for it. I thought we gave up way to much for DeRosa. If we didn’t make these trades we would have one of the deepest and strongest bullpen’s in baseball for years. We wouldn’t of resigned Franklin just exercised his cheap option.

Bacon Week Menu.

The DeRosa and Greene trades are obviously bad trades. Khalil’s is more obvious with Ryan’s emergence, but look at DeRosa’s line:
.228/.291/.405
If all we wanted was an OPS of .696, I’d have preferred trying out Tyler Greene and hoping for the best (or Craig, but that’ll never happen for whatever reason).

Holliday makes some sense, but in the end we didn’t gain anything from it. I’m not convinced in the least that if we were to undo all the trades (though, preferably not the Duncan trade) we would for sure not make the playoffs.

And now we’re out an ideal #2 hitter (I think) to get on-base in front of Pujols.

I guess what I’m saying is:

Net WAR from Holliday+Lugo+DeRosa+Khalil= 2.7 (3.5 without Khalil)

We won the division by 7.5 games.

Sure, maybe the Cubs make some trades if they’re closer, but you also have to factor in the contributions of Gregerson/Perez/Todd.

And THEN you consider Walrus, Peterson, and Mortensen.

So lets go hand by hand

The Greene trade. I think you have to say that the reasoning behind the trade for Greene was solid. While giving up Gregerson does hurt…it was required. If we keep giving up Gregerson type players for Greene type players it will be a +EV move. One of the Greene types will end up being an All Star type player. So as a whole good move for why. Shit happens so bad net amount for this one. +EV

The DeRosa trade. I guess my problem with this one is that it breaks the old business addage. Don’t be shocked when expected results become actual results. What did they expect him to do? Hit .280/.340/.440 at best? What Freese couldn’t do that? Craig couldn’t do that? They would answer “well we gave Freese a chance and he didn’t.” Well neither did DeRosa. they would respond that the chance of DeRosa flaming out was lower than Freese flaming out. Ok so what was that difference worth? Here is the problem. In what world was the reduction in risk worth Perez and Todd? In fact what was the difference in the risk of ruin? 10%? 20%? That’s what they paid for and that was too much. Perez alone? Maybe. Todd alone? Sure. Both?!? No. There is a saying in poker that it’s not just maximizing how much you win when you win but also minimizing how much you lose when you lose. Here we lost the max when we really didn’t have much of a chance of winning much. These are the trades that kill an organization slowly. You never can put a finger on what did it just that it happened. -EV

Wallce for Holiday. Not much to say that hasn’t been said. To get a player you have to give up a player. I like it in that we have a chance to sign Holiday before anyone else. I don’t like it because we gave up a trading chip that could have been used to get a better player. I think that if we can get a home town/unfinished business discount then it’s a slim win. If he bolts and we are left standing with a draft pick it’s a loss. I think this is 6 of one and half a dozen of another. Push

So I think that if they stop making DeRosa type trades and continue with Greene and Holiday type trades we should expect possitive results.

Dave Duncan says he will return to St. Louis if Tony LaRussa decides to do so. Tune in today and find out everything about it!

And next
On a new family guy episode, Stewie and Brian discover that the guys who moved into Cleveland’s old house are spies, and decide to follow them on a mission to Russia.

This is next, stay tuned!

though I wasn’t so sure at the time all these trades actually happened. So maybe my current attitude is really just a case of me whistling past the graveyard in an attempt to not be pissed off for the next 4 months.

The two nice things about this are that 1) the brainless caterwauling from the “DeWitt is cheap and doesn’t really want to win” crowd will be damped down for awhile. Now of course, I understand that the most irrational pinheads on the PD boards will just come up with a new twist on that concept and won’t actually shut up, but OTOH I have some personal friends who fit into that crowd, and I can and will at least make THEM shut up about it. 2) Now that the farm system is less impressive, Luhnow and co. are under pressure to make up for all of our losses. So playing it safe and mediocre is not going to be in the playbook for awhile.

You take a shot when you can take a shot. This team is always going to be in contention, it is just the way this FO does baseball. I for one am not going to fault Mo for trying to put together a team to make a serious run at the big prize. I also am not going to fault Mo for this team forgetting how to score when it mattered most.

The way we lost the first two games was a bit telling. Carp was not sharp, and how often did that happen? LOBs, and lot’s. But people did get on and there was potential for several huge innings. An error here, and a base running mistake there. IMHO, it makes a difference how we lost in the playoffs in evaluating what we gave up.

The collapse of the Cubs could not be foretold when the Holliday trade occurred. I believe the Lugo-Duncan trade was linked to the Holliday trade, so the analysis might ought to include that bonus (see Goold’s article for my impression)

Baseball is entertainment. This summer of activity and regular season success was hugely entertaining. The hot stove discussions are already filling the void left by the early playoff exit. It was worth it.

Also, RB touched on the Perez and his success after leaving the organization. I too am concerned that while Duncan’s approach has worked magic with numerous pitchers, the same approach seems to be less than effective in the bullpen.

Darn you RB for reminding me of what I don’t have. There are THREE TJ’s in STL.

Mo’s moves to jettison Baby Dunc for Lugo and pick up Smoltz (which I think was only possible because of the DeRosa and Holliday moves) were pure gold. Getting rid of Dunc may have been my happiest moment this season.

I didn’t mind the Blaine Boyer deal at all – Boyer had some upside and Barton was utterly fungible. Barton had a cute schtick but if he ever gets consistent time in the majors I’ll be shocked.

The Luis Perdomo non-protection was inexplicable. Perdomo had good stuff and a live arm and we protected Matt fucking Scherer? Mo deserves to be excoriated for this move.

The loss of Perez hurt (though I think his lack of walks were a mirage) but I was not impressed with Todd. He’ll be a passable middle reliever but doubt he’s ever more than that. I was high on Todd just reading about him on Future Redbirds, but the bloom fell off after watching him pitch.

In any event, I still like our RH relief depth and want to see how Biddle and Kelly do. There’s still guys like Samuel, Sanchez, Reifer and a host of others. And there’s not really that many spots anyway – Hawksworth looks like he’ll take a spot along with Motte, Franklin, KMac, and maybe Boggs (with Garcia as a starter).

espn deportes has an article on Albert for those who are singlinguar like me a synopsis on mlbtraderumors.com

According to the Associated Press, via ESPN Deportes, Cardinals slugger Albert Pujols said Wednesday that he’s not interested in signing a new long-term deal this offseason – one translated quote
“I’m not desperate to sign a contract extension,” Pujols said. “I still have a one year contract in 2010 with a club option for 2011. The rest I leave in God’s hands.”

Bases loaded and Ludwick shoots one down the left field line that is ruled foul. Bernie had some comment in his column earlier in the week that suggested the foul call was dubious.

The camera work at the game was awful and there was no replay. What’s the story on this moment in the series?

Nice analysis of the trades. If we could have gotten Holliday before DeRosa, we don’t do the DeRosa trade, do we?

And it sounds like Mitch Hedberg is reading it

all the commercials on MLB Network promoting their pre- and postgame coverage of the playoffs only shows images of Cardinals and Yankees? Looks like they were expecting a Cards-Yanks World Series. (and so was I…* sob *)

We spent ages crying about No Big Moves, and we finally got them. If anything, I feel confident that Mo will learn from his mistakes and adjust accordingly. Albert et al are assured that the front office is behind them. The Cards took the biggest prize on the market and additionally boosted the image of their pie. I don’t care if the fans buy it — if other players buy into it, that could pay off in future deals.

I would be less happy if Memphis hadn’t powered to the PCL championship. It certainly seems like there’ll be help on the way, and that they will be hungry. And that there’s an outside shot that Tony will use them (instead of no shot at all…. wtf Tony…) Spring training will be really interesting.

I am, oddly, deeply — DEEPLY — unhappy about the BB crap. What if we’d had Barton on the bench during the DS? What if he’d been with Memphis? What was the use of all that. He better have had some kind of raging attitude problem because that just seemed… dumb.

the most exciting surgery in baseball is tomorrow

http://stltoday.mycapture.com/mycapture/enlarge.asp?image=26071207&event=859033&CategoryID=38576&picnum=5&move=F#Image

I guess K-Mac is the man for that. ….HFS is that Reyes?

That Wallace was drafted just to be traded and seem to agree with that alleged philosophy. I just can’t accept that any one of significance in the organization would believe that.

Wallace was picked with the 13th overall pick – likely the highest pick we will hav e for quite some time. To plan on spending that pick and then convert it to 1/3 of a package to rent two months of ANY player is lunacy.

If they drafted him to trade he should have either used to obtain a player under conrtract through at least 2010 (Cliff Lee anyone?) or saved until the off-season.

I guess the plan would be to use the picks obtained when Holliday signs elsewhere for renting a player in July 2011.

July trades should be used to obtain complementary players or players who have a future with the organization. Doing otherwise dooms the franchise to perpetual fringiness.

and i say it was not worth it. why? i’m glad you asked.

1. early on, Kbot blocked the BOOG from unleashing his greatness onto the world. if not for him, we’d have had him for a full season. who know what magic that would have brought us.

2. yes, DeRo sent thurston to the bench. but that’s not the f’in point. the f’in point is, he never should have been there in the first place. if you want to point fingers & bitch at MO for dumping YP & Destroyer on a dude with one wing, you first better point those fingers at one Troy Glaus. the fact that thurston was even at 3rd was all his fault. he’s the one that over did it working out in the winter & delaying surgery til the last possible second & thus forcing thurstons playing ground base running antics on us all. f u Santa. Tony is also at fault for dumping Barden too soon, but i fear i’ve beaten this dead horse too much already.

3. if you are going to trade the Walrus for someone, it damn sure better be someone who can A.Mash. B.can handle the pressure, live up to they hype & not choke. and maybe most importanly, C. have a contract that lasts longer than THREE F’iN MONTHS. UGH, 6ly, what moar than anything pisses me off about the Lego trade is he’s gone next month unless Dewitt & Co back up a Brinks truck that should be on it’s way to Albert’s home. or Roy Halladay’s home. or anyone else’s home other than a guy who’s very, very good, but not even close to as good as he’s about to get paid for being & as good as many people in the know believe he is.

4. looking back on it now, almost everything that could go wrong for the Cards after they made these trades did go wrong. KBot, bless his heart just mentally fell apart. DeRo was playing with one good arm. Lego crashed back down to earth & at the same time had a ball crash into his, well, ball. the pen ran out of pixie dust & animals to sacrifice to whomever they were sacrificing them to. they stopped pitching to Albert, and when they did, his bum elbow, and the effects of caring the team on this back, and the All Star mess had taken their toll on him & he was a shell of himself & couldn’t do anything with what they threw at him. Luddy couldn’t hit, Cody was WASTING AWAY right before our eyes, Yadda was getting the crap beat out of him night after night.

So even after all the trades, after all the hype & good press they received, after they left the central in the dust & built an 11 game lead, the offense as a whole never lived up to it’s billing. it was not 2004-05 all over again. it was just two and a half very awesome months. and what did that get us? nothing but embarrassment. nothing but a waste of Carp, Adam & Albert’s brilliance. and that my friends is why if i could jump into a Delorean & show Dewitt & Co & MO that their wheeling & dealing shopping spree got them a big fat goose egg i would. and i would do anything i could to talk them out of making the same mistakes twice. because no matter what you say, no matter what your argument is, it does not matter. because all those trades were supposed to bring the Cardinals their 11th flag. and that didn’t happen. they failed. epically. and that’s all that matters. they did this to win it all, and instead they won nothing.

and finally, it’s great to have you back Red. i hope you are doing well. and i freaking love your play list. 6ly, i can’t stop listening to It Just Is. great f’in song. it’s so freaking perfectly fits what we are talking about.