might have happened early in spring training that made Barton expendable. He did not play much in the early ST games and was in the first group that was sent over to the minor league camp.
Later, especially the last 2 weeks of ST, La Russa used a lot of imports from the minor league camp in regular ST games. Freese, Jones, Jay. Robinson. Even Hofpauir a time or two. But never Barton. I don’t know whether he came to camp out of shape or something, but he was cast out early and he has not hit at all at Memphis. The trade should not be a surprise.

Barton was traded? You stop paying attention during one day off and look what happens . . .

does not have the idea of making him into a starter. Wellemeyer was a reliever at the major league level. Also Boyer has experience as a starter in the minors just like Wellemeyer.

I don’t understand this trade, boyer is meh, and barton forgot how to hit over the winter. I think this is selling low on barton, but then again if he never gets his stick back…….

This is one of those bizare out of left field deals, no body saw it coming. I understand that there is an outfield glut but blaine boyer, wtf?

This move has me thinking that they must be pretty confident Boyer is the kind of pitcher they can make successful adjustments with. What’s that, he gets ground balls? What’s that, he started a bunch in the minors? I can hear the whirrs and whooshes of tiny gears and pistons activating in Dave Duncan’s steam-powered difference engine of a brain.
OK, I remember asking this a long time ago, but wasn’t there some mysterious “problem” that the organization had with Barton, at least at some point? I seem to remember a cryptic paragraph or two from the likes of Bernie of Strauss about it, but to my knowledge the facts were never really revealed. Is this old news or is it still a mystery?

So I don’t mind them trading him. I’m not sure what to think of Boyer at this point. It does seem like more could have been had for Barton, but perhaps that’s just bias.

Right after falling into the vat of chemicals, the Joker is getting cosmetic surgery at a run down little doctors office…

He rips off the bandages, sees himself in the mirror, and immediately loses his mind and just starts laughing in that kind of scary and homicidal way…

The doctor pleads “Look what I have to work with!” as he points to the little table with the outdated and dirty surgical instruments…

Every once in a while (Kip Wells….) I think of this scene with TLR as the Joker and Dave Duncan as the Doctor

From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

"I’ll miss Atlanta, but I’m fired up right now to be a Cardinal," Boyer said from his Atlanta area home not long after speaking to Cardinals general manager John Mozeliak and manager Tony La Russa.

"Sometimes when your time is up, it’s just up," Boyer said. "I lost a little bit of confidence of Skip’s [manager Bobby Cox] and that’s understandable … I had a great spring. For whatever reason I just got in a funk. I pitched three games and two of them were rough. That’s just how it went. I was the odd man out. Baseball is a business and sometimes it’s difficult."

So he knows what it’s like to be in the managers doghouse. Perfect, welcome aboard. You’ll fit in fine.

We get Mo’s take on him from the AP via SI.com.

“Our scouting reports were very positive,” Mozeliak said. “We just thought it had an awful lot oup side for us.”

So there you have it, he did well in the highly regarded internal team metric of OUP. Must be some sort of Jeff Luhnow creation.

My initial reaction was , “oh, crabman. tear.” but when I reflected a bit more thoroughly, I realized someone was getting squeezed out by Boyer coming in. Now, the article many have linked/quoted at PD states Freese was told he’s being optioned to AAA.

I think he’ll have another shot (this year or next), but I think he just got squeezed by the combination of strong play from Thurston / Barden and TLR’s love of splits. If we do get Glaus back this year, Freese would have been optioned at that time, since the other “3Bmen” originated as Middleinfielders.

Regardless, Freese will get to tell all the others in Memphis (aside from Kinney/PuppyKicker) about what April 6 was like, riding around on the trucks and meeting the Cardinal Legends. Great memories Dave. Hope to see you again soon.

Here’s to raking in AAA.

this trade is at worst a wash. Barton was a good player, but probably not good enough to make an impact for the cardinals, given the outfield glut. Blaine Boyer will either turn out really well and make Mo look like a genius or he won’t work out and they gave up 1 of their 86 outfielders (who wasn’t hitting in the minors) for nothing.

on a somewhat related note, Blaine is one of the names that has made the final boy name list for my unborn child, should I evaluate the name in relation to Boyer’s performance this year?

and they seem pleased with the trade. they are down on Garrett Anderson though. As per this post.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME………… GARRET ANDERSON? SERIOUSLY….. Are you kidding me Garret Anderson?? IN ADDITION TO YOUR……….. **** RIPPED “RIGHT” CALF MUSCLE *………. NOW YOU *TAKE YOURSELF OUT OF THE GAME because of a *****MESSED-UP “LEFT” QUAD MUSCLE*******!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So Garret Anderson, you are basicly TELLING US THAT YOU HAVE *********** 2 MESSED UP LEGS *************!!!!!!!!! I WILL TAKE IT EASY ON YOU TODAY AND JUST TELL YOU…………….. *RETIRE NOW, YOU WASHED-UP, SHREADED-MUSCLE, LAZY A, CIRCUS-PERFORMING FIELDING FREAK!!!!!!!!!!!!!! NOBODY WANTS YOUR LAZY, GIMPY A** IN ATLANTA!!!!!!! GET OUT OF TOWN….. BEFORE WE RUN YOU OUT OF TOWN!!!!!!!
By saltlake on April 19, 2009 3:09 PM

WOW! pretty rough on Anderson don’t you think? Barton might have found a home.

Do you tink we could have gotten Anderson for Barton?

Sure, he was an exciting player — and an engineering major to boot!!! — but we’ve got about ten thousand outfielders. And Barton’s the what, fifth best at MOST? The only thing I’ll grant is that he used to be our only legitimate right-handed platoon leadoff hitter threat, but I’d prefer on most days not to supplant Ankiel or Rasmus or Duncan for him, despite facing a lefty. Maybe Ankiel, but STILL.

And our bullpen sucks, to boot. Anytime you trade from a glut for a weakness, it’s a good move — especially if your weakness is pitching. Good trade.

had enough of your aboots

it seems like it’s been ages since I saw a Cardinals game

in honor of the spaceman’s departure

10.1 IP 6H 1ER 0HR 4BB 8K .87ERA 1.33GO/AO . All the hits were singles too.

I know they are just spring training stats but those are good stats. He has a K/BB over 2 and GO/AO over 1. To me those are the 2 things I look at first when I am judging a pitcher. Someone that can strike guys out, doesn’t walk a lot of guys, and gets ground outs.

Now Blaine Boyer’s biggest problem to rule them all is his Left on Base % of 57% in 2008. That is mind blowing bad. Last year he was the worst of all relievers in LOB%. The next closest was 60%. That to me screams that is something wrong that could be fixed. Either bad luck, tipping his pitches, or he can’t pitch out of the windup.

My bet is that the Cardinals believe Boyer is undervalued, that his upside potential is better than that of their AAA middle reliever options, in the short term and long term.

I was a big fan of Barton, still am. I hope he is very successful with the Braves. But the Cardinals have a pressing need for ML relief pitching right now (given Kinney’s disappointing start and the failure to keep Springer). Barton’s skill set was superfluous for the Cardinals, considering Shane Robinson and Daryl Jones are younger and about as talented (SR) or more talented (DJ).

It would be interesting to see the details of Luhnow and Mozeliak’s formula for assessing the value of a player. My guess is that it includes not only statistical analysis, but rather includes a range of quantiative and qualitative factors, something like this:

- Strong arm (mid-90’s fastball and 67 K’s in 76 IP last year), unexcelled by anyone on the Cardinals’ ML relief corps other than Motte

- Third round draft pick – previous pickups of discarded or discredited players, like Ludwick, Wellemeyer, and others indicate that “high draft pick” is taken by the Cardinals as an indicator of talent (not necessarily of developed skill); this factor could have an important place in the Cards’ evaluation formula, given the team’s faith in Dave Duncan to channel raw talent and (developed skills) into an approach that harnesses the pitcher’s potential most effectively.

- Good athlete – Honorable mention All-American centerfielder in HS

- Excellent half season in MLB last year shows what he is capable of (a basis for projection that is more reliable than just minor league stats); Boyer’s failing in second half presumably is considered a result, at least in part, of his fatigue induced by overuse.

- Solid spring training stats (8 K’s, 6 H, 4 BB, no HR, 1 ER, in 10.1 IP).

- Poor start in 2009 is based on very small sample size and infrequent use.

I miss Barton. He might have been a better option on the ML roster than Ankiel so far, given Rick’s very slow start of his own and the Cardinals’ sore need for an effective RH leadoff hitter vs. LHP!

But I’m cautiously optimistic that the Cardinals’ formula for player assessing undervalued players that has succeeded with Ludwick and Wellemeyer will once again prove to be effective in adding value to the roster, on balance.

Barton requested a trade…

This is way off topic, but I just noticed Anthony Reyes has given up 8 hits in his two starts (11 IP) but six of those 8 hits have been for extra bases: 4 HR, 1 3B, 1 2B.

6 walks and only 3 strikeouts, too.

Wow.

1) 45% of the letters are vowels. Of one million first and last names we looked at, 11.2% have a higher vowel make-up. This means you are very well envoweled.

2)In ASCII binary it is… 01000010 01101100 01100001 01101001 01101110 01100101 00100000 01000010 01101111 01111001 01100101 01110010

3) Backwards, it is Enialb Reyob… nice ring to it, huh?

4) In Pig Latin, it is Aineblay Oyerbay.

5) According to the US Census Bureau°, 0.015% of US residents have the first name ‘Blaine’ and 0.0205% have the surname ‘Boyer’. The US has around 300 million residents, so we guesstimate there are 9 Americans who go by the name ‘Blaine Boyer’.

David Freese, as expected, is the man out to make room for Blaine Boyer. Meanwhile, Boyer takes Brian Barton’s old number, 54.

Today’s lineup vs LHP Oliver Perez:
1. Ryan 2B
2. Ankiel CF
3. Pujols 1B
4. Ludwick RF
5. Molina C
6. Duncan LF
7. Greene SS
8. Thurston 3B
9. Wellemeyer P

Boyer is only a little better than replacement level reliever. We have a shit ton of options in the minors who could pitch just as well. "

St. Louis Cardinals… defying win expectancy since 2008

by vivaelpujols on Apr 20, 2009 10:06 PM EDT

Mets pen has been solid when rested