Sorry, not 80. Not even 60. What’s YOUR point?

i shouldn’t post if i don’t know what you’re talking about? not very conducive to discussion, are you?

is in no way relevant to this comment. i can’t help but think that you don’t understand my point

The point is that Lohse’s deal was too long and too much of a financial commitment for a pitcher who just had a year out of line with his the rest of his career. Furthermore if they had waited a few weeks they could have signed him for far less because the bottom fell out of the economy and contracts for sub-elite players dramatically shrunk. The collapsing economy was not necessarily forseeable, but the FA market is always volatile and you never know what it is going to be until the bidding begins. Had the team waited and seen what Lohse would have gone for they would have gotten him for less. As it is right now, he’s overpaid.

Let’s start naming some names that maybe we should have signed INSTEAD of Lohse

I’ll start with Derek Lowe and Kenshin Kawakami….

all in this thread, if I read correctly…I have more than 16 comments on 6 different blogs on SB Nation and have more fanposts created than you have comments on this blog in particular. Sorry dude. I’m glad you spoke up and told us what you thought, just don’t get so touchy when others disagree. As a longtime VeB reader, it seems like you are whining about others whining, which is counterproductive and not enough for a fanpost of it’s own. This is just my opinion, maybe others disagree.

would make any impact, nor do i believe that he will be traded within the division. I think that if we could get an impact starting pitcher, Matt Holliday, or someone of that ilk, it would help the ballclub, as long as none of them break the bank so that we can re-sign Pujols soon.

There is only one option. Of course it’s going to get 100%.

Not trying to be rude, but really, what is the point of this post?

It appears that you are going on a tirade against everyone who thinks this team needs an upgrade, disagrees with TLR on certain issues, or gets upset when the team can’t score any runs for about a month and a half.

I’m more concerned with the EXTREME lack of high average hitters we now have…

I’m more worried about the extreme number of low-OBP’s this team has. That means the team is recording outs at an alarming rate, and THAT is a big big problem.

A whining post? Whatever.

Maybe you’re not whining. I apologize.

Where are we/were we in errors committed?
Number of errors at 3rd this year? Relative to the NL?

Errors are NOT even a semi-respectable measure of defense. They are based entirely on the whim of the stadium’s official scorer and are often changed to help out a home team player. Furthermore, errors without any context of range are useless because a player with greater range will make more errors simply due to opportunity. UZR, on the other hand, is much better. If you don’t know about said stat, I would recommend checking it out via Google. At any rate, using this metric this team is currently giving significant playing time to baseball’s second worst 2nd baseman, a poor leftfielder, and is playing its best 2B at third where is pretty poor. Joe Thurston makes a weak, fading throw to first base every single time he throws from third, and very nearly kills Albert every time he does it. Now, luckily Pujols, Rasmus, Ryan, and Molina have done quite well, but this team is still employing junk at three other spots.

Let’s see… Wainwright, Carpenter, Pineiro, (Lohse), Wellemeyer and #5 Please send in your superior #1 & #2 starters.

Carpenter’s health is always in doubt. If he goes down, you’re dealing with a rotation of Waino, Pineiro, Welle, Thompson, and Lohse/Boggs/Walters (depending, of course, on Lohse’s health). Wellemeyer is very very inconsistent. Some days he pitches well, others he looks like the worst starter in baseball. His FIP is 4.71, the very definition of mediocre. Pineiro has been very very good, but that’s largely because his BB rate is sitting at 1.18. Want to take a bet on whether or not that continues? This is what I mean by a house of cards rotation…it looks sensational at this moment…but it’s put together in such a precarious manner that I worry about it in the long-run.

Hackers? 13th in Strikeouts, 7th in Average (team)

The stats you cited do not, in any way, reflect hacking. Hell, average doesn’t reflect anything particularly well. Batting average discounts walks and does not differentiate between singles and extra base hits, so while it’s okay measuring a guy’s ability to get a lot of hits, it is horribly unsophisticated. The sheer number of strikeouts isn’t a very good indicator of anything either. If you want to examine how patient a team is, which is what I’m talking about, you are better off looking at team OBP, BB rate, or O-Swing% (out of zone swing percentage). The Cardinals are currently 12th in the majors in OBP, but were dead last in May and are 19th in June. Their total OBP is inaccurately thrown off by brilliant hitting in April. Their walk rate is in the lower third of all major league teams. Their team O-Swing% is 26.4%, which is also in the bottom third in all of baseball. As a team this team swings at way too many pitches.

To summarize, this team has flaws. Saying this team should figure out some kind of way to address these issues or that their players need to perform better is not giving up or anything like that, it’s an honest and truthful assessment of the 2009 Cardinals.

Crappy roster construction? Schumacker, Ankiel, Pujols, Ludwick, Molina, Duncan?y/n, Greene? y/n (better in reality than he’s been since getting here), Glaus? (but hurt)

The roster construction is currently disastrous not because of any of the specific players you mentioned. The issue at hand is that the FO or LaRussa or Duncan or some combo has decided the team needs 8 pitchers. There are simply not enough innings to go around when you carry this number of pitchers. This also leaves your bench one hitter short, so this team has been forced to compensate by using Adam Wainwright as a pinch hitter and Todd Wellemeyer as a pinch bunter. The team has a few lefties who don’t LH pitching very well, and yet they’ve been forced to take too many AB’s against tough lefties because the bench doesn’t contain a logical RH pinch-hitter or platoon guy. Stavinoha was used in that role, but he’s an out machine who is a ghastly fielder and can’t hit.

A great deal of energy has been expelled on this site regarding roster construction. If you want to see more discussion, simply type “roster construction” in the posts and comments search engine located towards the upper right of the page. A few posters will defend the 13-man staff, but I and many of my fellow posters find this to be an insane misuse of the team’s resources.

Thanks, but I don’t get the ‘sig’ term. I’m very new to this. Who would YOU trade for?

What just happened?

is green!

…who you make an attempt to purchase the MooCow? He could be some kind of boss cow, and you guys could talk about farming, cow-related labor issues, and baseball.

http://www.drivelinemechanics.com/2009/6/10/904984/is-adam-dunn-the-new-jeter-or-is

The whole thing was tongue-in-cheek. He was poking fun at all those stupid cliches we’ve heard a million times already.

…there was some concern that Billy Bob Greenstick over in Midlonowhere, MO had an unsustainable performance of soy last year because his TD% (Tractor Drive Percentage) was abnormally high and his HASIP (harvest average on seeds in play) was a whopping…well…something whopping.

Did this kill the joke? I sincerely hope not.

i wasn’t trying to say that stats were necessary. i was trying to say that i thought the response to joe was borderline harsh, after i gave my opinion on his content. not clear enough writing on my part.

but he seems like he just came in here, had a cursory look at some of the comments and overall tone of the site, decided that it wasn’t to his liking, and probably didn’t understand most of it, and then decided to go into some kind of attack mode.