Notes: or, the last time I mention Mark McGwire, at least this week

:=8)

and I’m surprised no-one’s really noted or mentioned this, is that he’s a ROOGY. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but he’s best in the Russ Springer role, at least until he figures out a pitch that can get major league lefties out.

He has an OPS-against of .885 against lefties so far in his MLB career (114 PAs). Now, maybe that’s partly luck-driven (his BABIP is quite high), but when you’re basically turning every left-handed hitter you face into Adam Dunn, that’s pretty awful.

A straight, 4-seam fastball, even a very quick one, from a right handed pitcher, over the plate, is going to be quite an easy pitch for major league left-handers to make contact with, and (when they do) hit quite hard. I think Motte’s one good pitch is good enough to get righties behind in the count, and try to put them away with his dodgy breaking-ball-thing and/or more heaters, but I just don’t think it’s an effective strategy, at all, against good lefties, and I imagine most MLB managers will be well aware of that and just throw all their best lefty pinch-hitters into the fray if/when Motte comes out to pitch the 9th inning with a small lead.

Personally, I’d really like Motte to learn a split-finger pitch. I think with his pace and delivery it’s a pitch that’d work well for him, without having to learn to do anything too complex with his fingers or grip (correct me if I’m wrong, pitching gurus – although I realise he probably needs long fingers to grip the ball well and be good at the SF, so it might be a moot point). I’m just not sure there’s someone in the org who can teach/coach that pitch, as I can’t think of a single other cardinal who’s used it, majors or minors, for years. That is perhaps one of the potential advantages of signing Smoltz – could he take Motte under his wing and teach him the splitter?

is it not possible, now he’s admitted the roids, that if the Cards tried to activate him as an actual player on the roster, he would be suspended by MLB for a period of time (probably longer than Manny’s 60 games as he admitted to the crime, and admitted it was for performance-enhancing purposes)? I think that makes the whole PH thing a major can of worms. Personally, I’d be dead against it.

and that he homered off of Joba.

Until he struck out on 4 pitches.

thats not fun at all…if you cant trust a robot who in the hell can you trust?

or read “Cardinals,” “Ryan Frankline,” “after a career year,” and “extension” in the same same sentence, it bodes ill.

in the middle of! because obviously he was going to continue to pitch way over his head.

But the Lohse and Franklin contracts are inexplicable. Lohse’s is far worse of course, but when you have a fairly limited payroll you simply cannot just toss 2 years and $6.5M around like a bunch of beanbags. And you especially cannot do that when the receiver of said contract is in the middle of the year of his lifetime at the age of 36.

Fun fact on Franklinstein: His HR/FB rate last year was 3.2%. THREE POINT TWO PERCENT! Wow. Unless his half-win fastball and half-win cutter are just motherlovin’ brick-balls (cuz they’re heavy and sink and stuff), that isn’t sustainable!
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I’m glad to see Ankiel go somewhere else (which I think is safe to assume) but I have to admit I’m probably going to follow what he does next year. I really want him to at least partially put it together.

I also thought the “it was only to keep me on the field, and I don’t think it improved my hitting, and it was only a liiiiittle bit of steroids” was a bit lame. Still, in all honesty, I don’t think I’m that bothered about the story itself – being relatively young in my Cardinals fandom, I was only kinda a casual observer during the HR chase, rather than a live-or-die fan, so i suppose it doesn’t have the same significance to me as a fan as it probably does to some of you whose fandom was kinda born in the late-90s.

If your box-within-a-box is in fact your comment and not a quote from someone else.

There was an exhausting thread two days ago about just how fishy Mac’s motivations were/weren’t.

But I’ve not been more excited about a Cardinals offense going into the season since 2005. How long ago that seems.

hasn’t done steroids.

but I just want to say, I think it’s fairly obvious his confession was NOT about the HOF, since he waited until after this year’s HOF vote to come out.

I’m not sure why I should be more outraged, because I’ve spent about 13 years being outraged by Tony’s outrageous statements.

Now I’m mostly outraged by media types telling me to be outraged.

How everyone but the players who used PEDs gets by without criticism for incompetence, willful ignorance or tacit complicity is utterly baffling to me.

They missed on censoring it on the first pass. He said he didn’t give a shit……not he didn’t give a fuck. That miscue sensationalizes the whole article, IMO.

I actually think this puts Tony in a different mode for this season. I think it is possible that this makes this team even more man-stewey, and maybe, just maybe, Tony goes into less Crazy Tony mode and more into Let’s Kick Some Serious Ass Tony mode. It might just be me, but I see a real chance that this team puts its foot on the throat of the NL Central this season.

Or it’s possible that everything just blows up, but I am a optimist.

Either way, HURRY UP AND BOLSTER THE BULLPEN, MO!

I don’t think he’s wanting a MiL deal with a ST invite. I’m pretty sure he can get at least a 1 year, $2m deal somewhere, and I think that’d probably be about a fair price for his services. He has a lot of issues, but a small bounceback seems likely, and someone who can instill a bit more patience in the guy and get him taking a few more first pitches and pitches in hitters’ counts could turn him into a .310 OBP, .480 SLG -type, I think, which would be borderline useful in an outfielder with a competent glove.

I think I’m slightly higher on Ankiel than most, but he’s exactly the sort of guy that we look at in other teams (or on the FA market) and say “decent bounceback/buy-low candidate” (not that I think he has a cat-in-hell’s chance of a bounceback to a 2007/2008 level, but he could be useful as a LH 4th outfielder against RHP or a platoon piece); it’s just the pain of watching the guy struggle to get the ball out of the infield for a whole year that’s made that fact difficult to accept.

and he can’t get those at-bats with the Cardinals as we have three above average outfielders. He might be a decent half of a platoon as well, but we don’t have one of those either, as Ludwick doesn’t have a crappy split against RHP.

I don’t think that he’s a viable option for the Cardinals as he’s not a good pinch hitter, as he proved last year.

He was supposed to be the LF of the future in the Braves org and was recently DFA’d to make room for Hinske. He is 26, LH, and has a decent AAA line.

 need a CF now! OH look at that Rick is a Boros client.

If I had to bet on any cardinal being an effective closer in 3 years, well, it’d probably be Eduardo Sanchez, but Boggs would probably be the 2nd choice…

he’s Carp’s special coaching project, last I saw.

it’s definitely fair game. I occasionally even use in in non-VEB scenarios, to much confusion…

“Oh right, we still technically have Kinney.”

I, too, think we need another arm.

Boggs looked like a completely different pitcher when he went to the ‘pen, to me. He went from being barely above the Wellemeyer Line as a starter to being a solid reliever with flashes of excellence. I’d love to see him stay there this year.

If I remember correctly, he lives in Colorado and would often go see the Cards when they came to Coors.

Sadly, I can’t answer your question because I don’t know.

I haven’t had a bad seat yet. I liked First base side myself. Also, if your flying and cabbing, don’t stay out by the airport. It cost me 80 bucks round trip.