cardinals close to signing roy oswalt, maybe

Lets say Roy’s a 3.60 ERA pitcher next year, that’s a 1.4 WAR upgrade over Westy.

Closer to his xFIP. He has a career 12 percent HR/FB rate, and his rate last year was 11.4. With a 10 year sample size, it seems likely his career numbers reflect a proclivity to giving up homers. Regressing him to a league average HR/FB rate doesn’t make sense.

If he signs Oswalt and trades KMac he gets an A, and I’ll excuse Skip as a chemistry signing.

I’m kinda meh on the Skip signing. I sort of thought they’d do it anyway, and I can see a reasonable argument for at least trying to maintain some sort of season-to-season consistency in the roster.

Berkman, Carpenter, Beltran and now (hopefully) Oswalt were all great signs though, all below market value and short-term, and all addressing genuine needs.

Honestly, I think the worst move of the off-season by far is signing JC Romero. At least with KMac and Skip there’s the excuse that they’re current players and have been competent in the past in various roles. Romero is sucky, and far better pitchers in the LOOGY role have been available for similar money.

I suppose that might be an important factor. Could the FO be looking to further build on the team’s “reputation” with players in general? We know that the Cardinals are a desirable place for many players. It’s very hard to distinguish other factors from the “competitive team” thing, since we’ve had lots of success in the recent past. But I think you could be onto something.

is Wong considered a leadoff candidate for the most part, or more of a 2 or 7/8-hole guy?

That’s because McClellan fancies himself a starter and not a reliever. That’s why he whined when Garcia won the fifth starter job over him heading into 2010. To frame what McClellan did last season as a selfless, team-first act is poppycock. Starting is what McClellan has wanted to do since 2008.

We’ll need to put his grade on some other system. We might need to name a public building or highway after him.

I reserve judgment until the Commish’s office says it’s official.

B… Romero

I’m not convinced that having Waino, Carp or Oswalt throw 27 starts instead of 32 will reduce their risk of injury at all, and all you’re really doing is giving starts to Westbrook/Lohse that we’re trying to minimise. But just IMO.

I suppose it is debatable how much that matters… depends on how deep the starters go into games. what is probably best is to use Westbrook as the long man/mop up guy, and occasional spot start. this would prevent McClellan being used in this way at least… but would probably make McClellan even more useless to have on the roster, unless they end up releasing Romero because he can’t cut it.

They were arguing for a 4-man rotation. I think their evidence/reasoning was that as long as pitch counts in game were kept under ~100, then pitchers did fine on short rest.

Right now I suspect the cards are (on paper) about five wins better than anyone else in the central. This just pads the lead. I know that sounds arrogant and overconfident, but prove me wrong. (shrug)

there seems to be some idea that 2 wins in the middle of a pennant race are more valuable; right now, the most likely scenario is that we will be in a pennant race. Might as well buy those wins now on the cheap, than pay a premium in June.

getting thumped on the head twice a trip by AW.

i just think its kinda funny that it agrees that Westy should not be a member of our 5-man rotation

“… It’s fabulous. Looks like a Seder at Vincent Price’s house.”

Someday when you are out of diapers we will talk about how the real world works.

but there are so many misconceptions on this board about how the Cardinals operate. For instance the concept that they would never add payroll because they have a hard cap on salary. They have plenty of money to add Oswalt and, more importantly, recognize that Oswalt is tremendous value at $5-8 million for one year. I think the sabr-crew in Mo’s office are doing a great job of identifying value and paying for it,.

We get all caught up on whether we are overpaying the 24 and 25th men on the roster and miss the big picture that they are making great adds in places where it counts.

Even if you argue that Oswalt is a risk, the marginal value of his WAR is HUGE for this team given how tight the division is. That’s why the budget cap is nonsense. We know we can overspend in 2012 because in 2013 and 2014 we will be much better, and cheaper, and the competition will be worse.

That kind of clarity from our front office gives me a lot of confidence.,

You guys were arguing that there was no way we would get Oswalt at any price because it would cause us to raise payroll, and have to bump Westbrook out of the rotation (which is unethical! or something). 10 million dollars is not functionally different than 5 million when you are arguing based on a hard salary cap and based on a player PR.

You can’t say “no, there is a 0% chance this happens at 10 million, but I like it at 5 million”.

it’s probably not a good time to be sucking on popsicles, as Winston Wolf would say.

It’s not impossible, but it’s far more likely that Mo would sign Oswalt as a clear upgrade in the rotation.

Awesome how this is pretty much a statement of fact

he’s probably not a very good addition to a pretty stacked bullpen

contrast with 5 months ago

I think I like Westbrook better than Dickson though.

Because Oswalt has said he won’t sign unless he’ll start.

mishaps like that.

I know the Cards/Marlins complex pretty well.

Are the schedules easily available?

I once went to the Phillies complex and the schedules weren’t public.

the back fields were not accessible. They had a snow fence keeping people out of that area.

And who even knows now that TLR is gone — could be more or less accessible to fans.

most depressing place imaginable…