heads up from will carroll: he’ll have an interview today with cards’ assistant gm john abbamondi on Baseball Prospecus radio. you can download the show here.

last night’s game . . . . . where to start? they squandered too many scoring chances; that pattern continues. for the second time this year, pujols made a fielding misplay that cost the cardinals a late lead. above all, isringhausen blew another save and took another loss. i’m not trying to downplay the concern over the bullpen, because it’s serious; they need to get that problem under control before it starts costing them bushels of games. but it hasn’t cost them bushels so far; it only seems that way. i can really only fault the pen for 2 losses: last night’s, and the april 25 loss to the astros. in both games, the cards’ win expectancy was above 90 percent until the bullpen got involved. have there been other blown saves? sure, but no bullpen is perfect; you can’t hold every lead or preserve every tie. the cards have played a lot of close games this year, and they’ve won more than their share.

we tend to lose sight of that fact when we witness maddening failure as we did last night; we tend to forget how often the bullpen has come through and sealed a win --- as it did just a couple nights previous, on monday, when four relievers pitched 6 innings of 1-run ball and enabled the cards to steal a very tenuous win. or the night before that, in the sunday night ESPN game, when the relievers held the cubs to 1 run over 4 innings and brought home a 5-3 victory. last night’s defeat left the bullpen with a net WPA of about +0.23 for the season ---- not great, but far from terrible. and Baseball Prospectus’s win-expectancy metric, WXRL, has the pen at about +1 win for the year after last night. and both metrics look prettier when you eliminate brad thompson’s stats (0-1, 7.71 era as a reliever) from the equation. does the bullpen have issues? absolutely. but let’s keep them in perspective; the pen isn’t killing the team.

yet.

i might be telling a different story in a week or two, however, if they don’t get izzy out of the closer’s role. here’s the statistic that scares me about him: only 11 percent of his strikes have been swing / misses this year. throughout his career, that figure has been at 18 or 19 percent; even in 2006, 16 percent of his strikes came on whiffs. he’s just not missing bats anymore. here’s how it breaks down on a per-pitch basis:

his offerings are running into bats nearly 50 percent more often than they did last year, and 33 percent more often than they did even during izzy’s peg-legged 2006 season. the league whiff-per-pitch average is 9.9 percent, meaning izzy is well below average this season. it's not just a case of a few off games, or a few unlucky hits that have fallen in. isringhausen isn't the same pitcher he used to be, not by a longshot --- he can’t throw it past hitters anymore. and for that reason, the cardinals can’t keep sending him out there to protect leads.

before i go on: i don’t share the impassioned and unhealthy hatred for is’hausen that is so regrettably common among cardinal fans. he’s the most dependable closer in franchise history; his failure rate has been lower than hrabosky’s, sutter’s, or worrell’s and about even with lee smith’s. he’s appeared in 19 postseason games for the cards and only cost them one --- the kent walkoff homer in game 5 of the 2004 nlcs. the guy’s a great pitcher and a class act; sure it’s frustrating to see him blow games, but he doesn’t deserve the personal abuse that gets heaped on him. spew venom if it makes you feel better; i can’t stop you. but it says more about you than it does about izzy. to me, that guy’s a winner in every respect.

unfortunately, he’s no longer getting the job done; for the team’s sake, he’s got to be replaced. it will take a while (maybe weeks, maybe months) before la russa comes around to that conclusion; when he finally does, what options will he have? a quick look:

• chris perez. after last night’s game he has a 1.72 era at memphis, with twice as many strikeouts (20) as hits allowed (10). he’s got a dominating combo of pitches (fastball-slider) and a mean streak. perez still walks too many guys, but if duncan can get todd wellemeyer to throw strikes than he ought to be able to do the same with this rookie. he’d be my first choice; get him on up here. but hey, speaking of wellemeyer . . . . .
• todd wellemeyer. think outside the box w/ me here. welley has been unhittable in the first inning of his starts in 2008 --- 26 batters faced, 2 hits, 2 walks, 9 ks, no runs allowed. in the one-inning closer’s role, he could be fearsome. there’s also the fact that, pitching out of the cardinal bullpen last year, wellemeyer posted a 1.26 era and held opposing hitters to a .174 average (albeit in a tiny sample of only 14.1 innings). if the team decides that perez still isn’t ready because of his control issues, my second choice would be wellemeyer. has he been good in the rotation? sure --- but let’s not act as if he’s irreplaceable. in 7 outings to date he has 2 quality starts; the cardinals have a pitcher at triple A (reyes) who can pitch at the back of a big-league rotation and another on the current roster (parisi) who probably can, too. this is my second choice. 
• kyle mcclellan. he didn’t exactly cover himself in glory last night; in fact, his line was nearly identical to izzy’s (one single, one triple, one out). the league is still just getting to know mcclellan, and there’s a pretty good chance he will start losing effectiveness once the hitters have a book on him. and let’s not forget, we’re talking about a guy who as of this time last year was in class A. but his k / bb data are great, he has only yielded 2 extra-base hits so far, and he’s kept 8 of 10 inherited runners from scoring. he’d be risky, but what the hell; they stuck a rookie out there (wainwright) last time izzy went down, and it worked out ok. my 3d choice.
• braden looper. he has experience in the job but was never particularly good at it; too valuable now as an innings eater in the rotation. leave him where he is.
• anthony reyes. no way. he’s not suited to it, and the manager doesn’t trust him.
• ryan franklin. if an when isringhausen gets replaced, franklin is probably going to get the first crack at the job by default. it’ll make a lot of folks foam at the mouth; i won’t like the decision either, though i’ll try to keep my outrage in check. there's a decent chance franklin can do a passable job in the short term. if dave weathers can close in the big leagues (he converted 33 of 39 opportunities last year), i reckon ryan franklin might be capable of it too. understand, i’m not endorsing this option; i think it’s a terrible idea. but i’m preparing myself to live with it.
• jason motte. like perez, he has twice as many strikeouts (24) as hits allowed (11) at triple A; he has walked just 4 men in 15 innings. but he’s got less than 2 years’ experience as a pitcher and hasn’t yet developed a quality second pitch to play off his scorching fastball. i love what i’ve seen so far, but i need to see more before i entrust him w/ a high-leverage role.
• mark worrell. only 4 saves last year at memphis, none this year. vulnerable vs left-handed hitters. not an option.
• al hrabosky. madness never dies.

so how would you handle it? vote below. i'll be at the game this afternoon, cheerfully neglecting my responsibilities; a win would give 'em three series in a row and sweep away last night's frustration. temporarily, at least. . . .

the entire SB Nation network was down for 7 hours yesterday; i picture cables unraveling, servers liquifying, IT dudes fanning the smoke and flame away as they peer into their flat screens. the source of the problem, we are told, was "bad RAM" ---- just installed a few days ago. this is extremely rare and therefore was only discovered via a painstaking process of elimination --- ie, after nearly every other possible cause for the outage was investigated. that’s why the system was down for so long.

we’re cautioned that the server might still get balky today when normal network traffic ramps up. so if the site goes down again today --- or if it should ever go down for any length of time at any point in the future --- i’ll use the VEB page on facebook as a channel to keep everyone updated re the tech situation. the page is easy to find --- just type "Viva El Birdos" into the facebook search bar. i’ll write on the wall there and share whatever information i have.

my apologies to everybody for the long outage.

although we didn’t have a game thread last night, i kept picking up telepathic signals throughout the evening and jotting them down. so here they are --- an abbreviated game thread for last night’s 7-4 loss:

GAME 22 OPEN THREAD: APRIL 23, 2008

ryan’s not starting tonight? TONY!
way to get us started schu.
troy!
kennedy got another hit? mercy.
and miles kills the rally.
     ryan drives in the runs there. no question about it.
attaboy, welley!
9 up, 9 down.
     don’t jinx it.
           too late --- there’s the basehit.
                 nice going, loudmouth.
there goes the shutout.
c’mon welley, bear down.
we need some more runs.
crap --- tie game.
c’mon albert!
crap.
when was our last base hit anyway?
fourth inning.
another hit for kennedy? i can’t believe it.
     . . . . . and he’s caught stealing. never mind.
here comes reyes.
come on anthony!
what the hell was THAT??
     second baseman’s supposed to be covering.
           yeah, but where was he throwing it?
                 ryan would have caught it.
come on anthony, shake it off.
uh oh. there goes his trade value.
time to bring up mark worrell.
that was depressing.
we suck.
it was la russa’s fault.
late, everybody.

regarding reyes’ errant throw in the 8th, it sounds like he was a tad jumpy. he told the p-d: "I turned around a little too quick and thought somebody would be there. I was just hoping that it would get to him." very costly mistake, and the string of two-out hits that ensued was all too reminiscent of reyes v2007. but i can’t pin the loss entirely on him. the cardinal bats fell asleep after the first inning, putting just 7 men on base after the 4-inning rally. the at-bat that really hurt, imho, was duncan’s in the second inning. the cards had 2 on and 1 out; they’d put 8 of their first 12 men on base against snell and were poised to drive him out of the game. snell threw him a slider at the ankles on the first pitch, and duncan chased it ---- i often defend first-pitch swinging on this board, but that was the type of hack that gives first-pitch swinging a bad name; if it’s not a pitch you can drive, let it go. i suppose duncan might have been looking for a fastball in and got fooled; snell had thrown him 4 fastballs in his previous at-bat. then again, maybe chris was just overeager and took a bad swing. in any case, he swung and missed at a pitch that should have been ball 1; then he chased a borderline fastball on the second pitch and grounded into a double play, getting snell out of trouble. what might have been a fatal inning for snell ended up being a 7-pitch picnic; he cruised thereafter.

i thought the sb attempt by kennedy in the 8th inning was a good call --- sensible time to try a one-run strategy. it was late in a tie game, so they didn’t really need to play for the big inning --- one run probably wins it. and the hitters due up (pitcher, then miles, then schu, then ankiel) weren’t likely to put together a big inning anyway. so the cost of a CS was lower than usual, whereas the reward of a successful steal was higher than usual --- it’d get the go-ahead run to 2d with nobody out, and he probably would’ve scored. the pittsburgh infielders were all in motion, playing for the bunt, and the catcher (doumit) is really an outfielder; he’d only thrown out 1 of 8 basestealers in 2008 prior to kennedy’s attempt and nailed just 22 percent of baserunners in limited duty behind the plate last year . . . . all around, the attempted sb was a good percentage play. it took a very good throw, which doumit made, and the play was very close (i couldn’t say for sure he was really out).

before i sign off, i have to call everyone’s attention to the 1986 replay over at the sporting news. they’ve been dutifully simming over there for almost 6 months; the season is almost complete, and deadspin’s will leitch has miraculously skippered the cardinals to the brink of a division title: they lead the mets by a game with 10 left to play. in real life, you may recall, the 1986 cards finished 28.5 games behind new york; in the fantasy world, the cards went into shea a few days ago and swept a two-game series (winning both by 1 run) to open up a 2-game lead. last night they took a 3-2 lead into the 9th against the phillies, but ray soff (???) blew the save.

remember, everyone ---- head to facebook if the server ever bombs again.

writing from a hotel room on the 14th floor . . . .

i know a lot of you are tired of reading / talking about anthony reyes, but he’s an important player --- important enough that his roster status merits an intervention by the front office. the rookie g.m. is very publicly overruling his hall-of-fame manager here; obviously reyes matters a great deal. as i wrote last june, the stakes are much larger than the fate of one pitcher:

i would no longer characterize this as merely a proxy debate; it really is about the future of the organization --- about whether or not personnel decisions will be guided by any semblance of a long-range strategic vision; about stats vs scouting; about how to get maximum yield from the organization’s assets; ultimately, about who's in charge. i cite two quotes from today’s post-dispatch article:

the disagreement among the cards’ decision-makers isn’t just about reyes; it’s about priorities --- about how, and by whom, organizational decisions will be made. this argument has been going on for at least a year and a half; it cost jocketty his job. and it's still unresolved. that's the issue of greatest interest here, an issue far larger than the composition of the opening-day rotation or bullpen.

when mozeliak was hired, there were some doubts that he'd be able to stand up to la russa. if reyes winds up on the roster (and that's still not decided), it'll signal something of a power shift. a healthy one, imho.

* * * * * * * * *

on an unrelated note: what happened to all the cardinals’ curveballers? from 2000 through 2006 the rotation was dominated by guys who relied heavily on uncle charlie (kile, ankiel, morris, carpenter, suppan); the crystallizing moment of the ’06 championship run was a curve that froze carlos beltran. but the guy who threw that pitch is the only member of the current staff who possesses a plus curve. indeed, he’s the only one who throws more than 4 or 5 curveballs a game. here are the curveball percentages for each cardinal starter, according to josh kalk’s database of pitch-types from the 2007 season:

brad thompson: 0
todd wellemeyer: 0
braden looper: 0
kyle lohse: 6.7
joel pineiro: 15.2
adam wainwright: 19.0

neither clement nor mulder threw enough pitches in 2007 to show up in kalk’s database, but fangraphs has pitch-type data going back to 2005; according to it, clement does not throw a curve. about 15 percent of mark mulder’s pitches were curveballs in injury-marred 2006-07; in 2005, his last good year, he only threw half as many curves.

i raise this point merely as a curiosity; i’m not suggesting that the current pitchers should throw more curveballs, or the team should acquire more curveball pitchers. it’s merely something i noticed.

Morning, everybody.

Here's Anthony Reyes' line from yest, erday.

6IP,0R,0ER,3H,1BB,2K

Here are a couple of comments following that performance. Per Matthew Leach:

"For me, it was a real difficult game to evaluate the performances of the pitchers," Duncan said. "Odalis Perez was doing pretty good for five innings, if I remember right, and he's not exactly a top of the rotation guy. I actually thought Anthony threw better in the last game he pitched, in comparison to this one."

And this, from Joe Strauss

"I'm still looking for Anthony to do certain things that when you face first division teams you can compete against them and have a legitimate chance to be successful," Duncan said.

Earlier in the same article, however;

"I always say the bottome line is what you look at," Duncan said. "It's not how you get it but if you get it. In Anthony's case, the line is there today."

All right. Am I the only one who sees a bit of a disconnect here? In fairness to Duncan, he did say that only results matter. However, he also basically wrote off yesterday, mostly due to the wind. (BTW, game time the wind was listed at 12mph, blowing in. The average wind speed this spring has been around 11mph. I have a hard time believing the wind was a bigger factor yesterday than the rest of the time.)

Look, I will not claim that Anthony Reyes is a great pitcher. I won't even go out on a limb and say he's a particularly good pitcher at the moment. I like the kid; I think he still has a lot of potential. However, he was very bad last year. He was fairly bad, with a couple of notable exceptions, in 2006. I could go into all kinds of reason why I think he's had so many problems, but I won't. I'll just let the record stand.

When I see these sorts of comments made about a pitcher who just threw the game that Anthony did yesterday, though, I can't just let it go. After the gushing, the praise, the heaping of laurels, on the shoulders of Brad Thompson, for lesser performances, I just cannot let it go. After Todd Wellemeyer, with his >6BB/9IP, his inability to controlhis pitch counts, and, thus, his inability to go later in a ballgame than the fifth inning, is guaranteed a spot and commended for his efficiency, I just cannot let it go. And most of all, after a talented, struggling young man has worked his tail off, dedicated himself to coming into camp in the best shape possible, and conducted himself in as professional a manner as you could ever hope for, I just cannot let those comments go.

Anthony Reyes has pitched as well as any other pitcher in competition for a starting spot this spring. He has the second most strikeouts of any pitcher, the second best ERA, (despite throwing one game while still recuperating from the flu) and has walked almost no one. However, there is some mystical thing, some magical thing, some fantastic, bamstaferous, flamtabulous thing that Anthony Reyes simply does not do. Unfortunately, whatever that single thing is, it's the only thing that can possibly make him into a major league pitcher.

I cant' tell you he's a great pitcher. I can't even tell you he's all that good of a pitcher. I can, however, tell you that he's been a better pitcher this spring than the pitchers who have beaten him out for his spot in the rotation. And it flat out drives me nuts. Brad Thompson, Braden Looper, and Todd Wellemeyer will all be in the rotation come opening day. However, Anthony Reyes, despite having pitched better, will not be. Hopefully, though, he'll have the encouraging words offered up by his pitching coach as a source of comfort as he whiles away the hours in Mem-

Oh yeah, that's right. Never mind.

On a positive note, (and I do apologise for the negativity; I try to control it, but this just really rubs me the wrong way) I am enjoying watching a baseball game at five o' clock in the morning. A lot. I don't know if I can somehow get Japanese baseball games here in the states on television, but if I can, my joy will flow like roaring river from mountain tops, bringing gentle cherry blossom breeze to the valley.

On a related note, I know that Rich Harden can't stay healthy. But good god, is he ever nasty. (Jon Lester ain't too bad either, but Harden is just wicked.)

There's another thing that's upsetting me this morning. ESPN is currently running a series of interstitials, entitled, "Remembering the House that Ruth Built". It is, obviously, a retrospective on Yankee Stadium.

Currently, there is on running about Max Schmeling and Joe Louis. It talks about Schmeling defeating the heavily favoured Louis, etc., and then talks about the rematch in Yankee Stadium. The tagling, that Louis defeated Schmeling on the 22nd of June, 1938, in front of a raucous, celebratory crowd, contains a serious problem.

It refers to Schmeling as "Hitler's Champ."

You got that?

"Hitler's Champ".

Here, read this.

Max Schmeling is one of the most decent human beings you will ever read about. The man is a literal hero. It was a crime the way he was demonized in the 30s in America. The times being what they were, though, our perspective now has to be taken with a grain of salt. Was it right? No. Was it understandable? A little, yes. Schmeling was a German, fighting a black man in a time when Adolph Hitler was spouting propaganda about the superiority of his Aryan Master Race. You can understand a bit how the boxer could have been made a scapegoat. Again, it wasn't fair, but we can forgive. There was a tremendous amount of fear and anger. Rational minds struggles against the tide when the times are dark.

This is not the 1930s. This is 2008. We know the full story of the man. We know that he refused to join the Nazi Party and was punished for it. We know that he hid a pair of Jewish children, sparing their lives from the scythes of the German genocide. And yet, somehow, in this supposedly enlightened age, ESPN calls Max Schmeling, a man too principled and courageous to give in to the overwhelming press of evil, "Hitler's Champ". I don't care how much you want to elevate Joe Louis. Joe Louis needs no elevation. He was one of the greatest fighters who ever lived. He maintained tremendous dignity in an era when the black man was not supposed to have any. He is a beautiful, tragic figure, to be always remembered as the dark side of our own American Dream. Joe Louis needs no elevation. To demonize his opponent, even in a quick, thrown off television spot, seventy years after the fact, when we should all know better, when we do all know better, is the lowest, most despicable form of pandering. I am sickened. To hell with you, ESPN. And I have nothing else to say about it.

Manny just hit a solo home run. Rich Harden is still ridiculous.

Again, sorry for all the negativity this morning, everybody. Hey, there's a baseball game on today! The Wagonmaker will take the mound today, facing off against Jeremy Guthrie, Baltimore's own Opening Day starter. It should be a good one, and wonder of wonders, it's on television! Fox Sports Midwest, to be more specific. I can't express how exciting it is to have real baseball on TV again.

By the way, after watching Kyle McClellan pitch in Sunday's game, I'm softening my stance on Chris Perez making the major league team. Don't get me wrong; I still think Perez is ready to work at the big league level, but if it's between Wild Thing and K-Mac, (that's right, I'm coining my own nicknames for everyone and everything this morning) I don't think we can lose. Unless Cliff Politte somehow beats out both of them for a spot, I'll be happy. Both are very exciting, very promising young players, just the sort of player I'm looking forward to watching this year. Please, somebody, tell Cliff Politte can't beat them both out. For the love of god, tell me!!!

One last note, and it's a nice one. My Spring Surprise Position Player, Travis Mitchell, has been coming on strong the last few days. I believe he's slated to start the year out at Quad Cities; I'm planning to try and make at least one trip up there this year to get a look at a couple of the players on that squad, Mitchell high among them. Mitchell's a local kid, from Chesterfield, and I'm really excited to follow him this year.

HOORAY BASEBALL!!!

Alright. I don't feel like quite such a downer now.