The Cardinals were faced with a conundrum this past offseason with the free agency of their leadoff hitter and primary SS of the last 3 years David Eckstein. Add to that Adam Kennedy's injury plagued 2007 and it was apparent that the players the Cardinals had intended to be key everyday players last year hadn't really lived up to expectations and weren't great bets moving forward. Change was imminent.

The off season brought news of Aaron Miles being non-tendered and then re-signed and Cesar Izturis being plucked from free agency after watching his career collapse over the previous seasons. Brendan Ryan, who had filled in adequately for Eckstein, was left in the utility role again as the Cardinals attempt to see what kind of production they can squeeze out of their veterans.

So far, the returns aren't very good.

Cesar Izturis - .186/.333/.237 - 59 PAs

Adam Kennedy - .315/.367/.333 - 54 PAs

Aaron Miles - .295/.354/.318 - 44 PAs

That's the batting lines as of around 9:00pm last night for our primary middle infielders. Do you notice anything about them in particular? Their OBP is higher than their slugging in each instance. Slappy singles hitters who take a few walks creates that effect but is that maintainable moving forward.

Major League hitters need a certain level of power in order to keep pitchers honest. If they don't have it, they probably aren't going to last too long in the majors. Pitchers will start pumping fastballs down the heart of the plate and letting their defense take care of the rest. If the worst that can happen is a player gets a single, why bother finessing the situation.

Izturis can't seem to buy a hit as of late but Adam Kennedy and Aaron Miles both have respectable batting averages. You'd think I'd lay off them and pick on Izturis but you'd be wrong. Izturis is running into some BABIP bad luck so his batting average ought to regress toward the mean (think mid-.200s). The other two batters are doing something that seems uncommon -- hitting well and walking but hitting for no power. All three players appear to be on their way to at least 200PAs so let's use that as a baseline for historical comparison.

There were about 3100 player seasons from 1997-2006 of 200 or more plate appearances. Now let's start to apply some filters. There were less than 15% of those seasons where a player posted an ISO (slugging percentage minus batting average -- a better measurement of power than just SLG) less than .100. That tells us it really isn't common to see these players even survive the in the league long enough or receive enough of a role to get that many PAs. But this is the Cardinals run by Tony LaRussa and he likes to mix and match and get his bench players plenty of plate appearances. But even more uncommon is that there was less than 5% of those 3100 seasons where a player had an OBP higher than their slugging percentage. That number drops to under 4% when you combine the two filters (ISO < .100 and OBP>SLG).

So what our middle infield is doing is uncommon. I'd suspect, without looking at the list of players that it's comprised mostly of 2B, SS and catchers (Jason LaRue fits these criteria as well) but we're still talking about a small segment of the baseball community that's capable of putting up these numbers. If you look at the OPS of those players 75% (of that 4% that Kennedy and Miles currently fit into in) had an OPS under .700 -- not good. So only 1% of the players from 1997-2006 who received 200 plate appearances posted an OPS over .700, with an ISO < .100 and an on base percentage greater than their slugging.

That may seem like I've stacked the deck against our middle infield when looking at the numbers (given the number of filters I've applied) but I'm trying to point out how hard it is to have a good season when you are hitting the way Kennedy, Miles and, to a lesser extent, Izturis are hitting. We've seen some turnover in our middle infield but it's a massive weakness offensively and the few things that are going right for them now (taking walks) are, historically, unprecedented over the long term. Giving more playing time to Brendan Ryan or perhaps replacing one of Kennedy/Miles with Jarrett Hoffpauir (although he hasn't displayed the requisite power in Memphis with an ISO of .076 right now) could help but these are all marginal offensive players or marginal upgrades. The team would be wise to try and cobble together some kind of deal with their seeming excess in the outfield and on the mound to try and make a deal at either SS or 2B because things could get worse in a hurry. It's the most glaring weakness for the Cardinals right now and there doesn't appear to be any internal improvements available in the near term.

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.

i usually don’t write on wednesdays, but the red baron is traveling to a funeral today so i’m covering. he lost someone very close; my thoughts are with you, dude.

star of last night’s game goes to kyle mcclellan. he gets out of the 6th-inning jam throwing mostly breaking stuff ---- 8 sliders / curves in 12 pitches. then in the 7th, pitching with the bases empty against the rump of the order, he blows them away with 12 fastballs in 14 pitches. guy’s got some weapons. the cardinal bullpen now sports a league-leading 2.74 era and has allowed just 3 of 18 inherited runners to score. skip schumaker also merits a little mention --- couple of 2-out rbi hits plus a walk. cardinal leadoff men have a .403 on-base percentage so far, mainly thanks to schu (he’s led off 10 of the 14 games); his BB last night was his 7th in 50 plate appearances, or 1 walk fewer than he drew in 188 plate appearances last year. that’s a significant change in his game. his high obp last year was entirely a product of his high batting average, which in turn was mostly a product of (coughluckcough) random chance; small sample size plus high BABIP = fluke. he won’t hit .333 again this year, but if he can walk once every 10 plate appearances he won’t have to; a .275 average will do just fine. insert obligatory caveat here ---- it’s very early, we’re just sizing things up, blah blah blah. based on available evidence, the cardinal leadoff spot --- subject of much discussion and concern all spring --- has been one of the lineup’s strengths.

i can't get excited about kennedy. he's got 0 extra-base hits so far, and no signs of producing one any time soon; he had just 3 (all doubles) in 40 S.T. at-bats. miles doesn't have any XBH either, and izturis only has 2 (both doubles); it's worse than people feared. the middle-infield corps is hitting an aggregate .255 / .342 / .276. well, like we keep saying, it's early . . . . . .

last night’s game may be the answer to a trivia question: when’s the first time in big-league history that neither team batted the pitcher 9th? i asked sean forman of Baseball-Reference.com to do a quick run on his data; he writes back that it hasn’t happened since 1956, the limit of his archive of boxscores (compiled by the invaluable Retrosheet). there are still 50+ years unaccounted for, so it’s possible --- even likely --- that last night’s lineup oddity happened at least once before. here’s a list (sorted by team-season) of every game in which one team didn’t hit the pitcher 9th, going back to 1956. for some reason, there was a spate of pitcher-hitting-other-than-9th lineups in 1957; four different teams (1/4 of the big-league clubs at that time) used one at least once that year, and the kansas city athletics did it on a regular basis (56 games). it won’t surprise you to know that the la russa-led cardinals have batted the pitcher outside the 9 slot more times (146 games) than all other teams since 1956 combined (89 times).

here’s a little more trivia related to the manager: only once in his career has he opened the season with more than 10 wins in his first 14 games. that happened in 1990 in oakland, coming off his first world championship; he led the athletics to an 11-3 start and cruised to his 3d straight pennant. he’s started out 10-4 on three other occasions, including his first two seasons as a manager --- 1980-81 in chicago. the other 10-4 start came in 1992 in oakland. before this year, tony’s best starts in st louis were 9-5 marks in 1998, 1999, 2000, and 2005.

and in the non-la-russa trivia category, i bet you didn’t know this: chris carpenter follows the cards via mlb gameday:

elsewhere on the injured-pitcher beat, mulder threw 5 innings last night for palm beach; according to chuck king (who does a bang-up job covering the FSL), he was topping out at 88 mph. am i the only one who’s dreading this guy’s return to action? he last pitched well in may 2006; i’m sure there are a few examples of guys who regained effectiveness after two full years of alternately getting knifed by surgeons and clubbed by hitters, but i can’t think of one at the moment. he seems so much a part of the team’s past --- and not the glorious part. he’s like one of those old kinda-sorta friends who calls you from time to time; he’s the last person you want to waste your time on, and you cringe every time you hear from him, but at some point you have to go out and have a beer with the guy because it’s too awkward to keep making excuses. that’s mark mulder to me --- don’t wanna hang w/ you anymore, but i know i’m gonna be stuck doing it.

maybe we can sign einar diaz to catch him, just for old time’s sake.

that’s all i got for now. game thread this p.m.