Viva El Birdos: FanPosts

Elijah Dukes: Yes/No?

2010-03-18T17:11:47Z

Now, I don't expect the Cardinals at all to sign Elijah Dukes, but he is still incredibly talented and only 25. On the plus side, you have good power, very good patience, and speed, matched up with so-so defense. On the minus side, you have, well, everything else.

He's reportedly cleaned up his act a bit since he has been in Washington, but he's never going to shake his reputation, and rightfully so. The report out of Washington was that this was about his inability to hit a breaking ball, but who can say for sure. If I had to guess, I would say Dukes will end up in Pittsburgh, where all careers go to die.

EDIT:

2008: .264/.386/.478 with 13 HR in 334 PA with 50 BB and 13-17 SB

2009: .250/.337/.393 with 8 HR in 416 PA , 46 BB and 3-13 SB

Now, he battled injuries in 2009, so maybe you can attribute some of those to his bad year.

In the field, he has

8.6 UZR in 81.1 innings in LF

-22.2 UZR in 614 innings in CF

2.8 UZR in 1152.1 innings in RF

So decent defense, albeit a small sample size

Cud LaDunc Work His Magic With This Guy??

2010-03-17T20:16:33Z

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2010/03/white-sox-release-daniel-cabrera-jason-botts.html

Daniel Cabrera. I know, the name just gives you the shivers, doesn't it? This is a guy who cud bring heat, but was just all over the place. Lots of wild pitches, hit batters, annual FIP over 5, nary a WHIP udder 1.50, and bushels of walks, walks, walks.

But

Lots of K's. And close to 50% ground ball outs. No serious injuries I can think of. And he'd be cheap, cheap, cheap.

Here is the question: is Cabrera worth picking up to use as a reliever ONLY, provided Dave Duncan can wave his sparkly wand and produce an-udder reclamation miracle, or is he such damaged goods that we should just wave buh-bye and be done with him?

Curious cows wanna know what YOU think!

;=8)

SCHEDULING KEYS TO THE SEASON

2010-03-17T16:21:43Z

After looking at the upcoming season schedule a few key areas stand as significant building blocks for a successful

defense of the NL Central.

1 Open with 12 of first 18 on the road ending in Ariz. + SF

2 SF starts a 17 game run ( from SF to home for 4 against the Braves )

-the 17 games include 4 at Philly

3 Home for the Astros to start a 13 game stretch- thats 30 games in 31 days !

! 4 Right after the All-Sar Break we host the Dodgers and Phillies for 4 each then 3 in Chicago 11 in a row.

5 Close August with 13 straight , heading into a potentially brutal Sept.

6 30 Days Has September and the Cards play 28 of them including 13 with no rest to close out the year-

that is barring any make ups .

They need good solid performances from the starters and to be healthy at these critical junctures of the upcoming

campaign. We caught a few breaks in scheduling - AL West with the Angels, Mariners and A's @home and on the road for Toronto and the JV I mean KC. The season also ends with the last 7 home against Pitt. and Col.

It,s these 6 important stretches that would go a long way to making the season we all want to see.

VEB Bracket Contest (EDIT: Created)

2010-03-15T16:18:12Z

How many people are down? I know we've done this in the past, but I don't see anything up yet. I think Hardcore ran it last year, so if you come dancing along, Hardcore, I'd be more than welcome to give it up. But if not, I'm more than happy to run it.

Went ahead and created this via Yahoo.

ID: 121557

password: pujols (all lowercase)

mods: sorry if this should be a fanshot/not on the site. more than happy to accompany you guys if this should be moved/taken down. thanks.

Strasburg v. Wainwright - March 14, 2010

2010-03-14T16:28:11Z

[Note by Valatan]: I'm not noticing a FP post today, and there is activity in this game thread, so I'm frontpaging it.

If you're missing an hour, it wasn't me. I swear.

The man, the glare, the schoolyard, Julio Lugo will be sidelined after what I gather is a groin strain. They're saying five "days". Or a "week".

Meanwhile, you can read the Post-Dispatch's feature on Colby Rasmus. Bring a unicorn.

Lineups and scintillating commentary after the jump... from the future.

Gametime is 12:05 Central Daylight Savings "time" on KTRS, GameDay Audio, and XM 184.

Globe-Democrat has the liveblog; ~~Rob Rains is supposed to follow on Twitter.~~

Cardinals

Skip Schumaker - 2B
Felipe Lopez - DH
Allen Craig - 1B
Colby Rasmus - CF
David Freese - 3B
Nick Stavinoha - RF
Yadier Molina - C
Joe Mather - LF
Tyler Greene - SS

Nationals

via minors.mlbcontrol.net

Edit: That's a chicken dinner. Have fun and have at it, VEB.

Do the Cardinals need to add another Bullpen arm?

2010-03-14T01:01:06Z

In 2009 the Cardinals Starters pitched 1003.2 IP and the Bullpen pitched 437 IP. The starting IP is the highest in baseball and the bullpen is the lowest in baseball. Assuming the 2010 starters will not be as good I have the bullpen pitching 463 innings. Which is still quite good. This is how it currently shapes up under a couple different scenarios with using CHONE projections. When CHONE projected the pitcher as a starter I shaved .5 ERA off their projected ERA.

With McCellan in the Bullpen

Reliever	ERA	IP	LI	RAR
Ryan Franklin	3.68	66	1.8	14
Jason Motte	3.69	65	1.4	11
Trever Miller	3.64	45	1.1	6
Kyle McClellan	3.71	67	1	8
Dennys Reyes	3.73	45	0.9	5
Mitchell Boggs	4.03	70	0.7	4
Blake Hawksworth	4.07	60	0.5	2
Jaime Garcia	3.95	45	0.5	2
Total:	3.82	463	1.01	51

Without McCellan in the Bullpen

Reliever	ERA	IP	LI	RAR
Ryan Franklin	3.68	66	1.8	14
Jason Motte	3.69	65	1.4	11
Trever Miller	3.64	45	1.1	6
Mitchell Boggs	4.03	67	1	5
Dennys Reyes	3.73	45	0.9	5
Blake Hawksworth	4.07	70	0.7	4
Jaime Garcia	3.95	60	0.5	3
Pete Parise	4.4	45	0.5	1
Total:	3.9	463	1.01	48

The best current reliever remaining is Russ Springer with a projected 3.91 ERA

With McCellan in the Bullpen AND Russ Springer

Reliever	ERA	IP	LI	RAR
Ryan Franklin	3.68	66	1.8	14
Jason Motte	3.69	65	1.4	11
Trever Miller	3.64	45	1.1	6
Kyle McClellan	3.71	67	1	8
Dennys Reyes	3.73	45	0.9	5
Russ Springer	3.91	60	0.7	4
Mitchell Boggs	4.03	70	0.5	3
Blake Hawksworth	4.07	45	0.5	2
Total:	3.81	463	1.01	52

Without McCellan in the Bullpen AND Russ Springer

Reliever	ERA	IP	LI	RAR
Ryan Franklin	3.68	66	1.8	14
Jason Motte	3.69	65	1.4	11
Trever Miller	3.64	45	1.1	6
Russ Springer	3.91	60	1	6
Dennys Reyes	3.73	45	0.9	5
Mitchell Boggs	4.03	70	0.7	4
Blake Hawksworth	4.07	65	0.5	2
Jamie Garcia	3.95	47	0.5	2
Total:	3.85	463	1	50

Without McCellan in the Bullpen AND Jamie Garcia staying in Memphis all year as a starter aka Worst Case Scenario

Reliever	ERA	IP	LI	RAR
Ryan Franklin	3.68	66	1.8	14
Jason Motte	3.69	65	1.4	11
Trever Miller	3.64	45	1.1	6
Mitchell Boggs	4.03	67	1.0	5
Dennys Reyes	3.73	45	0.9	5
Blake Hawksworth	4.07	70	0.7	4
Pete Parise	4.40	60	0.5	1
Replacement Level	4.75	45	0.5	0
Total:	3.99	463	1.01	46

Without McCellan and Garcia WITH Russ Springer

Reliever	ERA	IP	LI	RAR
Ryan Franklin	3.68	66	1.8	14
Jason Motte	3.69	65	1.4	11
Trever Miller	3.64	45	1.1	6
Russ Springer	3.91	60	1	6
Dennys Reyes	3.73	45	0.9	5
Mitchell Boggs	4.03	70	0.7	4
Blake Hawksworth	4.07	65	0.5	2
Pete Parise	4.4	47	0.5	1
Total:	3.89	463	1	48

So even under the best scenario the most Russ Springer will add is only 2 runs. Which works out to $880K. Is it worth adding Russ Springer who would take IP away from someone younger and more upside? Or would his veteran leadership be worth it? You decide

Source from Beyond the Boxscore

1985 Don Denkinger bad call photo

2010-03-12T02:42:55Z

Hey Everyone,

My wife will be moving to Kansas City to work for one year.

I want to get a nice framed photo of Don Denkinger's bad call in the 1985 World Series against the Royals for her to hang up in her cubicle and annoy all of the Royals fans in her office. However, I'm having trouble finding a nice quality image to get printed. Does anyone know where I can find one of these bad boys? My fallback option is a signed photo of Don Denkinger, which appear to be plentiful on ebay.

Thanks in advance, and Go Cards!

VEB Needs a Tagline

2010-03-11T22:35:39Z

An unofficial St. Louis Cardinals blog is pretty unoriginal and is flat out blander than bland. I know VEB peoples are more creative than this.

Lookout Landing switches out their tagline constantly, anything from proclaiming hatred for people who think Adrian Beltre is overpaid and overrated, to commenting on their center fielders sexiness, to their most recent "Felix is Ours and You Can't Have Him"

McCovey Chronicles has the humorous "In Play: Outs" as their tagline. Using GameDay language while mocking your team simultaneously in such a pithy fashion has to make the blog more fun for their community.

Royals Review has "Nobody Getz out Alive". Using a pun with their utility infielder. Not bad.

How in the world does VEB, the meme factory that it is, get stuck with a tagline of "An Unofficial St. Louis Cardinals blog" for YEARS?

C'mon VEB staff. Make with a tagline. We need something snappy, stat.

(Another) Fantasy League

2010-03-11T16:44:49Z

I have a Yahoo roto league that needs a few more teams (we currently have 8, and I'd like to have at least 10 to 12). I have a live draft set up for March 24 at 8:30 p.m. CDT. I have most of the "typical" stat categories, like avg, hr, rbi, w, k, era, etc. Let me know if you have more questions. Let id and password are here below:

ID# 198359

Password: holliday

Wednesday Morning Fun Fact

2010-03-10T14:12:15Z

Also known as "The Robot doesn't want to open the 700 comment post anymore" quick post.

Take a guess as to Ruben Gotay's 2009 walk rate in AAA Reno. Answer after the jump.

21.3%

That was the best walk rate in the PCL for 2009 and more than double his pre-2009 career walk rate. CHONE projects a 13.9% walk rate in 2010, which seems high to me.

Rich Hill still has two arms for some reason.

2010-03-08T20:17:07Z

via www.midwestsportsfans.com

This is all Matt Clement's fault.

With the signing of Rich Hill, some of us declared that he would be a possible midseason candidate for the fifth spot of the Memphis rotation. He'd been signed for nothing, and that was fine, but there just wasn't any way he was going to become an impact player in anything but the long and optimistic term. He was fusion energy. He was a lottery ticket. A good sign that Mo was still rooting through the bottom of the TJ Maxx bin with all of the designer items, and a small thing that we could needle our Cubs friends about, but nothing more.

Small sample size warning, but Rich Hill just made himself a candidate for the 25 man roster.

So how in the bloody hell did that happen? Rich Hill had torn his labrum, and I'm pretty sure Will Carroll said pitchers with labrum tears should go die in a fire along with Justin Bieber and the cast of Jersey Shore.

via profile.ak.fbcdn.net

The simple fact that Hill can throw a baseball today rather than six to nine months from today means his labrum tear probably couldn't have been higher than grade II. Labrum tears are graded, by the way, on a scale from I-IV.

I'm going to ramp up the terminology, so here goes. The labrum we are talking about is called the Glenoid Labrum. It's a ring of cartilage that expands to form the socket of the ball and socket joint that is the shoulder. It can be torn many ways (Aside: many, many god damn ways), most commonly through shoulder dislocations, however dislocation tears are much less serious than the tears suffered by pitchers. The difference is mostly location: Tears in the normal population affect the front and underside of the labrum- just above the inside of your armpit. Tears to throwers affect the top of the labrum, under the deltoid muscle, and they are called SLAP tears. The reason they are more serious, is that the pitcher uses their arm a lot more often than the average person, and the location of the tear (top and back of the labrum) involved the point that the biceps muscle connects to the larger connective tissue structure.

Still with me?

These tears (SLAP tears) are graded based upon severity, and based on the tissue involved. If the posterior (back) of the labrum is a bit frayed, but the biceps tendon is uninvolved, that's about as good as it gets. Avulsion is the term for an injury where one structure pulls away from another: Avulsion of the labrum from the scapula (the connective tissue pulling away from the bone) is another problem that arises in labrum injuries and causes a lot of the instability, increasing the grade of the injury from I to II. The worst thing you can find is a deep labrum tear that includes a tear of the biceps tendon (grade IV)- no pitcher that I know of has ever recovered from this injury.

When a doctor talks about "debridement" that means he was cutting away frayed and worthless tissue that was probably causing inflammation. When a doctor talks about repair, that usually means the reconnection of an avulsion injury to stabilize the joint, or suturing of the biceps attachment. I and III tears are usually only debrided, while II and IV grade tears are repaired.

Other findings in a labrum repair include bursitis, cysts, and joint capsule or rotator cuff problems. When the body attempts to repair the damage to the joint, it initiates a series of reactions that cause inflammation, which engorges the structures in the area with fluid, sometimes causing more problems. Cysts are formed by the body in reaction to tears and other problems to isolate areas of damage. Inflammation often causes joint capsule and rotator cuff problems because there is less space for these structures to move around one another.

Here's an article.

Some of the terminology used in the article doesn't sound right to me, and it's not just the thing about Hill being a Tony Robbins fan:

explaining how only a thread of the labrum had to be repaired and not the whole liner within the joint.

That's a very odd thing to say about the tissue, because the labrum doesn't exactly thread around (except at the biceps attachment, a spot that Hill probably didn't tear or didn't tear very much if at all). This sounds more like Hill is talking about the joint capsule or misusing the word thread.

Since the procedure was limited to correcting the sliver of labrum causing impingement in his joint

This is also a bit odd. Labrum problems are bad because they usually cause a lot of instability and weakness (this is why it made sense that Hill lost all of his command: A labrum injury implied that his upper arm wasn't as tightly connected to his body as it had been)- not necessarily impingement. The term impingement applied to the shoulder almost always means bursitis or tendonitis. Bursitis does often present as part of the entire shoulder injury syndrome along with joint capsule tearing and labrum fraying, but they are different things that cause different problems.

In all, I'd say I'll be ecstatic if Hill proves me wrong and really tears it up this spring. A true contest for the back end of the rotation would be excellent. It seems obvious that he had a good surgeon and some good luck with his shoulder, but only time will tell if he is truly healthy and truly ready to pitch.

2010: A Baseball Odyssey

2010-03-07T00:54:05Z

Hope everyone is doing well and is getting excited and totally scorched about baseball. I am so excited, in fact, that I have decided to write about it, in some detail. There are many reasons why I love baseball... baseball legends can come out of unexpected places, such as Albert Pujols, every pitcher's worst nightmare. How many 13th round picks would be given the chance, let alone define a generation, in every season they play? That's one of the best aspects of baseball, to expect the unexpected. You can see a team go from worst to first in the best division in baseball. If you are not paying attention, you can be harmed as an audience member... in fact, if you are not paying attention, you could miss one of the best reasons to watch the game: the diving catch, the jaw dropping stop at short, the double (or even triple) play, ending an inning. And of course, the home run, perhaps the most dramatic play in all of sports. There are plenty of reasons to love baseball, and I'll never fully understand why some people don't like it. Perhaps one of the reasons why they don't, is what I think is one of its main strengths: there's no clock. Who needs a clock when you are relaxing and enjoying being outside, enjoying a frosty cold one during the good months?

I remember vividly playing little league games during summers around my years of age 14 to 16. Thinking about that, makes me feel younger, as I was in high school during the early 90s, and had been practicing, collecting, watching and listening baseball. The characters in the nearby township that I met, spitting loogies onto the fence over and over (some even chewed tobacco), had been playing baseball for years (and I had played neighborhood kid ball with like 2 or 3 other people for years, sometimes just with a tennis ball so as not to hit cars driving by). I jumped right into the league though, and upped my saliva jettisoning techniques... our team oddly named the Green Rock Orioles (we of course wore plain orange and grey). This was not without trepidation, because some of the pitchers could hurl at about 70mph, and I had a lot of difficulty getting up to speed. In fact, I pretty much sucked at hitting for the most part, because I was so far behind in skills (and I was a late bloomer, I didn't stop growing until I was about 22, and some of those guys were nearly gam level at age 16). I really didn't like using metal bats, considering I only used my Pedro Guerrero edition Louisville Slugger (my favorite player at the time), so I had to learn to hit a little differently. I did get a new glove that I liked immensely, my Mizuno. The best thing that happened with that revered specialty item, was during a night game the catcher's father, (aka little league manager) threw me into center field without warning, after our normal CF got hurt. Normally I was the right fielder and I would always get very nervous any time the ball was hit in my direction. Well, on this one mosquito infested night down by the Green River, I had a ball rocketed into center field, and I ran as fast as my stubby little legs would carry me, facing away from the ball. You see, this one was going to bounce off the wall, it was hit on the seams. Unbelievably, to everyone including myself, I held up my glove at the last second while slightly turning around, lights in my eyes. And that f'r dropped right into my glove. I couldn't believe it, and had one of the best feelings anyone can have, matched only by me finally getting a double in my 3rd year of playing (which proved to be the last year I played baseball, I finally got a hit greater than a single!!)... and well, playing in a band has similar positive mental effects I must say. I love teamwork involving people with vastly different skills and styles of playing/living, working together on something that is more than the sum of the parts. Call it gestalt, or man stew, or what have you.

To backtrack even further, I first became a baseball fan in the early 80s, as both my parents liked baseball. My mother has been to countless stadiums, including Yankee stadium, the original Shea, and many more cities like Philadelphia, St. Louis, Chicago, San Fran, and more (I guess that's what happens when your grandfather is the manager of a sporting goods store). My father and his brother, my Uncle Marv, were both Cardinal fans and immense beer drinkers (both in shape and quantity consumed). I must admit, my dad liked both the Cardinals and the Cubs, having periodic business trips to both St. Louis and Chicago... I guess you could say he was a more casual fan than most. But it was one of the few things that our family could rely on year in and year out, even my brother liked baseball (he was always sort of on his own trip).

As a kid living in the boondocks, the main appeal of baseball was always the diversity of characters, and especially the 1980s Cardinals, who always played good ball. I collected the baseball cards, usually only saving the Cardinal players' cards. I watched baseball on the tv when it was on, and when it wasn't I'd listen to Jack Buck on a quadrophonic radio equipped with an 8 track player. I had a pretty vivid imagination, so it didn't really matter that I didn't always get to see the game. It was just fun to hear the stories from Mike Shannon and company, about the Whitey Herzogs, the Vince Colemans, the John Tudors, the Ozzie Smiths of the world. And of course, Willie McGee, who was my mom's favorite player (and probably mine too, although Ozzie gave him some staunch competition in fandom). I got to see a few games in person, barely controlling my excitement whenever that occasion rolled around. We would always have to get there on time too, because if you didn't you would miss Ozzie Smith's grand entrance to every game, the cartwheel backflip. Plus you'd never know when he'd make one of those plays...

Another thing was that living out in the country, rural areas could get rather boring for a kid without cable. So I'd always coax my younger brother out of the house to play some catch, or taking turns pitching or hitting. I'd try to throw a split finger fastball most of the time, and when we got hits we'd run around the makeshift bases set up for the game (sometimes to my dad's chagrin, he would hit metal objects with his mower). It would have been nice to have more kids in the neighborhood to join in the fun, but me and the bro always made it work, even if sometimes he was less than thrilled to have to play baseball again (I was sort of a bossy older brother, I guess that goes with the territory). Heck, I'd even get my sluggish dad out of the lazy boy every once in a while, him almost falling over a few times swinging the bat, but it was well worth it, because usually he only believed in chores or going fishing as father son activities. I was just glad that he got me that Louisville Slugger though, and we always had plenty of baseballs to go around, even after I'd lose them in the field across the street, on the other side of a fence and passing cars.

So this time of year is always pretty special to me, because baseball is back, and the winter is slowly receding into the background of time again, which is in and of itself a great thing. But to see the storylines return, the ridiculous awesomeness of the stew of man return, just makes this time of year amazing and full of anticipation. And there are plenty of stories to follow, as we have yet another Cardinal team to focus on, the 2010 version.

After getting swept last year in the first round of the playoffs, one of the words to describe what is probably going through many of the players minds is redemption. And it isn't just limited to the players from last year. We have two new players who are really trying to prove themselves, as their history looks rather inconsistent, to put it bluntly. Brad Penny joins the starting pitching corps, and well, he's just all over the place. A glimpse at his career reveals FIP levels ranging from very good middle of the rotation type (3.39, 3.59, 3.64, and 3.63 in 2001, '04, '05 and '07) to back end of the rotation type (4.52, 5.27 and 4.46 in 2002, '08 and '09). His strikeout to walk ratio can be found anywhere between 2.98 to 1.21, depending on what year he is pitching. In the tERA dept, we see Penny somewhere between 3.85 to 5.59 in just the last 3 seasons (although in 2004, we see him at 3.67 tERA with a 1.13 ground ball to fly ball ratio!). Good news is, Dave Duncan is really good at these types of situations, so I have reasonable optimism about which side of the Penny will reveal itself this year.

Our other relative newcomer is Felipe "Lopex" Lopez, sort of a phoenix arising from the ashes. I am pretty excited that he really likes playing for St. Louis by his own estimation, and he is a true TLR-style roleplayer, in that he can play or reasonably imitate being a third baseman, a second baseman, a shortstop, or an outfielder, in that order of preference. But like Brad Penny, Lopez has been pretty hard to predict, especially on offense, where his walk percentage can fluctuate pretty drastically from year to year, so what type of eye does he have? Also, his OPS can be well above .800 (usually meaning they are a pretty damn good hitter!) or it can be pretty awful, in the mid .600 range. Good news is, he has always hit the ball pretty hard, lots of line drives can prevent the defense from being able to stop you. Another odd thing about Felipe, is his slugging percentage and ISO are also pretty inconsistent. One last little note is, he does have some speed, a few years ago he was a base stealing threat, and he doesn't ground into a lot of double plays.

Another obvious redemption story would be David Freese, who has had some issues no doubt. Last year he missed a chance to win the third base job, possibly due to a car accident caused by some rather poor choices. And one of the big offseason stories was him being pulled over by the boys in blue, due to a rather high blood alcohol level. There's really no excuse for this, he's living the dream and might be a major league baseball player. But it's not a very surprising case... this stuff happens, whether you would like to ostracize him or not. He is still going to have the chance to win the job at third base, and prove that he should be starting there. Maybe he can use some of his luck to get some hits, and play some plus defense. I'd very much enjoy it if he can do so, because I've been touting him as a prospect since Jimmy Baseball left town. I still think that if he puts his mind to it he could hit 15 maybe even 20 home runs if he gets the playing time, and not stink up the joint with his 3B performance. We'll get to see if he can do it.

Back to the starting pitchers, Lohse can prove that he was worth all that money, after a rather disappointing 2009. His 2008 season pretty much made that year of baseball a lot of fun, because he was pretty much ace-by-default. I still remember that Lohse much better than the '09 one, because he had a lot of bad luck with injuries, it seemed like every time he turned around some small injury was bugging him, and it pretty much turned into a running the gauntlet type of year... he didn't quite make it through unscathed. But at least he tried and I have little doubt that he could return to a key contributor again in '10. What I'm really hoping for from him is sort of what Pineiro did last year, to be accurate, paint the corners, whatever he needs to do because, well, he's a great competitor from what I've seen. Oh yeah, and he pitched 200 innings in 2008, that's always an asset from any pitcher who's not a colonel.

On to our double headed ace, Carpwright or Wagon Christ, or whatever you may wish to call it. I think last season was the first year in all my years of baseball experience to see my team have two near-winners of the coveted Cy Young Award. I will be on the edge of my seat to see if Carp can make up for lost time over the years and stay healthy, because he can make a team. Speaking of competitors, I don't think anyone not named Albert Pujols can compare in that department. Except maybe everyone's favorite Waino, who is also quite the difference maker. Can Adam show that he is an ace-level pitcher Cy Young candidate again this season? Who knows, but I like his chances. He'll at least be better than most pitchers.

To finish up with the rotation, there's a great story for the #5 spot. Will it be yet another Duncan reclamation project, Rich Hill? Or will it be one of our minor league surgery recovery stories? If Hill is toast, McClellan or Garcia are heavy favorites to be that guy, the fifth day guy. It takes a lot of courage to pitch at the major league level after a major surgery, and it will be very interesting to see who will take the ball on the fifth game of the season. Hell, maybe it will be a boy by the last name of Lynn.

Lessee, any more redemption songs to think about... Albert is no longer plagued by a balky elbow, Yadi is, by all accounts, in the best shape of his life (and some are projecting him for a break out season on offense). Ah, here's one: can Skip Schumaker sell it at second base? We all know he can hit righties pretty well and be an adequate leadoff hitter against them, but can Mark McGwire make the cobbler attack the lefties? Hell, there's another one: can Mark McGwire be a great hitting coach? We shall see how it works out... I don't think they can do much worse than last year in the plate discipline area. Worth mentioning again, can Skip play second base? Well, we know he can after last year, but it will be very interesting to see just how well.

That's why I'm so stoked about this season, there's just so many stories on just this one team, that we are ecstatic fans of. Of course, I should be wrapping this up soon, I've been writing this for a while now I must say. And hopefully you're still reading this! I guess the last stories involve the outfield, where Ludwick had a bit of a step back in his hitting abilities. Not that he was bad last year, he was just so good in 2008 that we all had our hopes up for him (and if he did well, we might not have Matt Holliday on the team). Which brings me to, can Matt Holliday win back the hearts of the fans that were so disappointed by his non-catch in last year's playoff game... that was a big fuck up. At least he had a good attitude about it, everyone makes their mistakes. But can he prove that he is worth a rather large contract, the beneficiary of many a Cardinal fan's hard earned money? Many lamented that contract, it would be very cool to see him play like he did for us last year after the trade, there's no doubt dude can hit. And I hope he keeps up the good work.

Lastly, can Colby pick up where he left off last year? As our one time top prospect, Rasmus is one of the most captivating players to watch, for his fluid and very effective defense, and his rather intriguing power potential (some of those home runs were nothing less than BLASTS). I'll be the first to admit I was rather disappointed with his on base percentage, as well as his low batting average. But it's been said that he starts out slow at each level he begins at, and I am still very excited by his raw talent, defense, and speediness. Heck, fangraphs (where I've culled all my stat details from btw) even likes his clutchiness pretty well. Here's hoping he avoids the sophomore slump and makes it a sophomore bump, in offensive production.

That about wraps it up, I have a couple more players to mention: Mather, Craig, Ryan, Jay... we have a lot of double first name players on this team! Can boog recover from his late offseason malady, and prove that his defense from last year was no joke? Can Mather bounce back from his similar wrist problem, and be wrist strong? Will Allen Craig get the respect he deserves, and not find himself on a milk carton again? And will the Chief Justice make the team? That's why spring training is so exciting, you finally get to see some resolutions to all these storylines, well at least you get to go to the next chapter anyway.

2010 Cardinal Approval Ratings

2010-03-05T19:59:33Z

Last year, I did some approval ratings for those related to the Cardinals. Players, announcers, management all came in for their share of the scrutiny. Everyone gave their approval rating (on a scale from 0 to 100) and I averaged them out to get the total.

Instead of the numerous posts I did last year, this year I've made up a handy-dandy form for submissions. You can register your opinion, then use this FanPost to discuss and debate, if you want. I'll keep it up until next Friday (March 12) and then the week after that announce the results on my blog.

So register your opinion and let's see how Cardinal nation feels about these guys!

What does the BA Top 100 tell us?

2010-03-02T22:59:46Z

I have been studying the Baseball America Top 100 Prospects list as well as the reaction among Cardinal fans and media members to the relative scarcity of Cardinals’ farmhands on the list. For those of you who haven’t seen the list, Shelby Miller at #50 is the only baby bird selected.

The absence of high-end prospects is the primary reason that the various minor league rankings have been unkind to the Cardinals. My interests are in helping to address the questions:

1. Where do the highly ranked prospects come from?

2. Why are there not more high impact prospects in the Cardinals’ system?

3. How serious of a problem is this?

4. Is it likely to continue?

First, a few numbers about how the list breaks down. There are 18 amateur free agents (Latin Americans) on the list. Of the remaining 82 drafted players there are there are four from the 2004 draft class, eight from both the 2005 and 2006 draft classes, eighteen from the 2007 class, twenty five from 2008, and nineteen from 2009. Forty seven of the drafted prospects were drafted from high school, thirty one from four-year colleges, and four from community colleges. Fifty of the 82 prospects were drafted prior to the second round, seventeen from rounds 2-5, and fourteen were drafted in the sixth round or later.

This breakdown already hints at why the Cardinals are not well represented. First, the Cardinals have only recently even attempted to be players in the amateur free agent market. I haven’t researched this, but I think Jose Cruz might be the last significant player the Cardinals signed in Latin America. There goes 18% of the prospect pool. Hopefully, the Cardinals’ accelerated efforts will bear fruit in the not too distant future – maybe Eduardo Sanchez can change that. Since seven of the top 25 prospects are from Latin America, it would certainly make sense to invest heavily in that market.

Second, of the 50 first-round picks on the list there were a total of 30 that were picked before the Cardinals had a chance to make a selection. Of the remaining twenty taken in the first round, seven were available when the Cardinals picked Brett Wallace (ranked 27th) in 2008. Only two of those seven, Aaron Hicks at 19th and Casey Kelly at 24th , are ranked higher than Wallace. Five on the list were available when the Cardinals picked Shelby Miller last June. The only one of them currently ranked higher than Shelby is supplemental pick Tanner Scheppers at #44. I don’t know how many 2007 first rounders are already in MLB (other than he who should not be named), but only one first-round pick chosen after Pete Kozma is on the top 100 list. Both of the 2006 first rounders on the list were obviously taken before Adam Ottavino since the Cardinals picked last as I wish they would every year. Finally, our 2005 first round pick is getting ready to start his second season as the starting CF for the big club.

The final group to consider is the 32 draft picks who were not taken in the first round. Of this group, 23 were high-school picks, seven came from four-year colleges, and two were taken from community colleges. Since most of us are aware that the Cardinals have a strong preference for college picks, this would seem to be an area for improvement. Since 2007 the Cardinals have used over 85% of their picks on college players and seem to especially prefer college pitchers. While there are data that support that college pitchers are slightly more likely to make it to the big leagues, I haven’t seen anything that indicates they have the same level of success. Most of the elite pitchers either come from high school or are amateur free agents. For example, the Cardinals’ top four starters were all drafted from high school, as were Kyle McClellan and Jaime Garcia. Of the twenty highest rated pitchers at fangraphs, only three were drafted from college. Three were amateur free agents and fourteen (70%) were drafted out of high school.

I know the BA list is just a snap shot in time and is only an opinion concerning who the best players are right now. I think it is important information, but is far from the only basis for judging an organization’s minor league system. Nevertheless, I think we can gain some validation from this list as well as an indication of areas for improvement. I don’t think you can really say that the recent first round picks have been a major problem. The Kozma pick was probably a mistake of some magnitude or other, but it isn’t like the guys picked after him have been anointed as big-time prospects (other than the notorious one). Rarely will the Cardinals draft high enough to land obvious top players. After all, only three of the top 30 prospects were available to be drafted when the Cardinals had their turn. Two of those were passed on so the Cardinals could take Wallace and one was the 78th overall draft pick so every team passed on him at least twice. Nevertheless, the Cardinals have major work to do in the amateur free agent market and could be much better after the first round. I hope to see improvement in Latin America, but I don’t think we will see much improvement in the later rounds as long the Cardinals maintain their strong preference for college players.

" Baseball fantasy or reality "

2010-03-02T01:44:56Z

ST LOUIS --- " Fantasy Baseball to begin so be prepared "

"sometimes i dont really know if baseball is fantasy or reality, because something that could be a fantasy for a minor league player one day, could be a reality the day after receiving a call to play in the majors, or a fan who only sees the baseball on television, and magazines or baseball cards might meet a baseball star player the next day and get an autograph "

"I remember back n the days, when i was about 11 years old i used to go to the university stadium in Caracas Venezuela and jumped to the field to ask for autographs, and when the players finished their pre-game warm up, I used to go to the dugout with them and enjoy the game from there , it became like that for several seasons, I had the opportunity to see major league players from back in the days closely and now i thinking it wasnt a fantasy because i realized that the players from the baseball cards are just people like us "

Today with the security situation in the world , its not posible to do that anymore, but still is the same ball game, but with different regulations, the game of baseball its been chaging fast, the players, uniforms and statistics, even the salaries of the players.

I remember a game Rick Ankiel from St Louis Cardinals hit a foul and the ball came right to me and catch it I was like saying wow, that was a fantasy for me before , but now im interacting with the baseball game , because the ball was in play just seconds before I have it in my hands.

"certainly saw Alex Gonzalez let go of his bat and hitting a fan in the face, that interacts but for the wrong side bad luck "

looks like a fantasy but is the fantasy baseball season and the MLB website is offering 10 Gs to the first place and other sites even 50 thousand dollars, looks like a fantasy, but maybe in the future , players probablie gonna dissapear and just robots or computer animation gonna play the game, thats what i think .

I always think about the evolution of baseball stadiums how they will look like , in the MLB website , there is a section of " stadiums of the future " where you can view and contribute with ideas to do what you think is missing from the home of your favorite team, I think fans should interact more with the team and their favorite players, so the fantasy may become reality.

In my next column I will discuss ideas for a stadium near perfect or good!

see you.

I'm on twitter @ mantk2

"The Big Unit Randy Johnson once told me, I sign autograph only in the field "

Es el Busch Stadium amigo de los Pitchers o lo es HOK SPORT ?

2010-03-01T05:23:15Z

SAN LUIS -- En verdad eso es lo que dicen pero recuerdo un batazo de de Marcus Thames de los Tigres de Detroit que pego en la punta del poste amarillo del left field del Busch Stadium," wow " creo que uno de los batazos mas largo que e visto en vivo, la reaccion del publico fue el silencio,sino pegaba alli la hubiera puesto en tercer piso, y tambien vi un Home Run de Albert Pujols que pico y creo se fue del Stadium, pero en la estadistica es un parque amigo de los pitcher,recuerdo en un juego, un amigo me pregunto que cual habia sido el Home Run mas largo que habia visto y le dije que los 2 habian sido en el Estadio Universitario en Caracas en Venezuela uno de un pelotero llamado Anthony Shines y uno de Antonio Armas el primero mas arriba de la mitad de las gradas del right field y el segundo en el ultimo escalon del left field, en verdad es un factor importante en el baseball actual, es algo que le gusta a la " mayoria " del publico , siempre se ha hablado del Coors Field como el parque mejor amigo de los bateadores por la cantidad de Home Runs que se han batiado alli , pero este año sorprendio el nuevo Yankee Stadium por que la bola sale demaciado , ok en una publicacion del Usa Today periodico norteamericano , salio lo que puede ser la respuesta, por supuesto el viento es lo primero , pero este nuevo tipo de construccion permite jugar con ese factor "brisa" el diseño del Stadium fue hecho para que hubiera Home Runs con especialistas en Aerodinamica y todo, es decir entre el right y el center field hay lo que literalmente es una " Aspiradora " , cuando la bola llega acierta altura es como que el viento se la tragara y se fuera del parque "wow" a eso hemos llegado, batazos que fueran de rutina para un outfield se convierten en cuadrangulares tanto fue la situacion que estan haciendo modificaciones, por que tambien afecto a su equipo pero no para ganar el Campeonato del 2009 , curiosamente el Busch and Yankee Stadium ambos fueron diseñados por la misma gente " HOK SPORT " y los 2 son los que tienen mas anillos de Campeones uno es de la Nacional y otro de la Americana . curioso . * sabian que Coors Field tambien fue diseñado por " HOK SPORT " ... interesante no?*

Musings on Fantasy Baseball or Why You Should Join the TGBL

2010-02-27T08:22:02Z

Back in 1993 I was working my way through college at a pizza joint who had just given up the guarantee of "30 minutes or less" - which as far as I was concerned was all the franchise had going for it – because some driver who creamed a minivan* in St. Louis used the guarantee as his excuse.

The manager of this place was named Lloyd, and he invited me to join his fantasy baseball league. It was an 8 team Rotisserie league, National League only with all the rules taken pretty much straight from Dan Okrent's book. The draft took place on a beautiful March Sunday, with the NCAA tournament on the TV and a spring training game on the radio. Somebody brought brats, and another brought a cooler full of Yoo-Hoo – which I found out gives me heartburn after about five. We had a 7 hour auction draft, and it was an exhausting experience. I was completely clueless. I thought I knew baseball (I was in my early 20s... I thought I knew everything) until I came out of there with a team that would prove to live up to its herald: Jonathan's Rotten Apples. I overbid early (I had a mancrush on Greg Maddux) and ended up with a bunch of middle relievers... and Greg Maddux.

In my three years in that league (the name now escapes me) I never finished out of the basement. If you are around my age, you remember the day when Compuserve was dying, AOL was still pretty cool, and the web was quite novel.** The info we now take for granted wasn't as accessible back then. For three summers and offseasons, I followed and learned about baseball like I'd never done before. Every day before, between, and during my classes I would devour the box scores and game summaries from the local paper. I subscribed to Baseball Weekly. If I remember correctly, lineups were due on Monday, stats started for the week on Tuesday, and Wednesday's USA Today marked time for a series of summers that are among the most enjoyable of my life. Lloyd had to do the stats pretty much by hand – and we were usually a couple weeks behind in the scoring. Didn't matter though. It was a blast learning to play the game-within-the-game.

All this is to lead into my pitch – I've created a Yahoo league that is set as close as I could remember to the old-school style of fantasy baseball. It's a 12 team 5x5 NL only Rotisserie scoring auction draft league. The only oddball thing about it is the draft time – Sunday, March 28, at 10PM central. The draft should last till about 1:20 in the morning. I work an odd shift, so this draft time was chosen to accommodate my work schedule.

If you're like me - and I know I am - and you have Monday mornings off and would like to play in a retro-roto league, we'd love to have anyone who'd enjoy a recreational-but-serious league. As of this posting, there are two of us (thanks MooCow), and we would really like to fill out the league with clubs so we can draw deep from the limited pool that is the NL.

Yahoo has mock drafts that will allow you to become familiar with the auction interface. The webapp that they are using seems to be pretty good – except it tends to overbid when you have it set for autobid.

The name of the league is the Total Grit Baseball League (in honor of Aaron Miles).

League ID is 273321, and the password is "grit".

If you'd like to join, you can get there from here: YahooPage

Hope to see 10 of you there.

Update: Seven teams have joined as of 3/11. Looking for 5 more so somebody will have to draft Troy Glaus.

* This may not be totally correct, but the town is right (I think), and you get the drift.

** Actually, AOL was as bad as ever, but we didn't see the shortcomings yet.

Unofficial Albert's new officially unofficial nickname thread

2010-02-26T20:13:15Z

Per rotoworld, Albert has again stressed his displeasure with the nickname "el hombre". And we don't want to make Albert mad (or do we?). So lets use this thread to discuss the new officially unoffical nickname at veb.

We should probably eliminate any and all variations of the man including el hombre, mang, etc.

"the machine" is an obvious candidate. i have no idea how that translates to spanish.

anything relating to destruction of brad lidge should deserve serious consideration as well. lets just be sure to get out in front of the dispatch on this one so we can dictate the new nickname.

well, this is just a brainstorming thread. i may add a poll once we get some frontrunners.

Hey all

2010-02-25T19:21:39Z

I've been subscribed to the Birdos blog for awhile now, but am yet to be active on it. I am a HUGE hockey fan, so that has been at the forefront of my attention lately, but with spring training looming closer, I thought I better introduce myself. I am a student at the University of Northern Iowa who loves baseball and had the privilege of watching Pujols play minor league ball in Peoria for about 20 games (lived there briefly). I was 11 I think and I bet my dad a whole dollar that Pujols would make it into the majors, to which my dad said he didn't have a prayer. I got my dollar. Anyway, just wanted to introduce myself, and I look forward to talking baseball with you guys. Go Cardinals!

Pitching attitudes versus OPS

2010-02-22T00:45:11Z

Ok, first post ever here, and not real sure about the mechanics of this thing. So lets get this party started.

This question first came into my mind thinking "was George Brett actually good?". Seems like a three-tiered question to me: 1) obviously, yes, he was great, followed by 2) he was a Charlie Lau slap hitter at a corner spot who likes high batting averages followed by 3) yeah, he was pretty good. But, lets talk OPS+, the era players played in, and the big question:

How has pitching strategy affected OPS+ through the eras of baseball, and how does it affect the effectiveness of our analysis of OPS+, or other ways of evaluating players? The "pitch to contact" idea has obviously affected players lately, Greinke coming to mind first, and I wonder how much this affects things. Players have obviously valued high batting averages - I think in 1984 a player with a .335 average and a .336OBP would have been highly valued, over a Jack Clark type. I want to know how that has affected pitching. It almost feels like a deadball type era thing trying to come back - a pitcher is better off just throwing to the batter, and the batter gets forced to slap the ball, knowing he isn't going to get a walk from battling the pitcher back.

Again, this is a post to discuss pitching, and how the approach has changed. Just thinking about the idea of J. R. Richard pitching against George Brett in 1980, and how attitudes toward the game have changed.