Viva El Birdos

Classic Cardinal: George Hendrick

KYCards — Fri, 09 May 2008 03:04:59 -0000

The 2nd edition of Classic Cardinal is George Hendrick.

"Silent" George Hendrick was known to many as a guy who spoke silently (at least to the media) but carried a big bat. George had long history of refusing to speak to the press, but he was well-liked by his teammates and Cards fans. He was one of the NL's premiere hitters in the late 70's-early 80's and is now a VEB Classic Cardinal.

Hendrick began his career in 1971 with the A's where he got his first World Series ring in 1972. In early 1973 George was traded along with current Cards pitching coach Dave Duncan to the Cleveland Indians. He played with the Indians for 4 seasons when he was then traded to the Padres. On May 26, 1978 the Padres traded George to the Cardinals for pitcher Eric Rasmussen. He played for the Cardinals for 6 and a half seasons and won his 2nd WS ring as a member of the 1982 World Championship team.

In 1980 (his best season as a Cardinal) he posted 25 Hrs and 109 RBI (which was 2nd in the NL behind only Mike Schmidt) and batted .302. In the 1982 Championship season George had 19 HRs with 104 RBI. With the Cards George won the Silver Slugger Award Twice (1980, 1983). Silent George was by far the biggest power threat on those early 80's Cardinals teams. In December of 84 the Cards traded George and catcher Steve Bernard to the Pirates for pitcher John Tudor and OF/catcher Brian Harper.

Hendrick was a 4 time All-Star (1974-75, 1980, 1983) and in total played with the following teams Oakland Athletics (1971-1972), Cleveland Indians (1973-1976), San Diego Padres (1977-1978), St. Louis Cardinals (1978-1984), Pittsburgh Pirates (1985), California Angels (1985-1988). His career totals include 267 HRs, 1111 RBIs, 1980 hits, and had a career BA of .278.

George was a roving hitting/outfield instructor for the Cards from 1993 to 1995 and was a coach for Tony Larussa in 1996 & 1997. George is currently the first base coach for the Tampa Bay Rays. He will return to St. Louis for the May 16th, 17th & 18th series when the Rays take on the Cards.

Parisi

Dabohman — Thu, 08 May 2008 23:26:04 -0000

So what do you guys think of Parisi. He has now had 2 opportunities to show what he is made of in the Majors. His first outing throwing 2 innings of scoreless ball. Retiring his first 5 batters and then walking Holliday and Helton roping one up the middle. He then retired Atkins to get out of the inning. I think he showed a lot of poise here, where a lot of rookies could have let this one get out of hand real quickly.

His second appearances weren’t too bad. He allowed 2 runs in 3 innings, where he allowed both in his 3rd inning. Helton did miss a 3 run dinger by about 4 inches, but Parisi also allowed his 2nd run on a wild pitch where he and Molina were crossed up with men on 2nd and 3rd.

Parisi who has been a started his whole career is in the pen for who knows how long. He has done his job so far, eating up innings and not allowing anything too crazy to go on. I would like to see Parisi maybe in the 5th starter roll soon enough, but for now I think he is showing a lot of poise and a good future.

A Great Article on Rick Ankiel....

The MooCow — Thu, 08 May 2008 17:36:47 -0000

... is here.

One of the things I liked about the article was how the organization displayed patience with a player whom everyone thought was washed up. This patience is one of the great attributes of the Cardinals' organization, and it is one of the prime reason we are cowsidered to be one of THE premier clubs in MLB. There are other players in this organization we need to apply this patience to (Mark Mudler comes to mind immediately); think about this the next time you're howling for the blood of one of our players because he made a mistake, or has had a few injuries. Don't cownt anyone out until they cownt themselves out.

Rah rah. sisboombah. That's the MooCow logic for today.

:=8)

Jimmy Edmonds...released??

jodicards — Thu, 08 May 2008 16:39:29 -0000

Off of the "view from the cheapseats" website...Jimmy Baseball may be released by the Padres as early as this weekend...

link: http://bellevillenewsdemocrat.typepad.com/viewfromthecheapseats/2008/05/padres-may-rele.html

I loved Edmonds when he was in STL and hate to hear anything bad about him...he really was an amazing center fielder and I think deserves consideration to be in the Hall of Fame...

Just wanted to see what others thought about this...Good Luck Jimmy! I hope you can raise that BA and retire on your own terms...

Rockies inquire about AReyes

DenverCardsFan — Thu, 08 May 2008 15:26:51 -0000

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/may/07/rockies-turn-reynolds-pitching-help/

Along with inquiring about Josh Fogg of the Reds and Julian Tavarez of the Red Sox, the Rockies have asked the Cardinals about Anthony Reyes.

From Rotoworld.com: Reyes remains available, but the price will be substantial. Among the prospects the Cardinals could ask about are outfielder Dexter Fowler and infielders Chris Nelson and Hector Gomez.

One ranking I saw of the Rockies' prospects had SS Nelson at #3, SS Gomez at #4, and OF Fowler at #5. I would obviously hope for Nelson, who is a power-hitting IF and blocked by Tulowitzki and his long-term contract.

Cardinals throwing fewer changeups.

DriverZn — Thu, 08 May 2008 03:18:38 -0000

An interesting note came up in a recent game thread. Our pitchers seem to throw fewer changeups than one would expect. To see if this is my imagination or possible real, I looked at the fangraph data for players that changed teams and had reasonable sample sizes with the cards and other teams.

Pitcher	% changeups with cards	% with other teams
Kyle Lohse	8.6	18.1, 14.4, 11.9
Looper	8.2, 8.8, 6.8	7.2
Wellemeyer	9.2	15.6, 28.7
Pineiro	13.2	11.5, 12.2, 14.0
Villone	6.6ss	11.6, 12.7, 13.5
Franklin	3.4, 6.7	8.5, 11.8
Kip Wells	10.6	8.2ss, 13.2, 12.6
Marquis	9.9, 5.6	6.0, 10.8

No pitchers appear to be throwing more changeups with the cards than their other teams. Where multiple numbers are listed is one entry per year. I marked a few (ss) for small sample.

Looper, Pineiro, Wells, and Marquis all threw about the same percentage with the cards as their other teams. However, Lohse, Wellemeyer, Villone, and Franklin all appear to be throwing fewer changeups as a cardinal.

I don't have an explination for this. Only theory I have is the changeup isn't a groundball pitch which is a focus of our team. It hower is a pitch to contact pitch.

The one concern I would have is the changeup is the pitch that puts the least stress on the arm. By throwing more other higher stress pitchers this increases the chance of fatigue and injury.

Izturis update. Is he a solid contributor?

CardsWin — Wed, 07 May 2008 20:09:23 -0000

How is Cesar Izturis doing just over 20% of the way into the season? Has he been a solid contributor, as this VEB fan predicted in an earlier fan post?

Fielding

Cesar's RZR stands at .897. That is second in MLB only to Troy Tulowitzki among qualified SS’s. Izturis is still approximating the gold glove form he displayed the last time he was playing healthy and full time, in 2004 and early 2005.

Hitting

Cesar's OBP stands at .354. That's better than the 7th ranking ML SS, out of the 25 ML SS’s with enough AB’s to qualify for the batting title.

But Cesar's SLG is very low, even lower than expected, only .293, slightly better than the 22nd ranking SS (out of 25).

That makes Cesar's OPS .647, very low, only slightly better than the 19th ranking ML SS (out of 25).

That 19th ranked SS happens to be David Eckstein.

Comparing Izturis to all ML Hitters This Season

Many in this forum have repeatedly bemoaned Izturis' weak hitting (he's certainly no Renterria or Tulowitzki, we all agree), but a few have even referred to Cesar as the worst hitter in the major leagues. Let's test that assertion:

Of the 193 qualified batters to date this season, 33 have an OPS lower than Izturis. That is, Cesar has a better OPS than 17% of the full-time ML players. Okay, he's not a great hitter. None of us imagined he would be. But Izturis so far has been a respectable hitter, though barely so.

The season is only one fifth finished, though. So we can expect all player stats to gravitate, or regress, toward their career averages (or, more precisely, to the next point on their rising or falling career performance curve, depending on age and epxerience). The fact that one fifth of a season is too small a sample size to make a projection for a full year is strikingly illustrated by looking at some of those 33 players who today have a lower OPS than Izturis but at least some of whom are extremely good bets to end up with much better numbers than Cesar by the end of the season:

Gary Shefield
Ryan Howard
David Eckstein
Adam LaRoche
Ryan Zimmerman
J.J. Hardy
Freddy Sanchez
Khalil Greene
Andruw Jones
Mike Lamb

Wow. It will be a bit of a surprise for most fans to see Izturis hitting better than Eckstein. But to see Izturis outhitting Sheffield and Howard is a shock! Hail, Cesar!

A Solid but Not Great Contribution So Far

So far, Izturis is right on track to match his OBP from his last period of good health and full time play (2004 and early 2005), so we should expect about the same OBP the rest of the year. His .293 SLG is 40 points lower than his career SLG, though: .333. And his SLG this year is about 90 points lower than Cesar's .381 SLG in 2004, his last full year of healthy, full-time play. So it appears safe to say that we can reasonably expect Izturis to hit more doubles and a few more triples than he has so far this season.

Let's check in again at the mid-point of the season and see how Izturis is doing by then, when we'll have a more solid basis for projecting his stats for the whole year.

Mulder set-back

tdawg — Wed, 07 May 2008 19:09:47 -0000

from the Strauss chat this afternoon:

Mulder is being shut down for 7-10 days because of what has been diagnosed as a "mild strain" of the rotator cuff. This is the same cuff twice surgically repaired the last two years. The club has recalled Mulder from his rehab assignment and will leave him on the disabled list. The club believes Mulder may return to a fresh rehab within 2-3 weeks, but at this point that may be optimistic. An additional shoulder strain (slight tear) is not for a pitcher who has had portions of the cuff shaved twice. Mulder's earliest ETA in St. Louis now appears to be late June. This can not be considered positive news.

In Contention Trades

joecardsfan — Wed, 07 May 2008 16:51:19 -0000

While I know it awfully early to start thinking trades, I'd like to see who VEB thinks would be a good trading partner for us, if we are still in contention over the next few months. And fortunately the way we have been playing, this is a distinct possibility. Here are the questions I pose to you:

Who are our best trading chips?

What positions do we need some help?

Who would you like us to go after/think we have a shot at getting?

To answer my own questions, I think our best chips are (maybe not at this moment, but based on salary, age, position, etc) the following: I think the two that would jump out at most of us are Duncan and Reyes. Duncan would be a good fit for at AL team where he can DH for 1/2 of his starts. Obviously Reyes isn't going to work here, so getting him some time in AAA to showcase his stuff might make him appealing in a few months.

I think the places we most need help are SS (although Izturis has had a few hits as of late), and relief pitching - most notably closer (Izzy really scares me). Also, depending on if our starters and outfielders stay hot or at least semi-warm, we may be in the market for one of those spots, as well.

That being said, I think I have a quality fit, who we are all familiar with: the A's. My proposed trade to them would be Reyes and Duncan for Bobby Crosby and Huston Street. I think this could work for various reasons. Duncan would be a good platoon player in the OF and at 1B, as well as hit some at DH to give the "Big Hurt" some time off. Also, with Thomas only signed for this year, this gives them a bat under team control for the next few seasons. Obviously adding Reyes gives them another young pitcher, who is cheap, that they can groom into a quality starter and then flip for more prospects (Hudson, Mulder, Haren). What we add is a closer in Street, who they may be willing to part with bc he is on a one year contract that he signed to avoid arbitration, who we could potentially lock up long term depending on his asking price. We also add a SS with some pop who is locked up through next year at a fairly reasonable salary (around 5 mil for next year). This allows us to either bring Izturis off the bench late in games for D, or allows us a nice pinching hitting bat when Crosby isn't in the lineup. We don't take on that much salary, it shores up our already crowded outfield, it gives them a few quality pieces to mold and flip, they get something in return for two players who won't be with them after this season and next, respectively, and it helps our everyday lineup/bullpen. I think this works for both clubs.

I ask you now VEB, what do you think on this topic!?!!?

Ludwick as a full-time starter

gossard56 — Wed, 07 May 2008 14:57:24 -0000

I've been beating the "start Ludwick drum" most nights in the game threads but decided to throw this up as a fanpost. It might seem convenient that I'm posting this the day after Ludwick goes 4-4 but it is mostly coincidence (i happen to have some free time this morning).

Ok, the current situation has Duncan starting against righties and Ludwick starting against lefties. This makes some sense since Duncan struggles against lefties so give the right handed Ludwick the start against them. So far this has worked well with Ludwick hitting .250/.368/.594 with 3hrs against lefties. The only problem is that Ludwick hits righties even better then he does lefties! Through out his whole career he has hit righties better than lefties and this season he is hitting a Pujolsian .362/.412/.660 against righties.

I know Duncan supporters say that Ludwick can't sustain this type of hitting, that he is a journeyman that is on a hot streak. Well, you must remember that he was a top hitting prospect coming up through the minors who had a couple of hard luck injuries hit just as he was getting his chance. Sure his numbers will settle back down somewhat, but there is no reason to think this isn't true ability finally being displayed now that he is healthy and been givin a chance.

I won't go into discussing how Duncan's power has all but dissapeared for a fairly long streach now. Bernie covered that with an article this morning.

I also don't need to discuss the defensive side of the comparison between the two. No contest there with Ludwick winning that in a landslide.

Based on Ludwick's play last year and this year he has earned the chance to play everyday in the outfield. In fact, it seems pretty clear cut that Ludwick, Shu and Ankiel have solidified themselves as our starting OF. They can all 3 hit righties and lefties well enough to not bother with platoons and they give us our best possible OF defense. In fact i'd say that group is as good as anyones OF defensively. I'd also have Barton as the 4th OF with the ability to start for all 3 of these guys giving them days off.

I'd like to know what others thoughts are on Ludwick and Duncan. I feel like its a fairly even split around here on this topic. I know I have a few people with my back on this one.

16 year-old prospect from Venezuela

birdsonthehat — Wed, 07 May 2008 11:31:31 -0000

Anyone know anything about this 16 year old that Jeff Luhnow is in Venezuela recruiting?

STL Sports Insider makes it sound like he wants a better fit than more money. Could be a prospect to look forward to in about 8 years. Have we done this kind of recruiting in the past? It is nice to hear that Luhnow himself is down there checking out these guys.

There are a bunch of good bits on prospects at STL Sports Insider .

I just had to....this is too funny (Astros)

HoosierCardFan — Wed, 07 May 2008 07:50:40 -0000

ESPN recently released it's power rankings. Nothing too amazing or surprising in there, except this one little blip:

Astros

13-16

It's probably not a good thing when your closer leads the team in wins.

I nearly fell out of bed laughing (i'd never thought about a closer potentially leading the team in wins, even a month into the season). Ouch. I'm sure all the prognosticators thought that might be us, and even though I only had us at 83 wins on the season, I'm glad we're not anywhere close to that!

Shane Robinson

akaitori — Wed, 07 May 2008 00:16:54 -0000

Has anyone noticed that Shane Robinson is hitting over 400 in Springfield? Slugging close to 600, OPS over 1000. He went 3-4 yesterday and again today. I gather that he is rather much on the diminutive side, but does anyone think he is a legit prospect? Where would he fit at Memphis? Can he play multiple positions? Which position player is most likely to be called up thus setting the dominoes cascading and stacking? Is Robinson the most likely Springfield call up?

Has Anyone Noticed...

The MooCow — Tue, 06 May 2008 18:37:40 -0000

...that we seem to be hitting the ball? Here are our batting averages before today's game:

Ankiel .273; Barton .311; Duncan .271; Glaus .232; Izturis .231; Kennedy .329;

LaRue .077; Ludwick .308; Miles .311; Molina .277; Pujols .358; Ryan .333;

Schumaker .298

Top 3 Runs Produced: (RS + RBI) : Pujols (43), Ankiel (37), and Schumaker (36)

Top 3 Total Bases: Pujols (100), Ankiel (70), and Schumaker (69)

Top 3 OPS (OB% + SLG%): Pujols (1.114), Ludwick (1.026), Ankiel (.840)

Pretty kewl! I wonder cow Pujols' OPS stacks up against the rest of the majors. Just as a fun cowparison, Babe Ruth's lifetime OPS was 1.164, Ted Williams' 1.116, and Lou Gehrig's is 1.080.

:=8)

Pujols and Plate Discipline

trogdor — Tue, 06 May 2008 06:24:53 -0000

Quick questions: Is Pujols swinging at more pitches? Is he reaching at pitches he normally wouldn't have swung at? Are teams really pitching around him? Quick answers: No, No, and Yes.

Fangraphs.com, courtesy of Baseball Info Solutions, has given us the opportunity to see what the real statistics are. Here are the statistics explained.

Take a look at Pujols stat page (scroll to the bottom). Not only is he swinging at less pitches, he's making more contact, especially at pitches out of the strike zone (exact opposite of what my eyes were telling me). There's also been a sharp drop, so far this year, in the number of strikes he's seeing; he currently ranks 13th among qualifed hitters in the % of strikes thrown to him.

Just wanted to point out some great new stats to check out, and one of the first things I wanted to look at when I heard about them. One final interesting ranking is the top contact % among ML hitters right now. It's easy to see, based on the company he finds at the top of this list, that Pujols has a very rare combination of contact rate and power. The legend continues.

Game 33 Overflow II

Hardcore Legend — Tue, 06 May 2008 03:52:06 -0000

BLAH BLAH

NO CUTTERS

Andy Marte??

The MooCow — Mon, 05 May 2008 17:05:31 -0000

MLB Trade Rumors reports from the Buffalo News here that Andy Marte, 3rd baseman for the Indians, cud very well be DFAed soon - he's young (24), not hitting in Cleveland, and out of options.

Is this someone the Cards should take a flyer on? This is a guy who was seen as Chipper Jones' replacement, and who hit like a truck in the minors. He is still young enough that perhaps a change of scenery could do wonders for him. We already have 2nd base backed-up by Brendan Ryan; doesn't it make sense to pick up Marte, if possible, and DFA Aaron Miles? Miles is a gritty chap who always seems to do well for the Cards, but we cud really use a back-up to Glaus, and this guy was a pretty hot prospect for a while. If he puts up the kind of numbers close to that the Braves and Indians expected, he cud at the very least provide us with some moore trade bait to improve the club, bait far tastier than Miles cud ever be (in spite of his gritty play).

What do you all think??

:=8/

Albert and consecutive games on-base record...

DCRedbird — Mon, 05 May 2008 16:02:41 -0000

First, I haven't seen it, but my apologies if someone's already covered this on the site in recent days... With his double last night, Albert reached based for the 32nd consecutive game, which got me wondering: What's the all-time record streak for this category? We all know about DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak, but I've never heard who holds the record for consecutive games on base....

Turns out it is Ted Williams, who reached base in 84 consecutive games in 1949 (July 1 through September 27). DiMaggio's 1941 hitting streak helped him post the 2nd highest streak on the list -- 74 consecutive games on base (May 14 through August 2). Williams also holds the 3rd and 4th spots -- 69 straight games in 1941, and 65 games in 1948.

As for players in more recent years: Barry Bonds (as you might expect) has the longest streak -- 58 games in 2003. (That's the longest NL-streak, matching Duke Snider's 58 games in 1954.) Wade Boggs had a 57-game streak in 1985; Ryan Klesko (?!) had a 56-game streak in 2002 for the Padres; and Jim Thome had a 55-game streak for Cleveland in 2002. Stan the Man holds the Cards' record -- Musial reached base in 55 straight cames in 1943. More recently, Vince Coleman reached base in 50 straight games in 1987.

Two questions for everyone to ponder/debate:

1) What do you think Albert's chances are of breaking the Splendid Splinter's record this season (or even DiMaggio's 74, for that matter)?

2) What's the more impressive record (or -- perhaps a slightly different question -- which will be the toughest to break): Ted Williams's on-base streak, or DiMaggio's hitting streak?

As for #1, I'd put Albert's chances at about 15 percent; 84-straight is a hell of a lot of games.

For #2 -- tough call. Obviously it's a little easier simply to reach base in a game than to get a hit... but keeping any sort of streak alive depends on a fantastic combination of talent and sheer luck, so Williams's 84-straight-games on-base streak looms pretty large to me given the huge number of consecutive games where he had to do something right (either get a hit, draw a walk, or get plunked). So I'd give that the slight nod over the great DiMaggio hitting streak. I'd be surprised to see either one broken anytime soon, but my guess is DiMaggio's might be a little easier to crack.

Parisi Getting the call?

Dabohman — Sun, 04 May 2008 15:12:51 -0000

I heard that Parisi got the call up to the Cards. I have followed Parisi since he was in High School as I am a Sachem alumni myself. I am guessing this is for a start or two to get his feet wet for maybe later in the season when they will really need him. I know he is on the 40 man roster and is a work horse who once he gets that chance will do everything to prove himself. What do you guys feel about this?

Mulder...to the bullpen?

MilCardFan — Sun, 04 May 2008 14:23:45 -0000

I read in the PD this AM that Mo will be heading to Memphis to watch Mulder's next rehab start on Monday (tomorow). He's about halfway through his 30 day rehab stint, and according to the article, they have to, at the end of 30 days:

activate Mulder from the disabled list when his rehab assignment expires, shut him down or reassign him to extended spring.

First of all, when they say shut down, is that back on the DL for 15/30 days, or shut him down for the year, and how long can a guy go back to extended spring training? Either way, let's say they activate him. The current starters have done nothing to warrant getting booted from the rotation, so why not put Mulder in the bullpen, and let him get his "sea legs" under him? Granted, that would mean sending down someone who doesn't deserve it, either Villone, Flores, or one of the starters, but it gives the Cardinals the chance to see if Mulder can still pitch without having to re-adjust the rotation.

I know that there's ego and big money involved, and that has to be part of the equation when taking something like this into consideration, but what would it hurt for Mulder to be a long reliever out of the bullpen for a couple of weeks if the Cardinals think he's ready?

Is this completely insane?