belliard for cheap

you go make the show.

are what made the difference. I've never been impressed with Belliard as a defender.  He has to play very very deep to get to balls that shouldn't be that difficult.  By some of the play-by-play metrics, Kennedy is one of the top defensive second basemen -- not that I've seen him enough to have an opinion on his defense, just what I've read.

Belliard became a victim this offseason of bad press, (extortion cases will do that to you) and bad timing.  He tried to play the field early in the offseason, expecting some team to pony up, probably putting too much faith in the idea that the Indians were serious when they said they would like to bring him back last summer, and all of a sudden the market filled up and closed down on him.  The exact thing happened to Bengie Molina last year, if you remember correctly.  He made big time demands, assuming that the Mets really needed a catcher and really, really wanted him.  Well, they did need a catcher.  They traded for him, and suddenly the Dodgers, Marlins, Mets, and pretty much everyone else had filled their catching needs.  So he ended up going to Toronto on a one year deal.  Players often think they will make more if they wait til late in the offseason, when teams are getting desperate, to sign.  This is the flipside of that.  You wait too long, and suddenly the jobs are all gone.  

Also, I agree with a lot of others that there must be something else going on with the guy, clubhouse-wise or something.  

either. The Cards are continually taking risks on guys (plus, it's not like the extorition deal was his fault -- he was the victim!)

He seemed like a good teammate (got along with the guys on the field at least) and calling him a "thug" is just ridiculous (he's hip-hop). If the guys has any real shortcomings, it's that he parties too much (which is hard to do for a baseball player) and second basemen skills deteriorate faster than just about any other position.

I'm thinking it's just one of those flukey things, not enough room out there. Or, maybe he doesn't like playing in a town where some people think that if you're wearing a do-rag, you're a bad person. He will be missed, as is Hector Luna.

that it didn't play a factor? it may not make sense to all of us, but to the cards perspective it would serve as a distraction.

it's not that they haven't taken shots at guys with questionable character, but how many of them have stuck? weaver and belliard were moves made out of desperation..on top of that, belliard had his shot here, and he failed to impress, posting a .666 ops when he was here.

I'd take Kennedy and Reyes over Belliard and Miguel Batista anyday of the week. Basically that's all the extra 3 mill woulda netted. It woulda allowed STL to overpay for a very mediocre pitcher, thus providing another road block for our young arms.....which most people on this site have been begging to see all year. Yet now they diss Kennedy and long for Batista or Meche or Weaver? Can't have it both ways.

I for one, applaud the Kennedy signing and am somewhat excited to see what Reyes and Wainer can do for us.

Let DC have Belly, let KC have Meche, let SEA have Weaver.

we're discussing options and scenarios. nobody's bitching and moaning. lighten up.

if Kennedy and Belliard are both still on the market, we could have been playing them off of each other all of this time,a nd gotten Kennedy at a discount relative to the actual deal we signed him to.  

It's impossible to truly replay what happened.  Kennedy was Walt's guy, and $3M/yr is hardly crippling, but Belliard was manifestly a better deal.  Ah well.

and inquisitive mind add so much to these discussions . . . .

why worry? the cards are world champs.

i've been saying for weeks that, in my opinion, it's realistic to expect 86 to 88 wins out of the current roster. the belliard signing doesn't affect that evaluation one way or the other. in the nl central, i think the magic number is about 90 wins; i think the current roster is pretty close, and if the cards catch some breaks or make another personnel move they have a very good chance to return to the playoffs. maybe they'll get there; maybe they'll fall short.

i have supported most of the cards' off-season personnel decisions --- particularly their discipline in a stupid market for pitchers. but do i think every single roster decision was unassailably, unequivocally the "right" thing to do? that would be a pretty narrow point of view. like most people, i think there were various ways the cardinals could have gone --- and, being a curious person, i like to ask myself: suppose they had taken this other option, or that one --- how might things have played out differently? what would the tradeoff have been?

one of jocketty's strengths has been his ability to find bargains. adam kennedy is a bargain. belliard, it so happens, is a better bargain. i'm not tearing my hair out over that fact; i'm not worried, nor full of angst, nor bitching and moaning. i'm just noting it because it's interesting, and amusing, and ironic: the cards' biggest new acquisition turns out to be less of a bargain than the guy they let go.

it's nothing to get stirred up over.

his D-WARP which is based on BPs defensive metrics that aren't play-by-play metrics.  That really skews his value...not that he isn't a bargain but their defensive valuation is off.  Think more like 5-6M MORP, imho.

if you were a gm, and you could either have belliard at $700K nonguaranteed, or kennedy at 3/$10.5m, which one would you take?

i understand the cardinals never truly had this choice; i stated as much in the original text of this diary. i'm just asking for the sake of discussion --- which would you rather have?

personally, i'd take belliard. in addition to being cheaper and a better hitter, he is not a platoon player, as kennedy is. adam sits against lefties, which explains why he has made more than 127 starts only once in the last 6 seasons (he made 138 starts in 2004). with belliard, aaron miles probably doesn't make more than 15 starts at 2b; with kennedy, miles will be making 35 to 40 starts. . . . .

they fell a few million short on several of the pitchers they had targeted. if they had begun negotiations with an extra $2m in hand (current year) and an extra $8m in uncommitted money for 08-09, maybe those negotiations would've gone differently. maybe they'dve had more flexibility to bump up their price on one of the pitchers they wanted.

it's all hypothetical, all theoretical; just a mind exercise. jocketty's success depends on finding bargains and re-directing the savings back into the roster --- hoarding the savings for high-impact players. with the benefit of hindsight, we can see that there might have been an opportunity to save some money at 2b (without compromising quality at the position) and re-direct the savings back into the roster. i suggest they might have applied those savings to the rotation because that area of the team --- while almost certain to be better than last year's --- undeniably still has much room for improvement.

as i keep saying ad nauseum --- jocketty has a well-earned reputation for finding bargains. it's constantly cited as the secret to his success. well, here's a bargain opportunity that slipped through the cracks on him.