Lawless
Apr 12, 2008 Aug 29, 2008 23 318
29 Year old happily married lifelong cardinal fan living in Round Rock, TX. CPA!
a fan of
St. Louis Cardinals
RSSUser Blog
Solution to the Bullpen Dillemma...
by Lawless
on Jul 27, 2008 10:07 AM PDT
NEWSFLASH - The Cardinals Bullpen is in dissarray. Guess what, a better answer to the current situation is EASY. I am a qualitative first quantitative second kind of guy, but to make others happy and to drive home the point I'll reverse that trend for this fanpost... Quantitative analysis is as follows:
| MAJORS | ERA | FIP | ERA+ |
| Russ Springer | 1.89 | 3.25 | 225.00 |
| Kyle McClellan | 2.84 | 3.70 | 149.00 |
| Jason Isringhausen | 6.01 | 5.12 | 71.00 |
| Ryan Franklin | 3.96 | 5.02 | 107.00 |
| MINORS | ERA | FIP |
| Jason Motte | 3.40 | 2.32 |
| Mark Worrell | 2.45 | 2.93 |
| Chris Perez | 3.74 | 3.94 |
| Matt Scherer | 3.27 | 3.72 |
| Fernando Salas | 3.49 | 3.82 |
| Luke Gregerson | 4.03 | 3.50 |
Now lets talk roles.....
Closer - If you were beamed in from another planet you would say it's got to be Russ Springer. We know, due to age, he needs to be taken care of in a way that requires he not be the closer. There is no doubt Kyle McClellan is the man here. For reference Wainright's ERA out of the bullpen in '06 was 3.12 and he had a 3.31 FIP. Yes, wainright was a marginally better option out of the pen in '06 but the difference is not as great as the brain trust in STL believes when they start talking about moving Mr. Wainright to the pen now (e.g. the difference between Wainright and McClellan is a hell of alot smaller than the difference between Wainright and Boggs/Looper/Piniero). SAVE US TIME MAKE MCCLELLAN THE CLOSER. He is not only our best option at closer this year he will likely be our best option as closer for the next several years. Lets see if we need to go out on the FA market now....
7th/8th Setup - Option 1 is Springer, Option 2 is Franklin, Option 3 is Izzy.
Wild Card - Motte should be in the bigs. Look at his FIP. He is mowing hitters down in the minors. It is unbelievable that Flores is back up with what Motte and Worrell are doing in AAA. We need to give these two a shot and we need to give them a shot now....
LOOGY - Despite what happened with Delgado last night I am still of the belief that Villone is an effective loogy. I DO NOT want to overpay for the likes of Fuentes and Mahay. Lets get the other Burnett (Sean). He could be had on the cheap, is under team control for four more years and could develop into more than a LOOGY. Any second tier prospect would do......
So in summary our bullpen would be:
Closer - McClellan
8th Inning - Option 1 Springer, Option 2 Franklin
7th Inning/ROOGY - Option 1 Izzy, Option 2 Motte
LOOGYS - Option 1 Burnett, Option 2 Villone
Long dude - Doesn't matter, Thompson, Jimenez, Parisi are all decent options
The answer is easy isn't it? I know LaRussa might fuss but this needs to be settled.....
13 comments | 1 recs
The 08 Plan
by Lawless
on Nov 7, 2007 6:49 PM PST
I tried to wait until the final free agent list came out to post my 2008 plan for the Cards but I just couldn't hold out any longer. So here goes. I'll break it out by:
- Arbitration considerations
- Free Agents
- Trades
- MILB Considerations
- Roster
- Go forward...
24 comments | 0 recs
Scrap HEaps BACk ALRIGHT!
by Lawless
on Nov 3, 2007 2:03 PM PDT
Welcome welcome welcome,
The minor league free agent list has been posted at Baseball America and as always I feel as though I need to comb through and provide my feelings on possible hits and misses.
I wrote about this last year and would venture to say my hits and misses were as follows:
Hits!
- JR House - Switching Hitting Catcher who continues to mash with an 830 OPS in AAA this last year - can you say better/cheaper than Bennett?
- Cory Doyne - 12 K/9, Sub 200 BAA, Call up to Majors - Good Arm - Would have been a good use of a 40 man roster spot
- Al Reyes - We all know the story --- this would have been a Grrreeeaattt pick up...
- Kurt Ainsworth - didn't throw a pitch
- Dewon Brazelton - 3.5 ERA with his second team... Filler at this point...
- Sean Burroughs - Got a total of 12 ABs... Huh?
9 comments | 0 recs
Proposed Trade and Other Stuff
by Lawless
on Aug 26, 2007 11:00 AM PDT
I am of the ilk that Tony LaRussa is one of the main factors that this team is above 500 right now. I also think that as long as Tony and Dave stay Walt will stay (and Jeff will build the farm until it gets the recognition it deserves).
That said, I think Reyes is not a pitcher who is going to stick in STL (as much as I wish he would). So hit the jump and I'll let you know what I would trade him for as well as my plan for the Cards through the rest of this year and in 2008...
45 comments | 0 recs
Wild Trade Ideas
by Lawless
on Jun 30, 2007 4:17 PM PDT
Quick diary - Essentially - I think the Cards could use a trade or two (if not what else do we have talk about)... The key position I see us in need of is... SS... I also don't see us giving B Anderson a fair shot given Yadi's recent performance... so my proposed trade is:
Bryan Anderson and Jason Isringhausen
to the Angels for:
Brandon Wood and Jeff Mathis
The Angels need a catcher and if we could package Yadi instead I'd go for that, but if I were them I would want Anderson. Izzy could help the team in the playoffs (the alternative is use Izzy as a chip to pick up whatever else they want).
I'd be interested if anyone else has wild trade ideas (and yes I know Wood has been moved to 3B this year, but that is more a function of the Angels backlog at SS than his lack of ability to play there..).
By the way - has anyone seen what Cory Doyne is doing in AAA for the Os.... link... http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?n=Cory%2520Doyne&pos=P&sid=milb& t=p_pbp&pid=449127
26 comments | 0 recs
A Team Worth Watching...
by Lawless
on Jun 29, 2007 6:49 PM PDT
I am a life long Cards fan and want to submit my view on what would make the Cards a team worthy of watching. Looking at the starting lineup on Monday vs. the Mets I thought - jeez - I can have the Cards on in the background but this lineup is absolute crap! With that in mind...
For this diary - I am going with no rules - plausible trades and anyone in AA or above can be called up - I am also not taking into consideration how "future development" might be hindered... So my new roster would be...
12 comments | 0 recs
Dance with the one that brung ya?!
by Lawless
on May 19, 2007 12:27 PM PDT
To start things off, lets talk about positives from last night.
- The team kept fighting
- Pujols' 4/4 with a walk and opposite field blast makes one believe he might have regained his stroke
- B. Looper was going to get pounded sooner or later - lets see how he bounces back
- Tyler Johnson continued with his amazing season thus far. I still believe he could be an effective eighth inning guy.
- Eckstein is showing signs of returning to the land of the living
- At the end of the date it is only an L. Reyes is pitching great and will take it too the tigers today
"There is some speculation, within GM circles, that the Cardinals will look to trade Scott Rolen as soon as the team raises the white flag on their season, and Rolen would make sense for the Dodgers, in some respects. He would give L.A. a strong defensive presence at third base, plus some experience, and he could hit in the last four spots in the lineup and not be expected to be one of the main guys. The Cardinals clearly would have to eat a huge chunk of the salary owed to Rolen in the future -- he will make $12 million a year for each of the next three years -- but they could get a decent (but not great) prospect from the Dodgers."
link = http://insider.espn.go.com/espn/blog/index?name=olney_buster
My thought is that if we are required to eat any of Rolen's salary AND we could only get a decent prospect for him lets keep the guy. I still am not sold that we could get a better on base man than Rolen at 3B and we sure as hell couldn't get a better defender. He WILL COME AROUND!!! Bill James, Pecota, all know what they are doing. Guys scuffle. If he gets to an 875 OPS at the break and we could eat little or no salary and trade him for a decent set of prospects then I am all for it. But a Tino Martinez fire sale is not right for Rolen...
5 comments | 0 recs
Draft Pick Swaps and Pay for Baseball Info Quickie
by Lawless
on May 14, 2007 7:08 PM PDT
Two completely different topics:
MLB DRAFT
I am excited to see ESPN2 will be televising the first day of the draft. With that in mind I have always wondered why MLB insists on not allowing teams to trade draft picks. I wanted to solicit the group to see if anyone has any ideas on this? Seems like a decent way to add some excitement...
SUBSCRIPTION BASEBALL INFO
I can't get enough good baseball content and am currently subscribing to ESPN Insider, Scout.com, and Baseball America. I am planning to drop Scout.com and possibly ESPN Insider, but am looking to replace the content. I was looking into baseball prospectus but wanted to see if anyone in the group had reccomendations on good baseball content.
Thanks.
5 comments | 0 recs
Rasmus - The right time for AAA?
by Lawless
on May 13, 2007 12:14 PM PDT
Colby is hot right now in Springfield. I am a big proponent of the Cards philosophy to take it slow with Colby, BUT in 122 ABs Colby has an OPS of 939 and a walk rate of 10% plus.
Personally, since Colby is in the middle of a prolonged hot streak I would prefer to leave him in AA until he reaches around 300 ABs and take a look at his numbers at that time, but I am interested to get the group's thoughts.
The other, more interesting question, is if he keeps up the production would you give him a September callup and start his arb clock?
Finally what does the group believe Colby's upside potential is? I thought some semi-interesting comps would be:
- Johnny Damon
- Gary Sheffield
- Von Hayes
- Will Clark (the early years - as a hitter...)
- Carlos Beltran?
19 comments | 0 recs
Old Wounds
by Lawless
on Apr 19, 2007 6:01 PM PDT
Short diary today on an old and dear friend of ours. See if you can guess the friend.
Allbeit 50 abs into a long season, assuming 500 ABs his projected 2007 line is as follows:
OPS - 1.112
SB - 40
HR - 30
Last year his similar numbers for the full season were...
OPS - 942
SB - 37
HR - 33
By now I bet you have all guessed it, but I am really pulling for this guy even though he no longer wears the birds on the bat!
Who is this mystery man???
7 comments | 0 recs
Showing 1 - 10 of 23Older