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Viva El Birdos covered a lot of ground this past week. On top of some great posts by Joe, Craig, and Eric, VEB launched a couple of recurring posts. Rui started the 2014 VEB community projections for the Cardinals and Lil' Scooter published her first news roundup with links to stories from around baseball.
Fanpost of Note
- VEB community member stlfan: The Most Important Statistic for Each St. Louis Cardinals Player
Saturday, January 18, 2014
- Fourstick and I came up with a series called the "VEB Knowledge Nest." The idea is to cover various terms and statistics that we use frequently here on the site, so readers have an easy-to-access library of sorts to refresh their memory or to learn. Fourstick penned the first installment in the series, which explained the 20-80 scale used by MLB scouts.
Sunday, January 19, 2014
- Another series of posts fourstick and I thought up was a series of profiles on the members of the Cardinals 40-man roster who are unlikely to break camp this spring on the 25-man roster. I've always referred to these players as "The Other 15," so that's what the title. I introduced the series on Sunday morning with a 40-man roster matrix.
- Fourstick profiled outfielder Joey Butler in the first Other 15 post.
Monday, January 20, 2014
- I explored whether the St. Louis Cardinals had maintained the Dave Duncan pitching philosophy under the leadership of manager Mike Matheny and pitching coach Derek Lilliquist.
- I analyzed how the 2013 Cardinal pitchers compared to the MLB pitcher averages in GB%, FB%, LD%, K%, and BB%.
- Joe took an in-depth look at groundball machine Seth Maness's sinker.
Tuesday, January 21, 2014
- I examined the former Cardinals managers who were named as members of the first ever Cardinals Hall of Fame induction class.
- I looked at how the players who were named as members of the inaugural Cardinals Hall of Fame class stacked up to other former Redbirds in the stat of Wins Above Replacement (fWAR).
- Fourstick wrote an Other 15 post on catcher Audry Perez.
Wednesday, January 22, 2014
- In the second VEB Knowledge Nest post, fourstick explained the difference between "skills" and "tools" in the lingo of ballplayer assessment.
- Joe conducted a fun interview with Cardinals pitching prospect Kurt Heyer.
- RB delivered his fourth MLB amateur draft preview, Speed Kills: Cruise Control.
- I introduced the VEB community projections series.
Thursday, January 23, 2014
- Rui debuted the VEB community projections series with Yadier Molina. We're still accepting Molina 2014 projections, so please feel free to share yours by filling out the form in Rui's post.
- With Peter Bourjos expressing his goal of swiping 40 bags in 2014, Craig examined the Cardinals' history of 40-plus stolen bases.
- I took a look at Yadi's improvement as a hitter by charting how his rankings in relation to his MLB peers in various offensive stats have gone from in the 200s to the top 30 over the course of his career.
- Joe considered Tony La Russa's decision to have no team logo depicted on his Hall of Fame bust and delivered his hot sports take on the matter.
Friday, January 24, 2014
- Joe delivered an in-depth analysis of why he thinks the Cards should use Trevor Rosenthal as a starter in 2014.
- Craig looked at what we can expect from Jon Jay on defense in 2014, based on the defensive metrics of past players who were coming off a bad defensive year.
- Lil' Scooter debuted her "Hunt and Peck" recurring feature. She'll be collecting links on the Cardinals and sharing them with us throughout the year.