Cardinals

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Last news: December 31, 1969 19:00:00

i'm battling a bug of some sort, so just a quick post today. to begin with: cards face sandy koufax jr in a spring-training tilt; kip wells pitches for our side. gameday is right here, and you can also listen to mike and john call the game live.

community projections are up for braden looper and david eckstein. re looper: bdief has now seen two of looper's spring starts; he's got another diary up with some impressions. re eckstein: will carroll dropped this ominous remark about him in  the first "under the knife" column of 2007:

he's scheduled to return to the lineup today; don't swing too hard, david.

other readings:

• matt leach answers all your questions about the bullpen in this week's mailbag
  
• the stats geek thinks  the pirates have a shot to win the division . . . .
  
• . . . . and Bucs Dugout thinks the stats geek is high on crack
  
• Crawfish Boxes has an interesting little box that reminds us all to take spring training stats with many grains of salt. the box lumps the astros' spring training numbers into four categories: mlb regulars, the rest of the 40-man roster, the nris, and the people who've already been cut. among both pitchers and hitters, it's the nris who shine: nri pitchers have an era a full run lower than the team average (and nearly two runs lower than the projected mlb rotation), and nri hitters have the best batting average, slugging avg, and ops.

edmonds may not be ready by opening day, according to the p-d; from the tone of the article, i'd read that as "probably won't be ready." we're told "the mildest `hiccup'" could delay edmonds' availability by a week or so; no word on how long a moderate hiccup might hold things up, to say nothing of a cough, belch, or bout of reflux.

assuming edmonds does open the season on the dl, skip schumaker likely will be in uniform for his 2d consecutive opening day; skip left the game yesterday with a sprained ankle but i haven't read anywhere that it's deemed a serious injury. the cards face tom glavine in game 1, so schumaker probably won't be in the starting lineup; likeliest wilson, taguchi, and encarnacion in the outfield, although duncan might get the nod (despite the platoon thing) as a reward for his work last season. tony likes to hand out little perks like that.

still hard to see how john rodriguez fights his way onto the roster. despite an 8 for 17 spring he's likely bound for memphis, unless they trade him. you'd think some american league team might need a left-handed-hitting dh / outfielder. but then, the cardinals might find themselves needing a left-handed bat . . . . in the post article linked above, la russa evinced some impatience with preston wilson, who's swinging a sluggish bat --- 11 whiffs in 22 at-bats; i'm vaguely reminded of junior spivey's line from last spring. spivey, though, was coming off a couple of serious injuries and was never as good a hitter as wilson to begin with; i'm not convinced yet that preston is this year's junior.

very briefly, here are the results from the carpenter and encarnacion community projections. carp first: in descending era order, here's how the forecasts line up:

for the first time, VEB's projected era for a st louis pitcher was the lowest among all those under review; we weren't, however, wildly optimistic compared to the other, more objective measures. as with a number of earlier projections (see wells, edmonds), our carpenter figures matched those projected by the guys at cardinals clubhouse (CCH) almost perfectly. here's the aggregate projection:

and here are the aggregate projections of the 1 through 4 starters in the st louis rotation:

in the last four seasons, the cards have had 3 starting pitchers with era's of 4.06 or lower only once --- 2005.

the encarnacion projection . . . . why did we bother? there's incredibly little difference of opinion over what this player will do in 2007. more than 70 percent of the respondents (32 in all) put encarnacion's ops within a 25-point range (.750 to .775), and all but two of the "objective" projection systems put him in the same range. however, in his 8 seasons juan'cion has fallen outside those parameters as often than he's fallen within them; in the last three seasons his ops has only fallen within that range once, last year. he's really not that consistent a player from one season to the next; his average year-to-year change in ops is 50 points. since encarnacion was at .760 last year, a 50-point swing would put him in the range of either.810 --- a career high --- or .710. . . .

and here's the composite:

- [Read more]

Seems Thompson has been making some noise in camp recently and now is considered to be the favorite to inherit the 8th inning set up role. At the same time, he is a dark horse candidate to win the 5th spot in the rotation. I thought it would be fun to take a quick look over the career of Brad Thompson:

Thompson was selected in the 16th round of the 2002 amateur draft out of Dixie State College out of Utah. (It's a JUCO.) In 2003 and at the age of 21, Brad made his debut at low class A Peoria and fared well, posting a 2.91 ERA over 65 innings. He appeared in 30 games, starting 4 of them. In those 65 innings, he struck out 41, walked only 10 and allowed just 2 home runs. He was promoted to high class A where he appeared in 2 games, starting 1. Not a bad debut overall. His K rate was below average to call him a prospect, but with his control plus ground ball % he certainly could've been labeled a sleeper.  

Converted to starting from pitching primarily in relief in 2004, Thompson made national headlines when he set a Southern League record 49 scoreless innings. Being switched from starting to relief seemed to help Thompson, as he improved his K/9 ratio to 7.12 from 5.95 while maintaining his control. But as the season went on, Thompson tired both physically (shoulder) and mentally (you try and be perfect for 49 innings) and fizzled somewhat towards the end of the season. He finished the season in AAA and allowed 20 hits and 9 earned runs in just 14 innings. It should also be noted that Thompson represented the Cardinals in the Futures Game that year during the All Star Break. He was ranked the number #6 Cardinal prospect by Baseball America and #4 by John Sickels.  

You would perhaps think that after his season in 2004 the Cardinals would have thought they had a future starting pitcher on their hands, but the Cardinals joined the consensus that Thompson was destined to the bullpen due to his lack of overwhelming "stuff". Given a choice between the shortcut of making the bigs as a reliever or taking the longer and more uncertain road of starting, Thompson accepted a role in the 'pen at Memphis in 2005, and was quickly promoted to the Show, making his debut 5/8/05 and picking up a cheap save that day. He stuck the rest of the year in the "get out of a jam with a double play on a ground ball" role. His strikeout rate was only 4.75, but he didn't need to make a lot of guys whiff when batters were beating the ball into the ground 60% of the time.

Last year Brad got off to a good start, but went on a downturn in May and was crap in July, and was sent back to AAA to work on his mechanics. He made 14 appearances for Memphis and started in 5 games to get in more work and to perhaps audition for a future role. As we know, he finished the season with the big club and was on the playoff roster.

He's having an excellent spring thus far, and has caught TLR/DD's eyes for the shape he has come to camp in. Matt Leach at his blog reports that Thompson is a long shot to win a rotation job, but isn't that far out of reach that he can't win the job. With Kinney out, it's more likely now he'll remain in the bullpen, but when you look at his stats he's actually been better as a starter then a reliever over his brief career. Sure, those are minor league numbers and there's that 49 scoreless inning streak with all it's luckiness, but maybe Thompson could make a decent starting pitcher. I'm not for sure he can, but you can say the same of Looper, and BT has more starting experience. Fatigue has always been a concern for Thompson, but if it's true that he is in terrific shape, maybe he could endure the longer outings. No matter what role he lands in, he should be an asset.

There you have it. Behold! Wonderbrad! - [Read more]

cards vs orioles today; gameday link is here. wainwright pitches, and adam kennedy is supposed to make his ST debut. it's on ktrs, and mlb.com's got the live audio feed.

also, a quick plug for the debut edition of "The Sports Report," SB Nation's new podcast, which will happen live tomorrow night  at 7 pm central daylight time (don't forget to spring forward). access the show here. it'll be hosted by the writers for Stampede Blue, the network's indianapolis colts blog, and Mile High Report, which covers the broncos. a little more info:

two posts today; one below about mlb's wretched deal with DirecTV, and this one about relief pitchers. i separated the posts because i thought both subjects worthy of discussion, but they're too disparate to include in a single post. if you want to talk about the new TV deal, scroll down to the thread below this one and whale away at the bastards. if you're thinking about who will pitch the 8th inning for the cards in close ballgames this season, stay right here. (and/or vote in the poll.)

kinney's toast; you know that by now. not an insignificant loss, but let's not get carried away. josh didn't become the prime rh setup man until october; as late as september 28 (the 159th game of the regular season ) he was mopping up in a 9-4 loss. they have other pitchers with similar skills; that's not to say they won't miss kinney --- bullpen depth rocks, and the cards' just took a hit --- but i do think they can fill this hole without losing much (if anything) in terms of performance.

at Birdland yesterday, derrick goold ran down three candidates to take over for kinney. he doesn't say much about springer, beyond the fact that russ is not likely to pitch for at least a week (an ominous sign); nor does goold list braden looper, a guy who was signed specifically as a setup man and has made hundreds of late-inning appearances in his career. given the sudden hole in the bullpen and the presence of several experienced starting pitchers in camp --- franklin, narveson, keisler --- the looper rotation experiment seems more illogical than ever.

it's not that i'm such a big fan of looper as a reliever; he's got pretty limited skills at this point. but he wasn't disastrous last year; far from it. if i were in charge (hah!) i'd return looper to his usual role as a late-inning guy, running the anchor leg in a matchup-driven 7th/8th-inning relay. thompson, flores, ty johnson, and looper would pass the baton to one another, with springer (if he's healthy) and hancock and falkenborg and jimenez and whoever else getting into the act as needed. jimenez has been getting a serious look since camp opened and making an impression; he has faced 10 hitters so far, struck out 3, walked nobody, and allowed just 1 hit. the fact that he got the call in a save situation yesterday (and converted the opportunity with a perfect inning) is not insignificant. as matt leach likes to say, nothing happens by accident in a la russa-run camp.

i wrote about jimenez a week ago, toward the bottom of this post; did a little more homework on him last night. among other things, i sought an opinion from adam morris, who blogs the texas rangers (jimenez's old organization) for SBN at Lone Star Ball:

march 2 vs mets, 8th inn:
1st hitter: mike carp, 829 ops at class A last year --- lined out to short
2d hitter: chip ambres; batted .203 at triple A last season --- struck out looking
3d hitter: ex-cardinal catcher mike difelice; hit .272 at double A as a backup catcher, .080 in 25 at-bats for the mets --- grounded out to pitcher

march 5 vs astros, 9th inn:
1st hitter: eric munson; hit .199 for the astros last year, .211 career hitter --- lined out to second
2d hitter: mike rodriguez (no info available) --- grounded out to first
3d hitter: hunter pence; astros' #1 prospect, posted 890 ops at double A last year --- doubled to left
4th hitter: jason lane; .201 / .318 / .392 for houston last season ---- lined out to left

march 8 vs twins, 9th inn:
1st hitter: eli tintor; 749 ops at class A last season --- struck out
2d hitter: steve tolleson; 761 ops at class A --- struck out
3d hitter: glenn williams; 715 ops at triple A --- F8

the stats look great, but the at-bat-by-at-bat view isn't nearly as impressive; 4 of 10 batters hit the ball pretty hard, and the guys who didn't were mostly extremely young, inexperienced players. i think jimenez deserves a chance to show what he can do against stiffer competition, but these 10 at-bats don't prove much. as if 10 at-bats can ever prove anything . . . .

anthony reyes and brad thompson pitch today against the marlins, same team he faced last time; here's the gameday link. - [Read more]

if you're not familiar with the details of mlb's new deal with DirecTV, maury brown's Biz of Baseball is all over the story; head there for the whole ugly truth. the short version is that this deal screws the baseball fans who chose Dish network or InDemand cable as their primary tv carrier for one reason: so they could watch out-of-market ballgames. those games will now almost certainly be available only on DirecTV. under duress from angry fans, the sport belatedly gave Dish and InDemand the right of first refusal, but it's not likely either will match the DirectTV offer.

only the boobs who run this sport could mismanage the pr this badly.

the deal is of a piece with the cardinals' move from kmox to ktrs, which engendered the same sense of anger and alienation among devoted fans. step by step, baseball is making access to its product more difficult to get; if that seems bass-ackwards and stupid, read my piece for WSJ.com last year about the drift toward all-subscription radio. baseball's moving inexorably to bring their broadcast rights in-house: rather than sell the rights to a third-party broadcaster, the sport is going to cut out the middleman and broadcast the games itself --- and sell the rights to each game directly to us, the consumers. eventually we'll be buying tickets to see an individual game on tv or hear it on radio, much as we now buy tickets to see games in person. this line from the first paragraph of mlb's press release announcing the deal tells all:

i already buy broadcasts directly from mlb, via the mlb.tv package; that's my primary carrier of cardinal games, so i'm not impacted by the switch to DirecTV. but if you're among those who are impacted, i feel for you. you love the sport, but the industry could give a shit about you.

the bastards.

Update [2007-3-9 9:37:47 by lboros]: just to be clear: my beef is not with the longer-term trend, ie cutting out the middleman. there are certain advantages for the consumer in that model; it's a tradeoff, and there are certain things the consumer loses, but that model per se isn't what i'm reacting against. i'm reacting against the shrugging disregard for how the change inconveniences fans. they should be bending over backwards to make this transition as painless as possible for their customers. instead they take the opposite view.

the fact that mlb didn't anticipate any fan backlash speaks volumes about how much they thought about their consumers when they cut this deal. they didn't think about us at all --- and that makes me angry. - [Read more]

cards vs twins today; you can get the live audio via mlb.com, or track the action on gameday. kip wells, troy cate, randy keisler, ricardo rincon, kelvin jimenez, and brian falkenborg are slated to throw (hat tip, Birdland).

VEBber bdief was at yesterday's ballgame in dodgertown and liked what he saw. he promises another report from jupiter next monday, after the cards play the braves.

memphis redbirds broadcaster david kelly dropped in for a chat at the cards' FanHome chat room; transcript is up here.

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in both accountings, $8m in deferred money (owed to pujols, edmonds, and rolen) is counted as present-year payroll, even though the checks won't be cut until next decade or beyond. mr dewitt reckons that in-season acquisitions could push the payroll as high as $105m, which means that a) walter has $9m left to play with, and b) if they'd signed jeff weaver, there wouldn't be any slack left in the budget; any midseason acquisition would have to be balanced out by a salary dump of some kind.

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this exercise correctly predicted 6 of last year's 8 playoff teams, and back in 2004 a similar DM test was virtually alone in forecasting the cardinals' division title. so it's not completely meaningless that the cardinals keep coming out on top in the 2007 simulations. not that meaningful, either; they're only make-believe seasons, so the playoff tickets aren't being printed just yet. just the same, i'd rather see 'em do well in the sims than not.

st louis qualified for the playoffs 2/3 of the time in both the ZIPS-based and CHONE-based sims --- in both instances, they're the nl team most likely to make the postseason.

also in both instances, the sim-cards' pitchers allowed the fewest runs in baseball by a wide margin. PECOTA, you may recall, likes the cards' pitching staff, too, but isn't so crazy about the offense. DM/ZIPS doesn't think so much of the bats, either: st louis ranks just 9th in the nl in sim-scoring. (they were tied for 8th in DM/CHONE.) since pitching wins, i guess it's nice that the computers like our pitching; but then, the computers forecast pitching far less accurately than they forecast hitting. . . . . last year's preseason DM sims had the cards at 771 runs scored (off by 10) and 649 runs allowed (off by 113).

like i said, they're not printing playoff tickets just yet. - [Read more]

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