The Hardball Times -- Larry Borowsky http://www.hardballtimes.com/main Baseball. Insight. Daily. en studes@hardballtimes.com Copyright 2013 2013-05-24T08:08:15+00:00 Why the Cardinals lost to the Dodgers http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/why-the-cardinals-lost-to-the-dodgers/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/why-the-cardinals-lost-to-the-dodgers/#When:06:03:15 the series preview, the St. Louis lineup—even with midseason reinforcements Matt Holliday and Mark DeRosa—was routinely held to three runs or fewer over the last 40-plus games of the schedule. Sure enough, the Cards scored three or fewer in every game of the NLDS. And Ryan Franklin’s ominous spate of September blown saves continued into October. More on that in a moment.

The Cardinals’ main advantage in the series—starting pitching—didn’t manifest, as Chris Carpenter and Joel Pineiro both turned in subpar performances. The team defense, another strength, also underperformed. And the middle of the St. Louis order never delivered, as the Dodgers pitched around Albert Pujols and retired Holliday every time he batted with men on base. On two occasions, Holliday came up in the first inning with a chance to do damage—sacks jammed and nobody out in Game One, men on first and second with one out in Game Three. In both cases the Dodgers busted Holliday inside with fastballs; he struck out looking in Game One and dribbled it back to the mound in Game Three.

When L.A. did pitch to Pujols, they handled him well; he never squared up a pitch and drove it. The Cards’ only bright spot in the entire series was Adam Wainwright, whose dominant Game Two outing produced the highest game score (78) of the playoffs so far.

With so little to discuss, I may as well unpack the series’ pivotal sequence. The Cardinals carried a 2-1 lead into the bottom of the ninth in Game Two and were poised to even the series 1-1 heading back to St. Louis. Franklin appeared to have converted the save, but Holliday dropped James Loney’s two-out liner and allowed the tying run to reach second with two outs. With Casey Blake coming to bat, the Cardinals convened at the mound for a quick conference, of which Franklin later said this at his MLB Blog: “‘Dunc’ came out and told me not to give him anything good to hit. If I walk him, that's fine.”

Whoa. If you walk Blake—the winning run—that’s fine? Why so much respect for Casey Blake? Presumably because he came into the at-bat 6-for-13 lifetime against Franklin, with two doubles and a homer. Charged with avoiding a mistake, Franklin threw only one type of pitch—his bread-and-butter, the cut fastball—to one location, the rough vicinity of the outside corner. The first offering was well off the plate; the second caught the corner for a called strike. The 1-1 pitch would have been a ball outside, but Blake waved at it and missed to fall behind 1-2. At this point, the Cards might have considered actively trying to get Blake out, instead of hoping he would do it himself . . . a curveball, maybe? A slider? Something off the inside corner? No, no and no; Franklin didn’t vary the pattern at all. He stuck with the cutter and the outside corner. The pitch/fX values are nearly identical for every pitch in the at-bat—every delivery at 91 mph, with a 4-inch break and 8 to 10 inches of movement.

If you understood the Cardinals’ approach, you might applaud it as disciplined. If you didn’t, you might find it just a wee bit defensive. Blake survived six two-strike cutters, drew a walk and eventually scored the winning run.

The idea was to win the game against Ronnie Belliard, who until that point had been a reliable out with men on base and had flailed barrenly at Carpenter and Wainwright’s curveballs. Hopefully, Franklin started him with a curve; Belliard whacked it into center for the game-tying single. The Cards then tiptoed around another vaguely unnerving hitter (Russell Martin) to set up an easier matchup against Mark Loretta. . . .

... you pay your money, you take your chances.

That was the only inning during the three games in which the Dodgers were able to string together as many as four consecutive baserunners. On the whole, St. Louis did neutralize L.A.’s long-sequence offense—the Dodgers weren’t a whole lot better with men in scoring position (6-for-26) than the Cardinals (4-for-30). But the Dodgers—11th in the league in isolated power in 2009—showed an unexpected ability to strike quickly: Seven of their 13 runs scored on extra-base hits.

One final item: Until Game Two the Cardinals hadn’t lost a postseason game in which they led after eight innings since Game Six of the 1985 World Series—the Denkinger game.

The result left no doubt as to which team is better. Best of luck to L.A. in the NLCS.

Click here to learn about THT's download subscriptions.]]> Larry Borowsky 2009-10-12T06:03:15+00:00 Why the Cardinals will beat the Dodgers http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/why-the-cardinals-will-beat-the-dodgers/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/why-the-cardinals-will-beat-the-dodgers/#When:05:01:15 Ryan Franklin has regressed sharply to the mean, and Albert Pujols hasn’t hit a homer in almost a month. (His last one came on September 9.) About two weeks ago, it looked as if St. Louis would surge past the struggling Dodgers, post the league’s best record, and claim home-field advantage through the NLCS. Instead the Cardinals enter the tournament with the worst record among the four NL entrants—and a bunch of nervous fans wondering if their team peaked too soon.

Of the possible opponents, the Dodgers present the Cardinals’ easiest matchup. I’m not saying that merely because the Cards have a 24-9 record against LA over the past five years. Rather, I think the St. Louis pitching staff is tailor-made to keep the Dodgers off the scoreboard.

It all begins with their three top starters, who were good against everyone this year. Chris Carpenter and Adam Wainwright are aces in the old-fashioned mold—they can dominate hitters—while Pineiro combined the best of Chien-Ming Wang and Carlos Silva. Despite a strikeout rate of just 4.4 per nine innings, Pineiro ranked among the NL’s top 10 in xFIP, tRA, and SNLVAR. His success was no fluke; he truly had a great year.

The Dodgers led the league in batting average (.270) and OBP (.346), while ranking second in BABIP (.312), fourth in walks (607), and third in steals (116). Meanwhile, they ranked 11th in the league in homers (145) and isolated power. What we’re looking at is a long-sequence offense, one that relies heavily on clusters of hits and walks. It was effective over 162 games—LA scored 780 runs this year, fourth in the NL—but it probably won’t be against the Cardinals’ staff, especially their frontline pitchers.

That’s because the Cards are particularly good at preventing long strings of hits and walks. As a staff, they issued the fewest bases on balls in the NL (460) and the third-fewest baserunners overall. Their top three starters were particularly good at keeping runners off base, allowing an aggregate 1.8 walks per nine innings while holding batters to a combined .247 avg / .289 OBP.

The theory held during the regular season: In five starts against the Dodgers, Carp, Wainwright and Pineiro smothered the LA offense, allowing just six runs and 39 baserunners in 38 innings. (Yes, Manny Ramirez was in the lineup for all five games.) They’ll make four of the five starts in the NLDS.

But wait, there’s more. Like all Dave Duncan-coached staffs, the 2009 Cardinals thrived by inducing groundballs (first in the NL) and turning double plays (second). The Dodger hitters play right into those strengths: They finished fourth in both groundball percentage and GIDP. Those tendencies will make it that much more difficult for LA to sustain long scoring sequences against the Cardinals.

So if things hold to form, LA won’t score many runs against the Cardinals—and the Cards better hope it plays out that way, because they’re finding it difficult to score against pretty much everyone. The midseason additions of Mark DeRosa and Matt Holliday closed holes in the lineup on paper, but in practice the Cardinal offense continued to sputter. In 24 of their final 43 games (going back to August 17), St. Louis scored three runs or fewer:

0 runs: 3 games
1 run : 4 games
2 runs: 6 games
3 runs: 11 games
4 runs: 2 games
5+ runs: 17 games

With a normal pitching staff, this run distribution would yield an expected record of about 18-25. Thanks to their rotation, the Cardinals went 24-19—a six-game bump. Of those 24 wins, nearly half (10) came with three runs or fewer. The rotation might have to make two or three runs stand up a few more times in October if the team’s going to go anywhere.

Why hasn’t the reconfigured lineup clicked? Don’t blame Holliday: he hit .353/.419/.604 in 63 games with the Cardinals, and .293/.379/.507 in the closing 43-game stretch. Pujols remained productive (albeit homerless) in the final weeks, and Skip Schumaker, Yadi Molina, and Brendan Ryan all pulled their weight. But the Cardinals’ 1A producers—the tier directly beneath Pujols and Holliday—went into the tank over the final quarter of the season: 

                           PA     AVG    OBP    SLG      BB      K
Ryan Ludwick               153   .259   .327   .388      11      35
Mark DeRosa                142   .220   .291   .339      11      28
Colby Rasmus               140   .231   .286   .354      10      29
Rick Ankiel                 95   .221   .284   .360       8      35


At least one of those guys better snap out of it this week, or the Cardinals’ postseason will be extremely tense—and, perhaps, extremely short. The other guy who better snap out of it is the St. Louis closer, Ryan Franklin. Over at my former blog, Viva El Birdos, “Franklin” is a noun that means “beer”—as in, “Oh brother, he’s coming in to protect another lead; everybody pour yourself another Franklin.” He was spectacular for five months, converting 35 of his first 37 save opportunities while posting an ERA of 1.05, but few people were fooled. Franklin simply yields too much contact to maintain that level of performance. Sure enough, after September 1 he blew half his save chances and got tagged for a .405 opponent average. Most disturbing of all, Franklin walked 16 guys in his last 17 innings, dating back to August 12. Without pinpoint control, he’s a pretty ordinary pitcher.
Did I mention that he has never pitched a single postseason inning before?

If the closer remains off his game, then the 3-2 wins of August might become 4-3 defeats in October—and we Cardinal fans will spend the winter crying in our Franklins. But if just one of the slumping St. Louis hitters busts out and the lineup can reliably post at least four runs a game, the Cardinals will be a handful. I’ll take them in five games over the Dodgers.

Click here to learn about THT's download subscriptions.]]> Larry Borowsky 2009-10-07T05:01:15+00:00 Five questions: St. Louis Cardinals http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/five-questions-st-louis-cardinals4/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/five-questions-st-louis-cardinals4/#When:05:05:15
Q: Will Khalil Greene bounce back?
A: Yes; he’ll be the down-order extra-base threat the Cards have lacked since 2005. The franchise record for homers in a season by a shortstop is 16; Greene will probably set a new standard this year.

Q: Was Ryan Ludwick’s 2008 season a fluke?
A: Yes, but so what. He can regress a long way toward the mean (to, say, an .850 OPS), and still be a three-win player. As long as he stays healthy, he’ll be an asset.

Q: Will the closer-by-committee work out?
A: It may not be a committee; Jason Motte appears close to winning the job outright. But even if he doesn’t, among Motte, Chris Perez (slowed by a sore shoulder this spring), Josh Kinney, and the always willing (if not able) Ryan Franklin, the Cards ought to find a way to muddle through. They can’t do worse than they did in 2008.

Those are gimmes; they don’t count against the five. So let’s get going w/ the Official Quintet of Cardinals Questions for 2009:

Can Chris Carpenter stay healthy?


This is the only meaningful question in this entire article, to be perfectly honest. It’s the “Does God exist?” of the Cards’ 2009 campaign. If Carpenter’s arm holds up, his team has an excellent chance at an October afterlife; if he misses any significant time, then God, heaven and postseason baseball will likely remain mere rumors to the Cardinals for another year.

Carpenter’s comeback from an Opening Day 2007 elbow injury has been one of those patience-of-Job things. Since then, Carp has as many trips to the operating room as games started—three of each. The main concern at this point is the ulnar nerve, which was transposed last fall in his most recent surgery. There also are lingering concerns about a nerve in Carpenter’s shoulder, which (this is so hard to keep track of) is what curtailed his comeback last August.

His performance this spring has been far more encouraging than the Cardinals had any reason to hope. Carpenter has hit every benchmark for stamina, thrown with velocity and command, and gotten stellar results (a 0.00 spring ERA through 19 innings). He has reminded everybody what the Cardinals were thinking when they signed him to that $75 million extension two years ago: He’s the best Cardinals pitcher since Bob Gibson. If he’s able to stay in the rotation this year, the Cardinals can only like their chances.

How many weeks does it take to learn to play second base?


Seven or fewer, the Cardinals hope. They released Adam Kennedy on Feb. 9, eight weeks before Opening Day; a few days later, outfielder Skip Schumaker reported to camp and started taking grounders at the keystone.

Up to that point, the notion of moving Schumaker to second made to sense only to a tiny, earnest cult of talk radio callers and newspaper chat-room posters. The guy last played infield eight years ago, at the University of California-Santa Barbara, and nobody can cite an example of a successful outfield-to-second base conversion at the big-league level. But why should that deter the Cardinals? Their starting centerfielder, (Rick Ankiel) was a pitcher until a few years ago, and their potential closer (Motte) was a catcher as recently as mid-2006. Of course, those guys learned their new trades in the minor leagues; Schumaker will have to transmogrify in the majors. And he’ll have to do it in a matter of weeks, not years. So the degree of difficulty on this reengineering project is vastly higher than anything the Cardinals have pulled off to this point.

Things looked bleak early on. Schumaker made four errors in the first 12 games of the exhibition slate and manifestly could not turn the DP. But he’s been pretty steady the last couple of weeks, mastering the pivot and showing decent range to his left. Can he go the other way and turn grounders up the middle into outs? C’mon, it’s only been five weeks; two more to go until the timer rings. . . . .

Schumaker apparently will open the season as the Cards’ second baseman, but the enterprise will remain on an experimental footing for at least the first 20 or 30 games of the regular season. If it has to be aborted at some point (and there’s still a significant chance of that), Brendan Ryan and Joe Thurston will take over while the Cards seek a trade or add a piece of driftwood such as Ray Durham or Mark Grudzielanek. But suppose, against all the odds, it works out? The Cards will have a vacancy at shortstop next year, and a whole off-season to convert somebody from one of the other eight positions . . . .

How many runs will the defense give away?


See the previous question. According to John Dewan’s Fielding Bible II, St. Louis saved more runs with the glove than any team in the majors last year except Philadelphia. But the Cards will open the year with new starters at four positions— and unless Colby Rasmus beats out Chris Duncan for the left fielder’s job, all four newcomers will be weaker defenders than the men they replaced.

Last year’s DP combo (Kennedy and Cesar Izturis) saved 31 runs over an average duo, according to Dewan; this year’s pairing of Greene and Schumaker will be very lucky to break even. Troy Glaus had a great year with the glove in 2008, but until he returns from shoulder surgery on or about May 1, some combination of David Freese, Joe Mather, Brian Barden and Joe Thurston will cover third base. For a team that relies so heavily on groundball pitchers, the infield displacements could have a decisive (read: disastrous) impact. It’s not impossible the Cardinals could lose 50 runs over last season on defense alone.

Who’ll set the table against left-handed pitching?


This, too, is sort of a corollary to question No. 2. A major rationale for shifting Schumaker to second base is to keep him in the leadoff slot without denying at-bats in left field to Duncan and/or Rasmus. Schumaker had a .786 OPS while batting first last year, the best Cardinal performance from the leadoff hole since Bernard Gilkey’s .813 mark in 1995. But against southpaw pitchers, you don’t want Schumaker in the lineup at all: He hit .168 and slugged .185 in 120-plus plate appearances against LHP last year (.340/.393/.468 against RHP).

When they face a right hander, the Cards can bat Schumaker first and either Duncan or Rasmus second, but against southpaws they don’t have any good options. Greene (career OBP: .304) is one of the better candidates; the others include Mather, Ryan and Ankiel (who handles left-handed pitching pretty well). If the Cards struggle against left handers, they may have to recall outfielder Brian Barton from Memphis (.374 OBP against lefties in limited playing time last season) to get on base ahead of El Hombre.

Was Todd Wellemeyer’s 2008 season a fluke?

This is an undersold storyline. The Cardinals act as if Wellemeyer is just an innings eater behind their front three of Carpenter, Wainwright and Kyle Lohse, but in reality Lohse is the innings-eater and Welley (a.k.a. The Colonel) is the frontline type. Set aside his six midseason starts from last year, when he pitched through an elbow injury; he should have been disabled, but the St. Louis rotation was already short-handed so Wellemeyer soldiered through with reduced velocity and poor command. In his 25 healthy starts—his first 13 of the year, and his last 12 (after the elbow stopped barking)— Wellmeyer threw 161 innings and went 12-6 with a 2.96 ERA and an opponent batting average of .228.

Given his elbow troubles and his career-high workload in 2008 (nearly triple his previous single-season high), The Colonel seems like a good candidate to regress and/or to spend time on the DL. But if he can repeat last year’s performance, he gives the Cardinals a third potent weapon at the front of the rotation. Wellemeyer’s overall 2008 line was nearly a carbon copy of Adam Wainwright’s in 2007—the same line that made Wainwright the Cards’ Opening Day starter and de facto ace one year later. Should Wellemeyer build on last year’s success, rather than fall off from it, he could put the Cardinal rotation into elite territory.

Click here to learn about THT's download subscriptions.]]> Larry Borowsky 2009-03-27T05:05:15+00:00 Five Questions: St. Louis Cardinals http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/five-questions-st-louis-cardinals3/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/five-questions-st-louis-cardinals3/#When:04:05:15
Just one season removed from a World Championship and a string of three consecutive NLCS appearances, the Cardinals enter 2008 simply hoping to keep their fans interested beyond Memorial Day. Last year, through sheer force of habit (and the sheer incompetence of their NL Central rivals), the Cardinals managed to stay in the race most of the summer; they were a game out of first place as late as Sept. 7.

But don’t be fooled: The Cardinals were worse in 2007 than they’ve been in a long, long time. Their run differential of minus 104 was the organization’s worst since 1916—Rogers Hornsby’s rookie season. Their runs allowed total (829) was the third-highest in franchise history.

And they didn’t do a heck of a lot to get better during the winter. Nearly all the starting pitchers who contributed to the rotation’s aggregate 5.04 ERA last year are back; the lone addition (Matt Clement) hasn’t pitched since 2006 and will open the season on the DL. The everyday lineup gained a 30-homer bat (Troy Glaus) but lost its leadoff hitter (David Eckstein) and its best defender (Scott Rolen).

Chris Carpenter, whose Opening Day injury in 2007 essentially ended the Cardinals’ season, is expected back from Tommy John surgery at some point this year, though with unknown levels of durability and effectiveness. Mark Mulder— whose last good year was 2005—is also due to go back to work. Such are the Cardinals’ likeliest sources of improvement.

In the last half-century, this franchise has recorded back-to-back losing seasons only once, in 1994-95—the last year of Dal Maxvill’s reign as general manager, and the first year of Walt Jocketty’s. They’ll be hard pressed to avoid a repeat in 2007-08—the last year of Jocketty’s tenure, and the first of John Mozeliak’s. Nearly halfway through the exhibition schedule, the Cardinals still aren’t sure who will bat leadoff, who will play second and short, who will play center, who will keep the back of the rotation warm until Clement, Mulder and/or Carpenter return (if they ever do).

Questions, questions, questions. I might as well pick five out of a hat. But I won’t be that random. Here are the five questions that are most on my mind heading into the year.

1. What’s left of Chris Carpenter?

Any hope the Cardinals have of contending this year is predicated on an early, effective return by their ex-Cy Young winner. He won’t be ready until July at the earliest; if he hits that hopeful target and (even more hopeful) is effective from that get-go, St. Louis with Carp and Adam Wainwright atop the rotation would be well-armed for the last half of the schedule. It’s a very remote chance, but some of the Cards’ moves this winter were designed to keep the rest of the club competitive, just in case.

Under a more prudent (and plausible) scenario, Carpenter won’t be ready to return to the big leagues until September or so, by which time the Cards likely will be far out of the race. But even if that’s how it comes down, Carpenter’s comeback starts will have enormous implications because the pitcher is guaranteed $44 million from 2009-11.

It’d be nice if he ultimately joins the list of TJ repairees who achieved or returned to dominance post-surgery (John Smoltz, Erik Bedard and Matt Morris are three fairly recent examples), but the Cardinals will have to count themselves fortunate if Carpenter can simply carry a normal workload. For the money they’re paying him, they need to get innings if nothing else. Whether or not he’s able to help them contend this year, Carpenter’s status is the single most portentous question the Cardinals face in 2008. Their chances of winning at any point between now and 2011 will take a major hit if this rehab fails.

Carp is one of three pitchers St. Louis is hoping to get a comeback from in 2008, but the other two (Clement and Mulder) are returning from worse injuries; neither will be ready until May (or later), and neither is particularly likely to perform much better in 2008 than the other available options. Fortunately, they’re both expendable commodities; the Cards hold 2009 options on Clement and Mulder in case they pitch well, but if they don’t they’re off the books.

2. How long before Pujols’ UCL snaps?

Albert Pujols’ right elbow has been slowly disintegrating since 2003. Not the whole thing—just the ulnar collateral ligament (UCL), the same cord of tissue that broke down in Carpenter’s elbow and forced him to the surgeon’s table. Pujols needs the same operation—Tommy John surgery—and it’s a matter of when, not if. The fraying twine may account, in part or in whole, for Albert’s weak (by his standards) .568 slugging percentage in 2007, the second-lowest figure of his career; he set career lows last year in homers, runs and RBIs.

The extra month off (i.e., October) at the end of last season might help his UCL stay in one piece for another whole year. If it should ever pop, the Cardinals might be headed for a last-place finish. There’s also a chance the cause and effect will go the other way—if the Cards find themselves at or near the bottom of the standings come midseason, Pujols and the team may decide to do the surgery so he can rehab in time to start the 2009 season healthy.

3. Can Rick Ankiel find happiness as an outfielder?

I love the way the Cardinals move their guys around. Braden Looper the reliever becomes Looper the starting pitcher; Rick Ankiel the starting pitcher becomes Ankiel the outfielder. They have a relief pitcher in Double-A named Jason Motte—throws it in the high 90s, struck out more than 10 guys per nine last year with a 1.98 ERA; until about 18 months ago he was a catcher. It’s kinda like intramurals in this organization—grab a glove, run out on the diamond somewhere, and play ball.

Ankiel’s apprenticeship as a hitter was spectacularly short—321 at-bats at Single-A and Double-A in 2005 and 389 at-bats at Triple-A last year (he missed all of 2006 with a knee injury). In his first 23 big-league games (81 at-bats) he put up a .358/.409 /.765 line and propelled the Cards into second place, just a game behind the Cubs. It was the feel-good story of the year, the antidote to the nasty business of Bonds and home run number 756.

Then, on Sept, 7, word broke of Ankiel’s 2004 HGH use. Oops; he hit .220/.250 /.330 the rest of the way (91 at-bats). At no point did Slick Rick show particularly good patience at the plate; he did nearly all his damage on the first pitch (.500 BA, 1.088 SLG), presumably on fastballs, but hit just .232 and slugged .399 on all other counts combined.

The Cardinals are counting on 500 at-bats and 25 to 30 homers from Ankiel. He might reach both benchmarks, but will it be worth all the outs he will make in the process? Ankiel’s OBP was only .314 at Triple-A last year, and only .328 in St. Louis despite the fast start; maybe he’s the new Dave Kingman. Then again, maybe he’s too immature as a hitter to catalog him with any precision; Ankiel’s still developing, still learning to recognize pitches and train his reflexes. He’s got enough pure power that an OBP of .320 would probably suffice. You can’t help but root for the guy.

4. When does the future arrive?

Here’s an optimistic scenario under which the Cardinals might compete for a postseason berth: Colby Rasmus becomes this year’s Hunter Pence. Rasmus’s 2007 line in the Double-A Texas League (.275/.381/.551) is a pretty good match for Pence’s in 2006 in the same league (.283/.357 /.533), and his sojourn at Triple-A is certain to be short (Pence’s lasted just 95 at-bats last year). The kid is already enough of a force to shove aside franchise icon Jim Edmonds: The Cards told Edmonds he would lose playing time when Rasmus was deemed ready, whereupon Edmonds asked for a trade.

St. Louis center fielders posted a .747 OPS last year and played bad defense, so if Rasmus debuts with impact (an .850 OPS, say), he could improve them by 30 or 40 runs at that position alone. The caveats are that Colby (a) reportedly still has some work to do on his game—he’s currently a dead-pull hitter who can be exploited on the outer half of the plate—and (b) has a history of starting slowly at each new level of professional ball. So whenever he gets to St. Louis (as of this writing he still has an outside shot to win the everyday CF job out of spring training), Rasmus might need an adjustment period before his abilities begin to assert themselves.

Beyond Rasmus, St. Louis’ farm system isn’t ready to produce any stars, but there’s a realistic chance that at least one homegrown pitcher will contribute this year.

Reliever Chris Perez draws the most attention—he held Triple-A hitters to a .150 average last year and Double-A hitters to a .126 average while striking out about 13 men per nine innings across both levels—but his walk rate (nearly seven per nine innings) raises a banner-sized red flag.

Another reliever, Kyle McLellan, has caught Dave Duncan’s eye this spring and will be converted back into a starting pitcher (his old role) and fast-tracked to Triple-A; he’ll be joined there by steady-Eddie Mitchell Boggs, who impressed scouts in the Arizona Fall League and has a skill kit (good command, a sinking fastball, four pitches) that may translate readily to the big leagues.

The organization’s best mound prospect, Jaime Garcia, has fared very well so far this spring in his first trial against big-league hitters, but he’ll be brought along with caution. He’s only 21, he missed his last 10 starts in 2007 with a tender elbow, and he has thrown only 240 innings as a professional.

And there’s always Anthony Reyes, the incredible shrinking prospect. He arrived in 2006 with front-of-rotation billing and showed many flashes of his potential that year, most notably his one-hitter against the defending champion White Sox and his strong eight-inning performance in Game 1 of the World Series. As a sophomore in 2007, he lowered his home run rate and maintained his good K/9 and H/9 rates, but he crumbled with men on base and got no run support, resulting in a disastrous 2-14 record and 6.04 ERA. Only a handful of pitchers have ever posted a won-loss record that bad and recovered to have useful careers, the best example being Jose DeLeon.

Against all odds, Reyes remains on the St. Louis roster and, thanks to the injuries throughout the pitching staff, probably will start the season in the rotation. Some of us Cardinal fans are foolish enough to think he still might turn it around, much as Scott Baker did for Minnesota last year after a rocky first 30 starts or so. The Cards are desperate for cost-controlled pitching, and Reyes still might establish himself as a reliable No. 3 or No. 4. That, too, is a question worth keeping an eye on this year.

5. Are the Cardinals rebuilding?

Well, yes, obviously. They’re rebuilding, as they should be after successive seasons of 83 and 78 wins. Mozeliak made a series of appropriate moves in his first offseason, dumping old guys with high salaries (Edmonds, Rolen and Eckstein) and increasing the organization’s overall youth and payroll flexibility.

But the Cardinals still haven’t quite kicked the old win-now habit. They can’t even bring themselves to use the term “rebuilding”; you occasionally hear the term “transition year” (singular) bandied about, but the front office is under explicit orders from ownership to have it both ways—broaden the talent base for the future while contending in the present. That explains the decision to rehire Tony La Russa, probably not the manager you would choose if your organization was committed whole-hog to long-term development.

TLR’s the type of skipper who’ll pull out all the stops to get from 75 wins to 79 wins, even if it hurts the team’s chances of getting to 85 or 90 wins two years from now. The Cards would be better served by a manager who (for example) would reassign Aaron Miles’ 400 at-bats to Brendan Ryan and find out whether the kid can stick; or who’d take innings away from a dead-end reclamation like Mulder and give them to young pitchers who might have a future if afforded the chance to figure things out. La Russa has never been that type of manager.

The Cards’ ambivalence about rebuilding is best illustrated by two of the candidates for an outfield bench spot, 25-year-old Brian Barton, a talented but raw Rule V draftee who’s never played above Double-A, and 38-year-old Juan Gonzalez, a washed-up ex-MVP who hasn’t hit a big-league homer in four years.

Those two, right there, capture the Cardinals’ position—caught between the future’s uncertainties and the past’s irretrievable glories. The Cards haven’t quite let go of the latter; they still cling to the idea that they’re a team to be reckoned with. But 2008 may be the year that disabuses them of that notion.





Click here to learn about THT's download subscriptions.]]> Larry Borowsky 2008-03-11T04:05:15+00:00 Five Questions: St. Louis Cardinals http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/five-questions-st-louis-cardinals2/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/five-questions-st-louis-cardinals2/#When:04:10:15 Albert Pujols was on pace for 80 homers and 200 RBIs; the Cardinals pitching staff had allowed the fewest runs in the league and the second-fewest in baseball, trailing only Detroit. Ho, hum; a third straight cruise-control summer for St. Louis. Wake me in October.

But over the next three weeks Pujols went to the DL with a strained oblique; Mark Mulder’s long-suffering shoulder finally gave way, effectively ending his season; and Jim Edmonds and David Eckstein both suffered concussions that would plague them for the rest of the year.

Jason Isringhausen’s bad hip started to bark more insistently that month; the St. Louis closer blew 5 saves in June. The Cardinals went 49-59 (.454) after May 31 and hobbled into the playoffs with no momentum and no chance.

They showed up and played the games anyway; damned if they didn’t win it all. While most baseball fans (including many St. Louisans) dismiss the Cards’ championship run as just one of those things—any team can get hot at the right time—Walt Jocketty and Tony La Russa believe the Cardinals won because the “real” team, incapacitated all summer, finally got back onto the field in October. Edmonds and Eckstein were in the lineup for every game, after having started just four (Edmonds) or five (Eckstein) times in the last six weeks of the season. The Cards also practiced some addition by subtraction, dumping Jason Marquis and his 6.02 ERA from the postseason rotation.

The conviction that October represented the Cardinals’ true level of ability explains, in large part, Jocketty’s decision to bring back almost every player from a roster that produced the franchise’s worst won-loss record of this century. With better health and a freshened-up rotation, this theory goes, the Cardinals ought to be able to compete with anybody ... at least, with anybody in the NL Central.

It’s a theory. Let’s consider it.

1. Izzy or isn’t he?

Isringhausen had hip surgery last September and should be available Opening Day. ’Course, he was available last year too; that was the whole problem. When entering the game with a one-run lead last season, Izzy was just as likely to lose the lead as protect it (seven times each). In all he blew 10 saves, costing the Cardinals four games in the standings.

Isringhausen struck batters out at his usual clip last year and held them in check as per usual on balls in play. But he gave up walks (six per nine innings) and homers (one per 25 plate appearances) at more than twice his career rates. Both of those figures reflect the ruined command that his faulty hip caused; he either missed wide (walks) or right over the plate (homers).

In all but three of Isringhausen’s blown saves last year, he lost the lead on a home run, so if he can just keep the ball in the park in 2007 the Cards can expect to improve by two or three wins. So far, so good this spring: He has faced 27 hitters without allowing so much as an extra-base hit. His batted-ball breakdown: 15 groundballs, three fly balls, two line drives and two infield flies.

Which is not to say that Isringhausen is unequivocally cured. He didn’t appear in a game until March 15 and has yet to face hitters on back-to-back days. In three of his six one-inning stints so far this spring, he has yielded at least three baserunners. Consider his spring debut: The first hitter he faced in more than six months hit a comebacker—Izzy booted it. The next guy rolled a seeing-eye single through the infield, and the third reached on an infield hit—sacks jammed, nobody out.

Sigh; same old Izzy. But he got one out on a popup and struck out Andre Ethier for out number two; then Matt Kemp scorched one to left field, but right at Preston Wilson—no runs across.

Don’t know how healthy he’ll be, but in any case Isringhausen will probably keep the 9th inning as interesting as ever. Just keep the ball in the park, big guy, and all will be forgiven.

2. Can Edmonds stay on the field?

The Cardinals’ other drama junkie, Jim Edmonds, also is coming off postseason surgery—two of ’em, actually, on his shoulder and his toe. But it’s the head injury that’s got me most worried. He sustained the concussion on June 21 against the White Sox, and although he got hot for 10 days in July, the aftereffects kicked in late in the month.

By late September he was seeing double and forbidden from flying. Edmonds’ former teammate, Mike Matheny, had to retire because of an injury like this one—and for a while late last year, it looked as if Edmonds’ condition might be just as serious. At the very least, he was thought to be finished in St. Louis. But his leadership and solid play in October persuaded the Cardinals to bring him back.

There’s a chance his career has taken an irreversible dip—much like the one suffered by Edmonds’ center field contemporary, Bernie Williams. In his age 34 year, after seven consecutive seasons of .900 or better OPS, Williams dropped to .778—and hasn’t made it north of .800 in the three years since. Edmonds labored to an .821 OPS last year, after six consecutive years in .900+ territory; sorta looks like a parallel track. He’ll turn 37 at midseason; at that age, even if healthy, it doesn’t seem likely that he can get himself back to the .900s.

But that’s not really necessary; the Cardinals will gladly take an .821 OPS out of Edmonds this year. What they need is more playing time: He only started 96 games last season—and four of those came at first base during Pujols’ disablement. St. Louis center fielders not named Edmonds started 70 games in 2006 and put up a .252/.321 /.345 line; oy.

Simply by keeping his punchless replacements off the field for another 25 games this year, Edmonds can justify his re-signing—no matter what he produces. Wilson will be on hand this year to bolster the backup corps (which, again, will be led by So Taguchi and/or Skip Schumaker), but Wilson will also be pulling extra duty in right field to spell the ailing Juan Encarnacion (wrist). So if Edmonds can’t go, one of the weaklings will probably be out there.

Edmonds didn’t appear in a spring-training game until March 25; so far he’s 0-for-7 with a walk. He’s cleared to play Opening Day, and the fate of the St. Louis offense may well rest in his hands. Which leads us to question 3...

3. Will they score enough runs?

The Cardinals attack has grown steadily feebler over the last three years. In chart form:

yearruns
(nl rank)		obp
(nl rank)		slg
(nl rank)
2003876 (2nd).350 (1st).454 (2nd)
2004855 (1st).344 (4th).460 (1st)
2005805 (3rd).339 (2nd).423 (4th)
2006781 (6th).337 (5th).431 (8th)

With everybody a year older and no impact acquisitions to goose the attack, how do the Cardinals expect to halt the slide? Edmonds is part of the answer: more playing time from him equals more offense. The Cardinals also will have Chris Duncan in left for an entire year, and that should be worth some runs.

Last year, Cardinals left fielders other than Duncan started 120 games and posted a .258/.326 /.375 line in 516 plate appearances, with seven homers and 36 RBIs. While Duncan is very unlikely to repeat his .952 OPS of a year ago, he’s perfectly capable of something in the .800/.850 range. Like Edmonds, he helps the offense merely by showing up—and keeping the .680 types out of the starting lineup.

The Cardinals also reasonably can expect better production out of their second basemen and catchers, at which positions the team ranked 15th and 16th (respectively) in OPS among National League clubs in 2006. Adam Kennedy, the Cards’ lone addition to the everyday lineup, is expected to add a bit of punch at second.

And the catching ... well, it can only get better, even though St. Louis returns the same two guys (Yadier Molina and Gary Bennett), who combined for a .605 OPS last year. Molina will be 24 years old, so we’d expect some improvement. He also hit in some tough luck last year (.227 batting average on balls in play), and he showed in the postseason (when he hit .358/.424 /.547 in 59 plate appearances) that he does not entirely lack for hitting ability. Yadi seems to possess a sufficient skill base to generate an improvement: to, say, .245 / .300 / .370, which is meaningful enough to add runs to the scoreboard

Then there’s David Eckstein, who at the time of his concussion last year (June 15) was sailing along with a .761 OPS, a strong followup to his career year in 2005 (.758 OPS). In the two months immediately following the injury (228 plate appearances), he slugged.267 with just four extra-base hits and four RBIs. The Cardinals are writing that off, counting on Eckstein to revert to the form he displayed in his first year and a half as a National Leaguer. But he’s 32 years old this year and missed two weeks this spring with a sore oblique (the same injury that kept him out of action last August and September). So far this spring he has three extra-base hits (doubles) in 37 at-bats.

To sum it up, the Cardinals are counting on better health and better balance—he formula that redeemed them last October—to keep their offense afloat. It could happen, but a lot of things have to break the Cards’ way. What if Edmonds can’t play? What if Eckstein and Kennedy both go .280/.340 /.370 and Molina languishes in the .650 OPS range? What if Aaron Miles and So Taguchi combine for 800 plate appearances again?

That’s a lot of dead weight for any offense to carry, even one anchored by the best hitter in the game. The Cardinals will carry 13 position players this year, and only five of them, Edmonds, Pujols, Rolen, Duncan, and Wilson, have ever had even one season of .800 OPS or better. Wilson last did it in 2003, playing in Coors Field (pre-humidor); Duncan, of course, did it last year in a partial year (314 plate appearances).

If Edmonds, Pujols, and Rolen all stay healthy this year, there’ll probably be enough runs to make it work. But if one of them misses significant time, the whole thing could collapse. That’s the Cardinals’ biggest worry heading into 2007.

4. Braden Looper ????

Whatever; we Cardinal fans are used to it. La Russa and Dave Duncan have been together almost 25 years, and, like any couple that’s been married that long, they gotta resort to some kinky stuff sometimes to keep up their interest.

When this wacky idea first hit the papers, I trolled up a list of other life-long relievers who took up starting pitching; found a few qualified successes, including Omar Daal and Charlie Hough. (Danny Graves, an unqualified failure, escaped mention in that post; my oversight.) Another somewhat analogous case is that of Julian Tavarez, considered last autumn right here at the Hardball Times.

It’s an amusing storyline, but Looper’s move to the rotation has been overblown. He’ll probably be about as good as the more conventionally groomed alternatives (Chris Narveson, Ryan Franklin, Randy Keisler, and Josh Hancock all were considered for the job). If, after 10 starts, Looper washes out or hurts himself, the Cardinals can turn to one of the others; and no matter who holds down that rotation slot, it’s supposed to be taken over by Mark Mulder sometime in late summer, if his rehab goes well.

More to the point: it doesn’t really matter if Looper or Narveson or Mulder or Bob Forsch is starting out of the five slot, because any of those guys would represent an improvement over last season. Chris Carpenter and Jeff Suppan were the only Cardinal starters with ERAs under 5.00 last year; in the 97 starts not made by those two players, the rotation’s combined ERA was 5.74. Over 97 games. If this year’s starters can shave that 97-game ERA down to 5.00—not exactly a pie-in-the-sky wish—the Cardinals will save 40 runs.

Four more wins in the standings. That’s quite a bit of low-hanging fruit to be plucked. Combine it with the equally easy-to-harvest wins that a healthy Isringhausen might deliver, and the Cardinals can realistically set 90 wins as a target for 2007. In the last five years, only one NL Central team other than the Cardinals has won at least 90 games: the 2004 Houston Astros.

So here’s the formula: Convert the saves. Keep the .660 OPS outfielders on the bench. And get production just a shade above replacement level out of the three through five slots in the rotation. Call it the “Just Show Up” formula; what the heck, it worked last October. Oh, and one last question:

5. Will Walt Jocketty ever make a meaningful trade again?

It has been 27 months since he went all-in on Mark Mulder and lost; that trade marks a stark dividing point in Jocketty’s wheeler-dealership. Over the preceding six years, Walter had swung a series of thunderously advantageous trades, acquiring two Gold Glove middle infielders (Edgar Renteria and Fernando Vina), two MVP candidates (Scott Rolen and Jim Edmonds), and a borderline Hall of Famer (Larry Walker), plus All-Star pitchers Darryl Kile and Woody Williams—at virtually no cost to the Cardinals organization. And whenever injury (or, in one case, tragedy) struck, Jock would go out and get Will Clark or Chuck Finley or Mike Timlin to plug the hole.

But since the Mulder trade in December 2004, Jocketty has only made four deals, all of them involving DFAs (Jeff Weaver, Jorge Sosa) and/or spare parts (Aaron Miles, Larry Bigbie). His biggest acquisition was Ronnie Belliard. Granted, the Weaver deal ended up having major implications for the Cardinals in October, but Weaver was no Kile or Woody Williams, World Series exploits or no.

I’ve never faulted Jocketty for the Mulder trade; thought it was justifiable at the time (although other, more astute Cardinals fans predicted that we’d all come to rue the day). It has been suggested that Walter’s fleecing at the hands of Moneyball maven Billy Beane has left him gun-shy; I don’t buy that. I think, rather, that the Mulder trade illustrates how the trade market has changed.

Gone are the days when Jocketty could exploit inefficiencies in the market and take advantage of other teams’ errant player valuations. Everybody’s valuing guys by similar methods today; you have to pay full price (and maybe then some) to land an impact player. Kent Bottenfield might’ve fetched Jim Edmonds back in 2000, but not anymore. Jock tried paying retail one time and got burned; he won’t be making that mistake again. That, in my opinion, explains the sudden closing of the trade-talent pipeline.

But Walter enters 2007 with at least $10 million in payroll clearance and, for the first time since the Mulder trade, a bit of organizational depth to work with. If an impact player should flutter free of the brush at midseason, Jock will have his cleanest shot in years. The Cardinals consciously saved a few rounds for such a possibility, rather than fire them all off at a so-so off-season target such as Jeff Weaver. That’s the insurance policy in case the “Just Show Up” plan doesn’t work.

Click here to learn about THT's download subscriptions.]]> Larry Borowsky 2007-03-29T04:10:15+00:00