Sports Wisdom From a Nobody

The All-NL Central Team!

2007-09-09T13:51:00.000-05:00

The fun thing about such an undertaking is that besides it being easy material for four posts, I got to test myself as a homer. I think I was able to avoid the homer bug too much. I’ve chosen a good chunk of home-town players, but I also took about as many from three other teams. This is a team balanced out mostly by the Cards, Cubs, Brewers and surprisingly, the Reds.

Anyway, I’ll just get to the positional battles.

Starting Rotation

The first battle! I spent some money here, in the form of $24.06M. I grabbed two left-handed and three right-handed starters and the right/left split did play a role in the #5 starter. Of the three lefties—Hill, Lilly, Gorzelanny—I decided that the two Cubs players were the best of the three, due to higher strikeout rates. The ERAs were all pretty close, as were the innings pitched. So Hill and Lilly made it, and due to not wanting three left-handed starters, I cut Gorzelanny. He’s the top honorable mention, certainly.

From the right side, Aaron Harang was the most obvious choice, with a 13-3 record when I started and a 14-4 record as of today. Oswalt seemed like an obvious choice too, especially since I had to have an Astro and there were only a couple choices that fit from the Astros. His skimpy 3.35 ERA was reason enough despite his hefty price tag (13M—definitely would have been under budget if I had taken Gorzy instead). That left the last choice down to Big Z, Snell, Wainwright and Sheets. Sheets and Big Z were too expensive for their output this year (Big Z has been up and down, Sheets has been hurt, both make 8-digit salaries). Snell, while having pitched pretty well this year, can’t match Wainwright in the ERA or win-loss record department, as Snell has a losing record. Picking an all-star pitcher (even if it’s just from one division) with a losing record seems like it’s not the way to go. So Adam Wainwright gets the 5th spot in the rotation.

First Base

Albert Pujols vs. Prince Fielder.

Prince Fielder vs. Albert Pujols.

Is there a right answer? Is there a wrong answer?

I couldn’t figure it out. A combination of higher OPS, better defense and baserunning, proven track record and my fanship of St. Louis baseball led me to initially choose Albert Pujols. In fact, I didn’t change my mind until I was writing this post and updated my stats (since my first stats were from about 2 weeks ago)

Fielder, for most of the season, has led the NL in Slugging, and currently has a .615 slugging percentage. This slugging percentage is better than Pujols’ .563 slugging this year (although is still behind Pujols’ CAREER slugging of .620). Fielder also has more home runs (43-30), RBI (104-88), and costs considerably less $415,000-$12,900,000. In addition, despite what I said earlier about OPS, it’s changed since my first stats back in late August. Fielder is on a tear again, and has pushed his OPS up to 1.002, while Pujols seems to be in a mini-slump and his OPS sits at a still unreal .987.

Sorry Albert Pujols, but I can’t spend 12.5M on baserunning and defense when Fielder is out-producing you this year.

Second Base

This one wasn’t tough, but it could look tough if you consider batting average, so I thought I’d quickly defend myself. Phillips of the Reds wins over Sanchez because, despite the 30 point difference in batting average, Phillips has a higher OPS, hits for power (25 HRs to Sanchez’ 11(August stats)) and has speed (25 SB’s to Sanchez’ 0). Oh yeah, Phillips also costs less by over 2M.

Shortstop

Both guys in question made the team, because of course, there’s a bench. The question for your starter is: Do you want speed or power from SS? Ryan Theriot (25 SBs) or J.J. Hardy (23 HRs). Well, the combination of Hardy cooling off and the fact that I have power all throughout my lineup led me to go with Ryan Theriot for the starting spot. J.J. Hardy does make an appearance on the bench though.

Third Base

This is the Pujols/Fielder battle all over again, except it’s a Cub that got knocked off the team by a hot-hitting young Brewer. Ryan Braun is a machine, with an OPS of 1.005, 28 HRs in 374 ABs (13.35 ABs per HR), and a nice little price tag of the league minimum. Ramirez is by far better defensively and understands the game better, and is certainly having a good year overall. But it’s the same argument as before, so Ryan Braun has to make this team.

Catcher

When it’s a close call, the defense suddenly matters more. The nominees here were Yadier Molina, Johnny Estrada and Javier Valentin. 40 points of OPS from first to last, none are huge home run threats, none put up big RBI numbers or have speed(imagine that, a slow catcher?). So I went with the hometown guy in Molina. The numbers are pretty close to identical offensively for all three, but Molina guns down runners all over the diamond, whether they’re stealing or even just leading off too far. He also was a clutch hero last fall, hitting the home run that put the Cardinals ahead in Game 7 of the NLCS against the heavily favored Mets. Of course, I need a 2nd catcher for the bench, so one of these two other guys will make an appearance below.

Infield Analysis

That totals the infield at $1,738,000 total. I actually didn’t mean to go cheap here, as I originally was going to bring Pujols into the mix, and his 13M salary would have put this part of the team on par with the others. Instead, this allows me some wiggle room elsewhere.

I’m not sure how good defensively these guys are as a whole, but having seen Molina play plenty, I know this team would be solid there. Ryan Theriot is a definite hustle player who isn’t going to make errors due to a lackadaisical attitude. So in two of the positions I feel pretty good. The corners could be better, if Pujols and Ramirez had been chosen, but then I would have had to give up production elsewhere.

Outfield

Remember our rule here: One player must be a center fielder for his team (my posted definition of this is having played at least 100 innings in center this year at the time I first compiled stats in August).

The best choices for the center field position were Alfonso Soriano, who of course started the season in center for the Cubs before being moved primarily to left (why they don’t play him in right with his arm is beyond me) and Corey Hart, who again, while not the full time guy, has played there for 150 innings, more than enough to show he’s capable out there. (Note: The rule’s existence is so that myself or anyone else participating doesn’t put an outfield of Carlos Lee, Adam Dunn and Chris Duncan out there—none of those guys are playing center)

Looking at the two guys, I was first intending to take Alfonso Soriano, because of all he does for his club. His arm is stellar and he’s one of the rare guys who has 30/30 ability, and potentially 40/40 ability. However, two factors led me to go with Hart instead. First was the fact that he was a LOT cheaper, at $395,000 to Soriano’s $10,000,000. But beyond that, looking at their numbers, they’re pretty much the same, with many close calls going towards Hart’s favor. Hart leads slightly in OPS (.882 to .860), stolen bases (22-18) and blows him away in RBI (68-51—this is mostly due to Soriano’s position in the lineup). Meanwhile in average, runs scored and HRs he’s close to Soriano.

If you could look back and take one of these two guys this year, as much as Cubs fans seem to love their new lead-off hitter, Corey Hart is the man.

That settles center, but how about the corner spots? Adam Dunn has been a beast this year, with 36 homers, 96 RBI and a .932 OPS. Of course, he has a pretty mediocre batting average, due to his all-or-nothing swing, but he manages to draw walks to have a respectable(but not great, for a slugger at least) OBP of .384, right on line with his career average. He gets the nod for one corner spot, leading us to our tough choice.

The battle of Ken Griffey, Jr. vs. Carlos Lee.

The case for Griffey: His OPS(my favorite stat) is higher, .875 to .909, which is not a huge difference, but significant enough. Their slugging percentages are pretty similar, so most of this comes in that Griffey gets on base about 4% more often than Lee. Griffey has also outhomered Lee 30 to 27 and plays better defense. On top of that, while Griffey is still well-compensated for his role on the Reds, his salary is 3.1M less than Lee’s. Last, but certainly not least, Griffey is a fan-favorite pretty much throughout baseball, whereas Carlos Lee is a name only somewhat known by casual baseball fans outside of the cities he’s played in.

The case for Lee: The man is an RBI machine, with 105 RBI, good for 3rd in the NL. Don’t forget, he’s doing this for the punchless Houston Astros, who are 26th in the majors in runs scored and 22nd in on-base. With more players who could get on base around him, he might have 10-20 more RBI this year. Lee also has a higher batting average by 14 points and doesn’t represent the injury risk Griffey does.

The verdict: Griffey’s health is a concern, but this year he’s played 134 games so far and should break the 150 game mark. His charisma, defense, OPS, and slightly lower salary are enough reason to take Griffey over Lee here.

Which takes us to the last two parts of this exercise:

The Bullpen

Rules concerning this: Gotta have an ACTUAL closer and gotta have at least one lefty.

The easy choices were the lefties. There were two lefties out there pitching well, and as I expressed in the original post, the idea would be to get two lefties if possible. This is also the only place I could find a Pirate having a good enough year to justify making the team(apologies to Gorzelanny, of course). So Damaso Marte and Brian Shouse both make the team.

From there, the easy place to look is the St. Louis bullpen, where they have 4 guys who have had a WHIP below 1.0 for most of the season. Percival, Springer and Franklin are all your typical middle relievers as far as salary goes, ranging from league minimum(Percival) to a little shy of 2M(Springer). I thought about taking all three, but there are some other good candidates out there, so I took two out of the three. As much as Percival has been a lift to this team, his smaller sample size compared to the others made him the odd man out. Ryan Franklin and Russ Springer made the team. Troy Percival doesn’t. The only concern here is Franklin’s poor K/9 rate (an abysmal 4.69), but his WHIP and ERA haven’t shown signs of this being a problem, with a WHIP under 1 and an ERA of 2.03.
From there, we pick up the anti-Ryan Franklin. The best strikeout reliever in the division in the Cubs Carlos Marmol. This kid is a stud and if the Cubs are wise, he’ll be closing games out for them in 2008. His K/9 of 12.23 is amazingly good, and according to the Cubs announcers last night, he has the best strand rate in the NL at, I believe, around 94%. He did give up one inherited runner last night after they said that, but being put in with nobody out and the bases loaded, that’s still more than you’d get out of most relievers.

After that, I took two closers. One a veteran closer who has been trashed by his team’s fans in the past for making things too interesting, and another a young guy who’s only been the closer about half a season. The first is Jason Isringhausen, who is having a career year this year, with 28 saves and a 1.77 ERA. The other is Matt Capps, who at 24 was promoted to being closer, and now has 15 saves and a 2.13 ERA on the season. I would install the veteran as my closer, and Capps as my 8th inning righty.

That settles the bullpen. Onto the last part,

The Bench

Now, I spent most of my money on the real part of the team, so the bench will be closer to what a real bench could potentially be. Many of the high-priced snubs wouldn’t be happy on the bench, so you won’t see an Aramis Ramirez, Albert Pujols or Carlos Lee on the bench. Instead we have several players who are either on minimum contracts or are outplaying bench-type contracts and earning significant time in the starting eight.

First, I pick Hunter Pence, the kid from Houston. With an OPS hovering around .900 and an average that is very Pujols-like, this kid is showing he can play. In addition, he gives flexibility to the manager being a center fielder. He has some pop, with 14 homers, and some speed, with 9 steals. He’s a good all-around player that could fill about any role the manager asks.

For my 2nd outfield choice, I choose Chris Duncan. The Cardinals lefty has knocked out 21 homers and driven in 70 runs and gives a left-handed power option off the bench. He can play either corner outfield position, although he’s best suited for left, where his defense, while vastly improved from 2006, is still shaky at times.

For infielders, I’ve chosen Johnny Estrada, the switch hitting catcher, to back up Molina, and two middle infielders, in J.J. Hardy, a power hitting shortstop and Freddy Sanchez, a guy who can deliver a base hit when you need one. Between the middle infielders, the infield is covered.

That fills out the team. The next post will list player stats, salaries, and the probable lineups for this team. (And I promise I’ll link player cards on the next post, unlike this one, where I was lazy)

All NL Central Bullpen

2007-09-08T08:53:00.000-05:00

(As always, stats are accurate as of the beginning of August 29th, when I started this project.)

The bullpen becomes more and more important in recent seasons as starting pitchers throw fewer and fewer complete games. Every pitcher relies on someone else to finish at least the 8th and 9th for them usually. Obviously when you look at people for your bullpen (at least if you're building an all-star type bullpen like this project is designed to do), you're going to look at a few things.

ERA is still important, but less important for relievers, because many times they come in with inherited runners, and letting those runners score is just as damaging to the game, but not at all damaging to their ERA. So in addition to ERA, the main stats I'll consider will be K/9, showing their ability to get a key strikeout in a tight situation, and WHIP, telling us how many baserunners they usually put on in an inning of work. Innings Pitched will also be important to show how big of a sample size we have to rely upon for the validity of their WHIP and K/9.

Remember our rules too - at least one lefty is required, with the real attempt being to have two. We also must have one person who is ACTUALLY their team's closer.

Anyway, enough talk, let's nominate!

The Nominees!
(leaders in each category are bolded/italicized, as in the last post)

Player - Team - ERA - IP - K/9 - WHIP - Salary - Throws

J. Burton - Cincy - 2.56 - 31.2 - 8.24 - 1.26 - 380k - R
M. Capps - Pitt - 2.06 - 70.0 - 7.20 - 1.01 - 401k - R (closer eligible)
F. Cordero - Mil - 3.20 - 50.2 - 11.90 - 1.14 - 5.4M - R (closer eligible)
R. Franklin - StL - 1.92 - 65.2 - 4.52 - 0.90 - 1.0M - R
J. Isringhausen - StL - 1.50 - 54.0 - 7.83 - 0.93 - 8.75M - R (closer eligible)
B. Lidge - Hou - 3.07 - 55.2 - 12.13 - 1.19 - 5.3M - R
C. Marmol - ChC - 1.53 - 53.0 - 12.23 - 1.15 - 400k - R
D. Marte - Pitt - 2.03 - 40.0 - 10.12 - 1.10 - 2.6M - L
T. Percival - StL - 2.39 - 26.1 - 9.23 - 0.91 - 400k - R
C. Qualls - Hou - 3.01 - 68.2 - 9.04 - 1.30 - 441k - R
B. Shouse - Mil - 2.38 - 41.2 - 6.26 - 1.03 - 975k - L
R. Springer - StL - 2.63 - 51.1 - 9.47 - 0.95 - 1.75M - R

And there we have our nominees for the bullpen. Feel free to peruse the last few posts if you want to participate in this. Anyone coming this way from Viva El Birdos, I appreciate your reading of my humble blog. Feel free to post your own teams on this thread in the comments or once I get the new thread up, which will be my actual team with a dialogue as to why I chose players in close situations, and post teams there.

All NL Central Team Outfield Nominees!

2007-08-31T09:06:00.000-05:00

Slight rule change: The Center Field rule will be altered slightly as such: The player must be a legitimate option in center field THIS season. The easiest way to do this is to say the player must have played 100 innings in the field at center so far this season. This opens up the field of potential center fielders slightly to include two of my nominees that have played somewhat significant time at center, but are not full-time center fielders.

I thought about making Griffey eligible for this exercise, since he's been a full-time center fielders until this year (he hasn't forgotten how, surely), but he hasn't played in 130 games since 2000, and this year, his first year NOT as a center fielder, he's already at 126 with a month left, so I'm assuming at least some part of this new healthy Griffey is due to his move.

Players that are eligible for center field can play a corner outfield position, but players who are NOT eligible for center can NOT play center. Right/Left field distinctions should be made for the final roster, but right fielders aren't limited to right field and left fielders aren't limited to left field.

The Nominees!

Player - Team - BA - OPS - HR - RBI - R - SB/Att. - Salary
(alphabetical by last name), * - denotes Center Field eligible
Something new I'm going to do on this one, that I might go back and do on others, Bolded stats indicate the highest among this group.

C. Duncan - St. Louis - .273 - .876 - 21 - 66 - 71 - 2/3 - 400k
A. Dunn - Cincy - .263 - .931 - 36 - 91 - 84 - 9/11 - 10.5M
K. Griffey Jr. - Cincy - .283 - .909 - 28 - 82 - 71 - 6/7 - 8.4M
*J. Hamilton - Cincy - .279 - .901 - 17 - 41 - 46 - 3/6 - 380k
*C. Hart - Milwaukee - .281 - .845 - 18 - 57 - 64 - 19/24 - 395k
G. Jenkins - Milwaukee - .265 - .831 - 19 - 54 - 41 - 1/3 - 7.3M
C. Lee - Houston - .305 - .893 - 26 - 102 - 75 - 8/13 - 11.5M
X. Nady - Pittsburgh - .293 - .849 - 11 - 66 - 71 - 2/3 - 2.2M
*H. Pence - Houston - .323 - .894 - 12 - 47 - 45 - 8/12 - 400k
L. Scott - Houston - .254 - .837 - 14 - 56 - 40 - 2/3 - 382k
*A. Soriano - Chicago - .295 - .840 - 18 - 42 - 74 - 18/23 - 10M

I wanted to get one more post up before I traveled today. Bullpen most likely won't be posted until I get back home after the Labor Day weekend. I'll try to find time over the weekend to update this and the last post to link player cards in case anyone reading wants to examine other stats that I have not posted(or double check the ones I DID post). I also intend to go back and bold the stats where players lead their positional rivals. If I have time, my last update will be to Italicize anyone NOT eligible for the batting title, due to lack of at-bats, just to give the full picture of who the REAL full-time players have been this year, because that's pretty important information.

Have a wonderful and safe Labor Day weekend. If you're boozing over the weekend, get someone else to drive. Beyond the safety concerns, usually the cops are out in force on these types of weekends.

All NL Central Team Nominees! (Infield Edition!)

2007-08-30T21:49:00.000-05:00

Alright. I've talked about the starting pitching nominees, which takes me to the next set of nominations. So let's go around, from position to position.

At Catcher!

Three choices here that make any sense.

Player - Team - BA - OPS - HR - RBI - Runs Scored - Steals/Attempts - Salary
(format used for all positions)

J. Estrada - Milwaukee - .279 - .702 - 8 - 40 - 36 - 0/0 - 3.4M
Y. Molina - St. Louis - .282 - .727 - 4 - 30 - 27 - 1/0 - 525k
J. Valentin - Cincy - .287 - .742 - 2 - 29 - 12 - 0/0 - 1.25M

Estrada gets the edge on power numbers, with twice as many homers as Yadi and more RBI and Runs Scored than either of the other two. Valentin actually has the highest OPS(which in my opinion is the most important stat). Molina pretty much takes the edge elsewhere, with salary, stolen bases (insert ironic laughter here) and his defense, which, as stated in the previous post, plays a minor, but still important, part in the decision. A three-way race at the weakest position

First base: This one's pretty obviously a two-man race and no one else even enters the argument. Derrek Lee has been good this year, but he doesn't compare to Pujols and Fielder.

P. Fielder - Milwaukee - .281 - .976 - 39 - 97 - 84 - 0/2 - 415k
A. Pujols - St. Louis - .322 - .991 - 30 - 84 - 83 - 2/8 - 12.9M

Pujols has the better track record, batting average and OPS. Fielder has put up 9 more homers and costs a lot less. That's basically your choice. If the money's available to spend on Albert for this team, this is a REALLY tough choice. If I blow through my money elsewhere, this is a good place to take the cheap player and save 12M for similar production though.

Second Base: Another weak position overall, but two players stand out as nominees.

B. Phillips - Cincy - .286 - .814 - 25 - 78 - 89 - 25/32 - 408k
F. Sanchez - Pittsburgh - .312 - .809 - 11 - 66 - 71 - 0/1 - 2.75M

Weirdest thing here is that Biggio doesn't make it. He's definitely showing his age this year at the plate.

Third Base: I originally had four nominees, but really, one of them (Encarnacion - Cincy) had a far lower OPS than the other three, so I've cut him. This is another one like first base, but with a third guy thrown in. The young stud(from Milwaukee even) against the veteran player who's putting up his normal numbers.

R. Braun - Milwaukee - .333 - 1.020 - 25 - 66 - 62 - 11/15 - 400k
M. Lamb - Houston - .293 - .830 - 11 - 38 - 41 - 0/0 - 2.7M
A. Ramirez - Chicago - .310 - .894 - 18 - 79 - 51 - 0/0 - 9M

Finally, the last position!
Shortstop: Three guys here, this could be a tough one, due to the different things these players bring to the table.

A. Gonzalez - Cincy - .264 - .790 - 16 - 56 - 53 - 0/1 - 3.5M
J.J. Hardy - Milwaukee - .279 - .803 - 23 - 72 -71 - 0/3 - 400k
R. Theriot - Chicago - .285 - .720 - 3 - 39 - 72 - 22/26 - 390k

And there they are! Sorry I was too busy to link their information cards. PErhaps I'll spend an hour doing that tomorrow if I have time. Sometime this weekend, I'll try to post at least the outfield candidates, although with Labor Day being a busy family weekend for both my wife's family and my own, the 'pen might have to wait until we're back to the workweek.

The All NL Central Team, 2007

2007-08-29T19:46:00.000-05:00

I decided to have a nice multi-post topic that I could go into a lot of detail on. What I've decided to do is create the All NL Central Team for 2007. It's perhaps the worst division in baseball, and at some positions you can see why. However, we've still got some excellent talent in our little part of the majors.

Of course, with the Central, we've got six teams to choose from, which gives for a larger talent pool to choose from than say, the AL West. So at least we have that going for us.

Now, to make this feasible, I've decided on some rules to make this a realistic team on some level. The rules are designed to keep this from being just a true all-star team that relies on veterans on huge contracts. They're designed to make it so that I HAVE to choose some players who are on either rookie contracts and are overperforming or are just generally on more frugal contracts than they'll probably receive if they keep up their current pace.

These rules include:
1) That my "team" is constrained by the average payroll of the NL Central teams. 2007 payrolls can be found here. This limits me to a somewhat frugal $74 million in payroll. This would put my team, should I spend it all, in 18th, between the Twins and A's.

2) For the outfield, any three outfielders can be selected, but one of them must be a center fielder.

3) The bullpen must contain 1 person who is actually a team's designated closer and should also contain at least 1 lefty, preferably 2.

4) Starting position players must be selected at the position they played most during the 2007 series (No putting Berkman back in the outfield, he's a first baseman now).

5) Defense and previous years DO matter, but should be secondary to the current year's offensive stats. So if I say Pujols and Fielder is a push on this year's stats, assuming I can afford Pujols' salary, he would be the one I'd choose.

6) I must fill a standard 25-man roster and every team MUST be represented.

7) Individual player salaries are per ESPN.com. Unlisted salaries will be assumed to be at $400,000, around where many rookies and minor-league deals are valued at.

Now, I'm going to post my nominees for positions in probably two posts, then over the course of the next week or two, I'll take chunks of this team per post, and tell why I chose them (with a final post summarizing the whole team).

For today's post, to finish up, I'll simply show my nominees for starting pitching.

Player - Team - Record - ERA - K's - IP - Salary - Throws
(stats are as of 8-29, BEFORE games were played)

R. Hill - Chicago - 8-7 - 3.68 - 154 - 161.1 - 400k - L
T. Lilly - Chicago - 13-7 - 3.85 - 140 - 168.1 - 6M - L
C. Zambrano - Chicago - 14-10 - 3.95 - 143 - 173.1 - 12.4M - R
A. Harang - Cincy - 13-3 - 3.68 - 166 - 181 - 4.25M - R
R. Oswalt - Houston - 13-6 - 3.33 - 130 - 178.1 - 13M - R
A. Wainwright - St. Louis - 12-9 - 3.86 - 113 - 163.1 - 410k - R
T. Gorzelanny - Pittsburgh - 14-7 - 3.58 - 114 - 173.1 - 386k - L
I. Snell - Pittsburgh - 8-10 - 3.93 - 147 - 169.2 - 408k - R
B. Sheets - Milwaukee - 10-4 - 3.39 - 90 - 119.1 - 11.1M - R

Bolded/Italicized indicates they have the highest(or in ERA, the lowest) in that stat.

These are the nominees for the starting five. They obviously have different strengths, different salaries, and different levels of accomplishment. Anyone else interested in participating in this activity either on your own blog or posting on mine, you're certainly not bound by this list. If there's a starter that I left off for some reason that you want to include, feel free. I don't imagine you'll find someone you'd rather have from the Central than these 9, but if you do, way to go.

Coming next: The nominees for each infield position (and maybe the outfield, or that might be a separate post).

Bullpen will be last, with bench players being chosen from the infielders and outfielders that did not make it.

Babe Ruth, Pitcher.

2007-08-20T18:19:00.001-05:00

Babe Ruth would have been one of the best pitchers in his generation had he stayed a pitcher rather than going to the outfield. Being sold to the Yankees made his change full-time to the outfield much more possible because the Yankees already had a very good rotation and Ruth’s bat was obviously going to be just as prolific if not moreso than his pitching arm.

He really only spent four seasons as a full-time pitcher, from 1915 to 1918. He was still primarily a pitcher in 1919, but the Red Sox realized how much of a hitter he was, and he spent much more time in the lineup as an outfielder(111 games) than he did as a pitcher(17 games).

Now, many of these stats are on some level archaic because it was a different time period. This was a time period known for dominant pitching, and Ruth was definitely part of that. However, we can look at his stats compared to league average(as I did in the last post), and that will give us an idea of how dominant he was.

Ruth’s career ERA was a sterling 2.28. Obviously in today’s game that would make him the best pitcher in the league, but again, let’s consider it compared to Ruth’s era. The league average ERA over his pitching years was 2.86, so Ruth’s ERA was about 21% lower than the average pitcher. If we applied this to today’s ERA’s, the 2006 American League had a league average ERA of 4.56. An ERA 21% lower would equate to a 3.63 ERA, which is pretty darn good and would have put him in the top 10 in the AL in ERA.

Ruth also won the ERA crown one year, in 1916, with a 1.75 ERA. That same year, he was in the top 5 on many other categories, including: Win % (5th, .657), Wins (3rd, 23), Innings (3rd, 323.2), K’s (3rd, 170), Games Started (1st, 41), Shutouts (1st, 9) and Complete Games (4th, 23). If the Cy Young had existed, he surely would have won it this year.

He was also in the top 5 in many pretty important categories the other years of his career too, including 2nd in wins, innings and games started in 1917, 1st in complete games, and 5th in both K’s and Shutouts. He one of the best bets to win a game for his team during this time as well, in the top 5 in win % in both 1915 and 1918 as well.

In fact, his career winning % ranks 14th all time, among eligible players(100 decisions minimum to qualify) with a .671 winning percentage. This winning percentage puts him in the company of modern stars like Roy Halladay, Roy Oswalt, Roger Clemens and Tim Hudson as well as all-time greats Cristy Mathewson, Lefty Grove and Sandy Koufax.

Now, to look at Ruth’s WHIP compared to league average of his time. These stats are compiled from the 1915-1918 seasons, when he was most active as a pitcher.

Stat Comparison – Ruth / League Average / % better Ruth is

WHIP – 1.088 / 1.261 / 15.9%

WHIP is of course, Walks + Hits per Inning Pitched, or more simply, how many baserunners a pitcher allows. If a pitcher allows very few, you can bet that the pitcher is probably very successful, since there’s no one on base to score. Ruth let basically 16% fewer people on base than the average pitcher, showing that he was very good there as well. His career WHIP is a little higher, as he was later often used here and there, but obviously being out of practice never had the level of success as a regular pitcher. That career average was 1.15, which places him 70th all time in WHIP.

He was also a stellar postseason pitcher though, once posting 29 consecutive scoreless innings in World Series play(This was a record for 43 years). I know being on World Series teams can’t be an entirely individual achievement, but in his few years pitching in Boston, he was on three World Series championship teams during Boston’s most successful years. His total postseason line is: 2-0, 0.86 ERA in 31 innings pitched with a 0.935 WHIP. This was in three games pitched, over the 1916 and 1918 World Series.

So, if anyone has any doubt that Ruth is the best player ever, when you take his dominance with the bat and you, on top of that, look at the fact that he was probably one of the top 5 pitchers in baseball over a 5 year span before moving to the outfield in New York full time, the conclusion seems pretty obvious.

Update: I had some other links, but I screwed the links themselves up. Once I find those pages again, I'll re-link them, but for now, since I screwed it up, I'm just taking those down.

Ruth vs. Bonds

2007-08-19T20:23:00.001-05:00

I was recently in an online debate about who was the best player in major league history, and it quickly turned into a battle of Ruth vs. Bonds. I personally wouldn’t put Bonds even at #2, but rather I’d put Ted Williams #2.

However, needing to find a way to prove my point, I of course found a boatload of stats to back me up, the other guy did the same, but here I intend to outline my argument as simply as succinctly as possible.

Looking at size or any statistic that is based on totals and not rate are pointless, because there are huge differences between medical and fitness technology that favor Bonds, and the difference in eras makes comparing certain stats hard to do. My theory is this: The best way to make a real comparison of who is the greatest is to compare each player to the players of their era and then compare how dominant each player was compared to their era. This basically is making the assumption that the major leagues have, over the course of their history, been basically just as competitive as always and if you took Barry Bonds and threw him into the 1920s, he would perform equally better than the other talent than he did in the 1990s. Likewise, Babe Ruth would have been equally dominant now, compared to the overall competition, and his stats would be the same percentage over league average as they were then.

In my opinion, this is the only way to really make a case for a player being the best of all time.

For this argument here, I will make two assumptions:

1) We’ll leave out Ruth’s pitching. He was an above-average pitcher for 4-5 years of his career. My opinion is that including this makes him far and away the best player of all time, so for the sake of argument, we’ll just compare the players as hitters.

2) We’ll assume Barry Bonds did not do steroids, because in my mind, if you had to use performance enhancing drugs to make yourself the best player ever, then you’re NOT the best player ever. (I don’t actually believe this, but it’s the only way to make this a meaningful discussion.

Methodology of the comparison: I’ve taken each player’s best season, using OPS+ as the yardstick for which season is their best. I’ve also taken their worst season, using the same stat(I’ve left out any season where the player did not play 100 games and Bonds’ rookie year, so it’s not a fluke rookie season or a season where the guy only played 20-30 games). Lastly, I took their totals for certain stats. Then I found the league average stats for the same years and spans of years for each player. The stats used are the easiest to gather this information for and are “rate” statistics, meaning they’re averages/percentages, rather than totals. Batting average, On-base percentage, Slugging, and of course, OPS are the four stats that I looked at. I wanted to include HRs, RBIs and Runs scored, but these are harder to come up with league averages for.
So, first looking at their best seasons: This part is eerily similar between the two players. Ruth’s line is .376/.533/.849/1.382 and Bonds’ line is .370/.582/.799/1.381. Only one thousandth of a difference in OPS for their best seasons. Looking at the league averages, they’re also pretty close. During Bonds’ best season, the league line was: .259/.331/.410/.741 and during Ruth’s, the line was .283/.347/.387/.734. There’s somewhat of a difference in batting average, but in OPS, the gap closes and Ruth’s time period was a shade behind Bonds’ time for OPS. So using their best seasons, the only really conclusive thing we see is that they were both really dominant(about 650 points better than league average on OPS each), but overall, no huge difference here. So we’ll have to look at average and worst years.

Worst years there’s a fairly big discrepancy. Bonds in his worst year(his 2nd year) only matched the batting average for the league, matching it dead on at .261. His OBP was basically also matched, with Bonds being at .329 and league average being .328. He did smoke the league average slugging that year, slugging .492 compared to league average .404. So Bonds’ Slugging was 21.7% higher than the league average. The OPS difference is .821 to .732, so he’s 12.1% higher than average there in his worst season.

Now, on to Ruth: Ruth’s batting average was slightly higher than league average his worst year: .288 to .279. His OBP was CONSIDERABLY better, being .448 to .351, so he was 27.6% better at getting on base than the average player. The slugging discrepancy was .537 to .399. Ruth’s WORST OPS+ season was one where he slugged .537! This puts him 34.6% better than league average at slugging during his worst season. The OPS difference: .985 to .750. So in Ruth’s worst OPS+ season, he was 31.3% better than the average player.

OPS Difference – Worst Season

Ruth – 31.3% better than league average
Bonds – 12.1% better than league average

Now – average season time. Bonds’ career line is .298 batting and a .445/.608/1.053 OBP/Slugging/OPS line. His .298 compares to an average of .260 over the span of Bonds’ career. So Bonds is a respectable 14.6% better than the average hitter of his time period. The OBP/Slugging/OPS line for the league during his career is .328/.404/.732. So Bonds is an impressive 35.7% better than the average player during his time at getting on base, 50.5% better in the slugging line, and has an OPS 43.9% higher than league average during his career.

Ruth’s career line includes a .342 batting average and an overall line of .474/.690/1.164, so he tops Bonds in straight numbers, but how does he do compared to his competition? His batting average of .342 compares very favorably to the league average, which was .274. This means he gets hits 24.8% more often than the average player in the AL of his time period. He gets on base 38.6% more often (.474 vs. .342) slugs an absolutely astonishing 81.6% better than league average, and his OPS is 61.2% higher than league average. To line these percentages up:
Player vs. League Average – Batting – OBP – Slugging – OPS

Ruth – 24.8% - 38.6% - 81.6% - 61.2%
Bonds – 14.6% - 35.7% - 50.5% - 43.9%

So comparing their dominance vs. league average, Bonds is well above average in every category, but still doesn’t match the Babe’s success compared to their peers on ANY category. When you take this into account, even without Ruth’s pitching career and without disqualifying Bonds as a steroid user, Ruth is the better player and earns the distinction of best player ever.

Impressions of Miller Park

2007-08-16T12:05:00.000-05:00

Being only the 2nd city I’ve seen a professional baseball game in, I certainly have to say that my perceptions are not as well educated as many others, but it seemed like a good topic to post on, to compare Miller to Busch.

First off, being the first away game I’ve been to for the Cardinals, it was truly awesome to get a chance to ACTUALLY see them take BP, as opposed to home games, when if you rush in right at the 90 minute mark when the gates open, you might see them walking off the field to let the visitors start BP. Edmonds looked very good during BP, launching about half of the balls he hit past the wall. Ankiel did the same. Pujols sprayed balls around, and I was actually a little amused to see how he starts BP: by bunting the first ball that comes to him. He did this at least two different times that he stepped into the cage.

The real impressive feat of batting practice also was for Pujols. The center field scoreboard is above the wall(obviously) and probably about the same amount of shrubbery as there is grass above the wall. Pujols drilled one BP ball that was probably 75% up the scoreboard, which I would have to guess was probably around a 450 foot home run, if not more.

I almost got two autographs from Cardinals. The Cardinal players who were the friendliest about signing autographs were Yadi Molina and Gary Bennett. Yadi signed about 30 autographs about 5 feet down the rail from me, but I could never get in to get my ball signed. Bennett told a crowd of us he would sign, and did so, but not before I was yelled at(more to come later) by Booker, one of Milwaukee’s “guest relations” people, to back off the railing because this particular walkway was being blocked.

Other random observations: Beer prices seemed about the same. Miller was actually cheaper for their large beer, at $7.25 vs. I believe $8.50 at Busch, but Miller’s large beer was considerably smaller than Busch’s, so I would imagine it’s probably pretty much a break-even situation. Bottles in the stands were $6.25 and were the typical 12 ounce size, although they were, of course, in the plastic bottles that Miller has adopted for sports venues.

They had a lot of the 1982 Brewers team there, signing autographs, and one such table was near where the Cardinals dugout was, which led to my being yelled at unreasonably by Booker. To be brief, basically, the front row was the pathway out for people after getting their autographs from Rollie Fingers and a few other Brewers, and I was able to get down into that row in a way that wasn’t blocking traffic, well before either of the two Cardinals came over to sign. When Yadier came over to sign, everyone crowded around, completely blocking people’s ability to get out of there, and that’s when Booker, the very large Brewers staffer, came over and starting telling us we needed to clear out of that row. At one point, after he said it about 3 times in a short span(and people were voluntarily, although slowly, clearing out), I said, sincerely, that I’d move once I was able to.

Booker’s response: “No, you’ll move now.”

To which I responded something along the lines of “I can’t, there are people all around me. I’m not going to shove someone over.”

For the moment, he seemed satisfied with that until about 15 seconds later, when I was moved over about 4-5 feet and still trying to find an opening among the very slowly moving mass when he yelled “Get moving, Number 5!”(a reference to the Pujols jersey I was wearing).

Eventually, I was able to move, but to say the least, I wasn’t very impressed with the courtesy of Booker. I understand he’s got a job to do, and that’s to get that aisle cleared, but as someone who was trying to be understanding and courteous to him, he didn’t have to be singling me out and yelling at me. To put it best, I’ll quote a bumper sticker that the guy who did maintenance at my old apartment building had on his truck: Booker: “Don’t be a Dick.”

The game itself was great. The seats we had were in section 119, which is nearly behind home plate. Edmonds, Pujols, Eckstein and Rolen, the ones we’ve counted on in years past, all played well. I was a little disappointed we were going to see a Kip Wells pitched game, and moreso after the first inning when all the Crew fans around me were up on their feet for the two home runs, but he really shut them down afterwards.

I do have to say though, with as many deep counts as Kip was going into, it didn’t seem like he was as good as he was beyond that first inning. But I do remember looking up sometime around the 4th or 5th inning and seeing that the Brewers hadn’t gotten a hit since that first inning. Sometimes the eyes can be deceiving.

Another observation that I was a little shocked about is how much that place cleared out late in the game. Being used to seeing games in St. Louis, where there are always a few fans that trickle out, I was thinking it would just be a few, but the seats would be mostly filled still. In our section, a prime section of 119, there were probably only 35% of the people still there by the 9th inning. Attendance for the game was around 37,000, but by the end, I’m guessing it was closer to 10-12,000.

Overall a great time: Suggestions for anyone making a trip to Milwaukee for a game. The Ambassador Inn and Hotel(two hotels, across the street from each other and owned by the same group) have a free shuttle that will take guests anyone in the downtown area, including the Miller Brewery, which we also toured(that’s my other suggestion – three free beers at the end of the tour! It makes paying $7.25 a beer at the park a little more palatable when you’ve already got a light buzz going into the game), and also including Miller Park.

The Park itself is beautiful. It seems much more triangular in the way it’s built compared to what I’m used to, which is of course, the current and the last Busch Stadium. But regardless, it’s a really cool park and other than my man Booker, all the staff and other fans there were very kind.

Late inning highlight: Two kids in the next section over got a nice clap/chant going of: “Bill!” clap clap, clap clap. “Hall!” clap clap, clap clap. They repeated this over and over during the at bat until he laced one into the outfield for a base hit. The two kids, who seemed like probably 14-16 in age, seemed very proud of themselves. I’m the same way, but it’s always amusing when fans take ownership of an athlete’s performance because they(the fan) wore their lucky shirt or found a “lucky spot” on the couch and refused to move until the rally was over, even though they had to pee really bad.

Kip Wells, inconsistency and Pacman Jones

2007-08-09T09:41:00.000-05:00

The player I think all of us in Cardinal fandom pegged as being destined to hold the ERA crown this year(for highest ERA of course—it would also be the 2nd straight year a Cardinal held this dishonor, after Jason Marquis last year) is beginning to turn it around. Since the All-Star break, he’s had all pretty good starts with the exception of his first trip to the mound post-All-Star break.

Before we get into comparing different runs of his season, let’s look at the stats from these most recent starts. In six starts since the All-Star break, the Kipper has posted an ERA of 3.48 and has gone 2-2 and has improved his K/BB ratio, which was 1.69 over that span. His strikeouts actually went down over the span, but his walk rate went down considerably. One other interesting stat over the span: 0.00 HR/9. He hasn’t given up any! It really didn’t seem to be his problem before(moreso the 97 hits and 47 walks he gave up in 92 2/3rds innings), but the zero homers is still an impressive improvement.

Now, to look at the other starts to give you perspective. Prior to the All-Star break, Kip appeared in 19 games, 15 of them as the starter before being bumped to the pen for his uber-suckiness. During that span, he posted an ERA of two and a half runs higher than his recent stretch at 5.92. His 1.51 K/BB ratio doesn’t seem as much of a jump from the 1.69 of recent starts, but as I said above, both his strikeouts and walks dipped since. The walks were a huge problem. At 4.6 walks per 9 innings, he was basically walking someone every other inning on average. Along with the fact that he was giving up more than a hit per inning, that spells disaster.

To compound this, if we go back to before Kip went to the bullpen(where he actually had pretty good success), then we see an even more brutal picture. From the beginning of the year to his last start before going to the pen, which was on June 14th, he posted an obscene 6.93 ERA with even more walks (4.9/9) and an even worse K/BB(1.36).

His streaks have been very interesting(including his most recent). It basically looks like it can be broken into 4 chunks. His early starts, the ten starts where we fell apart, his time in the bullpen(with one start thrown in there), and his recent post All-Star starts. Instead of analyzing each stretch further, I’ll just put his stats below and let you make what you want out of them:

Dates – ERA - Record

April 3rd to April 19th -- 3.12 – 1-3
April 24th to June 14th – 8.88 – 1-8
June 20th to July 7th – 1.12 – 1-0
July 13th to August 8th – 3.48 – 2-2

It’s 10 starts, so it’s hard to just throw that bad stretch out, but if you do, Kip has actually been pretty good. It feels really weird to type those words though, I must say.

Tack-on:

Adam “Pacman” Jones must think everyone else is idiotic. On ESPN’s “First Take” this morning, he made the statement that his most recent trip into a strip club that resulted in yet another incident, was made because “I wanted to get something to eat—there weren’t even any girls in there.”

I know when I think, “Hey! I’m hungry!” My next thought immediately after hearing the belly gurgling is “Where’s the nearest strip club!”

The interview was obviously meant to be Jones’ way of trying to defend himself, but given his incredibly weak excuses, it’s really just shown how far from reality Adam Jones really is. You better soak up that time with your daughter, Pacman, because if you continue to behave in the way you do, one of these indictments will stick and you’ll find yourself convicted and in jail.

Juan Encarnacion Hatred

2007-07-15T21:52:00.000-05:00

On many Cardinals blogs that I read, most notably Viva El Birdos, a great Cardinals blog, there seems to be a lot of angst towards Juan Encarnacion. This was true last year, during the World Series run, when he was even benched for two games in the World Series and during the limited time he did play, registered a .000 batting average.

Much of this seems to be because of his seemingly lackadaisical play in the outfield and his less than overwhelming offensive stats. Now I'm certainly no huge fan of Encarnacion. I think he's a pretty average player at a power position, and he does look like he's playing at 80% effort most of the time. However, I do contend that at this time, he's probably our best option out there, and certainly better than most of our options.

First off, to once again refer back to Larry at Viva El Birdos, he did a post several weeks back showing what kind of returns there have been in trading the apparently very tradeable Juan Encarnacion. In his career, he has been traded four times, and each time, his role in the trade diminished from being the main part of the first trade, as a relatively young player with some more upside to being a throw-in in the last trade. Given that his trade value doesn't appear to be great(especially with a moderate, but not exactly cheap 6.5M salary next year), why would we trade him just for the sake of trading him?

Let's look at all the other options compared to Juan:

Juan has posted a very pedestrian .305 on-base percentage so far this year, showing that he still doesn't know how to take a walk. However, his slugging is a very respectable .461, which again, isn't monstrous by any means, but it shows he can slug in some runs.

Our other options on the major league roster to take his spot are So Taguchi and Skip Schumaker.

Their OBP/Slugging:

Taguchi: .344/.372
Schumaker: .333/.377

So if we dump Enc for one of these because Enc sucks with the bat, we're actually putting someone even more inferior out there. Sure, Gooch and Skip both get on base more, but certainly not enough to give up 90 points of slugging in the power position that is right field.

Our AAA outfielders pose only slightly better options:

Ankiel: .319/.588
J-Rod: .377/.503
Stavinoha: .327/.419
Cabrera: .275/.250

Ok, so obviously Cabrera and Stavinoha would be steps back. They're not keeping up with Encarnacion's stats and they're in the Pacific Coast League, a notoriously hitter-friendly league. That leaves J-Rod and Ankiel as options.

Ankiel's slugging is huge. To give you an idea of how good .588 is, Pujols is slugging .533 so far this season, Chris Duncan .545.

So that seems like a good option right? Wrong. Ankiel's huge slugging is due to his relatively impressive HR total(26 in 301 AB). However, he's drawn only 19 walks this season. Obviously against the far superior pitching in the majors, his homers are going to decline, and he doesn't get on base even in the hitter-friendly PCL. He might be a guy that could come up and give you 10-15 homers for the rest of the season, but he'd probably do it while putting up a .250 On-base, which is pretty god-awful. Also, in the case of Ankiel, because of the many times he's been optioned back and forth between the majors and AAA, he is considered to be "out of options." This means that if he doesn't work out and we want to send him back to AAA, he has to clear waivers first, so basically any MLB team could try to steal Ankiel from us if we decide he needs to go back to Memphis to work on that plate discipline. So now the player we put about 8-9 years of time into is playing for someone else. That's obviously not good.

Rodriguez however does bring up an interesting possibility. He's shown the ability to hit major league pitching pretty well, albeit in a very small sample size. He only has 332 career at-bats to go on, but his major league stats are a .378 on-base and a .434 slugging. His AAA stats reflect this at .377/.503 right now.

Rodriguez would be a decent option offensively, as he would be cheaper and would give pretty similar production if he's capable of producing that .378/.434 clip as a fairly regular player. However, he's not a huge improvement, despite his much superior OBP. And while Encarnacion looks like he's going through the motions in right, his defense is far superior to the defense we've seen in the past from J-Rod. Not to rip on Duncan, because he's a far better outfielder than last year, but does anyone really want to see an outfield of Duncan and Rodriguez in the corners with either Taguchi, Schumaker or a diminished Edmonds in center?

That seems like a recipe for disaster.

As sad as it is to say it, for the remainder of this year, at least, and quite possibly for next year, unless we're ok spending 10M+ on a player like Eric Byrnes(who, by the way, has career offensive numbers of .328/.456 as far as on-base and slugging, about 20 points better overall in OPS than our own, much cheaper Juan).

Juan Encarnacion, like it or not, Cardinals fans, is our best option in right field until his contract expires.

Edit: Realized I left one person off. Ryan Ludwick could be an option. Monstrous AAA numbers of .380/.642(yes, .642 slugging, 100 points higher than Pujols has this season), but keep in mind in limited playing time, when he's probably ideal for the situation, his major league numbers this season are .278/.477 and his career MLB numbers are .294/.433, so still probably not an upgrade over Juan.

Woohoo! An Update!

2007-05-16T17:58:00.000-05:00

Here's a question posed by Brian Kenny on tonight's 5PM Central SportsCenter.

"Why don't they end tied baseball games in a home run derby?"

This question was phrased making fun of soccer for ending in penalty kicks. I would assume he feels the same way about hockey doing this as well. My position: I don't really give a damn what soccer or hockey does to end their games that are tied, however, this is a really stupid comparison.

In the penalty kick/shot situation, it's the shooter trying his hardest to get the ball in the goal, the goalie trying to keep it out. Both players are doing everything they can to make sure they achieve their goal, so the competitive nature of each side being represented on each play does exist. To make this equivalent in baseball, it would have to be a pitcher, actually pitching, against a hitter who's trying to hit a home run. In hockey and in soccer, despite the goalie doing everything they can to try to stop a goal from scoring, these shootouts tend to be 3-2, 2-1, 3-1, etc. There are people actually scoring still.

Let's assume the situation as I stated above was true for a home-run derby in baseball. The Cubs and Cardinals are in a home-run derby to decide who wins in a 4-4 tied game.

First off, how often do home runs occur? The best ABs per home-run ratio for a single season was set by Barry Bonds in his 2001 season, when he hit one every 6.5 ABs. The next two are McGwire in his back to back 70 and 65 seasons, with ratios of 7.27 and 8.02. There are 20 seasons in history where people hit a home run for every 10 ABs or less. Now that's in a single season. The best career numbers in this stat start with Mark McGwire, at 10.61 ABs per homer, then Ruth(11.76), Bonds(12.88), and Jim Thome(13.54), before we hit a bunch of legendary power hitters bunched up in the 14s.

So assuming the situation stated above, Cubs/Cards in a 4-4 tie. Even if a legendary team of hitters was coming up like McGwire, Bonds, Ruth, Thome and let's throw Sosa in there for the 5th guy, chances are, NONE of them would get a home run against an average pitcher.

And that's assuming an average pitcher. If you know you need to shut down the other team from hitting a home run, it's not that terribly difficult. Teams like the Padres could simply throw a Cla Meredith out there, who gets 7.5 ground balls for every fly ball. And no, that's not 7.5 ground balls for every home run, but every fly ball, which could be an infield fly, a lazy can of corn to right, or a blooper over the 2nd baseman's head.

So basically, Brian Kenny, the reason why baseball doesn't end in a home-run derby is because you'd either have to: 1) let the players pick pitchers from their own team that's going to throw up grapefruits, which takes out the key element of competition from the game(pitcher vs. batter) or 2) the home-run derbys would add 2 hours onto the game while each team burned through their relief aces and anyone even remotely capable of throwing a slider or sinker low in the zone.

And on to beer commercials:

While I actually think alcohol commercials in general should be taken off TV and radio airwaves, I still appreciate the fact that Bud Light really seems to be the only company out there that consistently puts out good commercials these days. The most recent radio bit I've heard in their "Real Men of Genius" campaign is the "Mr. Really Big Golf Club Maker." A great line from it includes: "Now instead of slicing our ball 200 yards into the trees, we slice it 300 yards into the trees."

A very amusing little ad. Bravo Bud Light--Even though I think beer advertising glamourizes alcohol, a message minors see, at least your advertising team shows some creativity.

From the world of eBay

2007-04-03T13:13:00.000-05:00

eBay is a wonderful place to do some shopping, especially for sports memorabilia. I look there often for several different purposes. There are hundreds of baseballs, bats and jerseys on there, all signed, and quite honestly, I would recommend going to eBay for jerseys before ever buying one in the stores, especially if it's a specialty jersey.

I went perusing and found some stuff I thought was pretty cool. I left out the typical signed baseballs, signed footballs, and jerseys, and just went for some stuff that was a little more unique on some way, shape or form.

Cool, but still in no way affordable for an average fan

Here we have statues of five great players in their sports. Kareem Adbul-Jabbar from the NBA, Wayne Gretzky from the NHL, Joe Montana from the NFL and Ted Williams and Stan Musial from MLB. These pewter statues look amazing from the photos and would be awesome to have on a mantle. However, with a Buy It Now price of $3,600, more than most guys could justify to their wives to buy a few statues.

Next, we have a flag from the 2000 Master's at Augusta. It's signed by an astonishing number of players and would be a sweet piece to have framed and up on a wall. Again though, the Buy It Now is around four grand. Opening bid: $3,299. Happy bidding.

For $2,500, you, yes you, could own this beautiful signed robe from Muhammed Ali. It never claims in the listing that this was worn by Ali, otherwise I could see $2,500 being a bargain. However, it's still a cool piece, and it comes with a CoA and a photo of him actually signing the robe, so this is one piece that you can actually feel safe that it's completely authentic!

A six-foot replica Dale Jr. car! I have no interest in NASCAR, but if I had a memorabilia room with a replica car in the middle of it, I'd have to say it's already a pretty sweet memorabilia room. Reserve is not met, and I can't imagine a 6 foot replica car is going to be anywhere near cheap, but who knows, I could be wrong, current bid is at $95 only.

Affordable, and kinda weird:

Anything that involves Bob Uecker is automatically cool. But this picture is borderline weird. First off, what the hell is that thing he's leaning on? It appears to be an oddly proportioned, very large baseball bat on some sort of wooden pedestal. But why is there an oddly proportioned 10 foot baseball bat on a pedestal somewhere? And why is Bob Uecker wearing a Cosby sweater and having a picture of himself taken next to this bat?

Alright, "kinda weird" doesn't cut it for this one, but I didn't want to make yet another listing. Here, we have some bizarre looking candle with some miniature Marlins stuff pressed onto it to make it sports themed. I don't know of anyone who would pay $7 for an ugly candle with ugly Marlins stuff pressed onto it, but if you're such a person, leave me a comment, I'd like to know what makes you tick.

Pretty cool, and actually affordable:

A hammer autographed by The Hammer? That's what this would be. I have to be honest and say I have absolutely no idea who Dave Schulz is, but if this seller is accurate in that his nickname is The Hammer, then it's a pretty sweet idea to actually take a hammer to get signed by him. This one ends in about 15 minutes from as I'm typing this, so no real chance for anyone who would read this to bid, most likely, but right now it's going for $25.

$250 may not be as afforable as the hammer, but this is a sweet item. A 1954 Cardinals scorecard(apparently, on a day they played the Dodgers) signed by 18 players including Pee Wee Reese and (insert fanfare here) Jackie Robinson!.

From the "what is this guy thinking?" category:

A picture of Chamberlain, West and Frazier playing, all in the same picture. It'd probably be a cool piece to have, and this guy claims there's a family medical emergency that is the cause of the sale. The thing that amuses me is not that the guy is asking for a cool million on the "Buy It Now" but take a look at the shipping cost. This guy better have Jerry West personally handing me the picture for that price. Oh yeah, the picture on it sucks because he's afraid someone might rip him off, so don't rip him off.

Here's a pretty nice piece: A game-used bat from Derek Jeter. Game-used equipment have to be towards the top of the list of the "cool memorabilia" items, especially when they've got a good story behind them. However, this guy has the Buy It Now listed at a monstrous $8,200.

New Ownership for the Cubs?

2007-04-02T10:02:00.000-05:00

Now, of course, being early April, I had to check the date this was posted, but given the April 2nd posting date, I assume this is legit. The Chicago Tribune has in their paper today that they intend to sell the Chicago Cubs.

The article itself reads a little unclearly, but it appears Chicago billionaire Sam Zell, who owns a minority stake in the White Sox, convinced the Tribune, where he also owns a stake, to sell off the Cubs so he wouldn't have to sell his White Sox share.

For the most part, this doesn't really matter to me, but there is one scary part of this: Mark Cuban.

I think Mark Cuban is one of the best owners in American sports today and if any of the teams I was a strong fan of was struggling, would love to see Cuban come in the door of the owner's box to save the day, but Mark, don't go to my hated Cubs! That would break my heart to have to see a guy I root for so hard own a team I root against so hard.

Anyway, on to the opening night commentary now.

It seems like, watching that game last night, there were several critical moments and that most of the critical moments came when the Cardinals were at bat. The Mets had several 2 out base hits and were able to push across 6 runs, 5 against Carpenter. However, these were not the critical plays.

These are:

1) The failed sac-squeeze. The game was 2-0 at the time, and Carpenter's bunt, had it been even 4 feet further up the first base line, probably would have scored Kennedy from third and given the Cardinals some momentum. Instead, the Cardinals failed to score that inning and in the following inning, the Mets put up 3 more runs to make it 5-0.

2) This one is from the Monday-morning quarterback files, but Oquendo choosing to send Eckstein home with 1 out on a base hit by Wilson with Pujols coming to the plate. Obviously, this is a conversation we wouldn't be having if the throw was up the line by 4-5 feet, but since it was damn near a perfect throw to the plate, we are having this discussion. Even with the 5 runs, if these two runs scored, we're talking a 5-2 game, and maybe some momentum would carry in another run.

3) The double play in the 8th that Scott Rolen hit into. It was fairly hard hit, bases loaded, and if it squeaks through, we're talking 2 runs in with either men on 1st and 2nd or depending on where the throw goes, maybe even 2nd and 3rd. Again, this would have been a huge shift in momentum too.

There's 4 runs that the Cardinals basically threw away. Carpenter wasn't his sharpest, and seemed to be overthrowing in that 4th inning, but that doesn't concern me. The concerns for this team are going to be the middle of the lineup after Pujols and the rotation, sans Carpenter. Izzy is a secondary concern for me, because if the rotation can't hold up, Izzy's worth declines quite a bit, healthy or not.

Anyway, it was still awesome to see the banner go up. I almost actually put down the cash to buy tickets on eBay, but I couldn't see myself swinging $100 a ticket(erm, I mean, face value for tickets, plus an additional $100 or so to buy a baseball card valued at $1.50 in the price guides). Maybe if we hadn't just bought a new car and put ourselves in a whole new batch of debt, I could have justified it to myself.

Desperate Times

2007-03-31T14:12:00.000-05:00

Ok, so I'm back. March turned into a stressful/lazy month for me. I'll compile my overall W-L in the MWSF Challenge for my next post, but for now, I just want to get in some sort of post to start this thing back up again.

I still have a chance in my bracket. . .

but it's a longshot.

If the final game is Georgetown beating UCLA, I win two of the three pools I'm in(sadly, they're the two "pride" brackets, with no cash involved that I could put towards, say, a new acoustic guitar or a couple new wedges).

My final game was actually Georgetown over Kansas, but the people I'm competing against that are ahead of me both have Florida in the final game, and I'm far enough behind that I cannot have them getting those points.

Another big game today too: Chicago Bulls host the Cavaliers with the #2 seed in the East on the line. Now really, no one in the East really has much of a shot of making a competitive Finals series with Dallas or San Antonio save maybe Detroit and Miami with a healthy Wade, but still. Being the #2 seed could help the Bulls make a conference finals or even an NBA finals run. I don't know that too many Bulls fans would be heartbroken by losing 4-0 to the Mavericks, although it would be the 2nd straight major sports championship that Chicago would lose though.

Lastly, and most importantly--OPENING NIGHT! TOMORROW!! I wore my Cardinals jersey much to the chagrin of all the Cubs fans up here in DeKalb.

I made a run at getting opening day tickets, but due to the "You're buying 2 tickets and a baseball card of my choice" auctions on ebay, they went WELL above the face value, to the point that I can't justify paying even to see them raise a banner(if I weren't probably somewhere around 5-6 hours from St. Louis, maybe I could justify it better). REgardless, my TV will be on ESPN Sunday night to see Carpenter begin his run at a 2nd Cy Young and the Cardinals begin their run as defending World Series champions.

Opening Night and the Final Four. This perhaps might be, the best sports weekend of the year for me.

Bracket Buster Week!

2007-02-17T09:58:00.000-06:00

Alright, it's the MWSF Challenge again! I took last week off, mostly due to a combination of business that got in the way and laziness to actually get it done so I could do this.

I went with two ballsy picks last time and two safe. The safe ones held up, the ballsy ones both were losers, for a 2-2 week. That puts me at an overall 12-10. With it being bracket buster week, I'll get myself back to multiples of four by picking a super-week again and going six games.

The games:

Saturday
4:00 PM ET No. 15 Southern Illinois at No. 12 Butler
9:00 PM ET No. 4 North Carolina at No. 21 Boston College
1:00 PM ET Army at Navy

Sunday
3:00 PM ET Northwestern at Illinois

Monday
9:00 PM ET No. 8 Kansas at Kansas State

Thursday
9:00 PM ET No. 11 Washington State at No. 17 Oregon

Three ranked vs. ranked, three unranked vs. unranked.

Time for the analysis and picks!

#15 Southern Illinois @ #12 Butler

Southern Illinois has been doing this for several years. Despite two coaching changes in recent memory(Bruce Weber to Illinois, Matt Painter to Purdue), this program, now under the guidance of Chris Lowery, has been a very good team the last several years, and if my memory serves well, has not missed the tourney in at least three years. I believe it's actually four years.

Southern Illinois has been hot, winning 7 in a row in the superior Missouri Valley Conference, while Butler has also been hot, winning 10 of their last 11(a loss to Wright State last week being the only blemish). I have more faith in the bigger conference team, with the better RPI and Sagarin rating, not to mention that while I have no affiliation whatsoever with SIU, they're in my home state, so I'm making Southern Illinois my pick to win this game on the road.

#4 North Carolina @ #21 Boston College

I picked against North Carolina in the Duke game, and that didn't work out so well. Also, having seen how abysmal BC played against Duke, there's no way I'm picking them until they show something. I honestly don't think there's any way they play as bad as against Duke, but North Carolina is in a different league than Duke this year, as they've proven all season long. The pick here, in my mind, is easy. North Carolina beats Boston College, probably by double-digits.

Army @ Navy

Both teams sport 11-13 Div. 1 records and are mid-200s in the Sagarins. Both are also 3-8 in the Patriot League, not an impressive league. The difference in the RPI is slightly more, but still not impressive(about 20 ranks difference). However, the pick here is Navy, and here's the fairly easy reasons why. First off, they're at home, and in tossup situations, the home court is a nice advantage to have. Secondly, Army is currently the losers of 7 in the row, where Navy has won 2 of their last 3. This game will be covered on CBS, because of automatic ratings generated by millions of veterans in this country, but from a college basketball standpoint, this should be relegated to regional access, because these teams are, as usual, pretty bad.

Northwestern @ Illinois

There's a lot of news for Illinois lately. Carlwell is out until at least the Big 10 Tourney with a concussion, Jamar Smith is out for the year and even the mascot, Chief Illiniwek is about to be out for good. Illinois might be reeling from this, but they still have the home court, and a very tough home court. My brain tells me Illinois is the better team, they have home court, and Weber is smart enough that Northwestern, with their offense, is a team you can't overlook, but my gut is telling me that Illinois may not put up their best showing tomorrow, so I'm going to go with the gut, and pick against my team for the second time in the MWSF Challenge. I'm taking Northwestern to put a hurtin' on Illinois' NCAA Dance chances.

#8 Kansas @ Kansas State

I was looking for a reason to take the upset here. K-State was surging until recently, with a 2 out of 3 skid they're looking to end with this game. They had a 7 game winning streak prior to this skid where they pounded all comers(only non-poundings were on either end of this streak, with the last game in the streak being against ranked Texas). K-State also has the home court.
Despite that, Kansas is still a first place team in the Big 12 and just last week ended K-State's win streak with a 27-point beating. I can't pick against Bill Self's team, even though he often puts up stinkers in his time with both Kansas and before that Illinois. The pick here is Kansas.

#11 Washington State @ #17 Oregon

Gotta love(not really) Dick Bennett basketball. Nothing is better for inspiring small children and old people to take a mid-day nap than popping in some 2000 Wisconsin game tapes, or the more recent Washington State tapes. This is a team that has been very good this year though. This is a team that since a loss at home to this Oregon team, has allowed on average only 53 points per game from their opponent. For the season, they defense only gives up 57.7 ppg. They've scored wins over Arizona(twice) and Gonzaga, and were very close to knocking off UCLA when they were ranked #1. But Oregon just beat this team, in State's arena, about 3 weeks ago. I look to three games on Oregon's schedule that matter to me in picking this game. At Georgetown, back in November, where they won 57-50, at Cal, just this last week, where they lost 63-61, and at Washington State, where they took Bennett out of his style of play and got the score into the *gasp* 70s, with a 77-74 win. This 2-1 record in games where Bennett-style, slow it down and try to score in the high 50s or low 60s, basketball was played, is telling to me.

However, Oregon also has gone 1-4 in their last 5 since that win against W-State.

This is the toughest of the games to pick, and while I thought I was setting myself up to take Oregon, I'll take the road team for the 5th time in 6 games and go with Washington State to avenge their loss to Oregon. I won't be at all surprised if Oregon wins though.

The Recap!

If things go well, it'll be a good week for road wins! I've picked 5 road teams, with only Navy defending their home court. I've also picked against my boys in Orange and Blue for the 2nd time this season, but have made up to my home state by picking the boys down south for a win today.

Southern Illinois over Butler
North Carolina over Boston College
Navy over Army
Northwestern over Illinois
Kansas over K-State
Washington State over Oregon

"I hate gay people"

2007-02-15T12:59:00.000-06:00

"You know, I hate gay people, so I let it be known. I don't like gay people and I don't like to be around gay people. I am homophobic. I don't like it. It shouldn't be in the world or in the United States."

These are the words of former NBA star Tim Hardaway, in response to a question of how he would handle a gay teammate.

If my blog is the first you’ve heard of this, then let me thank you for making my blog one of your first stops, but I don’t imagine that’s very many people if anyone.

Regardless, Tim Hardaway’s rant on Dan Le Batard’s Miami talk radio show is a sign of a problem in the United States. Homophobia and the inability of reasonable people to see hatred of gays as any different than hatred of blacks or Jews or Latinos.

Change the quote to this: “You know, I hate black people, so I let it be known. I don’t like black people and I don’t like to be around black people. I don’t like it. They shouldn’t be in the world or in the United States.”

If this were said, there would be nobody who would possibly agree with it, and otherwise reasonable-minded people, which Tim Hardaway probably is, would find these quotes despicable. However, when this quote is about gay people, you can find plenty of people, that while they may not be willing to go as far as Hardaway did, they obviously have similar feelings they’re unwilling to voice for fear of being ostracized.

It’s the same as if you walk through any high school hallway, which I do everyday as a high school teacher. Students have no problem throwing around the word “gay” as derogatory, just as they have no problem calling someone a “fag.”

However, most of these same students would be offended at what you said if you threw around racial epithets the same way they throw around these terms.

The other thing that bothers me almost as much as the actual statements themselves is that, as usual, he gave an apology, calling it “his mistake” later that day in another interview. When someone comes out and says “I hate gay people,” they’re very clear. There’s nothing to apologize for. I understand when someone says something because they’re naïve and don’t realize it will be offensive. There’s no naïveté involved in saying “[Gays] shouldn’t be in the world or the United States.” That’s straight-up bigotry. Tim Hardaway isn’t sorry he’s a bigot. He’s sorry that he lost his job with the NBA and that people will look at him in a negative light. His image is and should be tarnished.

This is America. So obviously, he has the right to say this and he has the right to feel how he wants to about homosexuals. But we also have the right to judge him as a bigot and a person who has shown what a small mind he has.

Some people make the point as to why we care about what athletes say. We care because sports are a microcosm of society. Maybe not always completely accurate as to the rest of society, but in those locker rooms of basketball teams and football teams and baseball teams are people who represent all that is good and bad about our society. When bad things exist in the mind of those athletes, it usually means it exists outside in our society as well.

Mike Matheny Retires

2007-02-05T08:36:00.000-06:00

This is actually relatively old news at this point, having been announced last Thursday, but former Cardinal catcher Mike Matheny retired from baseball after 13 seasons. All of us here at MWSF(which of course is just me) want to wish him well in his future endeavors, and I decided there's no better time than to discuss the catcher's achievements than now.

Matheny was a very fierce competitor who from previous interviews and seasons worked very hard in Spring Training and the off-season trying to improve his anemic batting average. While in St. Louis, he worked several off-seasons with 2005 MVP Albert Pujols, working on improving his stroke, even considering becoming a switch-hitter fairly late in his career to try to improve upon his career .239 average.

His best season came in 2005, his first season with the Giants, when he only batted .242, but hit 13 home runs and drove in 59 runs(both career highs) and posted an OPS of .701(also a career high). That year was also the last of his four gold gloves(others in 2000, 2003 and 2004, all with St. Louis). Other career highs include his .261 batting average in St. Louis in 2000, his first season with the Cardinals, and his strong 2003 season where he had a career high .320 on-base and played in 141 games.

His career highs, offensively, are not impressive, but they don't really fully depict what Matheny meant to his teammates and especially to his pitchers.

From the above linked article on ESPN.com: "As my catcher and as a person he just meant so much to me," said Giants pitcher Matt Morris, who also threw to Matheny in St. Louis. "On the field he taught me how to be a professional. Off the field he taught me to be a man and a respectful person. He's going to be sorely missed by everybody."

This appeared to be how many pitchers viewed him, as well as his former manager with the Cardinals Tony La Russa, who at one point questioned out loud that, had Mike Matheny been healthy to catch for Rick Ankiel in that 2000 NLDS, whether Ankiel would be the star pitcher that everyone in St. Louis envisioned he would be.

His work with Yadier Molina has turned Molina into one of the best defensive catchers in the majors as well, so by that coaching job, I honestly hope to see Matheny in a Cardinal uniform as a coach someday.

He seems, by all accounts, including the account of my wife, who had the opportunity to meet him in the St. Louis clubhouse after my brother-in-law took a batting practice ball to the head during pre-game one time, to be a wonderful person and a clubhouse leader. My wife has been completely in awe of Matheny since that day, far before I ever met her.

Mike Matheny--Not that you're reading this, but I'll talk directly to you anyway--have a wonderful life away from baseball, and we hope to see you back sometime as a coach. You'd make an excellent one.

This week's game and picks!

2007-02-02T10:13:00.000-06:00

Shorter post today, because I'm traveling this weekend.

4-2 last week, with the disappointment of Wisconsin losing(from what I've heard, Wisconsin has never fared well at IU in the Bo Ryan era, so not as big of an upset as you might imagine).

After the 4-2 week, I rest at a respectable but not great 10-8.

Back down to just four games this week!

First game:

Saturday, 2:30 CST - Gonzaga at Pepperdine

With no real games of top 25 teams facing off this weekend, I'm forced to go hunting in the regional listings. Gonzaga and Pepperdine are typically the top two teams in the WCC, but not this year. Gonzaga, while not up to their normal level, are still the class of the conference. Pepperdine, meanwhile is hurting this year, off to a 6-16 D-1 record. The obvious pick here then is Gonzaga.

Saturday, 7:00 CST - Minnesota at Illinois

I was going to try to avoid taking an Illinois game again, but the lineup - as stated earlier, is pretty weak during the Saturday games. To be brief, Minnesota is in too much of a state of disarray, and I'll pretty much take any Big 10 team, maybe short of Penn State to beat them, so the pick here, especially at home is Illinois.

UPSET ALERT!
Monday, 8:00 CST - #23 Texas at #8 Texas A&M

This is probably stupid, but I'm gonna go with the man-child Durant and pick the upset. I'm still not sold on A&M, although I probably should be, considering by the only game I saw, they REALLY pushed at that time #1 UCLA. But regardless of that, I'll take Texas.

Wednesday, 8:00 CST - #3 North Carolina at #10 Duke

It's at Duke, which makes me lean towards them, but I'm not sure if they have the horses to keep up with North Carolina and the upbeat style that is allowing them to blow teams out. Neither side will come into this game unprepared. When it's a rivalry game, you almost always have to go with the home team, if they're at all evenly matched. So against my better judgment, I'm going to say Duke wins narrowly at home(but watch for the rematch, because I can't imagine I'll pick Duke at UNC.)

Recap!

Gonzaga over Pepperdine
Illinois over Minnesota
Texas over Texas A&M
Duke over UNC

I'll seeing a big 2-2 coming at me this week, but praying for one of my upsets.

The Picks!

2007-01-27T07:56:00.000-06:00

Well, a possible timing error helped me break even for the week. Apparently it was a good week for the Techs, as I missed both of those games to drop to 0-2 on the week before the Illini and the Blue Devils(that I really don't like picking) pulled off wins to even me out for the week.

I kept at .500 with a 6-6 record in these picks so far, but I like to look at more recent trends. Just as people look at the Dallas Mavericks and say "Since their 0-4 start, they've been near unbeatable at 35-5," I'm going to say since my bad week of 0-4 I've been 6-2!!

Do I smell a ring in my future?

Alright, time for the picks!

We've got a lot of great games this week, and because of that, I'm expanding the normal four picks to six! It's a 50% bonus week! (Kinda like occasionally when you buy shampoo or deodorant and they give you the bigger bottle/container for the same price you're used to paying for.)

The games:

All on Saturday
#4 North Carolina @ #19 Arizona
George Mason @ James Madison
Western Illinois @ Missouri-Kansas City

Monday: Illinois-Chicago @ #11 Butler
Tuesday: Michigan State @ Illinois
Wednesday: #3 Wisconsin @ #24 Indiana

The picks!

North Carolina is the #1 team in the nation in Sagarin's rankings, #4 in the RPI, Coaches' poll and AP poll. Arizona is very good as well, but only outranks UNC in the RPI right now, where they are impressively ranked #2 behind only UCLA. Arizona does return their top scorer to this game though after he sat out last game(amazing how Lute Olson suspends him for a game against Arizona State, who they beat 71-47 WITHOUT Williams, but lets him come back for UNC) for a rules violation.

Overall, despite Williams coming back and the fact that Arizona has the home court, I'm going with the team I love to hate. Roy Williams and those damn North Carolina Tarheels are my projected winner.

Next is the battle of founding fathers! The amazing Fightin' George Masons who beat UConn last year in the regional final to advance to the Final Four vs. The Fightin' James Madisons, whose biggest win is completely unknown to everyone except themselves. Regardless, what we have here is a battle of the founder of the Bill of Rights vs. the writer of the Constitution(Never thought you'd get a history lesson from this site, did you?). Gotta go with the more important and bigger work. The Bill of Rights, as important as it is, is an addition onto the Constitution, so despite the stats that say otherwise(such as Sagarin's rankings that have GMU 94th overall compared to Madison's 291st), I'm going with the Fighting James Madisons to pull the upset at home.

The following is a game that only matters a small sector of the population, but I'm among it. As a graduate of the fine institution of Western Illinois University, this game matters. Western Illinois is competing to be the worst team in college hoops this year, and we HAVE to have this loss if we have a shot. We're currently 335th in the RPI out of 336 teams and are projected to move up a few spots to 331. THIS CANNOT HAPPEN! The Kangaroos of Kansas City MUST win in order to keep us in the running for that coveted #336 spot. So out of necessity, I'm picking UMKC to defend their home court

Monday and Tuesday's chosen games are rematches of previous picks, where I went 1-1. UIC defeated Butler last time they played, in overtime at home. Well, it's revenge time. Butler, who is by far the superior team and still ranked #11th in the nation and 23rd in the RPI, will win this time. If not, I vow to never pick another Butler game this season until I have to turn in brackets for the NCAA Tourney, which unless I REALLY curse them, they should be part of. I am also picking Illinois to defend its home court against Michigan State. These two are basically each other's biggest rivals in the Big 10, even though not for geographic reasons, but because they seem to be about equally good or bad over the Self and Weber years at Illinois. MSU won at home, now I expect so will the Illini.

Finally, Wednesday's game. This will make one friend of mine who is a Wisconsin alum very nervous, as I've picked another Wisconsin game. Last time it worked out for him as I chose Ohio State over Wisconsin in my terrible, to be forgotten, 0-4 week. But this time, on the road against #24 Indiana, I'm siding with the Wisconsin Badgers. I'd love to say it's because WIsconsin is the better team, but I'm really going to say it because in my office at work, there is a stuffed badger on the file cabinet not too far from me, which is apparently the office mascot/thing to scare people with. There's no stuffed Hoosier(but man THAT would actually scare some people.)

The recap!

The home teams go 4-2 with top ranked teams North Carolina and Wisconsin being strong enough to win on the road.

North Carolina over Arizona
James Madison over George Mason(yeah, this is probably stupid)
UMKC over WIU
Butler over UIC
Illinois over MSU
Wisconsin over Indiana

Anyone ballsy enough, make some picks in my comments. If you're willing to post picks fairly regularly, I'll post your results against mine. No picking games after they've been tipped though.

Cardinals farm system rankings

2007-01-27T07:49:00.000-06:00

Keith Law ranked the farm systems on an Insider article on ESPN.com recently!

...and to say the least, ours is still ranked as hurting pretty bad.

If you have Insider, here's a link:

The overall lowdown of the article: Tampa Bay is #1, having a crapload of talent, even though most of the really high ceilinged players are in A or AA ball. Milwaukee is the best in the NL Central, ranked 9th, the Cubs 19th, with only Felix Pie as a piece that's anywhere near major league ready, and then the good news:

We're better than Philadelphia and San Diego.

The Cardinals farm system ranks at 28th out of the 30 major league teams in Law's analysis. He does however say Rasmus, with a good year in AA would likely be a top 10 to 15 prospect across the board.

In about two weeks, Baseball America also has a write-up on the Cardinals farm system, where they rate the top 10 prospects in their system. That article is set to debut on February 9th.

Keith Law has been historically harsh on the Cardinals in his analysis of them on ESPN.com, but there's probably still some truth to this. Beyond Rasmus, the Cardinals have Chris Narveson and Blake Hawksworth as probably their two most likely future big league pitchers. Narveson probably has the ceiling of being at best about a #4 starter, and Hawksworth was derailed by surgery after being a top 100 prospect in 2004(#47 overall by Baseball America). The cupboard probably isn't as bare as Law states, but we're certainly no better than 20th even if you're REALLY optimistic.

For more on this topic, there are plenty of diaries on the site Viva El Birdos.

Now, time to work on a second post for today, my week's picks for my challenge!

ILL INI! (oh yeah, how about that handshake)

2007-01-23T20:58:00.000-06:00

So far it's the only pick I've gotten right this week.

Illinois picks up what is probably their biggest win of the season over 24th ranked Indiana. This win gets them back to 3-4 in Big 10 play, 15-7 overall. It also is their first win of the year against a ranked opponent after losing earlier games this season to Maryland, Arizona, Ohio State and Wisconsin. This win puts Illinois back on the bubble as a potential, although certainly nowhere near a lock, NCAA team.

But as much as it was a needed Illinois win, this handshake will probably be the biggest story.

Prior to the game, Weber and Sampson had their normal pre-game handshake, but instead of being a normal cordial handshake, Weber was very hesitant and it looked as though he almost pulled his hand back in that whole "run your hand through your hair" blow-off.

The origins, as I talk about in this post, goes back to a recruiting war over top guard Eric Gordon. Gordon was originally verbally committed to going to Illinois and then backed out to become a Hoosier when Sampson was hired. Gordon could have been the top prospect that put Illinois with Weber on the recruiting map. Instead, there are numerous questions from Illinois and college basketball fans about whether Weber can recruit. Afterall, he also lost out on Duke guard Jon Scheyer, who was coached in high school by Bruce Weber's brother.

This handshake is probably going to be one of the big stories of the next few days, so let's see how it works out.

By the way, I'm not picking any more "Tech" games this year if I can help it.

This week's picks!

2007-01-20T13:45:00.000-06:00

Ok, here we go.

Game 1: #5 Kansas at Texas Tech

As much as Bobby Knight gets the most out of his players and usually has a very good gameplan of how to win most games, these tend to be the games that never really come together for him. Games where his team is obviously outmatched seem to be the bane for Knight. At the same time, Self's teams, while always stocked with talent, always seem to underachieve to a very frustrating level(if only Kansas and Illinois could do an exchange program every 3 years ago between Weber and Self. They'd both be stocked with talent from Self that Weber could coach up.)

Overall, the pick here is Kansas.

Game 2: #22 Maryland at #25 Virginia Tech

Virginia Tech has been awesome as of late. They've totally earned their top 25 ranking by shaking up the ACC with some big wins. However--no one's going to overlook them now, and I can't see them keeping this up when they can't play the "underdog" card. Maryland has a better points per shot rate, shoots better, scores more points overall and rebounds the ball more per game. Some of this may simply indicate a faster pace, but overall, I've still got to go with Maryland to pick up a big win on the road in the ACC.

Game 3: Indiana at Illinois

The Big 10 game of the week. Indiana has been very good under Sampson so far. IU is currently 4-1 and tied for 2nd in the Big 10 behind only #3 ranked Wisconsin. Illinois has struggled and are 2-3 in the league(not counting the game against Wisconsin as I type this).

Illinois does have the home court though and they rarely lose there. They're looking rather good against Wisconsin, although they trail at the half. With the home court, I'm going with my team this time and taking Illinois to defend their home court against Indiana.

Game 4: #16 Clemson at #17 Duke

I look at Clemson's schedule and I wonder...

HOW THE HELL IS THIS TEAM 16TH IN THE NATION?

Their marquee non-conference win: Mississippi State(home game) - 56th in the Sagarins, 77th in the RPI. The 77th best team is a marquee win, right?

They've faced two ranked teams in the ACC in Maryland and North Carolina and lost to both of them. Their only real marquee win is another home game over Georgia Tech, who they beat by 1. Georgia Tech is 34th in the RPI. Now, Clemson somehow is ranked 11th in the RPI, so I guess if I'm going by the RPI, I can't completely rip them, but I can't imagine Clemson will be anywhere near that high by the end of the season.

The pick here is Duke, who as much as they're struggling, still only has 3 losses and still has one of the best basketball coaches in the country(NBA included)

The recap!

It's a bad week for "Techs" who I'm calling to go 0-2. It's a good week for the traditional powerhouses of the last few years. All four winners have been strong programs for the last several years, while the losers have all been either traditionally weak in basketball or in the case of Indiana, just down the last few years.

Kansas over Texas Tech
Maryland over Virginia Tech
Illinois over Indiana
Duke over Clemson

Can I go over .500?

Hoops Challenge!

2007-01-19T07:52:00.000-06:00

A successful week last week! I grabbed myself a shovel and dug upward.

After a first week 0-fer, I went 4-0 on picks last week to finish week 2 of the challenge at 4-4. Now, it's time to pick the games for this week.

Saturday: #5 Kansas at Texas Tech
Sunday: #22 Maryland at #25 Virginia Tech
Tuesday: Indiana at Illinois
Thursday: #16 Clemson at #17 Duke

A pretty balanced week. These could go either way. Obviously the two ACC games are teams very closely ranked, with the supposed underdog being the home team. The Big 10 game is two teams going in very different directions as of late, and the Big 12 game should be a relatively easy pick, but then when Bobby Knight is involved, anything's possible.

I almost picked #12 Arizona at #2 UCLA instead of the Kansas/TTU game, but I figured I've shown sufficient stones for the week in picking three games that could be tossups. Why make it four? Gotta take one where I can get some real odds at winning.

Picks will be published before the first game tips, at 3:00 CST.

Turning it around!

2007-01-14T18:29:00.000-06:00

My Hoops Challenge has turned around for me.

Wisconsin/Purdue is later this week, but so far I'm 3-0 this week, with the probable gimme being the only one left.

On a football note(sort of)--Why is Prince the Super Bowl halftime entertainer? Couldn't the biggest American television event of the year get someone who peaked sometime more recently than 1990?

Apparently, Color Me Badd was unavailable.

I know, Prince is on that level with Michael Jackson, but still--it's not like we're seeing HIM as the centerpiece of the Super Bowl entertainment.

It can only get better....

2007-01-13T08:44:00.000-06:00

After last week's 0-4 in the MWSF Hoops Challenge, I can only get better. Only one of these games should be an easy pick this week, but then again, Butler/UIC last week was supposed to be easy, until an overtime victory made me winless.

The games!

#20 Tennessee @ #5 Ohio State - Sat.
IUPUI @ Valparaiso - Sat.
Illinois @ Michigan State - Sun.
Purdue @ #4 Wisconsin - Wed.

So three of my four picks will be decided by the time the new polls come out. Now, on to the picks!

The "locks"

I say that of course, tongue in cheek.

Game 1: #20 Tennessee @ #5 Ohio State - Noontime tip

This one makes me nervous. Tennessee is a pretty high powered offense, averaging 85.6 points per game, and they're led by two junior guards who seem to be lighting it up. Ohio State, however, is the more talented team and has home court. OSU's recent struggles(losing to Wisconsin, only scoring in the 60s at Illinois, despite walloping them overall) can probably be accounted to a lot of freshmen playing on the road in a rough conference to get road wins. Tennessee has beaten some good teams in Oklahoma State and MEmphis, both ranked teams, but they got walloped by one of those top tier teams in North Carolina. In writing this, I've almost talked myself into taking the upset, but I can't do it. Ohio State, at home, will pull this one off.

Game 2: IUPUI @ Valparaiso - 7:05 tip

The two most well known teams in my alma mater's conference, the mighty Mid-Con. Valpo is the usual league champ, but IUPUI has the most fun name, and everyone remembers wanting to pick "ooey-pooey" a couple years ago when they made the tourney. This year, IUPUI is the better scoring, better rebounding team, but that might be misleading because their toughest game was against unranked Illinois. Valpo meanwhile, matched up with Ohio State, Butler and Marquette, all ranked teams at the time of the game. Due to lack of a true favorite here, I'll go with the home team and say that Valpo gets themselves back to .500 in Mid-Con league play.

Game 3: Illinois @ Michigan State - Sunday, 12:30 tip

Both teams are 1-2 in the Big 10 after starting off with two losses in league play. Illinois squeaked by Iowa after letting a reasonable size lead slip away. Michigan State looked dominant against lowly Northwestern, beating them by 21. Iowa is not a team Illinois should struggle with at home. I can understand on the road, but at home, you have to take care of business and stick that dagger in when you have a chance. Illinois seems incapable of doing this right now, AND they're on the road. As much as I hate to do this, as a fan, I'm going with the third home team out of three games so far, and picking Michigan State to beat the boys in orange and navy.

Game 4: Purdue @ #4 Wisconsin - Wednesday, 7:00 tip

Purdue is having one of their best seasons in a long time--so far--and are currently projected by Bracketologist Joe Lunardi to be in(although only a #12 seed) the field of 65. However, they're already 1-2 in Big 10 play(not a shock to me), and my guess is they're on their way to about a 6-10 Big 10 season, with this game against Wisconsin being another of those 10 losses. Wisconsin right now is the undisputed best team in the Big 10--although maybe not by the end of the season, check Ohio State still--and they're at home, where they're virtually unbeatable. That of course is a lesson I ignored last week, but fool me twice... shame on me! Wisconsin should win this mid-week game handily.

RECAP!

All home teams win!

Ohio State over Tennessee
Valpo over IUPUI
Michigan State over Illinois
Wisconsin over Purdue

The Curse and the Big 10 NBDL 1st and 2nd teams

2007-01-11T15:41:00.000-06:00

So I've gone and done it. I've ruined Butler's season.

I picked them to beat UIC, and they then went out against UIC, who was without its coach and without several players that straight up quit, and they lost to UIC in overtime.

On the bright side, things can only go up after my 0-4 start to my own NCAA Pick'em Challenge.

On another note:

I was looking at the NBDL website, actually trying to find former Illinois star and first round draft pick Frank Williams. When looking at this, I started wondering: What other big name college stars have fallen to the wayside in the D-League? Specifically looking at the Big 10 players, I found 9 Big 10 players spread out among the 12 NBDL teams. Some of them I don't remember at all. Some of them were big-time talents that either the scouts didn't think would translate to the NBA well and dropped in stock. Some were former big stars who were even drafted and floundered into the NBDL.

So, here we go, based on only the statistics easily found on the NBDL website(since I've never seen an NBDL game, nor live anywhere near where any of the teams are), here is.... your All Big-10 1st and 2nd teams.

Slotting in as the star of this writer's team is shooting guard Vince Grier, former Minnesota star. Averaging close to 20 a game(18.7) and hitting 54% of his field goals, Grier is making the most of his time in the NBDL, and I wouldn't be surprised if he's given a chance in the NBA by season's end. The rest of my first team includes the aforementioned Frank Williams, averaging 15.8 ppg and 4.6 apg for the same Sioux Falls team Grier is on, a couple of Michigan State products in Aloysius Anagonye, averaging 9.6 with 5.7 boards and 1.4 steals a game and Alan Anderson, hitting 49% of his shots for 14.2 ppg, and finally at center, Rick Rickert, who is having a fairly successful NBDL season so far at 14.5 ppg, 7.3 rpg and 55.6% shooting.

An honorable mention and 6th man award goes to Jared Reiner of Iowa, also on the Sioux Falls team. Rounding out the 2nd team is Kevin Burleson, Tyler Smith and Marcus Taylor. Marcus Taylor being the same one that was drafted high a few years ago after coming out of Michigan State.

Overall, MSU and Minnesota have 3 players each in the D-League, with Iowa, Illinois and Penn State each being represented too. I don't know if this is an honor or not, but I thought I'd mention it.

On a side note - I think I know why these guys are in the D-League. Many of the scores are scores like 129-118. Apparently these guys don't play a whole lot of defense down there.

And the big ha-ha this week goes to:

Well, me, for going 0-4, but also for Barry Bonds, who tested positive during the 2006 season for amphetamine use. He supposedly received the uppers from career bench player Mark Sweeney(brother to Kansas City star Mike Sweeney). As one of the most scrutinized players in professional sports, he didn't learn his lesson that you shouldn't just pop things in your mouth because someone says they're ok? I don't buy the story at all, but even if Sweeney did have uppers in his locker that he handed out, Barry has no one to blame but himself.

Tom Hicks is no longer the top dog for giving out bad contracts for too much money! The owner of the LA Galaxy just signed David Beckham to a ridiculous contract that eclipses what A-Rod got from the Rangers by a healthy margin. The total contract value is $250 million, 2 million less than what A-Rod got....

BUT IT'S OVER 5 YEARS!

A-Rod's average of 25.2M is ridiculous and he could never possibly live up to it. Ok, we all know. So then how does it work that Major LEague Soccer, which gets nowhere near the television contracts or the ticket sales that baseball gets, can afford to have one of its teams put out $50M a year to one player!

This might have to get a post all to itself, comparing it to other leagues.....

The Kiss of Death

2007-01-09T21:46:00.000-06:00

Well, Quinnipiac beat St. Francis.
My upset pick in UNLV was a mistake, as Air Force beat them narrowly.
Now, Ohio State is looking bad against Wisconsin.
Who wants to take bets on Illinois-Chicago upsetting Butler tomorrow?

I'm a short time from starting off my challenge 0-3.

Tomorrow(assuming I have time), I've got some interesting stuff about former Big 10 players who have fallen from grace.

The MWSF NCAA Hoops Challenge!

2007-01-06T10:45:00.000-06:00

The inaugural week of the MWSF NCAA Hoops Challenge is now!

The idea will be that I'll pick four games from the upcoming week(for my purposes, each week will begin with Sat., since that's when the majority of college hoops is on) and I'll make my picks. Basically a 4-per-week NCAA Tourney challenge, going for the rest of the season.

My current plan is that at least 3 of the games will be Top 25 games, and since I'm a Big 10 guy, at least one every week will be a Big 10 game. The fourth game I'm going to try to pick a game that could have major importance for both teams but doesn't involve top 25 teams.

This week's games:

Today, Jan. 6 - UNLV at #16 Air Force
Today, Jan. 6 - Quinnipiac at St. Francis(PA)
Tues, Jan. 9 - #6 Ohio State at #4 Wisconsin
Wed, Jan. 10 - #13 Butler at Illinois-Chicago

The picks:

UNLV at #16 Air Force

Probably the most undervalued game this week, but these are two teams that would be LOCKS for the Tourney and would likely get seeded somewhere in the 3 to 6 range if they had to choose today. It also seems like Air Force would be the favorite, being ranked and having the home game, but their current RPI suggests otherwise. UNLV is currently ranked 11th in the nation in RPI, Air Force 15th. This could be a very important game in the MWC between two 1-0 teams.
I'm going to take the upset and pick UNLV to go into Air Force and take the game.

Quinnipiac vs. St. Francis(PA)

Normally I won't do this, since I know nothing about either team, but it's always intriguing when two teams this equally matched and this equally bad come together to play a game. In the RPI, these two teams(keep in mind, there are 336 teams in Div. 1 Hoops) are ranked 333rd and 326th respectively. Now, I'm in no position to speak ill of these teams, since my alma mater is smack-dab between them ranked 330th currently, BUT - Alcorn State isn't our opponent this week(334th), so WIU's game isn't very compelling on any level.
I'll go with the favored home team in 326th ranked St. Francis(Go Catholics!).

#6 Ohio State vs. #4 Wisconsin

The big game this week! Two potential #1 seeds going at it in Madison. Madison is one of the toughest places in America to get a road win, but Ohio State has man-child Greg Oden and a very talented overall group of young players, many of whom have never played and lost in that gym before.
I look at this one as a coin-flip, but I've decided on taking Ohio State to go into Wisconsin and take a key Big 10 road win. (This could be a rebound game after OSU at Illinois, as Illinois MIGHT be one of the few teams equipped with a big enough front line to combat OSU's size)

#13 Butler vs. Illinois-Chicago

I kept the midwest theme in this one, picking a UIC game as my final pick. Butler has the chance to do something very special. They're currently the #3 team in the nation in RPI. RPI Forecast unfortunately has them forecasted to finish around #20, which is due in large part to their conference dragging them down. But nevertheless, if Butler could run the table in the Horizon league(and who's going to stop them? Milwaukee-Green Bay?) then they could finish in position to earn themselves at LEAST a #3 seed in March. Every game is a land mine for Butler, but this is early in the season and I see no reason why UIC would beat a team that has already dispatched Notre Dame, Indiana, Gonzaga and Tennessee.
The pick: Butler keeps it going.

I know this is probably too late to really get anyone else who might regularly read this involved wholly, since games start very soon, but if anyone wants to post picks, throw them in the comments section. Even if you only pick the two games during the week this week, that'd be a good start.

Update! Not an auspicious start for me. UNLV lost in a close game to Air Force 56-50 and St. Francis let me down, losing 89-82. Today's games were the suspect picks though. GO OSU AND BUTLER!!

Break's over

2007-01-02T10:36:00.000-06:00

Well, after a nice 2 week hiatus from teaching and from blogging, I'm back. Classes start tomorrow, which means I've got a WHOLE lot to do today, but here's a post anyway.

Not gonna strain myself with a big post today, but here's some random notes:

Cardinals Notes

Mark Mulder is still considered his options, which according to the Star-Telegram out of Texas currently include the Rangers, Cardinals and the Indians. Most of the other reports have stated the competition is down to Texas and St. Louis. I'd like to see him back, especially now that our options are dwindling. Mulder's offers appear to be around 2 years/8M guaranteed with a boatload of incentives.

Other options for the rotation include Ohka and Piniero. Ugh. Please Walt! Sign Mulder and/or Weaver! On the Weaver front, there appears to be absolutely no news to speak of. That does seem to be Jocketty's way though, keeping things as quiet as possible.

Bulls Notes

Good news on a scary story: Bulls NBDL prospect Martynas Andriuskevicius attended practice with the Bulls recently after suffering major health complications stemming from a fight in practice with his NBDL team, the Dakota Wizards. Andriuskevicius was basically cold-cocked and dropped to the floor unconscious, hitting his head again rather harshly on the floor. He lost all verbal communications skills for a time and his hearing and speech are still not 100%. He says he does not intend to press charges against the player, Awvee Storey, but his agent does not rule out this possibility.

Other good news: At 19-12, the Bulls are percentage points behind Detroit for 1st in the CEntral and would start the playoffs today as the #2 seed. Their point differential of +5.2 ppg is the best in the Eastern Conference and 5th best in the NBA. As John Hollinger of ESPN.com(Sorry, you have to have Insider to actually view this article) states, "Believe it or not, victory margin is a stronger indicator of future win-loss record than a team's win-loss record, and normally a team with Chicago's victory margin would be 20-8, not 16-12." Currently, by the NBA RPI, the Bulls are playing three games better than their record indicates they are, as their expected W-L at this point is 22-9.

College Hoops Notes

This is not a proud time to claim my alma mater. Despite my fanship of the Illini, I am actually a graduate of Western Illinois University, a school that usually puts out a strong D1-AA football team, but that pretty much puts out a real stinker in basketball every year. Currently, they are 329th in RPI and 305th in Jeff Sagarin's rankings. When you consider there are 336 teams in Division 1, this is downright pathetic.

Props to the Big 10! Right now, in those same Jeff Sagarin ratings, they would likely have 6 teams in the dance. The conference is currently ranked 4th overall, and Wisconsin(6th), Ohio State(24th), Indiana(25th), Purdue(30th), MSU(33rd) and Illinois(41th) would all likely make the dance. Not that this is hugely unusual, but this looked to be a down year for the Big 10, with Illinois taking a big step downward, and only Wisconsin and Ohio State looking like they really had the pedigree to do ANYTHING in March. Time to knock on wood though, because there's still conference season, and I could see Purdue putting up a 5-11 record and falling out of the tourney.

That's all for now. I'll probably be writing more on college hoops and some on the Bulls as we go into the early months where baseball news is really hard to find.

70 days until first round action begins!

Four-man Rotations

2006-12-20T13:36:00.000-06:00

Valatan, a regular poster on Viva El Birdos(a GREAT Cardinals blog) posted recently about the idea of the Cardinals using a four-man rotation. I voiced concerns in a reply, namely that an injury could leave the Cardinals seriously deficient in the rotation, that with two very young arms, I’d hate to see the Cardinals jeopardize their careers for an experiment, and that while the 5th starter for a playoff team is overrated, as they aren’t used in the playoffs, that our fifth starter ideally is Kip Wells, and that it’s not a situation of cutting our fifth starter out.

After this, I brought up that I thought I remembered a team(Montreal I believed it to be) used a four-man rotation recently and that looking up how that experiment went would be the most recent view of the four-man rotation.

I suggested someone else do it, but eventually decided to look up this information myself.

Three situations where a four-man rotation was used include the 2003 Toronto Blue Jays(I had the wrong Canadian team), the 1995 Kansas City Royals, and the Orioles of the Weaver era(69 to the late 70s).

In the first two of these, the experiment ended pretty quickly due to injuries and other problems. However, the Orioles had incredible success with the four-man rotation.

First up: The 2003 Toronto Blue Jays

Halladay and Lidle were the two biggest names in that rotation. Halladay pitched brilliantly all year long, starting 36 games and pitching 266 innings. He posted an ERA of 3.25 and won the Cy Young award that year, having won 22 games. Lidle on the other hand, had issues, only starting 31 games and posted a 5.75 ERA in 192.2 innings. The 5.75 ERA was his career high in ERA, so the four-man rotation didn’t work out so well for him. No one else even posted 30 games started for the Blue Jays that year.

Despite Halladay’s success, he also suffered arm injuries the following two seasons, starting only 42 games the following two seasons and pitching almost the same number of innings in 2004 and 2005 combined that he did in 2003. With pitchers’ arms, they are often so fragile and they break down anyway, so it’s not entirely certain that Halladay’s injuries are because of that season, but it does seem to be a good possibility.

The 1995 Kansas City Royals

Their attempt at a four-man rotation completely fell apart when Kevin Appier, their best pitcher that year sustained an injury that season. The team high for games started that year was 33 and innings pitched 213.1, both by Mark Gubicza. Overall, this attempt at a four-man rotation was complete failure.

The 1970s Orioles

This was the longest sustained success of a four-man rotation in recent memory. Under Weaver, who used the four-man rotation to great success, several players became stars. The four-man rotation setup(having more chances to win games and pile up huge innings pitched numbers also gave them greater chances at post-season awards).

In this group is Jim Palmer, who won three Cy Young awards and from 1970-1978 started at least 35 games every year except 1974, where he battled the injury bug. You could blame this on the four-man rotation, but given how pitchers break down, having one injury-plagued season is pretty meaningless as far as damning the idea of a four-man rotation.

Also in this group of pitchers with sustained success in Baltimore was Mike Cueller, who had his greatest success under Weaver, winning a Cy Young in his first season there. He was always a good pitcher, but got the most notoriety from his time under Weaver. He fell off in 1976, but at the age of 39, this should be expected.

Dave McNally was the last of the three longest tenured pitchers in the four-man rotation. He emerged in 1968 and pitched very well under Weaver for six seasons until 1974. In 1975, he only started 12 games and never pitched in the majors again, instead retiring after a labor dispute. (My first thought here was maybe an injury, but no evidence that the Baltimore 4 man rotation really hurt anyone).

I’m sure a fan of the 1970s Orioles would know whether there was anyone who tried to fill that 4th spot that it seemed the Orioles could never really fill reliably(Most years it was these three guys making 35+ starts and a handful of other guys filling out the other 60+ games). I couldn’t find anything in short time though showing that Weaver wrecked anyone’s career with the four-man rotation.

Overall, I still think it’s a bad idea for the Cardinals in 2007 because of having two young arms that are unaccustomed to pitching like that. If we had Woody Williams and Matt Morris in the rotation with Carp and one of the young guys, I think it’d be an awesome experiment to try. But injuries to the likes of those players seem less likely as they’ve proven themselves very durable starters, and it’s not wrecking an entire career. The risk-reward doesn’t seem to justify trying to go it with four guys.

To be honest though, I do give more credence to the idea than I started with.

MLB's Greatest Innovation?

2006-12-20T07:44:00.000-06:00

Perhaps the greatest article/blog post I’ve read all baseball off season was penned(or typed rather) by the Brewers SB Nation poster

In his article, he discusses that the Nationals might very well be the worst team ever as far as starting pitching is concerned. His plan? Well, he found “a pitcher” that doesn’t strike anyone out, but also never walks anyone or gives up home runs. Using other statistics to estimate what the ERA of this pitcher is comes to 3.20. Sounds like a pretty good option right?

Well, I won’t ruin it. Read the Brew Crew Ball article for more explanation.

On the Cardinals homefront, the unrest continues, as Jayson Werth, who the Cardinals expressed interest in, has apparently agreed to terms with the Phillies. Werth wouldn’t have been a huge pickup by any means. He would have been a good bench guy/platoon option, but overall he’s only a .245 hitter career. Not exactly setting the world on fire, but at the same time, Cardinals fans(myself included) are ready for any good news. Even if it meant we were paying Suppan the 10M a year that most of us agree would be pretty silly.

The Brawl and the Bulls

2006-12-18T16:36:00.000-06:00

The New York Knicks have dropped to a new low. In the much-publicized brawl that occurred, New York coach Isiah Thomas, a perennial loser in every role in the NBA outside starting point guard, is reported to have “advised [Carmelo] Anthony not to go near the basket shortly before the hard foul” that started the whole thing.

Thomas and some of this players, namely Nate Robinson, who has shown more skills in thuggery than on the court, felt that the Denver starters being in a 20 point game with under 2 minutes was a slap in the face.

Here’s an idea: Play better basketball instead of complaining about what the other team is doing.

Most of the times when players cry about “disrespect,” they’re simply going to alienate fans and show their lack of maturity and professionalism. As a teacher, I’m disrespected everyday. Just as it would be unprofessional to attack a student either verbally or physically because I perceived some disrespect coming at me, it’s the same for these whiny basketball players.

I’d love to see any of them last in a real job(such as mine, or any other job where you ACTUALLY get disrespected). They’re throw a fit, get in a fight, and end up in jail.

The good news for the Bulls on this is that it will likely give the Bulls a better shot in the Greg Oden lottery. They have the right to exchange picks with the Knicks because of the Eddy Curry trade. We’ve already got Tyrus Thomas because of that trade from last year’s pick from the Knicks. With suspensions coming for New York, and the possibility of the precedents of the Indiana/Detroit brawl a few years ago heightening the penalties, New York could be an even more pathetic team. The Knicks are currently the 6th worst team in the NBA. If they drop into that bottom 3, then the Bulls chances of getting the top pick rise dramatically.

And for those of you who haven’t seen Greg Oden at Ohio State, make sure you catch a game sometime. He’s currently playing with one hand, because of hand surgery he’s recovering from. Despite his dominant hand being injured, he’s still turning into a double-double machine. I personally think he looks about as dominant in the college game right now as Dwight Howard has looked against NBA players. Oden, like Howard, looks like a man among boys playing in the paint.

A frontcourt of Thomas and Oden, with guard play from Hinrich and other players like Nocioni and Deng sounds like a beastly team to deal with. Now, Oden’s arrival in Chicago is obviously a longshot at this point, but it should not be overlooked that it is a possibility.

Other News

The Cardinals seem to be mostly set in their starting 8, but speculation continues about who will fill out the rotation. Right now, Carpenter is obviously the ace, and Wells, Reyes and Wainwright appear to fill the 3-5 spots, in whichever order you think is the most fitting.

Others possibly filling the last role at this point: Mark Mulder and Jeff Weaver are still being considered by the Cardinals. Mulder would not be available until probably June, so that would make a trip to the rotation more likely for one of the other bullpen guys. Brad Penny is being shopped, and while he had injury problems, he would be the #2 guy that the Cardinals desire to put behind Carpenter. The Cardinals would probably be dealing bullpen help to LA for Penny.
If all else fails, it may be a three-way competition for the #5 spot in the rotation with the other guys moving up. Long-time reliever Braden Looper, reliever Brad Thompson, and Memphis starter Chris Narveson could all potentially be battling for the fifth spot. Hopefully, this is an all-else fails plan .

Who's the #1 team in the Eastern Conference for points differential?

2006-12-07T13:25:00.000-06:00

Don’t look now, here come the Bulls!

Every year the Chicago Bulls go on a road trip while the Circus comes to the United Center, and every year they dig themselves a hole which they have to climb out of. In the 04-05 season, they started the season 0-9 before finishing as the #4 seed in a very watered down East. Last year, they again went under .500 on the circus trip before squeaking into the playoffs.

Again, like always, on their seven-game road trip, they lost the first six games before breaking the shutout at lowly New York. That dropped the Bulls to 3-9 overall.

Now, they are back to treading water in the (L)Eastern Conference, at 9-9 and two games back of Detroit and Cleveland who tie for first place right now. And don’t look now, but they actually are the best team in the East in one key statistic: Points differential. It’s not as significant of a stat as win/loss record obviously, but it does show that this team is capable of putting some serious points up.

In addition, if you look at the Vegas line on each of their games, only once have they lost to a team they were favored to beat. An 89-88 loss to Sacramento, their only loss as home this year, was the lone exception to this.

So thusfar in the NBA season, the Bulls success(or lack thereof, by some people’s standards) is not shocking. If they won every game they were favored in and lost every game they weren’t favored in, they’d be: (drum roll) 9-9. Their opening win against Miami and their home loss to Sacramento are the only times they’ve not done what Vegas expected them to(throwing out the point spread, I didn’t look, nor do I care whether they covered the spread.

Despite the Ben Wallace headband fiasco, the lack of consistent production from Ben Gordon, and the terrible circus trip, this team should still be considered a favorite to earn first round home court advantage in the playoffs as a top 4 seed.

Other news

Despite losing out on Jason Schmidt, the Cardinals are in fair shape this off-season still. Larry Borowski of Viva El Birdos puts some perspective into the situation and points out that in Anthony Reyes and Adam Wainwright, we have the pieces we need to fill 80% of our starting rotation, and that Schmidt was likely never coming to St. Louis to begin with.(Although, according to a St Louis Post-Dispatch article, they still are pursuing Schmidt, as no final deal has been signed.)

Ted Lilly has signed a 4 year, 40M contract with the Cubs. Another brilliant signing by the Cubs. While Lilly is a good pitcher, he is a fly-ball pitcher who needs to pitch in a park that is at least a neutral park.(He would be a far better sit in St. Louis, despite Duncan’s philosophy of getting ground-ball pitchers). Between Lilly and Soriano, they get two talented players who won’t improve the Cubs weaknesses even in the slightest. While they should be a better team, the Cubs likely will only make the big step towards mediocrity and a .500 record.

Cardinals skipper Tony La Russa wants to meet with, of all people, Barry Bonds. This personally scares the hell out of me, because I think I might have to become a White Sox fan(since I’m living outside of Chicago these days) if Bonds comes to St. Louis. I don’t like the idea of rooting for my team, but rooting against one of the biggest profile players on the team. The only good thing about this would be that batting behind Pujols, Bonds could lock up the MVP for Pujols for next year. Just think of what Pujols could do with a full season and if he got actual pitches to hit.

Cardinals looking to acquire arms through trade?

2006-11-27T10:48:00.000-06:00

Given Walt Jocketty’s modus operandi for the last several off-seasons in acquiring big-name talent, along with the skyrocketing contract demands of free agents this summer, it seems very likely that Jocketty will look to fill the needs of his starting rotation through arms in the Cardinals system and via trade.

The only returning member of the original starting five for the 2006 campaign is Chris Carpenter, 2005 Cy Young award winner and 3rd place in the 2006 vote for the same award. In addition to this, there are three possible arms that could be plugged into the rotation for the St. Louis Cardinals from within the organization. Anthony Reyes, who started Game One of the World Series and pitched a beautiful game, Adam Wainwright, who excelled last year as the closer after Jason Isringhausen went down for the season, and Chris Narveson, a lefty who came up to make a spot start in September where he went four innings giving up two runs.

Reyes will be in the rotation barring a trade that will land him in another uniform. The other two are more tricky though. Wainwright’s success in the bullpen compared to his sub-par AAA stats as a starter do suggest that maybe Wainwright is better suited in the bullpen. He may ultimately get a chance at the starting rotation, but with Isringhausen likely not back until May or later, it may not be this year that Wainwright gets to start. Narveson is a possibility, but he is a very green pitcher by MLB standards. He is a lefty and projects to be a decent #5 starter, but La Russa’s Cardinals teams have rarely relied on a rookie to take the ball every five days when a mediocre-at-best veteran could be had.

This leaves the other possibilities to be through trade. There are many names being thrown around in blogs and newspapers alike. Among these names, there are a number that appear to consistently show up and seem to be on the market, and an impressive number of these names are actually very young pitchers. The Detroit Tigers have a duo that have been rumored in both lefty Mike Maroth and electric righty Jeremy Bonderman. The Pirates are said to be willing to part with one of their three young lefties of Zach Duke, Paul Maholm or Tom Gorzelanny, and the Angels are looking to deal the stud youngster Ervin Santana, who is still over a year away from getting the quarter-century break in his car insurance.

In addition, veterans like Jake Westbrook of the Indians, Rodrigo Lopez of the Orioles and Javier Vazquez of the White Sox seem to come up a lot(of course, so does every other ChiSox pitcher, but Vazquez seems the most likely to be traded).

Now, several of these pitchers are very unlikely for the Cardinals to pursue. The asking price for Santana will be very high, Jeremy Bonderman is said to not be on the block anymore, and it’s unlikely Jocketty will trade for a pitcher making 12 million like Vazquez unless the White Sox eat some of his salary(an equally unlikely happening, given the lack of top-tier prospects the Cardinals could give up for him).

But just for fun, let’s look at how these pitchers compare. First, we’ll look at their 2006 stats.

Pitcher - ERA - Record - IP - K - Salary - Age
J. Vazquez - 4.84 - 11-12 - 202.2 - 184 - 12,000,000 - 30
J. Westbrook - 4.17, 15-10, 211.1, 109, 4,250,000, 29
R. Lopez - 5.90, 9-18, 189.0, 136, 3,750,000, 30
M. Maroth - 4.19, 5-2, 53.2, 24, 2,300,000, 24
J. Bonderman - 4.08, 14-8, 214.0, 202, 2,300,000, 24
E. Santana - 4.28, 16-8, 204.0, 141, 350,000, 23
Z. Duke - 4.47, 10-15, 215.1, 117, 335,000, 23
P. Maholm - 4.76, 8-10, 176.0, 117, 328,000, 24
T. Gorzelanny - 3.79, 2-5, 61.2, 40, Not shown, 24

Looking at how they chart out, some things do stand out. Maroth and Gorzelanny are coming off injuries that limited them to well under 100 innings pitched. Bonderman and Santana have the best combination of ERA and Strikeouts, making them the most desirable(but also the ones with the highest asking price). The three Pittsburgh lefties are by far the cheapest, although none of them appear to be power pitchers with Duke and Maholm tied at 117 K’s. And of the veterans, Westbrook is the most desirable, especially as he fits the Duncan system being a sinker-ball pitcher and letting the defense get in the game.

The real question then is, what is a likely package that could pry one or more of these pitchers away. Looking at the situation realistically, the Pirates lefties are probably the ones that would be the most likely to pry away. The Pirates are looking for a power hitting first baseman to fill the gap left by the Sean Casey trade. Chris Duncan’s natural position is first base(he converted to outfield this last season in order to get playing time, since Pujols is obviously entrenched there). Of the three, Zach Duke is the most desirable. He is a lefty Jeff Suppan type pitcher with much better stuff. He pitches for contact and can eat innings and has good enough stuff that with some more seasoning and a good defense behind him, he could be a #2 type pitcher in not too distant years. Paul Maholm would be a good consolation prize if they wouldn’t part with Duke for Duncan straight up(which my guess is, they wouldn’t).

Mike Maroth, another lefty, is probably the next likely pitcher the Cardinals could attain. The Tigers are looking for another outfielder(why, I don’t know, but several articles have said they are), and they need a lefty reliever. Now, I can’t imagine a package of Encarnacion and Rincon would make them happy(but boy would it be great for Cardinals fans, dumping two players we don’t really want at the same time? Awesome!), however Encarnacion and Flores might be enough to pry away Mike Maroth and Thames, their bench-riding outfielder who has shown some pretty good pop from the bench. This rumor has shown up on several sites saying Juan and Looper, but realistically speaking, I don’t see why Detroit would want Looper, as they have a pretty stacked bullpen and only lack a lefty to solidify it.

If it were possible to get Bonderman for any similar package, it would be an obvious pull the trigger situation, but word out of Detroit is after a season where it seemed very likely it was Bonderman’s last with the Tigers, that they intend to keep him now.

There are some crazy situations out there for Ervin Santana, one of them courtesy of Larry Borowski of Viva El Birdos that involves trading Scott Rolen(Note: He is merely speculating on a trade they COULD make, not saying that he's heard anything that could imply there has even been a conversation). Santana is a potential future ace by all accounts, and the Angels do need a third baseman, but I don’t see any reason why the Cardinals would want to get rid of Rolen. He’s going into year two of recovery from a surgery where year two is where they predicted he’d be 100% again, so the Cardinals would be selling low on Rolen(sort of anyway, he did have an MVP caliber performance in the World Series, where some people feel he should have won the award over Eckstein.)

The Cardinals supposedly are still pursuing Jason Schmidt as well, but I see them more likely to fill rotation spots through trades. Good luck to Jocketty in navigating the quagmire that is the 2006 free agent class though.

The Cubs sign Soriano(my take on it)

2006-11-20T18:13:00.000-06:00

The signing of Alfonso Soriano by the Chicago Cubs is bringing about a lot of criticism from those who look at the move objectively. First off, his 2006 year seems to be an aberration when you look at his career numbers. In addition, he doesn’t fill the primary needs of the Chicago Cubs. Lastly, in looking at his age and the length of his contract, it’s very evident that he will likely be far removed from his glory years even by the midway of this contract.

The Cubs signed Soriano after a year of career highs in many categories of importance, including home runs(46 in 2006, previous high is 39 in 2002), on-base(.351 in 2006, previous high is .338) and slugging(.560 in 2006, previous high is .547 in 2002). Typically, when a player has their first big year in their walk year, it’s not necessarily a sign of things to come. The most recent example of this would be Adrian Beltre, who was an MVP candidate in 2004, posting a 48 HR, 121 RBI, .334 season. The following year in Seattle after signing a big contract, he posted the much more modest line of 19 HR, 87 RBI and a below league average .255 batting average. Alfonso Soriano seems like another example of Adrian Beltre in that he is a player who has always had huge potential, but was never able to put it all together consistently until his walk year.

Another reason this signing seems to make little sense is that it doesn’t actually help the Cubs with their biggest problem offensively. The problem I’m referring to is naturally that the Chicago Cubs have an abysmally low team on-base percentage. Without getting men on base, it’s impossible to score any significant number of runs. Signing Alfonso Soriano does nothing to aid the team in this department. With a career OBP of .325, tremendously low(Five hitters in the NL had higher batting averages than Soriano’s on-base percentage), Soriano does nothing to help the Cubs here. In fact, in looking at his likely position of left field, he’ll actually be taking the spot of Matt Murton, who last year posted a .365 OBP. Soriano’s 2006 OBP is considerably higher than his career mark(.351 in 2006), but it still rests far short of Murton’s percentage and with his age(31 years old at time of signing), there’s little reason to think he’s going to improve in that aspect of his game.

In addition, his age also is problematic when considering the contract he was signed to. An eight year contract puts him at age 39 when this contract expires. Soriano’s two biggest assets are his power and his speed. The typical situation in the majors is that as a player ages, his legs slow down. Soriano’s years of posting 40-40 numbers are likely to be over just as they’ve arrived.

Another situation that is problematic is people are making him into a “five-tool” player, which he most certainly is not. One of the analysts on ESPN 1000 called him that, but he really is about a three-tool player. He had a very good year from left field with his arm, racking up an impressive assist total, so it’s certainly fair to say his arm is a tool. At this point in his career, he’s still a threat on the bases due to his speed, and he’s obviously a power threat. However, his overall fielding ability is average at best and he’s a career .280 hitter with only one season where he hit .300(2002 - .300 exactly). This is exacerbated by the fact that as mentioned above, as he ages, he will inevitably slow down and really be down to a two-tool player.
When considering all these reasons, the Chicago Cubs signing of Alfonso Soriano really makes no sense, and the Cubs would have been better off signing an actual five-tool player in J.D. Drew, who sported a .393 OBP in 2006(which also matches his career average), has similar speed and arm strength to Soriano, and who could play center field until Felix Pie reaches the majors.

College Basketball!!

2006-11-17T22:48:00.000-06:00

It's on my ESPN! WOOHOO!

On that note, time to put the baseball hot stove talk on the back burner(ha ha, real punny, right?).

Tonight: Maryland vs. Michigan State was a very fun game to watch. MSU kept it close the whole time and got screwed out of a real chance to tie the game late by the referees.

It's one thing to complain when the referees make a call and stick with it on a judgement call like a charge/block. This was a situation where first off, Gary Williams called an absurd timeout that actually put his team in a bad situation. His team was killing clock with under a minute left and with about an eight second differential between game clock and shot clock, he called a timeout when one of his players was stepping into an open jump shot with 4 seconds left on the shot clock. So he passed up an open jumper to set up a shot off of an inbounds pass from the sideline. So, on the inbounds, the Maryland player who got the ball shot an off-balance contested three-pointer that bounced off the backboard, completely missing the rim as the shot clock expired. The buzzer went about a half second before the ball went into the hands of a Michigan State player.

Now, the controversial part is that the referees did NOT call the shot clock violation. The most likely explanation is that they saw the ball went to a Michigan State player and made a judgement to not blow the whistle. The problem with that is: THEY'RE NOT PAID TO INTERPRET THE RULES, BUT TO ENFORCE THEM. The game moves too fast, it's a ridiculous idea for a referee to think they have the time to make split-second judgements in the best interest of the game concerning how and when to apply the rules. Just apply them as consistently as possible and the game will take care of itself.

Now, with 8 seconds left, the MSU player who had the ball turned and was called for an offensive foul for elbowing the defender. Now, the offensive foul was legitimate, but the circumstances under which it happened should never have come to be. Eventually, MSU still had their shot to tie, as the Maryland player missed both free throws, BUT, MSU's shot was significantly poorer than one they could have set up with 8 seconds rather than only 4 to get up the court and get a shot.

MSU ended up losing by 2, and I think they definitely have a beef with the referees of tonight's game.

And on a separate note: Western Illinois University(my alma mater) is 2-0!! Now, granted, they have the most cupcake schedule. However, they do play Indiana and Saint Louis both on the road. Both are major conference players, even though SLU(in Conference USA) is now probably actually considered a mid-major again, since it's basically just Memphis left of any real importance.

The other date to remember: 12-29. Brown University visits Macomb, IL to play the Leathernecks in Western Hall, which will mark the most intelligent group of people probably ever to enter Macomb, IL(Don't any other WIU people take this too personally, I went there too). They'd kick our team's butt on the ACT, but Coach Thomas can get his boys to take them on the court.

On late notes: Scott Spiezio resigned with the Cardinals for 2 years/4.5M, which does indicate they might see him as more than just a bench player next year(2nd base?)

2007 Cards (Center Field Options)

2006-11-09T09:36:00.000-06:00

Alright, going back to the last post, we'll look at the options for center field.

The options are:

1) Keep Jim Edmonds(either through restructuring his deal or picking up the $10M option.)
2) Sign one of the many free agents
3) Go after Carl Crawford aggressively in a trade

The Cardinals seem to be leaning towards #1, which is probably wise, given the crop of center fielders out there, but let's look at the options for #2 and #3 and how they stack up to Edmonds.

Let's stick with the OBP/Slugging/OPS stats

Player - OBP/Slug/OPS
Edmonds - .350/.471/.821
Roberts - .360/.393/.753
Pierre - .330/.388/.718
Matthews - .371/.495/.866
Crawford - .348/.482/.830

Pros and cons of each.

Jim Edmonds - He's obviously on the decline, as his career OPS is exactly 100 points better than last year. Now, he could rebound on some level as he was hurt with a concussion last year for significant time and played several games with post-concussion symptoms. As everyone else says, it's really a 1 year 7M deal when you consider the buyout. If they can work a 2 year 14-15M deal, that might satisfy everyone. He's still a good glove in the outfield, although many stats people will say his range is considerable worse than it used to be and that he didn't deserve his last couple gold gloves.

Roberts and Pierre - Both are speedsters who would be relatively cheap. Pierre is really not at all a good defensive player, with a zero arm and surprisingly poor range(worse than Edmonds by the stats), but he never strikes out and can steal 40-50 bags a year while hitting around .300

Roberts draws more walks and would be cheaper, and actually has better range. Of the two, I'd rather see Roberts signed.

Matthews is a one-year wonder so far. He was pretty good in 2004, declined in 2005 and had his career year in 2006. He's not the Cardinals type of signing, as he is going to be looking for a payday. I honestly think his 2006 was not an aberration, and that whoever signs him will probably get an OPS of over .800 from him(maybe not .866 though). But again, he's probably going to command at least 7M a year and if you're going to pay that much, why not keep Edmonds who can fill the gap until Rasmus in the minors might be ready.

Crawford is the best option outside of Edmonds. He is continually getting better, is not only a speedster and a plus outfielder(although he's moreso a left fielder in Tampa, he has the tools to be a good center fielder), he even has some pop, and batted over .300 last year. Tampa is overloaded with young outfielders and has no pitching. That's the problem with this idea. PRobably a package of Anthony Reyes, Chris Duncan, and one of the young bullpen arms might fetch Crawford, but will that hurt the Cardinals as much as help them? And it will cost the Cardinals more money as they'd be taking on a player making 3-4M and giving him probably 3 players who total around 1.2-1.5M.

My preferred way to fix the outfield would actually be to try to attain Crawford AND keep Edmonds. That would mean the Cardinals would probably have to go after a couple cheaper options for the rotation(like Woody Williams and perhaps a Kip Wells type who is coming off a down-year.)

If this isn't possible, signing Edmonds to two years 15M to avoid paying him 10M might be a good option. By 2009 maybe Colby Rasmus, the stud AA outfielder will be ready.

Anyway, that's my take.

Cardinals in '07 (2nd base)

2006-11-05T10:42:00.000-06:00

Alright, with the free agency situation much different than the last time I posted what I thought would happen(Suppan is probably going to make 8M a year from the Yankees or Orioles or some other team, afterall), time for a new post about the '07 Cards.

Here's the skeleton team right now of players who are under contract for next season:

1B - Pujols
3B - Rolen
SS - Eckstein
RF - Encarnacion
LF - Duncan
C - Molina

Holes at 2nd and in center, where Belliard is a free agent and Edmonds' option has not yet been picked up.

The Rotation at this moment:

SP - Carpenter
SP - Reyes

.... with the other spots unoccupied, this is obviously the biggest area of concern.(Wainwright I'm currently placing in the bullpen, but he could end up in the rotation.)

The Bullpen is particularly settled, with no changing faces:

Lefties - Flores, Johnson, Rincon
Righties - Thompson, Looper, Hancock
Closer possibilites - (both righty) Isringhausen, Wainwright

The bench is mostly gone as of now, but they do still retain rights to Rodriguez and Miles I believe.

For today, I'm just sticking with 2nd base options and predictions.

At 2nd, the list of free agents the Cardinals would be at all likely to pursue include:
Ronnie Belliard, Mark Loretta, Todd Walker, Craig Biggio, Adam Kennedy and there was some slight talk about possibly trying to make Scott Spiezio into a 2nd baseman if he came back.

Here's the options broken down a little more:

Name - OPS - 2006 Salary - Age

Belliard - .725 - 4M - 31
Loretta - .706 - 3.25M - 35
Walker - .754 - 2.5M - 33
Biggio - .728 - 4M - 40
Kennedy - .718 - 3.35M - 30
Spiezio - .862 - 335k - 34

Obviously the best looking numbers here are those of Spiezio's, but remember, that .862 OPS was in limited playing time, so we don't know what to expect out of 140+ games of Spiezio. Also, Spiezio is not a 2nd baseman, so defensively, he's likely to be the weakest on this list next year if he signed and converted to 2nd.

Belliard turned it on in the playoffs, giving him a slight chance of being resigned with the Cardinals, but rumors have him going back to the Indians.

Loretta is a solid #2 type hitter who can still take walks and could probably come for around 3M. He's certainly adequate defensively, but he does lack range that with Jocketty's emphasis on contact pitchers could be problematic.

Walker has relatively good numbers, but he's not a great 2nd baseman defensively, and actually played most of this season at 1st, with D. Lee hurt in Chicago and then with SD after being traded.

Biggio is likely to stay in Houston, but according to this New York Post article by Joel Sherman, Biggio's agent, "that if they don't value me enough and I have to go to St. Louis, Chicago or New York to play on a winner and hit milestones, then I will do it." So should the Astros lowball Biggio, a team like St. Louis could sweep in and pick him up for maybe 2.5-3M. Biggio is a tough competitor, would give the team another clubhouse leader, but is 40 and obviously declining. Nevertheless, he might be just the type of player Jocketty would go after, and he'd be superb between Eckstein and Pujols, giving Pujols another reliable batter in front of him to get on base.

Kennedy's the last real option here. At 30, he's the youngest of this crop. He's probably also the best of this crop defensively. As a former Cardinals(he went to the Angels as part of the Jim Edmonds trade), Jocketty might be more willing to bring him back(think Mabry, Looper, others that have been brought back after being traded or let go).

My predictions for 2nd: Belliard back to the Indians, Biggio will stay with Houston(because the fans might mutiny if Clemens and Pettitte are both gone and the team spurns their last icon from the last decade of success), and Adam Kennedy signs with the Cardinals in the neighborhood of his last contract, around 3M, probably something like 10M over 3 years.

Da Bulls!

2006-10-31T18:20:00.000-06:00

Tonight is opening night for the Bulls, as they play the Heat starting in about 40 minutes.

A look at the Bulls:

First off, they've resigned Kirk Hinrich to a contract extension, which is superb news. The 6'3" guard is the driving force to the offense and has been much better with shot selection in the last year. He's already one of the best defensive point guards out there, and his offensive skills put him in the top 50% of the league for sure.

The contract overall is worth around 47.5M over 5 years. The contract is backloaded, and tops out at close to 12M at the end of the contract.

Other big news: First rounder Tyrus Thomas looks more NBA ready than most people expected, so he could be a very valuable contributor off the bench. With Nocioni, Brown and Wallace playing the power positions most of the time, Thomas won't crack the starting rotation often, if ever, this season. But this was a team that has made the playoffs the last two years. Obviously, they're not a team like the Detroit Pistons when they got Milicic, but it's not a completely different situation. An already solid team(especially now with Wallace) getting a high draft pick.

Tonight could be a good statement game to start the season. The Miami Heat are the big dogs on the block, with the championship rings coming to them tonight. However, it's a team ripe to be picked off tonight with Wade worn down from the off season.

The Bulls should be a top 4 team in the East, and could potentially win the central and be one of the top teams in the NBA. Of course, predictions like this mean little until we actually see them play.

So what will happen? Who knows? But I'm calling for the Bulls to win in the range of 52-54 games this year and finish either the 2nd or 3rd seed in the East.

However, the way they're built, I don't see immense playoff success, so I'll pick them to win the first round and lose in the Conference semifinals. Now, time to file these away for awhile and revisit them late in the season to see if my predictions are worth the bandwidth you're viewing them with.

Leadoff Hitters

2006-10-29T12:40:00.000-06:00

Thanks to the boys over at Bleed Cubbie Blue and their comments you get if you click that link, I have inspiration for another baseball post(hey, I gotta write about something-The NBA isn't that interesting yet and College hoops don't start for another month really).

Some of the people blindly bashing Eckstein as a very mediocre player and using stats against him made me look up my own stats.

MEANINGFUL ones.

COmparing a lead-off hitter to middle of the lineup guys with OPS is worthless. You pay leadoff hitters to do two things: Get on base and score runs. Now scoring runs is largely a team-based stat, since you usually have to have someone drive you in, unless you're a Ryan Howard, Albert Pujols, or David Ortiz and can count on 40-50 homers a season. So I'll make the focus on On-Base Percentage and Strikeouts. Getting on base and putting pressure on the defense.

First we'll start with on-base percentage. I'm using nine different lead-off hitters who are more of the well known ones in these stats: David Eckstein, Juan Pierre, Rafael Furcal, Scott Podsednik, Ichiro Suzuki, Jose Reyes, Johnny Damon, Chone Figgins and Carl Crawford. These are some of the best known typical lead-off type guys out there.

OBP Percentage:
Rank - PLayer - OBP
1) Ichiro Suzuki - .370
2) Rafael Furcal - .369
3) Johnny Damon - .359
4) Jose Reyes - .354
5) David Eckstein - .350
6) Carl Crawford - .348
7) Chone Figgins - .336
T-8) Juan Pierre - .330
T-8) Scott Podsednik - .330

So here, DAvid Eckstein is the median score. Of course, I've only put him up against the better known lead-off hitters. Throw in one for every team, and he's a top-third guy in OBP among lead-off hitters, I would bet.

Now, for strikeouts. PUtting the ball in play puts pressure on the defense, and with these guys' speed, can actually induce some errors.(Note - This is independent of games played, if someone on this list played a partial season due to injury, these could be skewed)

Rank - PLayer - K's
1) Juan Pierre - 38
2) David Eckstein - 41
3) Ichiro Suzuki - 71
4) Jose Reyes - 81
T-5) Johnny Damon - 85
T-5) Carl Crawford - 85
7) Scott Podsednik - 96
8) Rafael Furcal - 98
9) Chone Figgins - 100

So here, we see Eckstein is second only to Juan Pierre, and after Pierre and Eckstein, the dropoff is CONSIDERABLE, going from 41 K's to 71 K's.

When a speedy guy strikes out, he gives the defense NO chance to screw up.

Now, Eckstein is an average defender, and he's only average because of his hustle and willingness to throw his body around, so I won't put him up there with gold-glove calibre shortstops on that.

Eckstein also brings a relatively modest price tag at 3.3M, which compared to the players above on their rookie contracts is obviously a lot, but next to Renteria's 10M he's making in Atlanta, Furcal's 8 digit salary, and the other higher salaries of players like Pierre, Damon and Suzuki, Eckstein's salary has allowed St. Louis to put money in other places.

Eckstein's worth goes far beyond his OPS. And for that matter, anyone who is looking at OPS to judge the worth of a lead-off hitter is missing the point.

David Eckstein is an above-average baseball player who has been a pivotal part of two World Series Championship teams.

WORLD SERIES CHAMPS!

2006-10-28T09:13:00.000-05:00

So yeah, it's been awhile since I've posted. Work was hitting me hard and I got lazy and complacent, actually having Cardinals games covered up here around Chicago for awhile.

This is officially the 2nd championship the Cardinals have won during my lifetime, but only the first I have any knowledge of personally, as I was 1 year old in 1982 when they last won it.

Some observations: This one has been pointed out several places, but the pitching discrepency of ERA from regular season to postseason was just amazing. From around 4.5 to 2.6.

The 4.5 actually had them as one of the worst teams in the NL in pitching this year. However, as one ESPN.com article pointed out, if you take out the games started by Marquis and Mulder and use only the stats compiled by the four pitchers used in the postseason(Carpenter, Suppan, Reyes and Weaver), the ERA drops to just a shade over 4, which would have been 2nd best in the NL. So while they pitched out of their minds, it wasn't quite as out of their minds as it may have seemed.

Big Props to Jeff Weaver. In the clincher, there were 2 bad plays behind him by Chris Duncan. The Edmonds/Duncan dropped ball in short right which should have been easy, and the misplay that allowed a double a couple innings later.

The first situation, he was taken out by Sean Casey, who was the only Tiger to show up for the Series on offense, but it was a pitch that wasn't really an easy pitch to hit out, an inside cutter, off the plate that Casey had his hands practically buried into his chest to hit.

The second situation, he bore down and got out of the jam with no damage done.

These were the situations as a Yankee, Angel and to a lesser degree as a Cardinal during the regular season that killed Weaver. It seemed like he was very fatalistic about this situations and actually let up on hitters after something bad happened behind him. This would lead to 3-4 runs in an inning, if not more.

Lastly, on the whole Game 2 incident. No one's going to criticize TLR now because they won it despite the whole Rogers mess. However, my thoughts would be, get him checked out. I know it opens up your own guys, but we'd all like to believe none of them are doing anything of that nature. If Rogers was cheating, you have to get him out of there. If he wasn't, having him checked out might have settled the Cardinals hitters enough for them to actually hit the garbage he was throwing. If nothing else, it seemed to get in the Cards' hitters heads that Rogers was untouchable because he was cheating. Either get him out of the game or at least quell those thoughts for your hitters' sake.

But anyway, this might very well be the last Cardinals writing of the year, not counting free agency movement. A more realistic post for who they can bring back and who they should get is probably in order now(sadly, we're probably saying good-bye to Jeff Suppan, who might have just gotten himself an 8M a year contract or more).

WORLD SERIES CHAMPS BABY!!

NLCS Fever! (And stupid H.S. kids)

2006-10-15T12:50:00.000-05:00

First topic: Cardinals lead the Mets 2-1 in the NLCS and are now going up against Oliver Perez.

Some key stats:

Perez vs. the Cardinals: 1-2, 4.82 ERA, 10 K's, 7 BB, .297 BAA in just under 20 innings.

The Cardinals vs. PErez individually:
The best, by OPS, min. 10 ABs

Pujols: 9/24 batting(.375 BA), 3 HR, 7 RBI, 1.361 OPS
Rolen: 9/20 batting(.450 BA), 0 HR, 5 RBI, 1.178 OPS
Molina: 5/16 batting(.313 BA), 1 HR, 3 RBI, .915 OPS
Eckstein: 3/10 batting(.300 BA), 0 HR, 2 RBI, .900 OPS

Meanwhile, Anthony Reyes has never faced the Mets, so hopefully that will work to his advantage as they won't know his stuff very well.

A win tonight and the Cardinals are in a dominant position, up 3-1, with Carpenter going in Game 6, should it go that far. Carpenter wasn't that sharp last time, but in games after he failed to post a quality start, he has posted a 2.39 ERA this year. One of these starts was on June 6th, which was really his first start back after time on the DL. If we take out this start(as his last start BEFORE the DL stint was not a quality start), then his ERA in games after he gets beat up is 2.19.

Now, on to the 2nd topic. I'm split on this, as a H.S. teacher and being only 25. I understand and remember that I was a stupid idiot who knew everything in H.S. as are most H.S. students.

However, if you're a big profile athlete, you have to know that the choices you make will be seen and criticized by others. Eric Gordon, the #1 rated shooting guard in America, has spurned the Illini after giving them a verbal commitment and has decided to go with Indiana.

This is just filthy on two levels. First off, shame on Gordon. You don't have to make a verbal commitment, but when you do, you should honor it. Illinois head coach Bruce Weber has now been put in a bad place, as he now has to either go one scholarship player shy, or he has to bring in a far lesser calibre player to replace Gordon.

The other level in which this is just absolutely filthy and horrible is that new IU coach Kelvin Sampson, who is already in trouble with the NCAA for recruiting violations while at Oklahoma, has pursued a player who gave a verbal commitment. He hired people close to Gordon to fill positions they're probably unqualified to actually fill in order to get them to influence Gordon to defect. Sampson has shown, both at OU and now already at Indiana, how despicable of a coach he is. The stability that existed under Bobby Knight will continue to be missing from IU's basketball program under Sampson.

Woohoo! The NLCS!

2006-10-09T09:00:00.000-05:00

Well, our boys in red have upset the Padres, which to most fans probably was and was not a surprise. We all know about the Cardinals long-standing domination of the Padres(in 3 series, they now have 1 win against St. Louis, the one they got in game 3) but we also know how bad the Cardinals were prior to the playoffs, and were waiting for THAT team to show up.

Now, we're up against the Mets, the best team in the NL most of the season.

So here's the breakdown as I see it:

Pitching rotation: Push.

St. Louis has a pretty bad rotation, although they've been good in the playoffs. Suppan was roughed up a bit, but Weaver gave TLR 5 shutout innings, and Carpenter was 2-0 with two very strong starts. Now, we'll likely see Anthony Reyes added to the playoff rotation to fill out a four-man rotation. The only other option is the NL's winner in the ERA department(for the highest ERA, that is) in Jason Marquis. Let's hope TLR goes with the rookie.

The Mets meanwhile don't have it much better. Pedro, the concensus ace is out until sometime in the middle of next season. "El Duque" Hernandez was scratched from the playoff roster in the NLDS with an injury prior to game 1. They still have Tom Glavine, who is a bonified #2 starter with serious playoff experience. After that, they go to John Maine, who is practically a rookie. Maine had a start very similar to Suppan's, getting knocked out early in a game the manager had a quick hook. That leaves the veteran Steve Trachsel, who's having the year Marquis was wishing for(15-8 despite an ERA very close to 5), and Oliver Perez, who is one of Albert Pujols' favorite pitchers(1.361 OPS vs. Oliver Perez in 24 ABs).

The rotations are ragged, but have both put up the performances so far.

Lineup: Advantage Mets.

The Cardinals have the best player in the series(not to mention the game) in Albert Pujols. They have a pretty good supporting cast who has underachieved this year. Scott Rolen is wearing down, but otherwise had a good year. Jim Edmonds seems to be better so far, but he missed considerable time. Tack on players like Encarnacion, Eckstein, Belliard and Spiezio and they've got a pretty good lineup. However.....

The Mets have an excellent lineup with Jose Reyes leading off, who had a very good year, MVP candidate Carlos Beltran, stud third baseman David Wright, veteran lefty Carlos Delgado, Paul Lo Duca, who is hitting about 250 points better than Molina(ok, I'm being hyperbolic), and that still doesn't include lefty power hitters Shawn Green and Cliff Floyd. The Mets lineup to me seems lot like the Padres lineup, except they've got those 2-3 players who really ARE superstars still, whereas the Padres just had a murderer's row of pretty good offensive players.

Bullpen: Push.

The Cardinals bullpen has been AWESOME so far. The rookie triumvirate of Tyler Johnson, Josh Kinney and Adam Wainwright have been better than any other bullpen out there. So that pushes me to say the Cardinals get the edge. But they are only rookies. The NLCS is a bigger stage, and with rookies, they have to prove themselves on every new, bigger stage. If they keep it up, the Cardinals have the better bullpen.

The Mets meanwhile, have the more experienced bullpen. They have Cy Young contender Billy Wagner closing out games. Any time you have a potential HoFer throwing 100 mph in the 9th inning, you know you're solid there.

Bench: Advantage Cardinals.

Who would you rather have? Michael Tucker, Chris Woodward, Ramon Castro and Endy Chavez or Preston Wilson, John Rodriguez, Scott Spiezio and Gary Bennett?

The Cardinals do have the better bench here. There is far more pop in those bats than in the bats of the Mets bench players. Spiezio could become a fill in for Rolen though, who apparently has a far worse shoulder than he's been letting on.

Overall prediction: Now, I'm obviously rooting for the Cardinals, but I'm being realistic for this. I think Carpenter can be counted on for a win in game 3 and I think the Cardinals can grab one more somewhere from one of those weak Mets starters. If the Cardinals can take it to seven games, with Carpenter going in game 7, I think it's their series to lose, but in all honestly, I'm not counting on that. My prediction: Mets in 6 games.

Public Golf Course Etiquette

2006-10-04T15:39:00.000-05:00

Ok, we all know the typical etiquette for golf(ok, we don't all know, I guess, but if you care about playing golf, you probably do).

I'm a public golf course kinda guy. As a high school teacher with a law student for a wife, I don't have the cash to throw down to join a country club(yet, anyway).

Here's some rules I think we can all agree on:

1) The rule of course is the furthest person out should hit their ball first. This, of course, should be observed, but if that guy isn't ready, and you're 10 feet closer and on the other side of the fairway, go ahead and hit your ball already! Along with this goes the idea of honors. If your group's best score is a bogey, let whoever's ready go up there and hit. Who cares about honors if your "honors" is over par.

2) Conversation is one of the great parts of golf. It's a sport you can bullshit with your pals almost all throughout the game. Last time out, I played with a guy who, several times, would address the ball, get ready to hit, then remember a story and walk back to us and HAVE TO TELL US THE WHOLE DAMN 3 MINUTE STORY.

Ok, 3 minutes of my life isn't usually an act that should be punishable by caning, but when you address the ball, I don't want to hear another word from you until you've hit the damn thing.

Conversation is best for those long walks down the fairway(or in my case, through the woods).

3) When you play through someone, actually take your time. Everyone who plays on a public course and has played alone knows this rule: When you play through someone, you rush yourself. When you rush yourself, you hit an 80 yard drive into the woods on the left. When you hit an 80 yard drive into the woods on the left, you end up taking 25 minutes to play the straight as an arrow 320 yard par-4 that you should have been able to skate through. We let you play because you were faster than us without rushing. Just take it easy, have a good time and keep playing the same speed. It was the speed that helped you catch up to us, afterall.

4) Last time I was out, I played with this guy.... oh, I already told that story. Anyway, don't pull up from hitting your ball to tell me a three minute story. There's some guy who just played through us that I want to put the pressure on by speeding up and making him choke on the pain in the ass par 3 over water.

5) Don't take everything so damn seriously. If you've got a 40 foot putt and someone else taps in before you and steps on your line, don't get angry. If someone stepping on your line was the difference between you making or missing 40 foot putts on a regular basis, you ought to be on the Tour, not playing golf with my sorry 18 handicap self.

6) If I've never played with you before, don't tell me the story that "I've never played this bad before." We all know you're full of it, and hopefully you've realized that too by now. Anyone who feels it necessary to tell the story about how this is the worst they've ever played every other hole is playing his average round, or perhaps slightly above average.

7) The amount you either spent on golf clubs is not worthy of bringing up unless you are asked. You don't get a merit badge for having spent 5 figures on golf clubs, and you also don't get one for getting a set of $1500 clubs for $.50 and a Blow Pop. If someone asks you where you got your clubs or how much you paid for them, alright, then they asked for it, and deserve the whole story. Don't bring it up to try to impress people though.

With these simple rules, you too can be a nice guy to play on the public course with. Observe these seven rules and learn how NOT to be the guy everyone talks about behind his back.

On a separate note: How about the Chris Carpenter and the St. Louis Cardinals! Up 1 game to 0 over the Padres with the big road win.

Pujols vs. Howard

2006-10-01T09:51:00.000-05:00

Here's probably my final look-in on the MVP race.

Most other posts of this nature look at the overall aspects of the race. Whose stats are better(Howard), whose more clutch(Pujols), whose team is in the playoffs(Pujols), who seems to be more feared right now(Howard).

The race looks about even, with Howard probably being ahead because of his statistics.

The question I'm going to look at is: who has the better support from his team in carrying the offense?

The OPS's of Pujols and Howard, respectively, are 1.097 to 1.084. Both are ridiculously good.

Now, let's look at the players with an OPS of at least .800 on each team:

St. Louis

C. Duncan - .948
S. Rolen - .887
S. Spiezio - .850
J. Edmonds - .822
J. Rodriguez - .810

Six players(including Pujols) break the .800 mark for OPS for St. Louis.

Philadelphia

C. Ultey - .906
D. Dellucci - .899
P. Burrell - .888
C. Coste - .870
B. Abreu - .861
J. Rollins - .814

Seven position players for Philly. However, Bobby Abreu was traded to New York before the deadline, and Howard has done most of his damage since then, so you can basically make this part of the argument even between Pujols and Howard.

Now, the real thing to look at is how many of these players represent everyday players who have had healthy years(meaning not on the DL). Jeff Sagarin of USAToday rates players in three lists. Those who have averaged the 3.1 AB necessary to compete for the batting title are on the A list. Those who have averaged between 1 and 3 AB are part timers on the B list. Those with less than 1 AB per game are scarcely used and are on the C list. None of the players on either list are C listers, probably for good reason--IF they were good enough to post an .800 OPS or better, they'd probably get more playing time--so we'll be looking at which players are A list and which are B list.

Of the above players, for the Cardinals, only two are A-listers. The MVP candidate himself, Albert Pujols, and third baseman, Scott Rolen. Chris Duncan, Scott Spiezio, Jim Edmonds, and John Rodriguez lack the ABs to be on the A list, either because they were called up late(Duncan), are only part-time players(Spiezio, Rodriguez) or have had injuries take away significant time(Edmonds).

For the Phillies, Ryan Howard, Chase Utley, Pat Burrell and Jimmy Rollins have all been out there enough to qualify for the A-list. Dellucci and Coste are the part timers, and of course Bobby Abreu was a regular, but was traded to New York.

So if we only look at who had more help, then we have to conclude that Howard has had more help in his lineup. Three full time players, have put up significant numbers this year for Philadelphia. Only one has for St. Louis.

The discrepency is even greater if we look at Sagarin's
ratings for NL batters. But if you want to look at those, do it yourself, I won't bore you with another long post.

The obvious way to interpret this information is that St. Louis has less power, so for them to be in the race and winning the Central is more impressive, and therefore that is a plus for Pujols.

However, you can also look at it this way. Ryan Howard has more around him and is being walked intentionally about twice as much in September as Pujols, who has much less protection around him. So obviously pitchers--or at least managers--are even more terrified of Howard than Pujols right now.

Which way would you vote and why? Leave me comments.(that's aimed at both of you that read my blog!)

Championship Rings!

2006-09-27T18:36:00.000-05:00

Wearing a championship ring. It's something every guy wishes they could do. You know 95% of guys(and 100% of guys who would actually read my blog), would wear a championship ring every day for an organization like the White Sox or Steelers or Heat, even if they were the janitor or an accountant for the team.

Well, now every random chumpstain playing fantasy sports can have that feeling of serious bling on their ring finger.

Josten's features a full line of Fantasy Football championship rings(Yes, really), ranging from $129 to an outrageous $1,949!!

I guess that'd be one way to do it. Rather than asking everyone in your league for $5 to put a pool together for the winners, ask for $50 so you can buy a 40 pt. diamond with a 14k gold band for the winner.

Incidently, there are also Fantasy baseball, basketball and even hockey rings listed on the site too(I didn't even know there WAS fantasy hockey, but why not?). The lines for the other sports aren't as broad, with only 3 choices as opposed to 5 for football, and they appear to be new, with no pictures set up yet, but still, the point is: Now you too can feel the glory of getting your own championship ring! Just get your fantasy league together and get everyone to chip in money to get you the 40 pt diamond!

By the way, if you can't tell(because afterall, you can't tell tone of voice from typed words), this post is dripping sarcasm. While I find it amusing that these rings exist, my personal belief is that anyone who would actually down even $100, much less two grand, on a championship ring in a computer-based sports game, should find a charity to donate that money too.

If you're one of those people, here are a few suggestions for you:
Muscular Dystrophy Association
American Cancer Society

Oakland's Big Three

2006-09-21T16:14:00.000-05:00

The "Big Three," they were known as. Tim Hudson, Mark Mulder and Barry Zito defined several years of Oakland Athletic baseball by delivering excellent pitching down the rotation.

After the 2004 season though, they were split up. Barry Zito, with plenty of time left on his contract, but kept, but Hudson and Mulder were shipped off to Atlanta and St. Louis, respectively.

Evaluating trades right away always gives you the wrong idea. St. Louis and Atlanta both seemed to do well for themselves right off the bat. How about now? With two seasons having gone by, do the trades still look as good?

First trade: Tim Hudson sent to the Atlanta Braves in exchange for Dan Meyer, Juan Cruz, and Charles Thomas.

Since the 2004 trade, Hudson's stats are as follows:

2005 - 14-9, 3.52 ERA, 192 IP
2006 - 12-11, 4.83 ERA, 207 IP(so far)

Now, his 2005 stats look good. A mid 3 ERA, almost 200 innings, and a pretty good record. However, the dropoff coming to this year is fairly dramatic. Hudson is still 12-11 and has been better recently, but an ERA close to 5 is never good news, especially when you gave up several players to get that 5 ERA.

Oakland's Billy Beane seems to have gotten rid of Hudson just before he started to decline.

As far as the other players: Juan Cruz was abysmal for Oakland, posting an ERA over 7 in 2005. He was then traded for Brad Halsey, who has been a reasonably good Triple-A starter this year. I don't know enough about him, but his stats, while not bad, don't blow you away.(3-3, mid 4 ERA last time I looked in)

Dan Meyer, probably the true headliner for Oakland in the trade, has had about equal success Halsey has had. Last look-in showed him also at 3-3 with an ERA slightly over 5. Lastly, we have Charles Thomas, who in the Pacific Coast League(AAA) has been a below average player, posting a .654 OPS at last look in.

While Hudson hasn't exactly been the ace Atlanta hoped he'd be this year, the players Atlanta gave up haven't exactly been studly either.

The call: The trade skews slightly towards Atlanta. They got one good year out of Hudson, and appear to have given up very little. They may have made a mistake in signing Hudson though. That we'll see about.

The next trade: Mark Mulder shipped to the St. Louis Cardinals for Danny Haren, Kiko Calero and Daric Barton.

Mark Mulder was expected to be the guy to push the St. Louis Cardinals over the edge into World SEries glory. The expectations were very high, and that 2005 Cardinals team was a monster, pulling off over 100 wins, eventually losing in the NLCS to Houston.

Having said that, Mulder was very good in 2005, arguably better than Hudson. His stats this year and last are as follows:

2005 - 16-8, 3.64 ERA, 205 IP
2006 - 6-7, 7.14 ERA, 93.1 IP

A HUGE dropoff from 2005 to 2006, seemingly moreso due to a degenerative hip issue as well as shoulder issues Mulder has faced this year. If you saw the earlier post about Mulder's mechanics, then you definitely see why his velocity and command haven't been there this year. REgardless of that though, the Cardinals picked up a stud pitcher in 2005 who helped lead them to a moinster season. Mulder this year has been horrendously bad and will likely be leaving St.
Louis this off-season unless he wants to take a large pay cut and an incentive laden deal.

The Cardinals players that went to Oakland have been surprisingly good the last two seasons. Danny Haren, the young stud pitcher, has been very strong both seasons posting the following stats:

2005 - 14-12, 3.73 ERA, 217.0 IP
2006 - 14-12, 4.01 ERA, 211.0 IP(so far)

The thing to keep in mind here, is as I've discussed, there is about a .4 rise in ERAs from the NL to the AL. Chop that differential off and Haren's numbers look like something the Cardinals could have used this year. Haren also has been very healthy and eating over 400 innings the last two seasons. He's likely the third best pitcher the A's have(Behind Zito and the oft-injured Rich Harden), and will be a big part of their rotation next year when Zito likely leaves.

Kiko Calero has been very good out of the pen, too. He was very strong for the Cardinals, and has kept up that level of excellent with the A's. His stats:

2005 - 4-1, 3.23 ERA, 55.2 IP
2006 - 3-1, 3.38 ERA, 53.1 IP

Again, adjusting it for NL numbers, they'd be around 3 even. Calero has been very strong and seems like a good long-term solution for the late innings prior to the closer for Oakland.

The last prospect was Daric Barton. Barton hasn't had a great year in 2006, but was rated as Baseball America's 28th best prospect coming into the season. (The Cardinals had one prospect in the top 100, Anthony Reyes, who was 41st.)

The call: The A's seem to have fleeced the Cardinals, given that Haren's 2005 numbers were very comparable to Mulder's, and that's without even considering Barton and Calero.

Oakland's last move: NOT trading Barry Zito. Beane appeared to know something when he chose to trade Hudson and Mulder, but keep Zito. Ziot's numbers the last two years:

2005 - 14-13, 3.86 ERA, 228.1 IP
2006 - 16-9, 3.91 ERA, 207.1 IP(so far)

Zito was good in 2005, and with a better team behind him in 2006, he put up even better numbers.

Billy Beane seems to have done very well in these trades.

Award Season Updates

2006-09-14T19:18:00.000-05:00

Chris Carpenter and Albert Pujols are potentially on the verge of history. According to Matthew Leach, MLB's beat writer for the Cardinals, the teammates could be the first teammates in history to win the awards two years in a row. A few times before has a team held both the MVP and Cy Young back to back years, but never the same exact players.

However, neither player is a lock for the award, and could possibly be considered an underdog.

Chris Carpenter seems the more likely to repeat. While he's had a very good season, it's not the season of a typical Cy Young candidate. Rob Neyer wrote an Insider article on ESPN.com about this, and the last 5 starters to win the Cy Young without 20 wins all had something else to blow away the voters. Whether it be an astounding win percentage(Clemens - 18-4 in 2004), massive K totals(347 by Randy Johnson in 2000), or an absolutely filthy ERA(1.74 ERA by Martinez also in 2000). This year the NL crop of pitchers just hasn't been that impressive. And Chris Carpenter and Brandon Webb seem to be the kings of the very short hill this year.

Projected out, Neyer reports that their seasons will likely look like this:

Carpenter: 16-7, 2.84, 186 K's
Webb: 16-7, 3.00, 167 K's

Obviously the last month will be big. Whoever pitches better between these two should win it, or if they both collapse, maybe Bud Selig will intervene and give Johan Santana TWO Cy Young Awards this year.

On the other side, Pujols has more of an uphill battle. As Jayson Stark wrote, the NL MVP is a two-man race, and Ryan Howard is currently leading by a slight margin. I have to believe with his numbers(56 HRs, 139 RBI so far), that he is the leader, and by most articles out there, he is.

It's hard to believe someone likely to hi 60 and 150 in the power numbers could lose, but with Albert Pujols chasing him, it is possible. Pujols is still leading in OPS(although only slightly now - 1.097 to 1.093) and has him in many "clutch" categories. Pujols has the most game winning hits in the NL, and has the most game-winning home runs as well. With runnings in scoring position, Howard is very pedestrian, even below average at .248, whereas Pujols is batting .389 in the same situations.

Pujols also has awesome stats in the power categories(45 and 120), but that just isn't the same as 56 and 139.

The last month will be crucial, but right now it definitely looks like Carpenter will hold up his end, but Pujols will likely be outslugged by the "freak show," as Howard is called by his teammates during BP.

Izzy out, Wainwright in

2006-09-08T16:13:00.000-05:00

The Head-hunters get their wish!

Jason Isringhausen will miss at least a week, and possibly the rest of the season with a hip problem. Dave Duncan in the article in the Post-Dispatch says "I feel a little more comfortable with Wainwright (against lefties) because he's got more things that he can do to get a lefthander out."

So granted that Duncan's opinion still means something to TLR, it looks like Wainwright will be closing games until he either shows his rookie-ness or until Isringhausen gets healthy(which, if healthy, he IS the best reliever still).

I wanted to post about Mulder/Hudson/Zito today, but this post is taking that one's place.

Too much stuff keeps going on. Maybe tomorrow.

Pitching Problems

2006-09-07T15:50:00.000-05:00

Yeah, yeah, this should be obvious now. If we're talking 2006 Cardinals pitching, we're talking Carpenter and the scrubs.

But there's been a lot of Isringhausen and Mulder stuff out recently that should be publicized as much as possible.

First off, while Isringhausen does suck this year, Viva El Birdos, probably the best Cardinals blog out there, put out this article that highlights what he HAS done for the Cardinals. While all criticism this season is fair, this should hopefully quell the "HE ALWAYS SUCKED!" talk.

Because you're wrong. He didn't.

The other, more interesting thing is this scouting information about the Cardinals Mark Mulder, who has had an incredibly disappointing 2006 season. His rehab focus was to get back to his 2004 arm slot(his last season in Oakland). Carlos Gomez points out it is not his arm slot that is the problem, but how he gets there.

Tomorrow, if I get time, I'm going to look at the disassembling of Oakland's Big 3 and how the two trades and lack of a third trade has worked out for the teams involved(Oakland, St. Louis, and Atlanta)

Cardinals Free Agency situation

2006-09-05T16:13:00.000-05:00

I'm probably getting ahead of myself, but I personally was wondering what the situation was for the Cardinals off-season. With a lot of players coming up as free agents, I decided to figure out who was leaving, how much money would be free, and logical choices for free agent signings.

Part 1: Who's leaving?

A pretty expensive team of players is going to hit free agency from the Cardinals this summer. This includes 80% of the starting rotation(Suppan, Marquis, Mulder and Weaver are all free agents).

The highest paid free agent and biggest decision will be center fielder Jim Edmonds, who is having a down year for him, but is still an above average offensive CF and still, despite missing a decent amount of time, probably stands a good chance at winning another gold glove.

Recent acquisitions Ronnie Belliard, Preston Wilson and Jose Vizcaino also hit the market.

Others: Scott Spiezio, Gary "Cub Killa" Bennett, and Desi Relaford all also hit the free agent market.

Throwing the known salaries into a spreadsheet, the total salaries of the combined players came up to $47,235,638.(Spiezio and Relaford's salaries were not computed, as they signed minor league deals and I could not find their 2006 salary.)

Part 2: Figuring out all the options:

Center field: This will be an issue for the off-season in one way or the other. Jim Edmonds has a 10M option that the team so far has not picked up. His buyout is 3M if they decline the option. The problem here is that you're not really deciding whether he's worth 10M next year, but 7M, as he gets the other 3M either way.

Now, there are some very good center fielders out there to be had. Torii Hunter of the Twins is likely to leave Minnesota and Juan Pierre will be a free agent as well. If the CArdinals are willing to put the money out to get Hunter, then he would be a definite upgrade from Jim Edmonds.

Juan Pierre brings certain things that Edmonds doesn't, and is certainly a viable option as well.

The center fielder list after that drops off considerably, with Gary Matthews Jr. and Kenny Lofton being the next best options. So then, the question is: Is Edmonds worth a 1 year, 7M deal? If not, are they willing to go for someone better or is CF going to become a position the Cards don't spend money on(like 2B).

The Rotation: This will be the biggest issue as far as the success for the 2007 team, although the center field position may prove to hold more drama.

As said above, everyone but Chris Carpenter will be a free agent. With 47M(minus at least 3M for Edmonds), they have money to spend on an ace type pitcher.

Options: Anthony Reyes and Adam Wainwright could plug into the rotation full time next season, and with no major moves made by Jocketty, most fans will expect them as fixtures there next year for better or worse. Beyond that, the way I see it is that they'd be best off deciding to resign ONE of their starters and going to free agency to fill the other spot.

Jason Marquis, to me, is NOT an option. He doesn't seem to listen to Duncan's coaching, and I don't see why you'd bring back an underachieving pitcher who has tuned out the coach.

Mark Mulder could be an interesting option, if they could get him to take a low-base, high-incentive laden contract, a la Matt Morris 2 years ago. Mulder has ace, or at least #2 type stuff. He showed that in his opening season with the Cardinals going 16-8 with a mid 3 ERA. He also is not quite the same pitcher he was in Oakland, at least at the current moment. If he was willing to swallow a one-year deal like the one Morris took, this could end up being a stacked pitching staff.

Jeff Suppan, a pinnacle of consistency, seems like the other logical choice. He is a good starting pitcher who you can count on to give you 6 or 7 innings more times than not and keep the team in the game. Is he an ace? No. But if Mulder jets and Weaver scares you, he's probably the best available option to fill out the rotation.

That leaves the last spot in the rotation to be settled. There are a number of aces hitting the market this winter. From the left side, Mark Buerhle and Barry Zito both hit the market. Zito is unlikely to come to St. Louis as he has Scott Boras as an agent, and he almost exclusively shops his players towards New York, Boston and Los Angeles(Angels, usually) where the dollars are most plentiful. Buerhle, however, if not resigned by the White Sox, could jettison for St. Louis. He is a St. Louis native and has had no qualms in the past about his desire to someday pitch for the Cardinals. Likewise, from the right side, there are a couple good options. Jason Schmidt could be a superb fit. At 33, he still has some good years left, and a 3 year deal would be excellent(if the market doesn't end up inflating and getting him more). Gil Meche is also having a great year and could be available.

To me, the best fits would be Buerhle and Schmidt who have both had relatively healthy careers and have been ace-type pitchers for several years. Buerhle's having a down-year, but I'd rather invest in him than Gil Meche, who has never tasted this level of success until his free agent year.

2nd base: With the Belliard experiment seemingly a failure(at least to me, but I didn't like him from the start), it seems this is a position to maybe actually spend 3-4M on, rather than paying 5 guys 1M and having NONE of them pan out that well(Jocketty's plan this last year). I'd like to see them kick the tires on Mark Loretta who is having a good year, hitting .295 for Boston, as well as Mark DeRosa, who is batting .321 for Texas. DeRosa may be out of the Cardinals price range, but Loretta this past year made around 3.2M and is probably due only for a marginal raise unless the market gets crazy.

Ideally, the Cardinals will look at signing another stud relief pitcher to complement Looper and give them more assurance in case Isringhausen has another year like this forgettable one. Several good options are out there, like Francisco Cordero, Antonio Alfonseca, Chad Bradford, and the list goes on.

Also, the corner outfield position. Depending on what they do with center, that could be a place to spend some money. Preston Wilson could be a good option if they either keep Edmonds or somehow sign Hunter. That would give them depth, with Encarnacion and Duncan available as well. If they fail to land a big time center fielder, then it's time to look to spend some money on the likes of a Carlos Lee or Jermaine Dye.

Basically, with 44-47M to spend on free agents, they OUGHT to be able to make two BIG signings and still have some cash free to pick up complementary players with. Edmonds could be one of those two big signings should they keep him, or they could go for a couple pitchers, a pitcher and an outfielder, or any other combination. My best hopes would be they either keep Edmonds or get Hunter and get either Schmidt or Buehrle, as said before. Jocketty has his ways though. Sometimes he seems like a genius, grabbing players off the scrap heap, sometimes his methods don't work and he seems like a fool(this year's 2B platoon, with Relaford, Junior Spivey, Aaron Miles, and the now-traded Hector Luna).

There are some problems with the way I look at this: First off, players like Preston Wilson and Jeff Weaver have relatively high salaries, but most of it is not being paid by the Cardinals. Secondly, there are some players under contract due raises for next season. However, I'm assuming these will be basically counter-acted by the lack of Spiezio and Relaford's salaries in my figures and the fact that I'm making the assumption that there will be absolutely zero increase in overall budget, which is unlikely(not that they'll be throwing money around wildly, but a small percentage increase is a reasonable expectation).

Bits and Pieces

2006-08-29T16:22:00.000-05:00

Baseball

Viva El Birdos has an excellent entry about the NL MVP Race, highlighting five players in Pujols, Ryan Howard of the Phillies, Carlos Beltran of the Mets, Miguel Cabrera of the Marlins and Lance Berkman of the Astros.

In the last week, Gary Bennett's stats are as follows: .643 BA, 3 HR, 8 RBI and an astounding 1.978 OPS.

When looking at the numbers from 2002 to 2006, (so as to figure out the impact of the steroids policy), most major offensive categories are up in 2006, including runs per game, home runs per game(which peaked during the period in 2004), doubles per game, and aggregate slugging.

ESPN's pre-season picks: How good do they look now?

David Ortiz's year could be derailed due to heart problems. Ortiz was making a run to become the first DH to win the MVP award.

Everything Else

Andre Agassi wins his first round match! In 2002, another American legend, Pete Sampras, played his last US Open and rode the wave of emotion to a victory. Why can't Agassi do it? Well, maybe because players like Roger Federer are dominant now, as opposed to 2002, when Lleyton Hewitt was probably the most dominant player. (Hewitt is still very good, but when someone of the stature of Hewitt is the best in your sport, it's a down period in your sport, historically.)

Toni Kukoc could return to the Bulls! (Note: The Article is actually about a Katrina victim, if you're only interested in the part about Kukoc, it's about half-way down.)

Nelly to the Warriors: Don Nelson is reportedly to return to coaching in Golden State. Nelly does coach an exciting brand of basketball, albeit one where defense is not strongly encouraged. On a roster with Jason Richardson and Baron Davis as the likely starting backcourt, it'll be interesting to see how the other parts fit in(such as newly drafted center Patrick O'Bryant, who seemingly had the footspeed of a snail in the NCAAs). Nelly last coached the Dallas Mavericks before retiring and handing over the reigns to Avery Johnson.

Stats about Izzy

2006-08-28T16:43:00.000-05:00

Jason Isringhausen is having a season to forget as the closer of the St. Louis Cardinals. Although he has 31 saves, a very respectable total, he has blown 9 saves, for a 78% save percentage, which is the 4th worst listed on the Closer Report by closers with 20 save opportunities or more.

Looking at stats for Izzy, I was curious to see what else was true statistically.

Looking at the same closer report as well as other splits, I compiled these stats, which I found to be interesting:

Izzy has compiled a WHIP(Walks+Hits Per Inning Pitched) of 1.38, which again, among listed closers with 20 opportunities, is 4th worst.

He has 7 losses, worst among listed closers.

His K/BB ratio is 1.47, the worst among closers with 20 opps. Meanwhile, his K/9 is actually not bad at 8.28, which is middle of the pack among closers. (this tells us that it's not that Izzy's lack of strikeouts that keeps that K/BB ratio so bad, but rather his high walk total.)

Against left-handed batters, Izzy gives up the line of .371/.432/.803 (On-base/Slugging/OPS)

The closest player equivalent would be Edgar Renteria(Yes, I know he's right-handed, but statistically, it's the closest). Renteria this year has compiled the very similar stats of .372/.437/.809. So everytime Izzy faces an average lefty, he turns them into a player of Renteria's stature(not a superstar, but definitely a very above average player).

For those of you with ESPN Insider access, you can look at his pitching zones, which shows you how often a pitcher throws to a certain area either on or off the plate. Against right-handed hitters, Isringhausen pounds the outside corner 58% of the time. He goes inside only 24% of the time. (The remainder are down the middle, not differentiating high from low.)

Again, going back to the idea of Izzy's problem being walks, his BAA(Batting Average Against) is a very strong .210. There are plenty of closers who are better, but .210 is very similar to the stats of Trevor Hoffman(.208), Mariano Rivera(.220), Francisco Rodriguez(.206) and Mike Gonzalez of the Pirates(.213) who incidently is perfect in save opportunities this year(24/24).

Lastly, Izzy's Ground ball to fly ball ratio this year is on pace to be the 2nd worst of his career at 1.14. His career worst was 1.07 in his last season in Oakland. Conversely, his BEST season was LAST year when he posted a 1.73 ratio, a very good indicator, arguably his best season as a Cardinal(2.14 ERA, 39/43 Save%).

Do any of these stats give us an answer for what Isringhausen needs to do differently? I guess it tells us he needs to cut down on the walks, but anyone who watches the game could have said that. They are interesting stats(at least to me though) that give us a little insight of just how bad Isringhausen has been this year.

Last note - I have actually typically been an Isringhausen supporter. He seems to be one of the dividing points among Cardinals fans. Most either adamantly support him as a good closer or can't stand him because he seems to make situations overly dramatic with his walks. Despite the fact that I think he's been a good closer in a Cardinals uniform, this year he's been pretty bad.

Top-tier pitching performances down in 2006

2006-08-27T20:30:00.000-05:00

Looking at the ERAs of the top pitchers in each league the last few years, it is very evident that for some reason, the top pitchers just aren't performing as well this year so far.

Now, my numbers for 2005 are based on a full year's performance, so it's very possible that some of the top tier pitchers-your Brandon Webbs, Chris Carpenters, Carlos Zambranos-may still put up enough zeros at the end to lower their ERAs to a statisical area we're more used to.

Here are the number of pitchers in each the AL and NL that are under each of these ERA numbers:

2006
Under 3.00: AL - 0, NL - 3
Under 3.50: AL - 5, NL - 8
Under 4.00: AL - 14, NL - 18

Now, obviously there is a discrepency between AL and NL, but this isn't necessarily that NL pitching is better, but that they face a lineup featuring a pitcher as opposed to a designated hitter. Taking all the ERAs over the last 20 years has given an ERA differential between the AL and NL of .369(meaning if you want to have a statistical equivalent between an AL and NL pitcher, add .369 to the NL pitcher's ERA and it gives you a good starting point of comparison).

Now, looking at the number of pitchers in each league LAST season with similar ERAs:

2005
Under 3.00: AL - 2, NL - 7 (Including R. Clemens who was under a 2.00 ERA)
Under 3.50: AL - 9, NL -12
Under 4.00: AL - 21, NL - 27

I think it's typically a thing(at least in my mind) to really be overly critical of pitchers with ERAs that are actually very good. Mark Mulder last year had a 3.78 ERA, which I thought of as pretty good, but quite honestly, from a former Cy Young candidate, I expected more like 2.78 in the NL. But 3.78, even in 2005 would have put Mulder in the top 25, and this year he'd have been 15th in ERA.

So what has happened to the premier pitching this year? Roger Clemens actually has a 2.50 ERA, which would be #1, but he lacks the innings due to his late start this year. Carpenter and Oswalt were up there last year, and are both back, but not quite as good.

The Cy Young races will be drastically different. Last year we had Clemens with the sub 2 ERA vs. Carpenter, who was practically perfect all summer and had a very impressive win total, but who posted an ERA around 2.8 due to some lapses of concentration after the Cardinals clinched. Pitchers like Pettitte and Oswalt were posting awesome years that this year would be easily Cy Young worthy, but last year were overshadowed.

This year, we have Carpenter and Oswalt in the race again, along with Brandon Webb and Carlos Zambrano. None of these guys were as good as any of the top 4 were last year, but they're probably the top 4 this year.

My pick at this point is Webb, although I think Carpenter and Zambrano will get a lot of votes.

mini-update on past posts

2006-08-27T10:08:00.000-05:00

On the idea that the Cardinals could become only the 2nd team to win a division without having a winning record against their division: It's looking very unlikely. The Cardinals have already climbed from the previously posted 28-32 to 31-32 and hold a 2 game lead over the Cincinnati Reds. Obviously they're on the verge of pulling into positive territory here with that division record, and if they only play .500 the rest of the way against the division, the likelihood is that the Reds will pass them and the Cardinals wouldn't win the division anyway.

The Cubs have called upon another rookie, promoting Les Walrond from AAA Iowa to the big club. Walrond's AAA stats are reasonably good, as he posted a 3.77 ERA* and went 9-3* in 20 starts. He's put up 133.1 innings. He's also had 11 appearances as a reliever. Overall, his stats are 3.98, 10-5 record. If he stays in the rotation the rest of the year, he'd be likely to make 6 total starts, given that there are 33 games left on the Cubs' schedule. Taking into consideration all the other pitchers the Cubs have that might come back into the rotation(Miller, O'Malley, Marshall, even longshots at Prior and Wood) and the fact that, ya never know, Dusty might find a way to break this new kid too, I'm putting the over/under on games started at 3. Feel free to post a comment as to whether you'd take the over or under. Free lollipops to winners**.

Lastly, here's a fun link. It's two guys seemingly practicing or goofing around doing penalty kicks with a soccer goal. This is something you would NEVER see in World Cup(but it would be awesome if you did).

* - Walrond's 9-3, 3.77 is as a starter only in AAA, as was posted below, his overall stats are 10-5, 3.98

** - Not really.

Peaking as a rookie

2006-08-24T16:29:00.000-05:00

The Cardinals made what I thought at the time was a questionable trade to bring in 2nd baseman Ronnie Belliard in exchange for young utilityman Hector Luna.

My original post was on July 31st. Here's the direct link.

My arguments were pretty simple and mostly based on Luna's youth and much cheaper salary, coupled with the fact that Luna is nowhere NEAR free agency.

Now I have a whole new set of reasons why I think this was a bad trade though.

Looking at Ronnie Belliard's stats over his career, I find it pretty evident that in his career, he had a very good rookie season in 1999, for which I'm shocked he wasn't in the Rookie of the Year vote anywhere. Continuing down the line though, in many important statistics, he has never lived up to his rookie season.

For the most part, Belliard is a one-hit wonder living off of the mediocrity of the 2nd base position in baseball today.

Here's his rookie stats:

124 G, 8 HR, 58 RBI, 4 SB, .295 BA, .379 OBP, .429 Slugging for a .808 OPS

That year represents his career highs in batting average(.273 career), OBP(.340 career) and OPS(.752 Career) and 2nd best in slugging(.450 in 2005, when it seems like he thought he was a home run hitter, with a very lacking .325 OBP)

This season with the Indians, he was having a relatively good year for him, batting .291 and slugging .420, although his on-base still sucked at .337, but now with the Cardinals, his season stats through 19 games are very Aaron Miles-ish, (who incidently is the guy the Cardinals had BEFORE Belliard that they felt they needed to replace so badly).

Here are their stats(BA/OBP/Slugging/OPS)

Miles - .262/.334/.348/.682
Belliard - .264/.312/.361/.673

So thusfar this season as a Cardinal, Belliard has been an offensive DOWNGRADE from Aaron Miles.

In addition, another reason to be frustrated with this trade is Belliard's plate discipline. Where most players seem to become better at judging the strike zone and taking pitches as they mature as a player, the exact OPPOSITE has happened with Belliard. If you use the #P/PA stat on ESPN(Number of Pitches per Plate Appearance), you see that with Belliard, the number has declined almost every year he has played.

His rookie year in 1999, his #P/PA was 3.94 and it dropped for 3 straight years after that down to 3.56, before in one fluke year in Colorado it jumped to 4.07, but then has quickly declined since then. This season with the Indians, he saw 3.36 pitches every time he went up, and with the Cardinals, it's only been marginally better at 3.49.

What do these stats mean? Is Ronnie Belliard the worst player in major league history?

Of course not.

But it does mean that we traded a young, cheap player for an expensive veteran in his walk year who has really declined every season since his rookie season. Belliard is now 31 and I see no reason to think he's going to get any better, but he certainly can continue to get worse.

Here's to hoping the Cardinals don't compound an error by resigning the 2nd baseman for next season.

This is just getting sad(CHC Pitching)

2006-08-23T17:58:00.000-05:00

Normally I will only write in this blog about the Cubs to poke fun of them or when they happen to be playing my team, the Cardinals. However, who knows, it might happen more often since I'm now on the outer fringe of Chicago suburbs, since I get more Cubs/Sox news than Cardinals now.

But today we're writing about the Cubs.

It's straight up sad how much this team has been riddled with injuries. Obviously Derrek Lee is a big one, as he went from being the batting champion and 3rd in MVP votes to being out most of the season, and when he did come back briefly, he was a very mediocre first baseman, obviously with lingering effects from the injury.

But beyond that, let's focus on the pitching:

Kerry Wood, being paid 12M this year, has made 4 starts, going 1-2 in those 4 starts, and has spent the vast majority of the season on the DL.

Mark Prior, being paid 3.65M, carrying the expectations of once being considered among the top, most can't miss prospects in baseball, has started 9 games this season, going 1-6. He has also spent most of the season on the DL

Glendon Rusch, being paid 2.75M, has made 9 starts and pitched in relief in 14 games and is 3-8.
He has made two stints on the 15-day DL, most recently coming back on the 22nd.

Wade Miller, who was signed as an injured free agent, is being paid 1M and has not made a start. To be fair, this deal might not be bad still. Cardinals fans may remember that a few years ago they took a chance signing the rehabbing Chris Carpenter, who sat out a full year, resigned with the Cardinals, and then put together a strong season in 2004 and won the Cy Young in 2005. If Wade re-ups with the Cubs next year, who knows, he could re-emerge as a pitcher who matters again.

Even the young guys are in on the act.

Carlos Marmol, a young righty from the Dominican, was just placed on the DL with right shoulder fatigue. He has made 13 starts and compiled a 5-6 record, a very lofty record compared to his compatriots listed above.

Sean Marshall, another of the young guys, was placed on the DL on July 25th with a strained left oblique(a nasty injury for any baseball player, but I'd have to imagine it's REALLY bad for a pitcher.) For the season, he is 5-8 in 19 starts(an impressive number of starts for this list).

Last, but certainly not least, young lefty Ryan O'Malley, who threw 8 shutout innings against the Astros, left his most recent start with elbow pain and is reported to have an inflamed elbow. He is not on the DL at this time, but the report was read on WSCR(The Score) this morning.

Oh yeah, remember that guy Greg Maddux? Well, by trading him off, the Cubs acquired talented SS Cesar Izturis who was injured early this season and basically replaced when the Dodgers signed Rafael Furcal(Who the Cubs courted unsuccessfully). Izturis was placed on the 15-day DL today, the 23rd.

As a Cardinals fan, I do enjoy seeing the Cubs struggle. However, this list of injuries is just insane. Wood and Prior came into the season injured. Miller was signed with the intention of rehabbing him. So we'll take those out. However, all these young guys going down is just horrible. Some of this MUST be bad luck, however, when you see a team consistently have guys go down with injuries year after year, and the players range from veterans(Kerry Wood) to young prodigies(Prior), to even the guys you throw in to fill in when things are bad(Marmol, Marshall, O'Malley), there MUST be something going on there.

Dusty Baker's handling of pitchers has been long criticized and probably is partially the reason. I also question whether Rothchild could have anything to do with it. Having no idea what is said to the pitchers or how they are coached, this is completely ungrounded speculation, but there has been an obvious pattern in the Chicago Cubs rotation the last few years, culminating with this year.

I guess the real question is: How long will Cy Young candidate Carlos Zambrano's arm last?

Winning a division

2006-08-19T22:45:00.000-05:00

The Cardinals are on pace to do something historic and very impressive.

With 40 games left in the regular season, they are 28-32 against the Central division. Obviously not an impressive mark.

This got me thinking.... Has any team ever won a division without actually winning in their division? So I looked it up going back to 1995, the first full season since divisional play.

Only one team has ever pulled off this feat: The 1996 Seattle Mariners. They went 18-21 against the West that year but still won the division. Of course, in 1996, they didn't have the weighted schedules where Seattle had to play half their games against their division.

Two other teams have only finished .500, the 1999 Houston Astros, who were 31-31 vs. the Central, and the 2000 Mariners, who finished 19-19 against the West.

Now, with 40 games left and Cincy on their heels at 2.5 out, it does seem somewhat unlikely that the Cardinals can pull this off. Should they not start winning a little more regularly, they'll likely lose the division to the Reds. Should they start winning more regularly, they'll probably end up at least .500 against the Central.

Of their 40 games, 21 are against the Central, so concluding the season 13-8 vs. the Central is what is necessary to draw the Cardinals 1 game over .500 against the Central.

Will they do it? Will they make history as only the 2nd team since divisional play to win a division despite not being able to win in their division?

Recap of the Reds series

2006-08-11T11:05:00.000-05:00

The 2-2 series split with the Reds represented a lot of what is good and what is bad about this team so far this season. Let's look at the good news and the bad news.

The Good News

Everything went right in the opening. This looked like it would be a statement game that could turn the series in the direction of the Cardinals. They hammered out 13 runs on 4 home runs, including one from anemic batting catcher Yadier Molina, who had a good day at 2-5 with 4 RBI. In addition, Jeff Weaver pitched his best game as a Cardinal, going six innings and allowing one earned run while striking out seven. They got into the Reds bullpen early in a series opener, always a good thing, as it potentially puts more pressure on the starting pitching the following couple days.

Game four of the series was practically a replay of game one, with fewer runs. Four home runs(2 by Duncan, 1 by Edmonds and Spiezio, there's that lefty power that they've been lacking most of the year), only one run scored by the other side. Anthony Reyes pitched about as poorly as you can without giving up a run, which I put in the category of good news, because again, 0 ER!

Other good news: The split with the Reds, who the Cardinals are now 4-8 against, means that the Reds gain NO ground on the Cards and still sit 3.5 games back. This was a beautiful opportunity for both sides to make a statement, and down 2 games to 1, the Cards pulled out an excellent performance to keep the lead from being cut to only 1.5 games.

The Bad News

Jason Marquis was straight up BAD. In what could end up being Marquis's last start for awhile, he went 2.2 Innings, giving up 4 earned. La Russa's got to be getting frustrated with him, and as is written in excellent Cardinals blog Viva El Birdos, "the team looks ill whenever Marquis pitches". Also discussed is what will happen when Mulder returns. Mulder may be taking Marquis's place, and who knows, depending on which Weaver comes out next time(the 1 ER in 6 innings, or the one who is more responsible for the 6.79 ERA), we may even see them consider placing Jorge Sosa into the rotation.

Potentially even worse news, Chris Carpenter was rocked as well. Although he did go deep into the game, Carpenter was afforded a 4-0 first inning lead, and a 6-3 lead later, neither of which he held. Normally I wouldn't worry about Carpenter, as everyone is entitled to have a bad start, but last time out he did take a shot off of one of his pitching fingers. Hopefully there is no injury that we have to worry about.

Love of the Game!

2006-08-10T11:13:00.000-05:00

In the Daily Southtown(a Chicago paper), there's a great article about true love of the game.

Luol Deng of the Chicago Bulls, who originally is from the Sudan, is acting as unofficial ambassador of the Great Britain Olympic basketball team, eyeing the 2012 Olympics. Britain is the host of the 2012 games and is guaranteed a spot in the field if they can come up with a team that can be competitive.

Deng and his family left the Sudan and was granted exile status in Great Britain, making it possible for him to represent Great Britain.

Deng claims that Britain has the best athletes(saying that only maybe France is anywhere near them) in Europe and that if they can establish a base of interest that the British team could flourish in both European and Olympic play.

Tell that to Dirk Nowitzki(Germany), Tony Parker(France), and Pau Gasol(Spain).

Ben Gordon, born in London, is also eligible for the team, but has declined the invitation.

Floyd Landis on Leno

2006-08-09T13:55:00.000-05:00

Last night, embattled cyclist Floyd Landis appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Overall, he came off fairly positively, I thought. He seemed mostly confident, but on edge.

As Dan Le Batard of the Miami Herald(and a frequent guest host on ESPN's PTI) said several times, if you failed a drug test and had no idea how, you might have a lot of different guesses/excuses as to why. Therefore, I don't necessarily think that his different excuses everyday is a bad thing.

Also, from an interview I watched, one person said something to the effect that there have either been very few or no cyclists that have appealed this type of drug test and not had the ruling overturned. Which means, if Landis's case is similar to others, he might be found not guilty due to weak evidence.

On the Tonight Show though, for anyone who saw it: How uncomfortable did Landis look with Bill Maher there? Maher made one comment along the lines of "Why are we making such a fuss over a sport no one gives a shit about?" And Landis from that point on seemed almost like he wanted to really trash Maher but was uncomfortable, due to the fact that he wasn't sure what to say. Obviously someone who is in Landis's situation right now doesn't seem to go after some random political commentator right now over a comment made in jest. He needs all the public support he can get.

For now, I'm still on Landis's side. The way he carries himself, the way he has come out publicly(just as many people have said McGwire should have post-Congressional hearing), I can't imagine he intentionally did anything against the Tour's rules. However, I'm very skeptical at the same time. A good PR team could have basically set up this strategy for him and told him, "Get out there, it will make you a more sympathetic figure if people see you and get to like you."

I guess we'll see what the International Cycling Union does, but who knows whether that will tell the whole truth.

Headlines

2006-08-09T09:18:00.000-05:00

Baseball

Jason Marquis was drilled again, and his spot in the rotation may not be secure with Mark Mulder likely returning from the DL after his next rehab start. Marquis has given up 23 earned runs and 40 hits in his last four losses, spanning 17 1/3 innings.

Dan O'Neill compares this inconsistent and rocky, yet successful version of the Cardinals to the World Series Champion 1982 squad, who had a similar record of 61-49 at this point of the season. This year's Cardinals are currently 61-51.

Jim Edmonds is resigned to the fact that his option may not be picked up. The Cardinals hold a $10M option for Edmonds next season, or can offer him a $3M buyout. Edmonds is growing frustrated and says playing in another uniform next season seems more and more likely.

The Cincinnati Reds are considered filing a grievance over Gary Majewski's health at the time of the trade that brought him over from Washington. Majewski was acquired from Washington in a July 13 trade. Majewski was treated for tendinitis with several cortisone shots prior to the All-Star break this season.

Manager of the Year candidate Joe Girardi reportedly has a rift with Florida's ownership. Chicago Tribune writer Paul Sullivan questions whether he would be available at the end of the season, when it seems more and more likely current Cubs skipper Dusty Baker will not be retained.

Basketball

Luciana Chavez of the Raleigh News Observer takes a look at the current U.S. Men's Olympic team, who has gone into their exhibition series without top shooters Michael Redd, Paul Pierce and J.J. Redick.

The "Let's See How Long Before I Get Fired!" game Isiah Thomas is playing shifted back into high gear, as he signed yet another small forward, this time in the very lanky and young Jared Jeffries. This does give the Knicks a very large front line, with a likely combination of Jared Jeffries at the 3, Channing Frye at the 4 and Eddy Curry in the middle.

In College Basketball, ESPN has up their summer rankings(although they're from June, I've been slow to look at the NCAA page during all the wedding fun that month). The Big 10 scores two top ten teams, Ohio State at #7 and Wisconsin at #9, but have no other teams in the top 25. The Big Ten is likely to have a down year again, with Illinois and Indiana now likely being bubble teams for this coming year's tournament. No conference was very dominant with the Top 10 though, with the Big 10, SEC, ACC and Big 12 all having two representatives.

Sagarins(MLB) and a little basketball

2006-08-08T16:10:00.000-05:00

First off, for anyone who doesn't know who Jeff Sagarin is, he's a writer for USA Today. He does excellent rankings for virtually all sports. Most of the rankings are actually based on the quality of the team, and they're probably the most useful in judging NCAA Basketball teams. However, he also does baseball rankings, of players.

His prime ranking is RPG(Runs Per Game). The stat predicts how many runs a team would score if it was nine Scott Rolens hitting, or nine Carlos Beltrans, or even nine Ronny Cedenos(sorry Cubs fans).

Here's his top 10 hitters in the NL: (only counting players that have enough AB's to qualify for the batting title)

Rank / Player / RPG
1) Albert Pujols 9.79
2) Lance Berkman 8.77
3) Chipper Jones 8.70
4) Carlos Beltran 8.12
5) Nick Johnson 7.97
6) Jason Bay 7.88
7) Ryan Howard 7.77
8) Nomar Garciaparra 7.71
9) Scott Hatteberg 7.69
10) Miguel Cabrera 7.62

Obviously a lot of these aren't shocking. Pujols, Beltran, Berkman, Cabrera, and even Jason Bay are phenomenol hitters. I was a little shocked to see Nick Johnson and Scott Hatteberg make the list. However, both have OPS's of over .900(which is very good).

Now, we come to his pitcher's rankings. His stat is NPERA, which is supposedly what the pitcher's ERA "should be." If you want to know more about his stats, look at the page, although many of his formulas are not published as far as how they specifically are found.

The top 10(NL only, pitchers must have 1 inning pitched for the avg. amount of games each team has played)

Rank Pitcher NPERA
1) Pedro Martinez 2.40
2) Brandon Webb 2.75
3) Jason Schmidt 2.80
4) Chris Carpenter 2.85
5) Jeff Francis 2.96
6) Josh Johnson 2.97
7) Carlos Zambrano 3.04
8) John Smoltz 3.06
9) Derek Lowe 3.13
10) Matt Cain 3.16

Some big names again, and some pitchers having great years. This stat seems to punish some players(Josh Johnson, who actually has a 2.85 ERA, but adjusted jumps to close to 3) and is incredibly kind to others(Most notably Matt Cain, whose actual ERA is 4.62, a point and a half higher than his adjusted one). Without having seen the games, my only guess is that Matt Cain has suffered from poor defense(not errors necessarily, but maybe bad defensive placement or players with a lack of range) and perhaps by unfavorable park conditions.

These stats are obviously not an end-all for MVP and Cy Young, but they certainly could be used as an early indicator of who is in the race. The NL MVP race right now seems to be a 3-man race, with Albert Pujols battling 2 Mets(Beltran and David Wright - 15th on the list)

This could indicate that if the writers do the players justice, it could very well be down to Beltran and Pujols, depending on their teams' late season success and their own end of the season.

Meanwhile, the Cy Young favorites at this point are likely Brandon Webb, who has been fantastic for the D'Backs, Pedro, who has been the best pitcher for the best team(despite not getting many wins, Carlos Zambrano, who has 12 wins despite being a Cub, and probably in last on that list, but still alive and kicking, reigning Cy Young winner Chris Carpenter.

Here's hoping Pujols and Carpenter take off again and can give it a run at back-to-back awards for each.

Some Basketball Talk

The Olympic team so far looks good in exhibition, with impressive wins over Puerto Rico and China. A win over Puerto Rico may not seem like a big deal, but after the last Olympics, we're just looking for signs of dominance.

Kirk Hinrich, my boy on the Bulls, seems to be the favorite for the 2nd string Point Guard, behind Wade, which should mean he gets significant playing time(at least probably 12-15 minutes a game running the show) and as Sam Smith of the Tribune writes, Kirk is excited about two squads, both the Bulls squad where he is the longest-tenured player, and the Olympic squad. So far it seems they've gotten it right with Coach K and their current roster. They still lack depth as far as shooters though, which could be a problem.

New Layout

2006-08-06T15:33:00.000-05:00

Did some work creating a new layout today. I hope everyone likes it.

You may notice there is one mostly unintrusive ad just above the first post. I know this is still a scarcely visited blog by mostly my friends, but if you see an ad that interests you, please take a moment and click it. Proceeds will go towards the American Cancer Society via my Relay for Life team that my wife and I participate in. If I can get myself some more publicity, I may look to get another ad put on the left side of the content, but for now, the one little one will do.

I hope you enjoy reading my blog and again, please help me raise money to beat cancer!

Ending the Streak

2006-08-06T10:33:00.000-05:00

The 8-game skid is finally over after yesterday's 4-3 win over the Milwaukee Brewers.

Here's a look at the losing streak:

In 7 of the 8 games, the starting pitcher for the Cardinals took the loss, meaning their starting pitching was absolutely abysmal and was giving up early leads to the other team, all of which turned out to be insurmountable leads.
In the other game, the first of the losing streak, Jeff Weaver pitched poorly as well, giving up 4 ER in 5 2/3 innings. Tyler Johnson took the loss giving up an unearned run without recording an out in the 6th.

The Cardinals fell from 16 games over .500 to only 8 games over .500 before yesterday's loss. Amazingly, they retained their NL Central lead and still lead the Wild Card leading Cincinnati Reds by 2.5 games.

Also in 6 of the 8 games, the Cardinals pitchers gave up innings of 3 or more runs early in the game(first four innings). Two of these instances included 5 ER in the first two innings by Chris Carpenter in the closing game of the series vs. the Cubs and a 6-run 4th inning in the 2nd game of that same series, with Jason Marquis on the mound.

In the 8 games, the Cardinals committed 6 errors(one was questionably not an error, in the opening game vs. the Cubs, where an incredibly bad hop led to the Cubs scoring a key run that probably cost the Cards the game). The defense was incredibly shaky and the Cardinals are a defense and pitching team. They didn't have defense and as you see above, they certainly didn't have pitching.

The key offensive players weren't coming through. Albert Pujols was 7 for 31 (.226) over the stretch with 0 Home Runs. Edmonds and Rolen each had one run home over the stretch, but it came in the 16-8 debacle against the Phillies. Great timing, no? 8 runs in any other game during the stretch would have been a win or at least extra innings.

Eckstein also had trouble scoring runs, partially because he struggled to get on base and partially because no one behind him could drive him in.

Now, for last night's game: The pitching was reasonably good. Rookie Anthony Reyes went 5 and gave up 3 ER, not a great start, but he kept the team in it. Bullpen arms Braden Looper and Jason Isringhausen were excellent, taking 3 innings between them and giving up 1 hit and 1 walk only(both by Looper). Pujols broke his homerless streak, which has reached 33 at-bats. Rolen and Edmonds were each 1-3, with Rolen driving in a run and Edmonds scoring one. Eckstein still struggled, but the other good news: No errors!

Amazingly, they're still playing .500 ball since the break as they were 10-3 prior to the skid(thanks primarily to being 7-0 against the Dodgers, can we trade the Cubs or Reds to the NL West for the Dodgers?)

They are an overall 11-11 since the break and 3-3 in the 6 series they've played so far. Today they go for the series win against Milwaukee with Jeff Suppan on the mound.

Chase-ing History? (And some early waiver talk!)

2006-08-02T15:14:00.000-05:00

Tonight, the Cardinals look to end a shot at history.

Chase Utley is having an excellent year and is currently in the midst of a huge hitting streak.
Last night with a 2-for-5 day, he extended the streak to 33 games. This ties him at 17th on the list of longest consecutive hit streaks. He sits still an amazing 23 games behind DiMaggio, but for a more modest starting goal, it only puts him 5 games from tying teammate Jimmy Rollins, whose streak, from last season, was broken in the opening series of 2006 against, who else? The St. Louis Cardinals. It also only puts him 6 games away from tying Paul Moliter for the longest streak since Pete Rose's NL-record tying 44 in 1978.

So the Cardinals look to end their 2nd 30-game plus hit streak of the season tonight on ESPN.

More random trade information

In other news related to the Phillies, they are possibly still looking to dump a few big name players. In this Philadelphia Inquirer article, there is speculation that they could be willing to ship Jon Lieber, Pat Burrell and Mike Lieberthal, all likely to clear waivers because of their high salaries, in a waiver-wire deal. As it is still believed that the Cardinals need a bat and perhaps even a starting pitcher, Burrell and Lieber could be possibly targets for Walt Jocketty to target. Although personally, I could do without Burrell and his career .258 Batting Average.

Speculation in the article is that Lieberthal could be a good fit for Boston, who lost team captain Jason Varitek for most of the season after he underwent arthroscopic knee surgery.

Another article on ESPN by Jerry Crasnick reports on other players likely to clear waivers and be available. Shawn Green of Arizona is cited as someone the Cardinals had interest in and could acquire.

If nothing else, can Jocketty swallow his pride and call across the state to KC to inquire about Reggie Sanders?

Cardinals Trades!

2006-07-31T18:16:00.000-05:00

Alright, pretty minor overall.

Two trades, First one: Infielder Hector Luna sent to Cleveland for 2nd baseman Ronnie Belliard.

My take on this: Hector Luna is actually probably the better player of the two in many ways. First, far more upside. He has very limited major league playing time in comparison to Belliard. Luna has more range in the field and more speed overall. However, seeing as La Russa had no faith in making Luna the everyday player, Belliard is an upgrade over Aaron Miles. Overall, a fair trade. Belliard is more of a proven player and could be an upgrade at 2nd base

The other trade: A minor leaguer for Atlanta RP/SP Jorge Sosa.

Sosa is an intriguing kind of guy. The bad: He sucks this year(3-10, ERA of 5.46). He's been so bad and has at times pissed off Bobby Cox enough that he has been taken out at odd times and sent down to the minors.

The good: He was 13-3 with a 2.55 ERA two years ago under Mazzone as the pitching coach. Mazzone left, so did his performance. Perhaps Cardinals pitching coach Dave Duncan will be able to salvage Sosa and make him into what he was in 2005.

Swept by the friggin Cubs

2006-07-31T10:31:00.000-05:00

I can't believe it.

The Cardinals continue their 0-for-the season in Chicago against the Cubs this weekend, being swept in a four-game series in Wrigley. (As another blogger at Bleed Cubbie Blue pointed out, they're not just 0-7 vs. the Cubs in Chicago, they're 0-3 at Comiskey/US Cellular too, for an 0-10 @ Chicago experience so far)

It even has that same blogger making a joke that the Cubs have petitioned for the Cubs to play the remainder of their season against the 1st-place Cardinals.

It wouldn't be so bad if the Cubs were just the hot team that outperformed the Cardinals this weekend. But it seemed like the Cardinals played scared and made mental mistakes that are uncommon to Tony La Russa's team. On the Saturday game, the first two Cubs runs were scored in situations where NEITHER should have, if the team had made the expected plays.

The first run was scored by John Mabry, who almost ran through a stop sign at third. However, Ronny Cedeno(I believe) also ran through second on his way to third, hanging Mabry up. Scott Rolen received a throw at third, and tried to tag Cedeno, and failing there, didn't see that Mabry was hung up, allowing him to advance home with no throw.

Is this Rolen's fault? Not really, but the rest of the infield should have been SCREAMING at him to throw home.

The next run resulted from the player at first(don't remember who) basically being picked off first, and while he was in a rundown, Cedeno took off from third and was able to score, which also allowed the player at first to advance to second base.

These are NOT St. Louis-like plays. These are the plays you expect to see the Cubbies make in a Cardinals/Cubs series. But the Cubs seemed to play very good baseball this weekend and the Cardinals occasionally did, but had enough lapses to prevent them from winning a single game.

Stats of the day: In the NL, the Cardinals are 2nd in batting average, behind the Dodgers, with a team BA of .274. They are also 3rd in OBP(.343), but are 9th in Slugging(.425) and 7th in Runs Scored(512). This is NL only, so with only 16 teams, they are obviously one of the most proficient teams at getting on base, but are only average at scoring those runs. Surely you've all noticed this too, with the Left on Base(LOB) stat that Fox Sports Midwest now runs on their between innings scoreboard. The Cardinals always seem to get around 7-9 LOB while scoring maybe 3-4 runs.

Last thing to remember, for those who are very cynical or thing I'm being cynical: They're still in first place by 3.5 games and are the overall #2 team in the NL behind the Mets.

Other Observations about Singles hitters

2006-07-29T09:59:00.000-05:00

I think the most significant of the stats I came up with last time might just be what percentage of a players hits are singles. It definitely gives you a picture of what kind of power hitter the person is. The only thing I struggle with so far is that I have a small enough sample size with only about 25 players represented to see where the actual cut off is between power hitters, average hitters, and lead-off type hitters.

Here are a few of the numbers though(First, the alleged power hitters):

Player - Singles/Hits % (Active Players tested only)

Adam Dunn - .482
Barry Bonds - .508
David Ortiz - .519
Troy Glaus - .522
Jim Thome - .532
Richie Sexson - .544
Albert Pujols - .547
Andruw Jones - .569
Derrek Lee - .574
Alex Rodriguez - .586
Vlad Guerrero - .606

I'm trying to see if there's any relevance to these stats as far as where a person would likely be plugged in if they are a player who is more willing to take what the pitcher is giving them and will hit to all fields. A player who doesn't always try to pull the ball will, theoretically, hit more singles to the opposite field. However, I'm not sure this stat alone will do that, since if you gapped one to the opposite field, you took what the pitcher gave you, but now according to this stat, you're a power hitter.

The one that shocked me a little is Vlad. With that ultra violent swing, he hits over 60% singles, and is the only "power hitter" of this era with that high of a percentage. The number compares closely to past greats like Stan Musial and Hank Aaron, who were both a little over 60% singles, but of course there are countless reasons(smaller parks, juiced balls, dillution of the pitching talent pool by expansion) that people have for why there are more home runs now.

Now, we'll go the other way. These are the lead-off type guys I put in, which, admittedly, weren't many, because at the time I did it I couldn't think of a whole lot. (A few new ones added, Furcal, Pierre, Damon, Soriano and Jeter)

Player - Singles/Hits %

J. Pierre - .823
D. Eckstein - .808
S. Podsednik - .733
D. Jeter - .730
R. Furcal - .729
J. Reyes - .712
J. Damon - .698
A. Soriano - .576

So looking at these in comparison to the power hitters, why is Soriano batting lead off? I guess his combination of speed and power keep a pitcher off balance early, but a solo home run is still only one run. At least bat him 2nd and maybe some of those home runs are putting you up by a deuce. He also only has a .325 OBP because he doesn't take walks. PUT THIS GUY SOMEWHERE ELSE IN THE LINEUP. He'd be an excellent 2 guy if you want power early in your lineup. He could also fit in somewhere around 4-6 in the lineup too. A lead-off guy? I haven't found any obvious cut-off points in this yet, but when your lead off guy is anywhere near as likely to belt an extra base hit as just get to first(and doesn't get on with amazing frequency either), then you're putting him in the wrong place.

Last note: Matthew Leach of the St. Louis Cardinals had an interesting post today on his blog. It was one of his "Lucky Sevens" posts, where he asks his readers to answer seven questions. They were very good questions this time, so I'm linking it.

Some interesting stats

2006-07-28T10:46:00.000-05:00

Did some random number crunching after a friend and I were chatting about some of the power hitters(mostly making fun of Adam Dunn's strikeouts and poor average), and I decided to crunch some numbers, and a few things became very clear to me.

Here's what I did: First stat is that I figured out what percentage of the time that a player got a hit was that hit a single (Hits - (2B + 3B + HR) / Hits).

Another stat I did was to add walks in, to basically figure out, how often when a player reached base did they only reach first base(Singles + Walks / Hits + Walks)

Then, similar to OBP and Batting Avg, I figured out how often among at-bats and plate appearances did a player reach first base but go no further, multiplying my above figures by OBP and BA.

Here's some of the interesting things I found:

1) Adam Dunn is the 2nd coming of Mark McGwire.

Yes. It's true. Besides the obvious, that they're both mountain sized men who hit a lot of home runs, the comparison goes much further. First off, with the basic stats, they both had sub-par batting averages, but were willing to take walks, as evidenced by their on-base percentages:

Dunn - .250 BA, .384 OBP
McGwire - .262 BA, .394 OBP

They also had surprisingly similar percentages of singles. On the first stat, percentage of hits that are singles, their career numbers are damn near identical:

Dunn - .4825
McGwire - .4827

They also both hit home runs very often per at bat. McGwire's career number is a home run every 10.6 at bats. Dunn's sits right now at 13.9 for his career, but that number over the last 2 1/2 seasons(since he really started crushing them at a McGwire-like rate), the rate is only 12.6 ABs for every home run.

2) Pete Rose was even greater than I thought

Now, everyone should know he's the all-time hits leader, with 4,256.

And I guess when you keep that in mind, this shouldn't shock you, but the man has 3,215 singles alone. If you took away EVERY extra base hit he ever had, he would still have more hits than everyone in Major League Baseball history other than 12 players. Pete Rose was also 3rd on the list of players I ran the numbers for on percentage of times he was up that he would hit a single(.228) behind Ty Cobb(see below) and current St. Louis Cardinals shortstop David Eckstein.

3) Ty Cobb is automatically my choice for a lead-off hitter, all time.

Here's some numbers for you: .342 OBP, .267 BA

That would make a pretty fair lead-off man. It compares fairly well with those of Scott Podsednik and David Eckstein for their careers and is far better than Jose Reyes's numbers so far(yeah, he's young, I'm not trying to rip him).

Those would be Ty Cobb's number if you took out HIS extra base hits, like I did with Pete Rose above. His actual career numbers were: .433 OBP and .366 BA, but the fact that about 27% of the time he came up to bat he got a single is pretty astounding. This number far surpasses the .228 Pete Rose had and the .229 that 2nd place David Eckstein had.

4) Richie Sexson is VASTLY overrated.

The guy can seriously mash the ball. That no one will debate. If we compare him to Adam Dunn, Mark McGwire and Troy Glaus(the closest comparisons of the players I figured these numbers for), then we get this:

Player - Batting Average - OBP - 1B%* - Single/Hits

R. Sexson - .267 - .348 - .237 - .544
A. Dunn - .250 - .384 - .274 - .483
M. McGwire - .263 - .394 - .281 - .483
T. Glaus - .254 - .358 - .252 - .522

* - 1B% is the percentage of time a player reaches first base either through a single or a walk.

As you can see, Sexson actually has the highest batting average of the four players. However, he has the lowest OBP and 1B%. Now 1B% isn't necessarily a huge stat, if he were hitting a lot more for power, which would mean he would also have a lower Singles/Hits percentage.

So Richie Sexson is considered a big-time power hitter, so you can forgive his tendency to strike out so much right? Wrong. He fails to draw walks and hits singles more often than any of these other players who he seems to compare favorably to. So what you've got in Richie Sexson is a power hitter who fails to make contact and fails to hit for power on the level of the other power hitters.

This isn't to say he's an awful, awful player. He has had two seasons of 45 home runs and last year belted 39. But, compared to the other two active players(Glaus, Dunn), he also makes more money at 13M a year to Glaus's 10M and Dunn's 7.5M

Before I move on from these stats, I will play with them a little more and post some more. I'm looking for more ideas on power hitters and lead-off hitters, who I think these stats will most clearly demonstrate the worth of. Please post in the comments any players you'd like me to add to the chart.

The following players are already IN the chart: Adam Dunn, Richie Sexson, Sammy Sosa, Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Albert Pujols, David Ortiz, A-Rod, Troy Glaus, Jim Thome, Vlad Guerrero, Andruw Jones, Derrek Lee, Rickey Henderson, Scott Podsednik, David Eckstein, Jose Reyes, Pete Rose, Ty Cobb, Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, Ted Williams and Stan Musial.

I mostly need ideas on lead-off kinda guys, all throughout history. If you give me current ones, please try to come up with ones who have been in the league for at least 5+ full years, as players like Reyes skew the numbers because of their relative lack of experience.

Buy or Sell: Cincy/St. Louis

2006-07-24T19:32:00.000-05:00

Ok, this crashed earlier, so this is an abridged version of what I previously wrote:

For Cincinnati, they've already made a couple trades to bolster their bullpen, they have a relatively young, weak infield in the power positions and could be in the market for a first baseman, but likely won't be, because they don't have a lot to trade at this point.

St. Louis has two untouchable players that everyone wants included if they're going to give up a major player. Adam Wainwright and Anthony Reyes are two excellent major league quality prospects(well, not really prospects). Wainwright is currently in the bullpen. Reyes has entered the rotation(and is pitching tonight).

St. Louis has major needs: a starter, a left fielder and possibly some bullpen help(there are 3 rookies in their pen in Wainwright, T. Johnson, and Kinney). Players like Bobby Abreu have been linked to St. Louis, but most likely they would be asked to give up big time prospects and players to get him, including one of the big two mentioned above.

The good news for St. Louis is that two of their needs can be addressed within. They have Mark Mulder coming off the DL sometime within the next month probably. He's been an all-star starter when healthy and could be the ace that St. Louis has been looking for(to pair with Chris Carpenter, the true staff ace).

Likewise, Chris Duncan(son of pitching coach Dave Duncan) has emerged as a quality lefthanded bat to fill the void at left field. He and So Taguchi are the likely platoon there if there is no trade made to add a big time bat.

Both teams are more likely to buy than sell(obviously), but don't be shocked if there are no moves from either of these teams until at least waiver-wire time(where Jocketty makes some of his biggest trades, a la Larry Walker)

Buy or Sell! (HOU and MIL)

2006-07-20T09:11:00.000-05:00

Next up! The Crew! (Milwaukee Brewers)

Their likely status: Holding their current team as together as possible(with a couple minor buys or sells possible)

There are a few players that if they brought in a piece that would better fit(like a starting pitcher?), they'd be likely to be traded, but otherwise, I honestly don't see the Brewers making any moves.

Those players who COULD be traded(but, again, are probably not going anywhere) include Brady Clark, who could be a very valuable lead-off man for many teams, with his .381 OBP, and he could either remain in CF or be moved(like Scott Podsednik when he was shipped from Milwaukee to the White Sox), Jeff Cirillo with a .321 average and 13 homers, Brian Shouse, a very good lefty out of the bullpen, and lastly Carlos Lee, the big guy. They want to sign him to an extension, but if that doesn't happen in the next week or so, expect the bidding to begin with a top pitching prospect.

If they make a move, the Brewers are going to be looking for players that can help this or next season. With a young core including Prince Fielder, J.J. Hardy, Tony Gwynn Jr., and Rickie Weeks, they're set on young talent that has been incubating in the minors for a reasonable time.

And next today! The Houston Astros.

Anytime you have a pitching rotation that hinges around a 44 year old, you've got to either put that 44 year old on the block or be buyers in the market to build the team for THIS year. Roger Clemens isn't going anywhere unless he asks to be traded(and considering he JUST signed not that long ago, I don't see that happening). They've already made it clear that they are buyers as well, with the acquisition of Aubrey Huff from Tampa Bay that gives Houston a reasonably good lefty bat.

However, the Astros to keep it up, have to get at least one more top-tier bat to go with Lance Berkman.

They're one of the few teams that is fairly set on pitching, with Clemens, Oswalt, Pettitte(who has struggled), and Brandon Backe returning to the rotation so far with a 2-1 record and 2.25 ERA.

Next time up - Division leaders Cincinnati and St. Louis(Hint: they're both buyers)

Buying and Selling: Part One(Pitt and CHC)

2006-07-18T08:45:00.000-05:00

My very own game of Buy or Sell!

NL Central version.

I'm going to go through each of the teams and for sellers, talk about likely people to be traded, for buyers, talk about what they need.

We'll start at the bottom:

The Pittsburgh Pirates: Definite Sellers

Players that could be traded: Kip Wells, Sean Casey, Craig Wilson, Jeromy Burnitz.

Overall, I would say the only likely ones to be traded of these are Casey and Wilson. Reports have said that Casey will likely be shipped if the Pirates are unable to ink him to a contract extension before the deadline.

Wilson has been in trade talks all year long, being linked to the St. Louis Cardinals. Trade talks broke down when the Pirates insisted upon receiving one of the untouchable players the Cardinals will not part with.

Should someone want to take a chance on a #3 or #4 type starter, Kip Wells could help a staff if he could return to his 2002-2003 form, when he had reasonably good ERAs but poor records due to being a Pirate.

Burnitz is another player that could possibly help a team in need of a lefty bat, but he's batting a horrible .227 right now. However, in 2003 he had similarly bad numbers(.204, 13, 32) and was traded from the Dodgers to the Mets for the stretch run, so anything's possible.

Next up: The Chicago Cubs

They are perhaps going to become the biggest sellers in the majors this trade deadline, that is if anyone wants their extraneous parts.

Players who could be traded: (Almost everyone who isn't 25 or under or named Derrek Lee, really) Greg Maddux, Glendon Rusch, Scott Williamson, John Mabry, Phil Nevin, Todd Walker, Jacque Jones, and finally, last but not least, Juan Pierre.

Now, the problem here is, they're so flush with people they want rid of that they won't be able to get rid of most of them. Maddux, Williamson, Walker and Pierre are their best trading chips, but they're actually trying to sign Pierre to an extension from the sound of things, so we'll say he's unlikely to be traded.

With the much better hitting Todd Walker available, no one's going to want Mabry or Nevin at this point, Jones is only in the first year of a three-year deal, so unless the Cubs are willing to eat some payroll on him or talk the Yankees into a trade, most likely he's staying too. And lastly, I can't imagine there are a lot of calls for Rusch.

That being said, they do have at the very least, a couple players in Maddux and Walker that I would be surprised if they're still in Cubs uniforms come August. Maddux has expressed that he would like to stay in Chicago, but didn't seem that broken up about the idea of being traded. Walker has already been linked to San Francisco possibly.

Next post will be the Brew Crew and the Astros.

Late Correction: Mike Gonzalez a reliever for the Pirates, is probably actually more likely to go than the others. I overlooked him at first when I was looking at the list, but he's rumored to have both LA and San Fran interested in him for his potential as a closer.

How is Keith Law getting paid by Scouts Inc?

2006-07-15T20:16:00.000-05:00

If you have ESPN Insider, check this article out.

If you don't have it, think about it. $20 a year for unlimited access to local site lines, extra ESPN articles, and you even get ESPN the Magazine sent to you along with your membership.

However, this article is crap.

Keith Law goes throughout the NL and says what every team needs, saying the following about my beloved Cardinals: "the team is locked into suffocating contracts with nonproductive hitters in right field and at shortstop."

This is after saying the Cardinals need three starting pitchers, assuming Anthony Reyes continues his good work.

Quickly, on the pitching: This is a classic example of stats not telling the whole story. I'm huge on stats, but they're only a part of telling how good a player is. Even sabermetrics like Billy Beane uses can betray you at times.

Take Jason Marquis. He's got a horrid ERA this year at 5.34. However he's 11-6. So is he a good pitcher or not this year? The answer is somewhere in between. The answer is that he's had a few bad outings that came at times when he stayed in games beyond when a manager would normally take a starter out to spare them.

One example was during the abysmal ChiSox series. After the first game, the Cardinals bullpen was pretty thin. Marquis stayed in to absorb, I believe 13 earned runs. Marquis has had problems, but he's also had tremendously strong stretches, one early in the season where he won 6 straight starts.

Also, Mulder, who outside the early part of this season has been a tremendous starter, will be returning soon.

Anyway, on to the more egregious statement, the one I copied and pasted.

Nonproductive hitters at short and right field?

Both Juan Encarnacion and David Eckstein make in the vicinity of 3.5 million a year. A reasonable salary for proven major league players.

Now Encarnacion hasn't been a great savior in right field. His stats sit at .273/12 HR/48 RBI with a .307 OBP.

The old stats of BA, HRs and RBI are good for a 6 hitter, which is what Encarnacion is. The on-base is pretty horrible, and shows that he doesn't take walks. However, I wouldn't say it's a suffocating salary that is killing the Cardinals.

Furthermore, the statement about David Eckstein is absolutely ludicrous. Eckstein is batting .316 with 6 stolen bases and 52 runs scored. He could steal more but with Pujols and Rolen batting 3-4, the typical strategy in St. Louis is to not run into any outs. He's projected to score 97 runs on the season, a very good total for a lead off hitter. He also plays excellent defense and was added to the All-Star team as replacement to the excellent Jose Reyes.

So then the question is, what is Keith Law going by? Is he going by stats? Which obviously show Eckstein to be a very good player. Is he going off what he watches? What has he seen out of Eckstein or Marquis that he doesn't like (unless he only watches once or twice).

So then the question is, why is Scouts Inc and ESPN paying Keith Law for if he doesn't seem to have any level of wisdom behind his analysis?

Stat of the Day: 500 HR Hitters

2006-07-14T23:37:00.000-05:00

Here are the numbers of 500 HR hitters by decade by their birthyears:

1890s - 1 (Ruth)
1900s - 2 (Foxx, Ott)
1910s - 1 (T. Williams)
1920s - 0
1930s - 8 (Aaron, Mays, Robinson, Killebrew, Mantle, McCovey, Banks, Mathews)
1940s - 2 (R. Jackson, Schmidt)
1950s - 1 (Murray)
1960s - 5* (Bonds, Sosa, McGwire, Palmeiro, Griffey Jr.)

* - There are still a couple players who could reach the plateau born in the 1960s in Gary Sheffield(449 career HRs entering this season) and Frank Thomas (448 entering the season).

There are no 500 HR hitters from the 1970s yet, however, only a few are within sniffing distance in Manny Ramirez (435 HRs, 33 years old), Jim Thome (430 HR, 34 y/0), Alex Rodriguez (429 HR, 29 y/o), and much further down the list, Carlos Delgado (369 HR, 33 y/0).

Do what you want with that stat, I just found it interesting to see the power surge of players born during the 1930s.

The All-Star Game

2006-07-11T22:07:00.000-05:00

First off, I have to say I was wrong on some level about last night. Even though I think the Derby is lacking some serious star power and that it could use some tweaks to really make it more compelling, it did have a darn good ending.

Howard hitting the winning home run onto the banner to win some fan 500 round trip flights is pretty sweet.

The actual game is/was very good too, although as I'm writing this, the AL JUST took a 3-2 lead in the top of the 9th with 2 outs. Stupid Trevor Hoffman! (When your best pitch goes 74 mph and you throw it a whole lot, that's not necessarily a good thing against top-tier hitters)

That's really disheartening considering how the NL cannot seem to win.

GO NL!! RALLY TIME!!

Oh well, one of these years they'll decide what a bad idea the All-Star game determining the WS home field is and the AL won't automatically have home field.

Ruth vs. Bonds

2006-07-11T10:21:00.000-05:00

A trendy topic right now: As a hitter, who was better? Babe Ruth or Barry Bonds?

The two most prolific left-handed power hitters squared off, who would be collecting the MVPs and leading their team to the playoffs if they played at the same time.

First, we'll examine the Babe's pitching stats, which will be left out for the main argument, as there is no way you can make the comparison if you include the fact that Ruth was an amazing pitcher for several years as well.

As a pitcher, Babe Ruth's statistics speak for themselves: 94-46 Record, 2.28 ERA. He also had a good WHIP(Walks + Hits per Innings Pitched, a good indicator of how many baserunners are allowed per inning). His K/Walk ratio isn't great, but with twice as many wins as losses and a low 2's ERA, there's no questioning the Babe had some serious talent as a pitcher.

You can go more in depth on his overall stats here.

Now, we are going to leave those stats out, again, because it's not a fair comparison if Ruth's pitching contributions are included.

Barry Bonds has been an amazing hitter. This cannot really be disputed. The two stats that really are the ones that people look at are his home run total and his on-base percentage, showing how scared pitchers are of him.

Right now, at the All-Star Break 2006, he sits at 720 home runs, which makes him #1 among left-handed hitters and #2 behind Aaron overall.

Meanwhile, Babe Ruth had 714 home runs when he was finished.

In individual best seasons, Bonds beats Ruth there as well, with his record-setting 73 home runs in 2001. Ruth's best season was the then-record 60 home runs that he hit in 1927.

So from their career numbers and best seasons, Bonds holds the advantage so far.

However, in home run totals is about the only place Bonds takes the advantage.

Here are the 162 game averages for each of their careers:

B. Ruth: .342 Batting Average, .474 On-Base, .690 Slugging (1.164 OPS), 46 HR, 143 RBI, 375 Total Bases.

B. Bonds: .300 Batting Average, .442 On-Base, .611 Slugging (1.053 OPS), 42 HR, 110 RBI, 331 Total Bases.(Not including the 2006 season)

Over their careers, Ruth had more home runs per season, batted an astounding 42 points better, and even beat Barry in the category of On-Base Percentage, which was supposed to show how scared all pitchers are of Barry. Seems over their careers, the Babe was more frightening, and that was in an era when the Intentional Walk was not used like it is today.

Two other things to keep in mind when making the comparison: Games per season and each players vs. their contemporaries.

There were 154 games per season for the Babe, which means over his 22 seasons, he missed out on 176 games that he would have played in had those been 162 game seasons.

That's over 1 full season that Bonds has played in that the Babe did not. Going with the Babe's average of 46 home runs per 162. Doing the math, with 176 more games, Ruth would have hit 49 or 50 more home runs, which would put him #1 overall, ahead of Hank Aaron, at 764 home runs.

Now, I'm not advocating that Aaron should get an asterisk or anything, players can only control certain aspects of their careers, and the circumstances by which past great players played is out of their control. BUT, had Babe Ruth gotten the same number of games, and had performed at the same level he performed at otherwise, we're talking Barry still being a good 40 plus home runs behind of Ruth, rather than 6 ahead.

The other part: How did they fare compared to their contemporaries? Gehrig, Foxx and Ott were three of the biggest power hitters around the same time period that Ruth played in. Obviously Gehrig's career was sadly ended by ALS, but he finished with 493 home runs. Foxx finished with 534 home runs. Ott had 511.

These 3 players are the only 3 in the top 25 career home run hitters that played at the same time as Babe Ruth.

Now, let's look at the players who played during the same time period as Barry Bonds:
Sammy Sosa(588), Mark McGwire(583), Rafael Palmeiro(569), Mike Schmidt(548), Ken Griffey Jr.(536), Eddie Murray(504), Fred McGriff(493) and Dave Winfield(465). Keep going down the list and you hit mostly players who are active right now and are contemporaries of Barry Bonds. I even left out Reggie Jackson who played about a season and a half while Bonds was in the early stages of his career.

During Babe Ruth's time, there was no one that compared to him. Foxx's 534 homers was the closest thing. Meanwhile, there are 5 players that are on Bonds' list who have already surpassed Foxx, and one notable player, Griffey Jr., is still active and young enough that it can be expected he'll likely break 600 home runs in his career(Griffey is 35, and should still have at least 3 seasons left in his career).

Again, right below the top 25 is a host of players who are still active and will make the top 25 if they have any level of health remaining in their careers, including: Sheffield(36 y/o, 449 HR), Manny Ramirez(33 y/0, 435 HR), Thome(34 y/0, 430 HR), A-Rod (29 y/0, 429 HR), and to go well down the list and show my homer-ish tendencies, we'll throw on Albert Pujols(26 y/0, 230 HR) as a major threat to those 500 and 600 home run plateaus as well.

Therefore, while Barry stands out among his contemporaries, he isn't nearly as monolithic as Ruth was during his time period. (The purpose of this comparison is to negate any advantage of nutrition, equipment, supplements, etc.)

Clearly, given all the evidence, you MUST conclude that Ruth was a better hitter.

I'm Back! (And Talking about the HR Derby)

2006-07-10T21:22:00.000-05:00

First off, I have to say that the wedding, reception, and honeymoon were absolutely awesome and Disney World is an absolutely amazing place to honeymoon at. The Disney Dining Plan is awesome, Kim and I on our last night ate at a steakhouse where our total bill was around $108 for the two of us(A little beyond our typical night out... like $75 beyond).

Now, on to the sports.

I'll start back with something light, and soon I'll be jumping into my comparisons I keep promising.

But tonight, we talk about the derby.

Now, as I'm watching it now, it's looking to be Wright vs. Howard in the final. Two players(especially Wright) who definitely earned their way in.

However, what appeal does this really have?

Outside Ortiz, all the truly marquee names have either declined or dropped out. Is the home run derby on the road to being as boring and silly as the NBA Dunk Contest? Not to say Jason Richardson isn't an excellent dunker, but the titles he won would have had more meaning if they came over Kobe Bryant, Vince Carter, LeBron James, and that ilk of player, rather coming over players of the like of Amare Stoudemire(great player, but big men aren't usually the same type of high fliers) and Desmond Mason.

It doesn't take 8 big name players to be in it, but it'd be nice to see a few more. Ortiz and Tejada can stay in. You need a few young players to sort of be introduced, so Wright, Howard and even Cabrera can be in. Outside that, there needs to be at least a couple more big name players. Pick any two of these: Albert Pujols, Alex Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez, Jim Thome, Ken Griffey Jr., Vlad Guerrero. Get these guys in the derby!

If David Wright wins the Derby over Pujols, Thome and Vlad(my personal favorite three of those to see), then ya know what, he's really done something. Not that Troy Glaus doesn't have some power, but come on, 1 home run and virtually no star power behind his name. Where's the appeal?

I'm hoping it's just a situation that the players who were going to participate got hurt. Pujols probably could use the rest after his oblique strain, I think Manny pulled out due to injury. But A-Rod? Why isn't he there? Was Thome or Vlad asked? If not, what the hell is up with the MLB Central Office?

On a more fun note though, how much fun would it be to be one of the kids who gets to shag balls in the outfield or even the bullpens? When I have kids, if we're ever in the vicinity of the city where an All-Star game happens and we can get tickets, I'll be doing everything I can to try to get my kids out there if they have any interest in baseball.

How else would they get a chance to perhaps say they caught a major league fly ball from a player like an Albert Pujols?

BIG NEWS!!!

2006-06-30T23:55:00.000-05:00

Well, this week has been hectic. I really was hoping to get into some comparisons to write some analysis of Bonds vs. the Babe(as hitters, the Babe's pitching obviously makes him FAR superior as an overall baseball talent) and possibly into Tejada vs. Jeter.

However, tomorrow, July 1st, is my wedding day.

This week has been very full of last minute wedding plans and time spent with my soon to be wife.

But getting back to a little bit of sports stuff(just a little bit, gotta get back to work soon):

The NBA Draft.

There are three teams I want to address.

The first is my team, the Chicago Bulls. They picked up Tyrus Thomas, Thabo the Swiss league guy, and in the trade that also brought them Ty Thomas, they also brought in Viktor, the Mad Russian

They had two needs to address: A power forward with some size and a shooting guard with some size. The Bulls were badly undersized at key positions this season and Thabo addresses the need at the 2. Tyrus and Viktor don't necessarily address the need at the 4, but they give the Bulls some key pieces to either add some serious depth or make a run at a player like Kevin Garnett should be become available.

Also, with the news that the Bulls are supposedly making plans to make a run at Detroit star Ben Wallace or as a 2nd option, Portland free agent Joel Przybilla, this shows that the Bulls plan has been simply to add talent, and to worry about their size problems in free agency.

This may be an excellent strategy. Bigs take awhile to develop in the NBA typically, and a player like LaMarcus Aldridge, probably the best available player in the draft of major size at 6'11", is probably a year and 20 lbs. of muscle away from being the type of low-post bruiser the Bulls need to put alongside Tyson Chandler(who from many reports could be trade bait).

The other two teams: Portland and New York.

These are two of the most free-spending teams(along with Dallas) of the past several years. However, unless Dallas, both of these teams have seen their free spending to be entirely fruitless.

D'oh.

Ran outta time.

anyway, go to this site if you want to see how bad of shape the Knicks are.

Time for wedding/reception/beginning of the honeymoon! Will post sometime around the 10th or so.

My new hero, Pat Venditte

2006-06-26T09:37:00.000-05:00

I have a new personal hero.

And his name is Pat Venditte.

In addition to being a pitcher for Creighton University, he's also in the CICL summer baseball league and is a member of my hometown Quincy Gems. I tend to go to one or two of these games a season, usually when my soon-to-be father-in-law gets box tickets that include free soda and hot dogs.

The really cool thing about this reliever though, is that he is a switch-pitcher. In the game we saw, he got up to the mound against a righty, gave up a hit. Then two lefties came up, he took his glove off(which apparently is a special made glove), put it on his other hand, and retired the two lefties as a left-handed pitcher. On one of those plays, it was basically a swinging bunt, and he hopped off the mound and fired a strike over to first with his left hand, so he seems fully capable of fielding his position with either hand too. Of course, on the bunt, the guy still legged it out, but it was no fault of the Venditte's throw, but rather that he was slow off the mound.

Now, the other topic of the day is how much the NL Central sucks right now. Division-leading St. Louis has taken back to back sweeps at the hands of the White Sox and Tigers. The bottom-dwelling Cubs and Pirates are 2-8 and 0-10 in their last 10 respectively, and Pittsburgh has an extra loss on there for an 11-game losing streak. Houston in their last 3 series has lost 2 games to 1, including a series loss to the lowly Kansas City Royals. Only the Reds have really survived at a strong rate recently, going .500 in the chunk of interleague time.

So the question is: Is the AL really that much better? As a whole, I'd have to think no. However, the top teams in the AL do seem to be better than the top teams in the NL. Some of this is the situation of the big market teams in the AL holding up their end much better than their NL counter-parts. The Yankees, Red Sox and White Sox are all very strong teams. Only the Angels among the big market teams are under .500. Meanwhile, of their NL counterparts, we have the Mets, who are a very good team. Then we have the Cubs who are 18 games under .500. I know that they lost a lot of players to the DL, but a team with that much payroll should have some depth to at least remain competitive with a couple key losses. Lastly, the Dodgers: They're reasonably good. At 40-35, they're 5 games over and in first in what is still a weak(but much more balanced) NL West.

If you talk about the top teams in baseball, you're talking about AL teams with the exception of the Mets and POSSIBLY the Cardinals. The White Sox, Tigers, Yankees and Red Sox make the top five with the Mets in the minds of most baseball pundits who aren't being obvious homers right now. The Cardinals, Reds and Blue Jays are probably the second tier teams right now. Again though, does this mean the AL is the automatic favorite in the all-star game and fall classic? I'd like to say no, but it seems like for some reason the AL hitters do considerably better than NL hitters against their opposing All-Star pitching staff. There are always a couple of fluke people who seem to make the NL All-Star team, who are very deserving, but maybe don't have the star punch of a Jason Varitek at what is typically a weak position like catcher. So until the NL starts competing in the All-Star game, I'll still have to pick the AL team.

But, for the World Series? It's way too early, and anyone who says differently is speculating pointlessly. In 2004, if you picked at the halfway point, any pick but the Cardinals would have been a sucker bet, with the possible exception of the Yankees. Instead the Red Sox came back from down 3-0 to win 8 straight games to beat the Yankees and Cardinals, the two best teams at midway point, to win it all. Last year, perhaps you WOULD have picked the White Sox, but you wouldn't have guessed they would have almost missed the playoffs after a late collapse that might have actually worked in their favor.

Anyway, by Wednesday, I plan to start on the Babe Ruth vs. Barry Bonds hitting comparisons, so check back for that.

State of the Rotation

2006-06-23T09:14:00.000-05:00

For the Cardinals, in one word, the state of the rotation: BAD.

However, last night things looked up. After the Cardinals were outscored 33-11 in the front two games of their three game series with the ChiSox, Anthony Reyes, a rookie freshly called up from AAA Memphis threw a one-hitter!

... And lost the game 1-0.

The only hit he gave up was a Jim Thome home run with one out in the 7th.

The problem right now though is that Reyes really only makes it 2(questionably 3) starters the Cardinals can count on right now.

Some key stats of the Cardinals starters this year:

C. Carpenter 6-3, 2.46 ERA, 1.24 WHIP, 8.04 K/9
An. Reyes 1-1, 1.80 ERA, 0.60 WHIP, 6.30 K/9
J. Marquis 9-5, 5.53 ERA, 1.41 WHIP, 3.75 K/9
M. Mulder 6-5. 6.09 ERA, 1.55 WHIP, 4.87 K/9
J. Suppan 6-4. 5.07 ERA, 1.49 WHIP, 4.74 K/9
S. Ponson 4-2. 5.30 ERA, 1.58 WHIP, 4.44 K/9

Carpenter's been great. So has Anthony Reyes in his 4 starts. They're not the concern here.

Mulder, Suppan and Ponson are all huge problems right now. All 3 have winning records, but that's more a product of having a good offensive club that features Albert Pujols, Scott Rolen and Jim Edmonds and has scored the 4th most runs in the National League. As you can see in the case of those three pitchers, all have ERAs above 5, all have abysmal WHIPs(Walks + Hits per Innings Pitched), and all have K/9(Strikeouts per nine innings) between 4-5, which is not good.

Due to this, Ponson has fallen out of the rotation, at least for one start, which was the start Anthony Reyes took last night. Likewise, Mulder has been put on the DL as they suspect SOMETHING must be wrong with him and that he's simply hiding whatever it is due to being in a free agent year(but wouldn't his value be higher if he had a minor injury and could get better, as opposed to just sucking and having a 6+ ERA?).

Jason Marquis is the enigma here. His statistics are roughly the same as the other three who are pitching horribly, with the 2nd worst ERA of the four and the worst K/9 rate by far. However, his statistics are slightly misleading in one big way. Two days ago against the White Sox he took a battering similar to what Mark Mulder took. However, since the bullpen had to take 5 2/3rds innings for Mulder, Marquis was asked to go out and pitch when he obviously had no control and poor stuff. If he had been pulled with say, 6 ER on his record rather than 13, his ERA would probably be south of 5(not really a noteworthy distinction, but hey, it's something).
He's also got a 9-5 record and has worked the entire spectrum from being a very good starter(having won 6 decisions in a row before the ChiSox game), but also being very bad, taking his first four losses in a row prior to the streak of 6 decisions.

The really troubling thing about Marquis is his K/9 rate. At under 4, his K/9 is horrid. Most sabermetricians(a group of writers/statisticians who look at more obscure, but often more telling statistics about a player's performance) believe it's very difficult to succeed as a pitcher over the long haul with a K/9 under 6. The idea is, to really succeed, you need to be able to get that big strikeout when you need it. If every ball is put in play, there are more opportunities for balls to find holes in the defense or for a player to misplay the ball.

Anyway, overall, the rotation is in shreds right now. Carpenter is the only of the original rotation that is succeeding. Anthony Reyes has been stellar so far and will likely be featured in the rotation at least for 4-5 more starts if not the rest of the season. However, beyond that there's little hope for the Cardinals to get a top ace pitcher. Pitchers like John Smoltz may turn out to be available, but to get someone of that quality, you have to GIVE someone of quality. The only prospects the Cardinals have at that level are Anthony Reyes and Adam Wainwright(currently pitching in the Cardinals bullpen, and doing an amazing job at it). The Cardinals probably can't afford to give up either of these two pitchers, because they'll both likely be in the rotation next year, with everyone but Carpenter being a free agent at the end of the year.

Bringing Wainwright into the rotation is the only other option to try to fix the rotation, but for many reasons, the Cardinals are unwilling to do that right now. First off, the bullpen actually has been very good, leaving out the aberration of the 20-6 loss to Chicago. A big part of this has been having Wainwright in the bullpen. At first he was expected to do mop-up work and long relief, but he's turned into the Cardinals best reliever. Because of the conditioninig right now, he's really only equipped to pitch 2 or 3 innings at a time for right now.

The other reason they don't want to move him is to avoid jeopardizing his development. For some reason, the psyche of a baseball player(and especially pitchers, seemingly) is very very fragile. Wainwright's success here is a key part of his development. Throwing him in the rotation when he's ill-prepared to make long starts could damage his development and could end up messing with his prospects of being an ace-like pitcher long-term. So instead of thinking Chris Carpenter, we're thinking maybe Rick Ankiel.

The only real hope for the rotation is that a couple of these pitchers turn things around. Marquis and Mulder need to get back on track. If for no other reason than maybe they'll become good trade bait if the Cardinals don't see them in their long-term plans. However, I can't see them letting Mulder get away, even as bad as he's been. If he continues like this, my guess would be he'd be offered a one-year deal a la Matt Morris, where he's offered a reasonable base salary and enough incentive clauses to potentially make him a 10M+ a year pitcher.

Heat win, Cards spanked

2006-06-21T09:11:00.000-05:00

What a night for sports for me.

I was actually rooting for the Mavericks, because I really want to see Mark Cuban win a championship, and the idea of David Stern handing the trophy to Cubes really would have amused me greatly.

Having said that, Wade has really established himself as a superstar.

It's a stretch to put him in that highest level that is reserved for players like Jordan, Magic and Bird, however he is quickly putting himself in position to enter that celebrated level of people. This kid is only 24 years old. I know LeBron is younger and he's also quickly approaching that level, but Wade now has a ring and LeBron doesn't, so we'll keep this post about Wade for now.

Here's what I think is the key stat for him, not only for this season, but for his career. Shooting percentage. We have too many Iversons in the league right now. They score 30 ppg, but they do it on 42% or even 39% shooting. Dwyane Wade's shooting percentage this season was .495, almost 50% from a guard. His career shooting percentage, not much lower at .482

But it seems we finally have actual good shooting percentages in the league again, here's some of the more notable players with excellent shooting on the season:

S. O'Neal (MIA) - .600
S. Nash (Pho) - .512
D. Wade (MIA) - .495
D. Nowitzki - .480
L. James (Cle) - .480

These are some good percentages from MAJOR players. Shaq always has a high percentage, but 60% is ridiculously good for him even.

Other players

A. Iverson (PHI) - .447
K. Bryant (LAL) - .450
M. Jordan (Career, CHI and WAS, 15 seasons) - .497

So you can see, players like Iverson and Kobe, while being great players, aren't doing it to the level than LeBron and Wade and Dirk are doing it. Wade's percentage, especially for a young player, is ridiculously good. He's already the center of the team's offense, so it's unlikely to have a major drop(at least until O'Neal retires).

Anyway, on to the other topic, that I'll definitely get into more later.

The Cardinals(my team) were trounced in a ridiculous manner last night. A 20-6 loss in Chicago to the White Sox. An 11-run 3rd inning, where Mark Mulder was destroyed was mostly to blame.

Mark Mulder's 2005 stats
32 GS, 16-8 record, 3.64 ERA, 83 ER in 205 IP.

This season:
15 GS, 6-5 record, 6.09 ERA, 60 ER in 89.2 IP.

He's on pace right now to catch up to the number of earned runs he gave up in 2005 in about 33 more innings. So if that pace remains(and his ERA stays the same), he would give up his 83rd Earned Run at around 123 innings pitched on the season.

The other issue last night was of course the issue of throwing at people. This is something I don't understand. To me it's a pitcher saying, "I can't get you out, therefore I have to punish you in another way."

Ponson hit 2 people, who knows if they were on purpose, but then Ozzie ordered David Riske to hit Chris Duncan, and then both were quickly ejected. Ozzie seemed a lot more pleased than with his rookie a little bit ago who missed in 2 inside pitches.

It's one of those "unwritten rules." They're mostly ridiculous, but that's material for a future post.

Luxury Sweet, er I mean, Suite

2006-06-19T17:33:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, to commemorate Father's Day, I spent it the way any good son should.
At Busch Stadium for my first ever game in the newest version of the stadium.

*cough* with my father-in-law, while my own father watched the game at home *cough*

The worst part is: I was the one who bought the tickets.

I DIDN'T KNOW IT WAS FATHER'S DAY WHEN I BOUGHT THEM!

Oh well, next summer I'm getting my dad to go along with too(and I did afterall give him the commemorative ball that all fans got as they entered the stadium, I'm not THAT bad of a son, right?)

And on the bigger issue here: Luxury box tickets are the best. thing. ever.

All the beer we could drink, all the food we could eat in a 2 hour window, seats outside that were set down under the 2nd tier, so that when it started raining(which it did, about a 20 minute delay in the top of the 2nd), we were sitting there going "Do you feel any rain? I don't. Why are the groundskeepers pushing the tarp out?"

And besides that, access to the indoor air conditioned part of the box and closed circuit television. AND THE SEATS ARE CUSHIONED!

Now, obviously the biggest draw is the beer and food(you can also get soda). At ballpark prices, a beer is around $7, hot dog around $5, nachos around $5, and most other food is in that same ballpark(ha ha, get it?).

Considering I had 6 cups of beer(these cups were half the size of the normal ones, so figure 3 big ones), there's $21. I had 2 dogs, $10 more. One order of nachos, $5 more. I also had 3 chicken sandwiches, which I'm guessing were probably also around the same, so we'll say $15 more, and a couple brownies.

There's $51 in food easily. We also got a free pin, which we saw at the team store for a dazzlingly overpriced $7.50, so there's $58.50

Crappy seats at Busch are $35, so add that in, and we're at $93.50.

The tickets were $90 a person. Add in cushioned seats, A/C, bathrooms that were far more convenient, and all the other stuff I said earlier and if you're ready to really gorge yourself with food and drink, then those seats pay for themselves.

Now, as a teacher, I'm nowhere near the point where this is going to be something affordable on a regular basis, but this was a ballpark experience I'd definitely like to replicate once a year.

World Cup Angst

2006-06-18T08:26:00.000-05:00

There's a very strange attitude towards soccer that you occasionally see people hold and it just seems strange to me. I'm guessing this is mostly a sign of either ignorance or immaturity, but what is with people who actively HATE soccer?

I'm not a huge soccer fan, I've watched about a total of 5 minutes of World Cup so far, and I wasn't really that engaged when I was watching. But when people get the attitude of "soccer is gay! Why would anyone watch that?" and start to actually get hostile in their defense of how stupid soccer is, that attitude is bothersome to me.

Here's a new strategy for people who maintain this type of attitude: When someone is talking about or watching something you don't care for, don't watch it and don't make yourself part of their conversation. I don't go hanging out in craft stores in the cross-stitching section berating people who do cross-stitch simply because I don't think it's very entertaining, don't enter my sports conversation and tell me how stupid sports are because you don't think it's entertaining.

This type of attitude goes outside the world of sports, and I have especially seen it in students I had in class concerning some of the most random things, so I do honestly think it's just a situation of immaturity in 90% of cases. However there are some adults out there who will get hostile and angry over something this ridiculous.

Maybe it's a by-product of a me-first society to say that if people around me are talking about something that doesn't entertain me, that I have the right to be a jerk until they change their ways. Or maybe I'm putting too much into a minority of jerks who have possibly always existed.

Mmmm..... Blogspot.....

2006-06-17T15:49:00.000-05:00

Well, after hundreds of conversations about sports with friends online, in real life, and even people I don't necessarily consider friends, I decided to post some of my ideas about sports.

I'll probably post some things that within the context of my blog seem hypocritical, because quite honestly, we're all hypocrites sometimes. It's simply recognizing when we are and trying to unify our thoughts that matters the most.

My blog will be all things sports, but primarily will focus on sports concerning midwest teams, as I am from the midwest. My personal favorite teams include: The St. Louis Cardinals (MLB), The Chicago Bulls (NBA), The University of Illinois Fighting Illini (College Hoops), Western Illinois University Leathernecks (College football and my alma mater, although they are Div 1-AA), the St. Louis Rams (NFL), and I'm also rapidly becoming more and more of a Chicago White Sox fan so that I have an AL team, and so that when I move north to the Chicago area, I can still watch baseball and root for someone (rooting for the Cubs as a Cardinals fan is true sacrilege, as any fan of either of those two teams knows).

Rather than jumping into it too much today, I'm simply going to post some great sports reads and descriptions of the books, as I am also an avid reader(and English teacher). So check these out if you need a good sports read!

Three Nights in August by: Buzz Bissinger

A book that any baseball fan can appreciate, but especially any Cardinals or even Cubs fan can appreciate. This book covers a 3 game series between the two rivals in August when the pennant race was heating up in (I believe) 2003. This book really gets you into the minds of one of the great baseball managers of our time in Tony La Russa. The Cardinals did win the particular series that is covered, however, the Cubs did out-achieve the Cardinals that year and make the NLCS, while the Cardinals stumbled to a third place finish in the division.

The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract by: Bill James

This is about as close to the baseball Bible as I know of. Bill James is a true baseball historian and as Moneyball, the book about the Oakland A's GM Billy Beane, states, he has become a very influential voice in looking at how young baseball talent is evaluated. In this book, James looks at baseball from its earliest days all the way through the turn of the century. He's probably got a more updated version out by now, but the version I own is the 2003 edition.

Caddy For Life by: John Feinstein

This is the Bruce Edwards story. For anyone unaware of Bruce, he was Tom Watson's caddy throughout most of his career, especially during his glory years when Watson was the best golfer on the planet. Bruce eventually was diagnosed with ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease, an incredibly horrible and crippling disease that attacks the neuromuscular structure of the body. In a book that is nearly as touching as Mitch Albom's Tuesdays with Morrie, also about ALS, Feinstein really relates how close Watson and his caddy were both as partners and as friends.

Sacred Hoops by: Phil Jackson

It's been awhile since I've read this, but it was an excellent book that talked not only about the rise of Phil Jackson as a coach and the Chicago Bulls as a team during the first three years of the dynasty, but also about Phil Jackson's philosophy as a coach. It's probably very superficial of a philosophy book for people who are actually looking for a philosophy book to read, but for people who love sports and love to see sports as a metaphor for something beyond just themselves, it's an interesting read.

Anyway, anyone who is reading this first post, please check back often, I'll be hitting such topics as the conversation about whether Derek Jeter is overrated(which I believe he is, although he is still a great player), why the Cardinals are still the favorites to win the NL Central sans Albert Pujols until at least the All-Star Break, and why I would be absolutely shocked to not see the names of former Illinois standouts Dee Brown and James Augustine both called on NBA Draft night.