***Official 2015 STL Cardinals Thread II***

[BigRedChief]

2011 World Series Championship
2012 NLCS. One win from another WS appearance.
2013 World Series. Two wins from another World Series Championship
2014 NLCS. Three wins from another WS appearance
2015 Clinched Central Division title and Home Field advantage in the playoffs. First team in MLB to win 100 games since 2011.

• Made the postseason 11 times in the last 15 seasons.
• Only 1 losing season since 2000.
• Reached the World Series 4 times since 2004 and won as many championships (two) the past eight seasons as it did from 1965 to 2005.
• Made the NLCS 9 times including the last 4 years 2011-2014
• Three million attendance? Take it to the bank.
• 65 post season wins since 2004. 22+ wins more than any other team.

[BigRedChief]

Originally Posted by Marcellus

33 games over. **** you Pirates./

Lost 17/19 at Bush.

We have to be in their heads no matter if they admit it or not. They are too good of a team to get beat like that.

[BigRedChief]

Originally Posted by Marcellus

Piscotty just keeps hitting. When Holiday comes back put Piscotty at 1st base.

Our offense needs all the help it can get. If they resign Heyward, he needs to take over 1B. He played 1B at a top college team. He will have the off season to work on his hands and footwork.

We can take some Alvarez moments as long as he keeps raking like this, especially with RISP.

[KChiefs1]

Putting the Bucs in the distance. Nice job.

[Stinger]

Written before tonights game:


How good is the powerhouse NL Central? Historically good

ST. LOUIS — The Cardinals own the best record in baseball, at 72-40.

The Pirates own the second-best record in the National League, at 65-45. The Cubs own the third-best record in the NL, at 63-48. You know what all three of those teams have in common: They all reside in the same division, the incredibly tough NL Central.

For some, that’s a source of pride, to exist in that type of intense competition.

“I mean, it’s awesome,” Cardinals second baseman Kolten Wong told Sporting News after his team edged the Pirates, 4-3, on Tuesday night. “It definitely is. Just shows the kind of talent that we have in the Central right now.”

Over in the American League, only the Royals can boast a better mark than either the Pirates or Cubs (they’re 68-44), which means the Central actually hosts three of the best four records in baseball. If this was college football, chants of “SEC! SEC! SEC!” might have broken out as you read that sentence. SEC coaches love to talk about the level at which their conference has dominated college football over the past decade or so.

Cardinals manager Mike Matheny won’t be leading any “NLC! NLC! NLC!” chants, though. “No,” Matheny said with a wry smile, “I’m not that excited that there are that many other good teams in our division.

“Not surprised, though. Early on, we talked about how we knew that Chicago was for real, that they’re getting better. And we knew this team (the Pirates) wasn’t going anywhere, and we were hoping we weren’t going anywhere.”

So, obviously, if the season ended today, both wild-card teams would come from the Central. The NL’s other division leaders are the Mets (61-52) in the East and the Dodgers (63-50) in the West. If this current NL hierarchy holds up, it would be rather unprecedented.

In the three-division wild-card era (starting in 1994), no division has been able to lay sole claim to the three best records in a league. In 2007, the NL West came close. The Diamondbacks won an NL-best 90 games — it wasn’t a banner year for great NL teams, obviously, with that low total — and the Rockies and Padres each won 89 (the Rockies reached 90 wins with a one-game tiebreaker to claim the wild-card spot). In the East, the Phillies won 89, too.

But that’s it for the three-division setup.

It wasn’t even common in the two-division era (1969-93) for one division to hold sole claim to the three best records in a league. That only happened seven times — the 1973 NL West, the 1978 AL East, the 1979 AL East, the 1984 AL East, the 1987 AL East, the 1987 NL East and the 1989 AL West.

The 1984 AL East deserves special mention. That year, the West was won by Kansas City and its 84 victories, but five East teams won more: Detroit (104), Toronto (89), New York (87), Boston (86) and Baltimore (85). Crazy.

This year, the Central’s best have been beating up good teams outside the division. Last weekend, the Cubs swept four games from the Giants in a Wrigley Field series that had huge wild-card implications. At the same time, the Pirates were sweeping the West-leading Dodgers in a three-game set in Pittsburgh.

The Pirates have been pretty amazing outside of the NL Central this year. They’re 14-2 against the NL West, 18-8 against the NL East and 13-7 against AL teams, which adds up to 45-17 record, a .726 winning percentage. Since the beginning of June, they’re 29-9 against teams outside the NL Central, for a robust .763 winning percentage.

The Cardinals have been dominant against the NL East/West this season (30-14) but only 11-9 against AL teams. Since the beginning of June, they’re 23-12 (.657) against non-NL Central teams. The Cubs are 25-16 (.610) against non-Central teams in that same stretch.

“You just look at it as there’s something to be said about the way you’re going about playing baseball every day. We’re doing something right, and so are the other teams around us,” Jason Heyward told SN. “It’s fun. It’s competition, and that’s what you want. I feel like, coming down the stretch, from my experience you want to be playing against good teams instead of going and feeling like you didn’t play the best teams.”

That certainly won’t be the feeling in the NL Central this year.

http://www.sportingnews.com/mlb/stor...ational-league

[Jewish Rabbi]

Magic Number for a playoff berth at 37.

[Hootie]

Originally Posted by Jewish Rabbi

Magic Number for a playoff berth at 37.

Divisions are won and lost in early July

[Pasta Little Brioni]

Everything is grand outside of having a slap hitting clean up hitter with no power

[O.city]

200 million dollar man hitting 4th

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by O.city

200 million dollar man hitting 4th

We're going to do something silly with Jason Heyward, aren't we?

We're going to give 7/$175 million to a rich man's Gerardo Parra who can't bat in an RBI spot because he can't drive the ball. I wonder how many of his RBI this year have come off infield choppers? It seems like at least half of them.

He's six weeks removed from his last HR; a full quarter of the season has passed since he's put one over the fence. In that time he's managed a .773 OPS and an ISO of less than .100. Sure, he does a nice job of getting on base - so did Jon Jay.

At this point I hear more about his defense when he fails to make a play than when he actually makes one. Good ol' Danny Mac can always be counted on to point out that "You know Jason Heyward is mad he didn't make that play; he's such a great defender that you just expect him to catch that ball..."

And yet...I don't feel like he ever actually catches that ball. We just keep being told that he's good enough to have theoretically done it.

The guy is a $17 million/yr player and we're going to wildly overpay him because Oscar Taveras is dead. If Matt Holliday can earn every dime of his contract and still not be appreciated, this fanbase is going to HATE Jason Heyward by the middle of 2016.

[O.city]

Yeah, probably.

I keep seeing him foul off mistakes and weakly hit them as ground balls.

[Pasta Little Brioni]

That's what I am saying. No way you give him anywhere NEAR that contract. Can't drive in runs and an overrated defender to boot. BUT HE'S GOT A CANNON!!!

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by O.city

Yeah, probably.

I keep seeing him foul off mistakes and weakly hit them as ground balls.

Who's the better player - Jason Heyward or Lorenzo Cain?

It's Cain, right? It HAS to be Cain. He hits the ball with far more authority while being at least Heyward's equal on the bases. He's an amazing defensive CFer and while he can't throw as hard, there's little doubt in my mind that he's covers more ground than Heyward. When you start looking at what they've actually done over the last 2 years and stop thinking about what Heyward could potentially do after 6 years and 3300 plus plate appearances, you see that Cain has unquestionably been the better player.

If Jason Heyward is worth the $25 million/yr some idiot team is going to give him, then isn't Cain worth at least the same AAV but maybe only over a 5 year deal instead of a 7-8 year deal?

And when you think of it in those terms, the absolute ****ing absurdity of giving Jason Heyward a deal on par with baseballs true superstars comes into startling clarity. No, baseball has not reached the point where Lorenzo Cain is worth $25 million/yr. If it has, we're going to get to a $150 million median team payroll in the next 3-5 years and that's simply not sustainable for teams that are trapped in the middle of TV deals that came about before the DVR bubble sent rights deals skyrocketing.

[Hootie]

Well Cain is a top 3 player in the AL so ...

If Cain was 25 he'd be able to land a $200M mega deal if he replicated 2015 in 2016.

[Hootie]

I'm a huge Heyward fan but he's not even in the same category as Cain right now ... I think Cain has been caught stealing maybe twice this year and once was because he overslid 2nd base. He is OPS'ing at nearly .900 and that number is only going up ... His range is unspeakable in center ... He doesn't strike out often and has a tremendous 2 strike approach ... And he's clearly very coachable as his entire hitting approach has changed this year allowing him to keep his weight back. He hit a ball 450 feet two games ago

His realistic ceiling is 25 bombs with an OPS around .950 while playing elite defense and stealing bases at a 90% clip

He's a bit of an injury risk and he's 29 ... So unfortunately, his development took too long and it'll probably cost him a fortune

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by Hootie 2.0

Well Cain is a top 3 player in the AL so ...

If Cain was 25 he'd be able to land a $200M mega deal if he replicated 2015 in 2016.

If he were 25 and had 2 seasons like this one, he'd have two seasons approximately 50% better than the best season of Heyward's career. I think Cain's played a little over his head this season and he's somewhere between the 2014 and 2015 versions; more of a superlative CFer w/ 10 HR pop, 25 SB speed and an .810 OPS. THAT player isn't a $25 million player. That player is a really good version of Leonys Martin.

The 2015 version of Cain is light years better than Heyward has ever even approached being so if we're asking if 2015 Cain is deserving of $25 million...okay, it's a conversation worth having but 2015 Cain is also about 50% more valuable than Heyward so we still get back to Heyward being a $17 million/yr player at that point.

In either event, I'm not giving $25 million to the third best outfielder in the state of Missouri and Royals fans had damn well better hope that's not what he gets. If it is, you'd better pray loudly that Gordon and Cain really like it in KC and want to take 80% of their market price to stick around because both of those guys are simply better baseball players than Jason Heyward.