***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.

[George Liquor]

I hate losing to these ****ing scrubs.

[O.city]

Chapman is so good.

Great catch by Hamilton on black fre........Heyward

[BigRedChief]

Originally Posted by BDj23

I hate losing to these ****ing scrubs.

I didn't like this line up make up. Best players we got right now. Too bad Carp can't hit in any other spot but 1st. But, better than not hitting at all.

Looks like we will stay up 5 games on Pitt. 27 games over .500

[Pasta Little Brioni]

Originally Posted by O.city

Chapman is so good.

Great catch by Hamilton on black fre........Heyward

1-4 with a single and 0 runs produced....Fox Sports post game names him player of the game and sucks him off. WTF???? You work for FSN O?

[Jewish Rabbi]

Originally Posted by Pasta Giant Meatball

1-4 with a single and 0 runs produced....Fox Sports post game names him player of the game and sucks him off. WTF???? You work for FSN O?

Meh, those player of the game things are a crock of shit anyway, but if he doesn't get that ball it's a leadoff triple.

[BigRedChief]

Originally Posted by O.city

Chapman is so good.

Great catch by Hamilton on black fre........Heyward

https://twitter.com/langoschmlb/stat...68021386010624

[DJ's left nut]

Yikes.

Cardinals are 16-15 over their last 31 games with an OPS of .671. Hell, the OPS may actually be the best part of the triple slash line: .236/.307/.364....yeesh. That .307 OBP seems statistically impossible. An entire damn team is making outs 70% of the time?

Maybe Hootie's right - we SHOULD just be happy to be here. If this pitching staff wasn't pitching out of it's mind (like, historically great), this team would be struggling to play .500 baseball on the season.

[duncan_idaho]

I still love you guys...

Until our teams meet in the World Series. Then not even our mutual Mizzou love can reconcile us.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by duncan_idaho

I still love you guys...

Until our teams meet in the World Series. Then not even our mutual Mizzou love can reconcile us.

I'm sorry Duncan, but I'm openly rooting for the Blue Jays to throttle your boys at this point. If nothing else, I'm fairly certain I could get myself banned from the board outright in that event.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by duncan_idaho

I still love you guys...

Until our teams meet in the World Series. Then not even our mutual Mizzou love can reconcile us.

As an aside - what say you about Dombrowski being let go? To my eyes, he's among the best GMs in the game. The Cabrera extension was an ownership edict and by many accounts so was the V-Mart deal since Illitch wanted to get himself a ring before he dies so he didn't care about the long-term damage.

The guy gets fired days after he did some great work on the Price exchange; trading him away for more than he gave up to get him, IMO. Even if he didn't, he still got a season out of Price and a shot at October with him, which has a fair amount of value in its own right.

I just don't see how the Tigers are improving by letting one of baseball's best executives walk. Maybe Illitch thinks he dicked up the Scherzer deal but my memory is that Boras doesn't even work with GMs on deals of that magnitude. He's always referred to them as 'owners contracts' and he just bypasses the GM entirely. I'm hard pressed to see what Dombrowski has done to deserve getting the axe.

[duncan_idaho]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

I'm sorry Duncan, but I'm openly rooting for the Blue Jays to throttle your boys at this point. If nothing else, I'm fairly certain I could get myself banned from the board outright in that event.

Fine. Be that way, then. I hope the Cubs make the wild card and knock you guys out of the playoffs.

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

As an aside - what say you about Dombrowski being let go? To my eyes, he's among the best GMs in the game. The Cabrera extension was an ownership edict and by many accounts so was the V-Mart deal since Illitch wanted to get himself a ring before he dies so he didn't care about the long-term damage.

The guy gets fired days after he did some great work on the Price exchange; trading him away for more than he gave up to get him, IMO. Even if he didn't, he still got a season out of Price and a shot at October with him, which has a fair amount of value in its own right.

I just don't see how the Tigers are improving by letting one of baseball's best executives walk. Maybe Illitch thinks he dicked up the Scherzer deal but my memory is that Boras doesn't even work with GMs on deals of that magnitude. He's always referred to them as 'owners contracts' and he just bypasses the GM entirely. I'm hard pressed to see what Dombrowski has done to deserve getting the axe.

From what I can tell, Dombrowski being let go was a mutual decision, probably started by him. His contract was up at the end of this season and he wanted to move on, so he left early (this also allowed him to prop up his protege as the new GM).

I've read that Dombrowski had to convince Ilitch the best thing for the team long-term was to sell. I don't think this was a typical GM "firing."

He's good at his job. He's really bad at bullpen construction (probably because he hasn't adjusted to the most recent evolution of bullpen use), but he's pretty great at everything else.

I think he'll land in a good job (Boston makes sense) and be effective there.

[O.city]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

Yikes.

Cardinals are 16-15 over their last 31 games with an OPS of .671. Hell, the OPS may actually be the best part of the triple slash line: .236/.307/.364....yeesh. That .307 OBP seems statistically impossible. An entire damn team is making outs 70% of the time?

Maybe Hootie's right - we SHOULD just be happy to be here. If this pitching staff wasn't pitching out of it's mind (like, historically great), this team would be struggling to play .500 baseball on the season.

Some of that's gotta be bad luck, no? I mean, ****, there's no way the whole damn lineup or 25 man is that bad.

[Swanman]

Originally Posted by O.city

Some of that's gotta be bad luck, no? I mean, ****, there's no way the whole damn lineup or 25 man is that bad.

Just based on the eye test alone, it is that bad. Tons of balls hardly hit, double plays, moronic baserunning, etc. Needed to trade for a couple real bats at the deadline and instead we got Reynolds 2.0 (for a premium prospect arm) and two mediocre to bad relievers.

[Swanman]

Originally Posted by duncan_idaho

I still love you guys...

Until our teams meet in the World Series. Then not even our mutual Mizzou love can reconcile us.

We like having you in this thread. Now some of the other Royals fans, not so much.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by O.city

Some of that's gotta be bad luck, no? I mean, ****, there's no way the whole damn lineup or 25 man is that bad.

Well Tony Cruz has gone 2/20 over that span w/ zero walks and zero XBHs so his .200 OPS does not help, but sadly I cannot blame this on his 20 PAs (but **** me that's terrible).

Pete Kozma, by contrast, has been Babe Ruth over that stretch with a 3/18 line and .167/.250/.167 triple slash...but again, sadly, we're only talking about 21 PAs. Though credit to Pete - his quest to be the first guy to stay on a roster an entire season, get 100+ ABs and have zero XBHs as a non-pitcher remains intact!

As much as I'd like to blame these two guys for these struggles...world hunger...and cancer...it's hard to blame them when they've contributed only about 3.5% of the teams plate appearances over that stretch.

Wong and Molina have gone back to being kinda cruddy hackers over the last month. Bourjos and Pham were complete disasters out there as well. Dan Johson's line was just as bad as Kozma's and over virtually the same sample size and Scruggs was also finishing up his death rattles.

Mostly we have a couple of regulars slumping, a power position contributing nothing and the rest of the team playing slightly above average offense, but not enough to carry the slag.

That being said - many want to argue that the back of the bench doesn't matter and that Matheny should get 'his guys' just to make a happy clubhouse, but when you add up the ABs soaked up by Kozma, Cruz, Pham, Scruggs and Johnson, you get a 'regular' player worth of ABs. Those 5 guys put up about 115 PAs over that span - more than Peralta's 107 who paces the regulars over that time span - and with it contributed all of 13 hits, 2 XBHs (both doubles and to some degree offset by 3 GIDPs they also gave us) w/ 9 walks for a whopping 22 total times on base.

Mozeliak says he just doesn't want to fight the fight with Matheny and that absolutely has to stop. As much as I hate what they gave up for Moss...it probably was a trade that had to be made if for no other reason than to push another overmatched bench player out. Fortunately he's finally called up Garcia (who's done nothing but give professional ABs every time he's called upon) and Piscotty. It's too late to deal with the backup C but next year that has to be addressed as well.