1) Jon Jay has a career Sub-800 OPS in the minor leagues. His play so far has been an aberration. He'll never be an every day starter for this team. He's much better suited as a 4th OF.

2) If you are looking for someone as a Ludwick replacement, look at Craig

3) We are downgrading our outfield defense

4) Although we can offer Ludwick arb next year, you'd have to be a fool to think that he couldn't command more than Jake Westbrook on the open market. In essence, we save no money.

5) The Indians only sent us cash to offset the INCREASE in salary that Westbrook gets relative to Ludwick.

6) Let's say that we retain Westbrook next year. Then, not only would we pay more than Ludwick, we'd be paying $3 million more (11 vs. 8....assuming we wouldn't trade Luddy) for a 1 WAR pitcher.

By no measure does this make the team better unless you assume that Jon Jay continues to hit at a clip that he's never been able to hit at even in the major leagues. That's not a knock on Jay, either.

This board is filled with so many people that can see the future it's unbelievable. No one knows if John Jay will be an everday starter, so you can't say he never will be.. He's been lights out, they save money, they rotation gets better..

I am not saying player for player it's a good trade, but it's not as horrible as your making it out to be..

I'm sorry that using past results in the minor leagues that indicate that he doesn't have the power or speed to stick in the OF somehow comes off to your dumb Okie ass as being clairvoyant.

Don't worry, though. I'm sure he'll keep his .446 BABIP up.

Anything that makes the cards a worse team is a big win in my book.

And despite all this you will beat the Padres in the first round of the playoffs, again.

If you can score two runs a game, you'll get us.

This offense is atrocious.

4 of the 9 batters are automatic outs: (Shumaker/Miles, Ryan, Molina, Pitcher's spot), and against LHP, that list expands further.

Per Stl PD - The former All-Star and Silver Slugger right fielder is due $5.45 million this season and is third-time arbitration-eligible next winter. Speculation had mounted that the Cardinals would eventually deal Ludwick as they sought salary relief in preparation for negotiating a lengthy extension with first baseman Albert Pujols.Given the remaining dollars owed Ludwick this season and the $1.5 million in appearance incentives the club will save on injured starting pitcher Brad Penny, the Cardinals may actually realize a cash savings.

This is classic bullshit.

Ludwick is making 5.45 this year

Westbrook is making 10 million

What Ludwick would have made next year is irrelevant, he was going to be dealt before the '11 season, and he would have fetched far more than Jake Westbrook and the guy who got cut 10 minutes into Bull Durham

Penny's non-reached incentives have no bearing on this deal. It's a complete non-sequitur.

I think they are using the $ Penny is not getting plus the $ they aren't paying Ludwick coupled with what Cleveland is picking up in salary. If Penny were healthy the trade wouldn't be made basically.

Regardless if you save $1MM (which they aren't) it's probably still not worth it. I don't care for the deal either but Ludwick was gone after this year either way.

Ballsy move. They better go deep in the PO's and Jay needs to tear it up to make it worth it for this season.

Players do get better?















Right?

I liked baseball so much more before this sabermetrics shit.

uhhh no one is perfect.....Haren trade ring a bell?

I don't know chit about Westbrook but I figured Ludwick was gone after this year.

We can't keep 2 highly paid outfielders on our team. The math just doesn't work if you want to keep Pujols/Molina/Carp and Waino after 2012.

I hate this trade. I get the fact that we were eventually going to trade him. However, we should've gotten much more than this. Houston gets nothing for Oswalt; we give up a Top 5 RF for a #4 SP. Unbelievable.

I would have loved to get either Oswalt or Lilly - but not if the price is Ludwick playing for Houston or Chicago.

Too bad we couldn't have used him to get Haren back.

This trade sucks, but... but... looking for the positive here.... not really working....

FML

:facepalm:

Hopefully he hits for us because we haven't hit for shit lately. Its really frustrating when you go 7-3 after the All Star Break, while the 2nd place team goes 9-3 in the same stretch, and then you go 0-2 after that and teh 2nd place team goes 2-0.

Long story short, the Giants are only 1.5 back now, while they've been pretty much 5-6 back the whole season (at the same time the Dodgers and Rockies are now like 7 and 8 games back). The ****ing Dodgers are no help and ****ing fail every time they play the Giants.

Ludwick debuts for the Padres today and has to face Josh Johnson of all people. Hopefully his bat helps our lineup.