"Official" 2011 St. Louis Cardinals Thread

[BigRedChief]

This is so unreal. We were dead. No hope. A season over. Somehow, someway we find some team chemistry and squeak into the playoffs on the last day of the season.

Only to find us facing one of the best pitching staffs assembled in years with home field advantage. We somehow, someway find a way to beat the best pitcher in baseball on the road in an elimination game.

We have to go on the road and beat the team with the best home record in baseball. A team who mortgaged their future to make this run .We somehow, someway find a way to beat them on the road and make our 18th World series trip.

We take game 1, we give away game 2 and home field advantage. Albert goes off for probably the best performance in World Series history and we take game 3 easily. Games 4 & 5 our bats fall asleep, Phone gate happens and its not looking too good.

Game 6, one of the best baseball games of all time and it takes place in a season ending go home game. Cardinals are down 2 runs in their final chance on the season, twice. They are down to their final strike of the season, twice. They give up a 2 run homer in extra innings. In the bottom of the inning their final 3 batters are a combined 3-26 in the Playoffs and a pitcher because the bench is empty. Somehow, someway they get some runners on and the comeback player of the year drives in the tying run. Mr. Freese hits the walk off home run. We will see you tommorrow night.

Game 7, With our bulldog on the mound pitching on 3 days rest he is able to give us 6 good innings and get us to within 9 outs of our 11 World series title. Texas meltsdown, probably left over from last nights game and its over.

The underdog, come back team who had no business even being in the playoffs wins a World championship. They make movies about events like this in life. Events that you remember even if your not a fan of the sport or team for the rest of your life.

When it is your team.......Priceless


.

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

There is no such thing as 2 seasons of bad luck.

Hell, the fact that every single season of his career gives him a BABIP below league average means nothing to you?

Again - you're just being dogmatic despite the fact that the people that created the doctrine you're blindly adhering to would never follow you down this trail. They all acknowledge the age old axiom - "You can distinguish luck from skill by its duration".

None of them would ever point to 4 seasons of fairly static performance as lucky (you can't disregard his 2007 season just because he wasn't closing then). They'd say that his AS season was luck driven, but that the remainder of his track record suggests that his 2010 is probably about what you can expect of him. You don't blow off 250+ relief appearances as 'luck'. That's enough of a sample size to call it pretty reliable.

You go ahead and keep worshiping your false gods like Dave Bush and his .452 winning percentage. Keep telling anyone that will listen that someday his actual results will match his XFIP.

The bottom line is that over a month, maybe even a season, guys can get lucky or unlucky. But over 4 seasons, the 'luck' evens out. Ryan Franklin doesn't keep a lucky penny shoved up his ass. He hasn't just been butt ass lucky for the last 48 months. He challenges hitters down, works the corners and minimizes his damage by not giving up an inordinate number of HRs or walks.

Sometimes baseball really is as simple as it appears. Folks that wait until a 38 yr old pitcher loses his fastball then tries to rearview mirror 4 seasons of strong performance as 'luck' are the folks give the actual thinking stats fans a bad name.

There's no doubt that some guys, especially those with a good two-seam fastball, will have BABIPs that are below league average. What isn't in doubt is that some guys will have unusual statistical variance. The very idea of random luck requires an element of randomness. A season is an arbitrary designation. A guy having an aberrational season on top of another aberrational season is just as likely as that person having two aberrational seasons dispersed among 9 standard ones.

You are applying the gambler's fallacy to Franklin's numbers.

WRT to Dave Bush, you're putting words into my mouth. I've never said anything about the man, but his disparity in BABIP has to do with the fact that he gets very few groundballs/flyballs relative to the St. Louis version of Ryan Franklin.

Besides, your claim of Franklin losing his fastball and that being the cause of his decline is specious. Here are his PitchFX numbers. The decline began in '08, and his fastball is static compared to 2010.

http://www.chiefsplanet.com/BB/newre...eply&p=7573708

[BigRedChief]

Originally Posted by Swanman

I say put Sanchez in the closer role and see what happens. I know Tony won't do it, but why not. The kid has filthy stuff that many guys haven't seen yet. If he falters, move him into a setup role with Boggs as the closer. Franklin should be throwing BP in AAA.

Sanchez will get his shot. It's just not his time this week. You don't want to throw a rookie in there unless you absolutly have to like we did with Waino.

We have other options before Sanchez.

[BigRedChief]

Originally Posted by Hays

Franklin will lose his closer job after that. Sounds like Batista will get it but I think it should be Boggs with the way he has pitched so far

I'm okay with Batista because he is going to be better than Franklin.

If he gets the job done, great. I don't see Larussa holding on to Batista if he can't get the job done.

Then its who should get the job, Boggs. The main thing is to get Franklin out of there. For crissakes we could be 12-4 if not for those 9th inning blown leads by Franklin.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

There's no doubt that some guys, especially those with a good two-seam fastball, will have BABIPs that are below league average. What isn't in doubt is that some guys will have unusual statistical variance. The very idea of random luck requires an element of randomness. A season is an arbitrary designation. A guy having an aberrational season on top of another aberrational season is just as likely as that person having two aberrational seasons dispersed among 9 standard ones.

You are applying the gambler's fallacy to Franklin's numbers.

WRT to Dave Bush, you're putting words into my mouth. I've never said anything about the man, but his disparity in BABIP has to do with the fact that he gets very few groundballs/flyballs relative to the St. Louis version of Ryan Franklin.

Besides, your claim of Franklin losing his fastball and that being the cause of his decline is specious. Here are his PitchFX numbers. The decline began in '08, and his fastball is static compared to 2010.

http://www.chiefsplanet.com/BB/newre...eply&p=7573708

How is a season an arbitrary variance?

A month is. A series is. A season absolutely isn't. With every off-season, an aging player's body bounces back a little differently. A younger player learns something a little different.

A season is the least 'arbitrary variance' possible, especially when noting declines. Besides, you act as though there is random chance at work in baseball when you cite the gamblers fallacy. If you honestly believe that, then there's simply no point in the conversation because it tells me you actually know little about BABIP apart from what the acronym stands for. It's not like there's a 50/50 shot of Franklin getting owned everytime out. Nor is it random that the guy has been fairly successful for 4 straight seasons.

When he does it every season for 4 straight and you still just call it luck, you're essentially arguing that we should play baseball via strat-o-matic. The guy gets outs, period. He has for his entire Cardinal career.

And like I said - go ahead and call it appearances. The guy didn't just get lucky for 260 appearances.

[BigRedChief]

comeon Hamas no one is lucky for 2 years. Basic odds and math dictate thats not possible.

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

How is a season an arbitrary variance?

A month is. A series is. A season absolutely isn't. With every off-season, an aging player's body bounces back a little differently. A younger player learns something a little different.

A season is the least 'arbitrary variance' possible, especially when noting declines. Besides, you act as though there is random chance at work in baseball when you cite the gamblers fallacy. If you honestly believe that, then there's simply no point in the conversation because it tells me you actually know little about BABIP apart from what the acronym stands for. It's not like there's a 50/50 shot of Franklin getting owned everytime out. Nor is it random that the guy has been fairly successful for 4 straight seasons.

When he does it every season for 4 straight and you still just call it luck, you're essentially arguing that we should play baseball via strat-o-matic. The guy gets outs, period. He has for his entire Cardinal career.

And like I said - go ahead and call it appearances. The guy didn't just get lucky for 260 appearances.

I said a season is an arbitrary designation, not an arbitrary variance.

The gambler's fallacy was related to aberrational seasons, it had nothing to do with individual AB's. You're either trying to purposely mischaracterize what I said, or you didn't understand it. So here it is again:

If a guy has two aberrational years and 8 that fall within a normal range, will the two never coincide back to back? He could just as easily have aberration seasons in years 1 and 10 as he could in years 8 and 9. If 5 is the aberration on the roulette wheel, and it hits, is it any less likely to hit on the next turn? No.

He hasn't done it for four straight seasons. If he had, your argument would hold water, but it doesn't.

This is a guy who put up BABIP's consistently in the .290 range before coming to St. Louis. His numbers dropped precipitously the first year in St. Louis, went above .300 in 2008, then dropped back down the next two years.

What you posited is that Franklin is having physical decline catch up to him, and that does have element of truth to it, but it's not manifesting itself in the ways you claim--his velocity is not down, and his walk rate is not dramatically up. It's up drastically in comparison to 2010, but it's only up slightly from 2008 or 2009.

If we believe that Franklin really was as good as the last two years, which one is the outlier:

2008: 3.43
2009: 3.59
2010: 1.38
2011: 3.86

Those are his walk rates over the last four years

Here are his Groundball %s:

2008: 42.7%
2009: 45.6%
2010: 44.7%
2011: 45.0%

We have a groundball pitcher who is not having a demonstrably worse year in comparison to either his walk rates, groundball rates, line drive percentage, or his velocity.

So, why is he all of a sudden worse?

Some of it could be due to worse defense behind him, which is unquestionably true, but a lot of it is also bad luck, which is important, because this is a period of correction for him. Not only is he being quite unlucky in this small sample size, there aren't any other metrics that show a demonstrable decline in his stuff.

Fastball velocity is identical, as it is on all other pitches. I don't know about movement on said pitches, but at the very least, his control of those pitches isn't greatly worse. One of the things that could lead to the slightly increased walk rate in comparison to '08 and '09 is the fact that he's just throwing his fastball, the pitch you most often throw for strikes, less often.

I realize this is the internet, so nuance is the devil, but let's inject a little here, because that's what my stance was all about.

Is Ryan Franklin the 2002 version of BK Kim? No, but neither was he really the guy making All-Star appearances in 2009. The truth, as it quite often does, lies somewhere in between.

He's a guy who can give you an ERA of around 4 in middle relief appearances, not a guy who is going to give you the ERA of 2.70 in the highest leverage situations.

[BigRedChief]

The St. Louis Cardinals have bumped Ryan Franklin out of the closer's role after four blown saves early in the season.

Manager Tony La Russa said Tuesday that changing Franklin's responsibilities might help the 38-year-old right-hander get back on track. He didn't say who might replace Franklin in the ninth, but the top candidate probably is Mitchell Boggs.

"I think the thing to do is watch the game and see who comes out there," La Russa said. "We can talk about it afterwards. You treat him like a hitter who's struggling, change the responsibility a little bit for a little bit."

Franklin was 0-2 with an 11.57 ERA in six games and one save in five chances entering a three-game series against the Washington Nationals. He was 27 for 29 on save tries last season and an All-Star in 2009, relying on a half-dozen options to compensate for lack of a dominating fastball.

Franklin has already made a cosmetic change, shearing off more than half of a long beard that juts off his chin.

"Whenever the phone rings and they say 'Franklin get up,' I get up," Franklin said. "However they want to put me out there. It doesn't matter, I'm theirs.
"However they want to treat it, I'm on board."

Franklin says he's happy with his pitches but blamed himself for poor pitch selection. He gave up a game-winning, two-run homer to the Dodgers' Matt Kemp on Sunday.
"My stuff's fine, eve
rything in the arsenal's still there," Franklin said. "I haven't lost anything."
Franklin has been unlucky, too, with blown saves on consecutive days in San Francisco. He was one out away when center fielder Colby Rasmus dropped Miguel Tejada's drive to the warning track after a long run, and a day earlier first baseman Albert Pujols was at first to receive a pickoff throw from catcher Yadier Molina, providing an opening for Pablo Sandoval's game-tying, ninth-inning single.

"Sure, if you're human it's going to affect you, but you can't let it affect you on the mound," Franklin said. "What it boils down to is I've got blood going through my veins, so sure it affects you. I'm not going to lie."
The 27-year-old Boggs had a 2.00 ERA in six games covering nine innings with 12 strikeouts and three walks. He's had five consecutive scoreless appearances.

"If my name gets called I'll be ready for it, I'll be ready to go," Boggs said. "But that's not something I need to think about and it's not my decision to make."

La Russa's face was swollen and his left eye was nearly shut from what the manager said was a virus he's had for five days. It didn't keep him off the field during pregame drills.

"Actually it looks bad, but I'm not in a lot of pain," La Russa said. "It scares kids. Like bad makeup in a horror movie."

[BigRedChief]

you have to give Tony props for changing his stripes. How many of us thought he would pull the trigger? We all thought he should but didn't think it would happen and if he goes with Boggs over Batista.....

[Pasta Little Brioni]

Trailing the Nats 8-6 in the top of the 9th. Westbrook rocked today.

[BigRedChief]

Originally Posted by PGM

Trailing the Nats 8-6 in the top of the 9th. Westbrook rocked today.

yeah this is not good. Westbrook is looking real shaky and we don't have another starter ready to go in his place.

The bullpen was great except for franklin who gave up another home run. Every single mistake pitch the guy makes it ends up over the wall.

But again the Cardinals come back to score some runs after getting waxed early on. They are not quitting on Tony.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by BigRedChief

yeah this is not good. Westbrook is looking real shaky and we don't have another starter ready to go in his place.

The bullpen was great except for franklin who gave up another home run. Every single mistake pitch the guy makes it ends up over the wall.

But again the Cardinals come back to score some runs after getting waxed early on. They are not quitting on Tony.

Yeah, that's what happens when your arsenal consists of batting practice fastballs. If your command isn't razor sharp, you get rocked.

Franklin's toast.

Oh, and the guy I said we should've snagged instead of re-signing Westbrook is currently kicking ass for SD - Aaron Harang could've been had for 1/5 of what we're paying Westbrook and it wouldn't have required a 2 year deal.

Mozeliak learned nothing from watching Walt screw up the Piniero deal and he managed to somehow learn even less from screwing up the Lohse deal. YOU DO NOT PAY RETAIL FOR REPLACEMENT LEVEL PITCHING! 5 years ago we were taking guys like Woody Williams or Chris Carpenter and reviving their careers for pennies on the dollar. Now Dave Duncan can't be bothered to actually do his job and just looks for guys that already throws sinkers. Consequently we're paying $20 million/season for our 4th and 5th starters. That's just completely absurd.

There's just so much wasted payroll and mismanaged assets on this roster. These team is stuck in neutral until we eliminate the front office and coaching staff and start over.

[Rams Fan]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

Oh, and the guy I said we should've snagged instead of re-signing Westbrook is currently kicking ass for SD - Aaron Harang could've been had for 1/5 of what we're paying Westbrook and it wouldn't have required a 2 year deal.

Harang sucked from 2007-2010.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by Rams Fan

Harang sucked from 2007-2010.

Moe, is that you? Because that's the kind of hard-hitting insight I would expect from our fearless leader.

Well no, actually, he didn't. Not at all.

In 2007, he was actually quite good, borderline dominant. He was no worse than one of the top 10 pitchers in the NL. We'll just pass that off as a timeline issue.

In 2008 he started out the season on fire, then Dusty Baker made him pitch 4 innings in relief on two days rest and ****ed him up for the rest of the season. He developed a shoulder impingement and was pretty much done.

In 2009 he was actually solid. His K/9 was good, his command was solid. His stuff in terms of both velocity and movement was as good as it was in his best seasons in 2006 and 2007. His W/L record sucked because his team sucked, but he got guys out and, by and large, did his job. He was no worse than average (and significantly better than Westbrook has ever been since the days of Matt Lawton being in an AS game).

Admittedly, in 2010 he was bad. His peripheral stats went down and he was injury prone. However - here's why I wanted him: His velocity and movement again stayed as good as they'd ever been. The problem is that Aaron Harang is a fly-ball pitcher pitching in a HR ballpark. Apart from Arizona, there's not a worse place in the league for him to pitch than Cincy was. You could see the strain his own park was taking on him.

So to provide a short rebuttal: You really don't know what the hell you're talking about. At his very worst, he didn't 'suck'. And anyone that would've done some homework on him would've realized that he just needed a change of scenery and a fresh approach to succeed.

Unfortunately our pitching coach doesn't want to have to work anymore so he just brings in sinker-ball pitchers like Jake Westbrook and has Moe give them $18 million guaranteed.

When Albert's wearing Cubbie Blue, just keep telling yourself that paying $20 million/season for the Westbrook/Lohse duo was a smart move because "Harang sucked from 2007-2010". I'm sure that'll make you feel all warm and fuzzy.

[Rams Fan]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

Moe, is that you? Because that's the kind of hard-hitting insight I would expect from our fearless leader.

Well no, actually, he didn't. Not at all.

In 2007, he was actually quite good, borderline dominant. He was no worse than one of the top 10 pitchers in the NL. We'll just pass that off as a timeline issue.

In 2008 he started out the season on fire, then Dusty Baker made him pitch 4 innings in relief on two days rest and ****ed him up for the rest of the season. He developed a shoulder impingement and was pretty much done.

In 2009 he was actually solid. His K/9 was good, his command was solid. His stuff in terms of both velocity and movement was as good as it was in his best seasons in 2006 and 2007. His W/L record sucked because his team sucked, but he got guys out and, by and large, did his job. He was no worse than average (and significantly better than Westbrook has ever been since the days of Matt Lawton being in an AS game).

Admittedly, in 2010 he was bad. His peripheral stats went down and he was injury prone. However - here's why I wanted him: His velocity and movement again stayed as good as they'd ever been. The problem is that Aaron Harang is a fly-ball pitcher pitching in a HR ballpark. Apart from Arizona, there's not a worse place in the league for him to pitch than Cincy was. You could see the strain his own park was taking on him.

So to provide a short rebuttal: You really don't know what the hell you're talking about. At his very worst, he didn't 'suck'. And anyone that would've done some homework on him would've realized that he just needed a change of scenery and a fresh approach to succeed.

Unfortunately our pitching coach doesn't want to have to work anymore so he just brings in sinker-ball pitchers like Jake Westbrook and has Moe give them $18 million guaranteed.

When Albert's wearing Cubbie Blue, just keep telling yourself that paying $20 million/season for the Westbrook/Lohse duo was a smart move because "Harang sucked from 2007-2010". I'm sure that'll make you feel all warm and fuzzy.

Ah shit, I was talking out of my ass on the timeline. I couldn't remember if his performance declined during 2007 or 2008. You're right about that. And when did I say the contracts Lohse and Westbrook have were smart moves?

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by Rams Fan

Ah shit, I was talking out of my ass on the timeline. I couldn't remember if his performance declined during 2007 or 2008. You're right about that. And when did I say the contracts Lohse and Westbrook have were smart moves?

My point is that you have 3 alternatives.

1) You can develop a horde of young arms. That's obviously the ideal but is extremely difficult and unreasonable to expect. Frankly, even if you try this, you're likely to fail. In that case you're left with the remaining 2 avenues for player procurement.

2) You can pay retail prices for mediocre pitchers like Lohse or Westbrook. This will lead you to being unable to pay for legitimate difference makers. Whitey Herzog is correct - it's not the price of superstars that hurts you, it's the high price of mediocrity.

3) You can bring on guys that have "sucked" in the recent past but have the tools to succeed in the right situation with the right approach. You can pay those guys significantly less than the guys in scenario 2 and you're likely to get a much greater return on them.

In the 'glory years' of about 2000 - 2006 (i.e. the Jocketty era), this was the approach we took. We made moves for guys like Williams, Carpenter, etc... and coaxed strong years out of them at discount prices. Under Moe we've done that once - Lohse; who we proceeded to wildly overpay for and make a good situation bad. Otherwise the front office has been irresponsible and abdicated its responsibilities to build a deep, dangerous team on a mid-market payroll.

If this were 5 years ago, Aaron Harang would've absolutely been a Cardinal and Duncan would've taught him to take that intimidating size and power arsenal and use it down in the zone. He'd give us a legitimate #2 pitcher this season.

Instead we're praying that Westbrook can keep his ERA below 5.00 and Lohse can give us 4 seasons that might total the $12 million in value he 'earns' annually.