Two Birds, One Bat - your 2014 St. Louis Cardinals

ooph.

mookie - your voodoo hate curses caused this! admit it!

(if there is a god, please don't let Pierzynski be the replacement. anything but that, ANYTHING)

i can neither confirm nor deny that

joe kelly: not quite ready

dat game
http://i.imgur.com/nZs5SRm.gif

i love carlos martinez so much

i'm just going to post it here so i can see it again on this thread every time i open it

http://i.imgur.com/nZs5SRm.gif

RJ Anderson of BP on Yadier replacement George Kottaras:

"Just why has a catcher who, for his career, has been an above-average hitter, bounced around so much? Part of the explanation stems from his poor defense. Kottaras is a fine blocker, but struggles to throw and receive the ball. There's also the matter of his limited and risky offensive profile. Kottaras has to be platooned to be effective, and he takes the walks-and-bops approach to an extreme. Given his ever-increasing contact woes, there's no guarantee Kottaras is effective for much longer anyway. As such, Kottaras is an example of a player who teams tolerate until they can replace—and boy is he replaced often."

I think Michael McKenry is kind of the same type catcher as Kottaras description, he can hit a bit and has some power but his defensive problems kept any club from wanting to use him as a regular.

honestly i'm cool with tony cruz being the primary option for 6-8 weeks, and i think matheny is too. the fact that my thinking may line up with matheny's probably indicates a problem, but whenever cruz gets a chance to play he seems at least average defensively, and he seems to handle and know the pitchers well. he's probably a .220/.310/.390 kind of hitter, but so is half of our lineup at this point

quiet bright spot in the cardinals season so far: peralta has been worth 3.1 fWAR, projected for 4.6 for the whole season. pre-season i told myself that if he was worth ~3 for the whole season i'd be satisfied

don't tell john lackey

or jon heyman: http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/writer/jon-heyman/24602538/best-mlb-winter-signings-white-sox-rookie-stud-abreu-orioles-cruz

The Disappointing Five
...
5. Jhonny Peralta, SS, Cardinals (four years, $53M): The almost always prudent Cardinals probably knew they were paying a lot for Peralta, but they also surely expected more than a .241 batting average his first year in the deal, a 62-point falloff from 2013.

lol he leads the team in homers (!) and has been the second-best shortstop in the game ffs. even if you completely discount defense, he's third

yes but his batting average isn't .300 so he he cannot be a very good hitter

Heyman's regular spot is in idiot media thread

Stanton whispers getting a little louder lately?

Can't imagine what we'd give up. Oscar is a given.

if they give up OT i will release ten million toxic balloons into the st. louis sky that all have matheny's face with a butt photoshopped over his mouth

speaking of, OT has sat for 3 of the last 4 games, all against right handers

allen craig's wRC+ for July is 19. in June it was 68.

does McCarver do all their Saturday regional TV? What a plague.

it's either him or al hrabosky. honestly i don't know who is worse

"allen craig should pinch hit for oscar taveras", said no one ever, except mike matheny

I'm only following this game via an updating box score, but...Peter Bourjos just tied it up with a 2-run homer off of Kershaw?!?

Kershaw must hate Matt Carpenter--just before Bourjas, worked him for another 10-pitch walk.

Taveras isn't starting again.

Tip for rookies breaking into the big leagues under Matheny: Never, EVER, go 2 straight games without a hit. It doesn’t matter how talented you are. You WILL face 'adversity'.

lol polanco went two games without a hit and yesterday clint hurdle put michael martinez -- a 31yo infielder with a career .492 ops in 169 games -- in right

Chris Hrabe @chrabe

Matheny talking Taveras/Craig pregame: "We've got to do what we can to win today, we're not here in the development business."

GRRRRRRRRR

playin' the HOT HAND

his philosophy sounds like Lasorda's, so ticket to the HOF

he is seriously an idiot. i love OT but i almost wish he could be traded to another team where he can play every day

that's what usually happened to Dodger prospects under Tommy L

Rays up 1-0, 6th inning. carpenter on 2B, no outs. wong bunts.

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in conclusion

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tee hee!

seriously, i just can't TAKE this any more, it's nauseating

like, right now, in the 7th inning, i know one thing. if oscar taveras gets a hit in the 8th inning, when he comes up, he'll stay in the game. if he doesn't, he'll be replaced in right field by allen craig. in fact, mike matheny may even choose to pinch hit for taveras in the 8th, no matter what. why? because allen craig hit a home run a few weeks ago. and shit, you gotta play the hot hand

you poor thing!

have a competitive balance draft pick

you don't understand! he's terrible! HE'S RUINING THE CITY OF ST LOUIS AND AMERICA

But imagine if you were a Giants fan and your team just signed Dan Uggla.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLyxmD_UAK4

a masterpiece of awful #mathenaging today. Mo really needs to step in and simplify his job.

Addition of Pierzynski actually makes me like the Cards more.

why, o perverse one?

I like AJ! He thrives off hate so he's basically just a wrestling heel, and he helped the White Sox win a World Series.

Plus he makes sense on the Cards: the asshole player on the asshole team.

haha ok

it is almost unfortunate that he is a terrible, stick-a-fork-in done player, in that he's an awful receiver, a proven asshole, and can no longer hit

almost

i just got home from a wonderful evening

why did i open this thread

what just happened

who is doing this

who is editing

who deletes

why does

this team

sadden

me

so
].

nOOOOOOOOOO

Honestly worse then I thought.
http://www.cardsconclave.com/2014/07/25/mike-matheny-wrong-fridays-loss-cu/

holliday has generally had stronger second halves throughout his career, but it will take a hell of a streak to steer him back to his usual output this season. not only that, but fangraphs released some updated xBABIP numbers the other day and he's actually outperforming his peripherals:

He is already having his worse season since 2005. Looking at his xBABIP (.271) vs BABIP (.304) values, his production could even be worse. Besides a possible lower AVG, his HR and Flyball distance is at a 6-year low.

2009: 296 ft
2010: 299 ft
2011: 295 ft
2012: 305 ft
2013: 289 ft
2014: 283 ft

i'm meh on the masterson trade. i get that he's been injured and i can see a scenario (back in the dave duncan days at least) when he has a decent second half and is totally worth it. and ramsey is blocked, so it makes sense to get somebody in return while we still can. but masterson's velocity on his fastball is down 2.6 MPH this year, which is kind of frightening.

and in case you didn't realize how bad allen craig has been this year, from bernie miklasz's sometimes stupid column today (he wonders what would have happened had andy van slyke hit better in 1986, a year in which he put up a 119 wRC+):

...With all of that in mind, what should the Cardinals do to kick-start the production in RF? Believe it or not, I have some empathy for manager Mike Matheny. But only some. I think Matheny is overly stubborn and wholly unrealistic in his insistence on giving so many at-bats to Craig when the Cardinals are facing a righthanded starting pitcher. Craig is basically helpless against RHP this season. In 298 plate appearances against RH this year, Craig has a .292 onbase percentage, a .310 slugging percentage and a 59 percent ground ball rate. He's getting progressively worse, with a .261 OBP and .250 SLG against RHP since June 1. (That's on 115 plate appearances.) For perspective: Craig's .511 OPS vs. RHP since June 1 isn't even close to Pete Kozma's OPS (.554) vs. RHP last season. And Kozma had to play shortstop in 2013 because the Cardinals lacked a viable alternative. That isn't necessarily the case in right field in 2014; the Cardinals have Taveras on the big club.

That said, Taveras hasn't done much in his 96 MLB plate appearances this season. It's too small of a sample slice to matter in a meaningful way, but even as a Taveras honk I can't be dishonest about this; I expected more from now. And I've been disappointed by Taveras' inability to do something dramatic and seize the job. By hitting only .209 with a .240 OBP and .275 SLG during his brief time in the majors, the uber prospect has given Matheny cover to continue using Craig. And that's where my dollop of empathy for Matheny comes in. It's not as if he's burying a hot-hitting rookie to play an overmatched veteran. I think Matheny would give the job to Taveras if Taveras would only heat up and take off. That would settle the matter ... at least I think it would. (With Matheny you can never be sure.) But Taveras hasn't done that. Even after returning from the minors on July 1 Oscar has batted only .222 / .250 / .259 and has an awful groundball rate of 62 percent. Good grief ... there we go again with a soaring ground-ball rate, which is the Cards' No. 1 affliction.

cameron: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/when-im-a-bit-of-an-oscar-taveras-skeptic

and yeah, masterson might work out, might not, but ramsey was never going to play in st. louis, so whatever. for similar reasons i'm not sure why the pirates have deemed josh bell untouchable -- is he going to replace marte, mccutchen or polanco?