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

https://newenthusiast.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/ot-2.gif?w=388

haven't read this yet, but hey who doesn't love an oral history

http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/oral-history-of-st-louis-cardinals-2009-draft-class-060514

Jack Flaherty ‏@Jack9Flaherty 9h
Truly blessed to have been taken by the Cardinals!! What a day it has been! Looking forward to a bright future ahead! God is good! *emoji praying symbol*

:-/

#IAmSecond

kid goes to the same high school my wife went to.. he was also teammates with giolito and the other guy who went in the first-ish round two years ago.

lol preppies
http://i.imgur.com/gEo2KUb.jpg

lol, i love that picture. is that grichuk popping out of yadi's head, or bourjos? only regulars missing are peralta and craig!

taveras down, making room for adams

makes sense, grichuk has been on a tear
(looooooooooooool)

obv taveras will be back, but it's gotta be super disheartening to work your whole life toward reaching the majors and then be sent back down 10 days later

the move makes sense, at least in mathenyland. OT isn't going to get regular time with Adams back in the mix, not with the current roster and Matheny managing. so it's grichuk who gets chosen/screwed by being left to rot on the bench.

one can imagine creative ways to get OT regular playing time while spelling craig and holliday, and against lefties (adams should sit, craig would play 1B). but matheny can't handle it. i realize the effect of the managerial decisions is minimal, but even given a very low bar, matheny shits the bed. he can't do it.

i have no idea what OT has left to prove in the minors. even in the majors, despite the poor results he has been hitting the ball well. i've watched every at bat since he came up and he's taken better swings than most of the lineup, and certainly grichuk (who i'm rooting for but has looking absolutely awful at the plate).

this sums it up: http://www.vivaelbirdos.com/2014/6/12/5804200/the-st-louis-cardinals-should-demote-oscar-taveras

...Taveras’s peripherals reveal a batter who has put good swings on major-league pitching.

Taveras has swung and missed 2.5% of the time by Fangraphs swinging-strike rate (SwStr%). Let me repeat that: Taveras has come up empty on just 2.5% of his swings. At 9.1%, the MLB non-pitcher SwStr% is over triple that of Taveras. Small sample size, sure, but that’s an awful lot of contact.

Speaking of contact, Taveras has done nothing to disprove the scouting reports indicating that he has an innate and elite skill at barreling the baseball. If a baseball is thrown, Taveras can hit it.

MLB non-pitchers have made contact 79.7% of the time this year. Taveras has done so 92.4% of the time. On pitches in the zone, those MLB players who aren’t pitchers have made contact 87.3% of the time. Taveras? 92.5%. Perhaps my favorite Taveras contact stat is the fact that he’s basically equaled his in-zone contact rate on pitches outside the zone: 92.3%. This compared to the MLB non-pitcher out-of-zone contact rate of 65.7%. Yes, it’s a small sample size, but holy shit.

...It’s a question of development. Taveras needs to play daily or something very close to it. With Adams on the DL, Taveras could do that in St. Louis. But with Adams activated, an outfield consisting of Holliday, Craig, Jay, Bourjos, and Grichuk (or Shane Robinson), and Matheny penciling in the lineup, the PAs won’t be plentiful or regular enough for Taveras. Without frequent playing time, it’s difficult to justify having Taveras on the St. Louis 25-man roster from either a development or financial (Super Two arbitration qualification) perspective. Consequently, the Cardinals should demote Taveras upon Adams’s activation.

i think jay or bourjos needs to go. earlier in the season i was thinking adams would be a good candidate, but after he went down on the DL i realized there's no one else who can play 1B except for Craig. Yadi can, but it's a negative to not have him behind the plate (even if it's good for his knees).

but it's gotta be super disheartening to work your whole life toward reaching the majors and then be sent back down 10 days later

totally. but predictable. if he would have hit .300 while he was here, matheny would have kept him. but he did not, so down he goes. matheny also likes to play mind games with him, just like he did/does with wong.

"He has not looked overmatched, but I've seen him when he's right," Matheny said. "There's another gear that we haven't seen since he's been up here this short time. That's not an effort-level gear, it's just a level of locked in. When that hits, it's truly impressive."

Matheny mentioned a couple of "mechanical flaws" in Taveras' swing that the club did not want to address with his plate already full trying to adjust to being in the majors.

"This is a tough place to try and compete and take in all that information at the same time," Matheny said. "You're almost setting them up for failure."

god shut up mike matheny

Carlos Martinez to start tomorrow, with waino's start pushed back to Monday.

Er, I mean waino's next start pushed back to Saturday

be really nice if CarMart shows something today.

and then we'll get Shane Robinson called back up -_-

marco gonzales (1st rounder 2013) is yr texas league pitcher of the week

lefty, great numbers, 22yo

I missed the Taveras demotion, that is nuts

(or the callup was nuts)

nuts, but predictable. they're just trying to limit his service time and it would take an intelligent manager to get Taveras regular playing time with the Bourjos/Jay/Craig situation, and we don't have an intelligent manager. I'd like to see some sort of trade to open up space for him.

al hrabosky can't stop talking about the subject that is on EVERY cardinal fan's mind tonight: will carlos martinez be efficient enough with his pitch count to qualify for a win? because if he doesn't get a win tonight, it means he wasn't good

So I'm guessing he's not an advanced metrics guy either. I get an earful of that shit from Joe Simpson.

That makes me wonder: are there any team broadcasters who are gung-ho advanced metrics guys?

Cubs color man Jim Deshaies is sabermetrics fan, mentions fangraphs pretty frequently, was just talking about Casey McGehee's BABIP and Chris Hatcher's K%-BB%.

*a* sabermetrics fan, obv

plus he just talked about how lineup protection is (mostly) bullshit

does the other cubs broadcaster keep it "balanced" by expressing skepticism about sabermetrics? seems like every time i hear it brought up on tv it's usually apologetic in nature and then the other guy balances it by saying that back in the good ol' days pitch counts were 150+ per game and that was just fine, yeehaw

the other hilariously sad thing about baseball broadcasting is that every team is afraid to hire a woman to do anything except for reporting on player injuries

actually no! Len doesn't get real into it but he never really expresses any skepticism, except maybe for joeks

I very much appreciate it as I'm watching a demoralizing loss 60% of the time

o shit carlos martinez will not in fact qualify for a win

at least he wasn't batting eighth tho

So do you think the Cardinals might try to deal with the Rays to get David Price, especially with the injured starters? Price seems like a guy that I could see St. Louis going to get.

http://i.imgur.com/PhT5fyf.jpg

until i saw earlnash's post i didn't know anything about the injuries, and so i was about to say that starting pitching wasn't exactly an area for improvement. ugh.

there was a really long post a few days ago on what the cardinals would need to do to get price (http://www.vivaelbirdos.com/2014/6/19/5823098/cardinals-david-price-trade-rumors):

The Cardinals have graduated multiple top prospects recently. Shelby Miller, Trevor Rosenthal, Michael Wacha, Kolten Wong, Carlos Martinez, and Oscar Taveras have all made it to the majors. In any trade for Price, Taveras is likely out of the question. Wacha will be asked about but denied while Miller and Martinez will likely be involved in any discussions with the Rays. After some early season struggles, Miller's trade value is not clear, nor is it clear which member of the rotation would move to the bullpen if one is not traded. Lance Lynn has been the Cardinals third best pitcher. Miller has still shown flashes of his ace potential, and it is not clear that Garcia could pitch out of the bullpen, physically. Any trade of this magnitude will involve many moving parts greatly affecting the major league roster.

A trade of Matt Adams would clear up the outfield logjam, but giving up Adams and a top pitcher off of the current major league roster is likely too high a cost. Stephen Piscotty, Marco Gonzales, Alex Reyes, and Rob Kaminsky will also likely be in play as well as slightly lesser prospects like James Ramsey and Randall Grichuk. The Rays will likely not settle for less than three players going to Tampa.

the first paragraph is probably out of date because i doubt the cardinals would be getting rid of major league starters right now (miller, lynn, obv wacha, or carlos martinez, who was recently promoted to the rotation and has some of the best stuff in all of baseball). the second paragraph may still be relevant.

i still don't think the cardinals should go after price, though. they have carlos martinez to cover for wacha, even for the rest of the season. and joe kelly is on a rehab assignment now and should be coming back soon. behind kelly they have several guys who could fill in for a spot start if needed, and while i'm not a huge fan of tyler lyons, he's probably best situated to take on several starts if something happened to kelly or another starter.

at the same time, the cardinals reduced their budget by 15 million or so this year (i think) and it would be nice to see them pick up someone awesome at midseason.

i'd still rather have a bat (3b?). Kelly and Martinez are or will be above average replacements. but the wacha news is depressing. Shoulder issues tend to keep coming back :(

big bats called up, brace yourself
K O Z M A

oh no - are you serious?

St. Louis Cardinals ‏@Cardinals 1h
#STLCards D.L. pitchers Jaime Garcia & Michael Wacha with shoulder injuries. RHP Eric Fornataro & INF Pete Kozma recalled from Memphis (AAA)

i can't TAKE this much shitty news in one tweet

HE'S BATTING .234/.341/.372. IN MEMPHIS.

COME ON

greg garcia isn't the cure to all that ails us, but he's better than pete fucking kozma

lol

ugh. i know i'm not adding anything new here but FUCK. FUCK!

willie mcgee hit for the cycle at wrigley 30 years ago today

FUCK! I love Willie McGee! FUCK!

one of the weirdest looking people to ever play baseball.

speaking of which, get the feeling rockies undervalued what Matt Big Mayo Adams could do in Coors re: Tulo trade rumors.

whoa the cards just called up marco gonzales to start tomorrow

he was in high-a a couple weeks ago

KOZMA DFA'D

our long national nightmare...

kind of odd, considering the total lack of SS depth.

cleared waivers, orbiting memphis

yeah, i guess Descalso is our backup SS right now. and backup 2B. *gulp*

our bench is beyond shitty. hate how they waste tony cruz because of irrational no backup catcher fears.