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

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?

something for KM to read when he's done unpacking

http://www.vivaelbirdos.com/st-louis-cardinals-sabermetrics-analysis/2014/8/4/5961579/whats-wrong-with-adam-wainwright-cardinals-baseball

seven days with oscar: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/a/24376

something for KM to read if there's a need to induce vomiting
http://www.stltoday.com/sports/baseball/professional/matheny-will-use-descalso-ellis-this-weekend/article_b9d35c96-8515-521f-aceb-28f7bffae36c.html

that's a lot of homers

Willie! (No, not that one.)

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article/mlb/willie-mcgee-jim-edmonds-mike-shannon-marty-marion-join-cardinals-hall-of-fame?ymd=20140816&content_id=89970158&vkey=news_mlb

That seemed strange at first--I thought his Cardinals time was relatively brief--but no, I'd forgotten he came back for a second turn. (Had even forgotten he played all through the '90s.) Here's the thing that really surprised me, though; how favorably WAR sees his '85 MVP. Put aside Gooden for a second, and the pitcher-bias in MVP voting. (Tudor, too.) McGee indeed had the highest WAR for position players that year. I'm pretty sure James ridiculed the award in that year's Abstract, arguing that it should have gone to Dale Murphy or Pedro Guerrero.

@BNightengale 6m
Actor Jon Hamm provides night of respite for hurting #STLCards community with National Guard summoned to Ferguson. http://usat.ly/VAUgOP

I...what? How?

Mathenaging!

http://www.vivaelbirdos.com/st-louis-cardinals-sabermetrics-analysis/2014/8/18/6030219/mathenaging-mike-matheny-doubles-down-on-double-standards

Yeah, I almost posted that last night. I'm gonna guess he's done after 2015, unless there's another World Series miracle. He's just too much of a dipshit

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.

new franchise record-holder for homers by a shortstop in one season, nbd

he's also leading the team in fWAR (4.4), and except for Matt Carpenter it's not particularly close

Second in OPS and WAR among MLB SS -- just what were the Cardinals thinking?

xpost

oh hi, 1st place ;) spoiled cards fan checking in!

goddamn witchcraft

wainwright not pitching well. wacha not back. molina misses 6 weeks. no one can hit. taveras disappointing. rosenthal walking every single 9th inning lead off hitter. justin masterson throwing batting practice every 5 games. MATHENY #MATHENAGING

= 1st place obv

Cards collapse joining NYY & BOS on their October couches wd be priceless

apparently all the cardinals needed was for me to leave phone reception for 4 days so they could play in peace. i return to civilization and suddenly they're in 1st place.

wainwright not pitching well. wacha not back. molina misses 6 weeks. no one can hit. taveras disappointing. rosenthal walking every single 9th inning lead off hitter. justin masterson throwing batting practice every 5 games. MATHENY #MATHENAGING

daniel descalso is the backup 1B, apparently?

i was assuming that molina could play 1B on occasion to give adams a rest, but i guess i was wrong

fuck waino and his three rbis

I couldn't help but think of Stan Musial, the standard bearer of the Cardinals and a man of impeccable character. He had to be looking down from heaven with tears in his eyes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJZ_k1rQN90

PORNOGRAPHY

14 games over .500, four-game lead, -2 run diff

karmic payback maybe for the last few years where they significantly underperformed their pythag (at least if iirc)

6 games under their expected record in both 2013 and 2012. last year they were expected to win 103!

i think you rc? a few years tho, and last year they had the RISP thing (rip allen craig)

Yeah, that's definitely true. The hitting with RISP was out of control last year

anyway it's fine, i'm just lashing out in bitterness

Got curious to see how long Stan Musial played with the 60s Cards like Bob Gibson, Curt Flood & Tim McCarver and found this box score. This is Stan Musial's last game. It's a definite changing of the guard as you have rookie Pete Rose in the lineup for the Reds along with Hall of Famer Frank Robinson. It was a matchup of a couple of the best starting pitchers in the NL at that time with Jim Maloney going for the Reds against Gibson. Looking it up, Maloney beat Gibson in the first game the Reds played against the Cards back in April. Musial got a couple hits and was lifted, probably leaving with a hit and maybe that RBI earlier in the game. This is definitely a changing of the guard moment when you look at the players in the scoreboard, considering how many of those players dominated the rest of the 60s and early 70s.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/SLN/SLN196309290.shtml

see also october 1964

The closest awards-vote after tonight might be runner-up in the NL Cy Young. Wainwright and Cueto are extremely close, and would both take the award most any other year.

I'm sad Zimmerman will get ignored, once again because of wins and era.

Ditto Hamels, because of wins.

good

runnersup only counts in Miss America

I brought it up because this would be Wainwright's third time finishing second, with a third-place finish on top of that. He's becoming this generation's Juan Marichal to Kershaw's Koufax. (Koufax's Cys were all unanimous, but I imagine Marichal would have finished second at least twice with an expanded ballot; he was 72-27, with an ERA around 2.25, the three years Koufax won.)

Arrieta triple plates two!

lol the old IBB isn't working out to well for Matheny this week