Saint Nick

Inspired by CardNilly’s counting off the greatest Cardinals by uni number, Valatan’s series on the greatest Cards by position and Viva El Birdos’ participatory blog-o-lism (no, really… look it up) in projecting JEd’s 2006, I ask you all this:

What are some of the nicknames you and/or your homies have bestowed on the team? What are the stories behind them? I got a good laugh out of CardNilly’s Gene “Upper Deck Stech-”schulte, so I thought I might share a couple of mine to get the party started.

Matt “Chef Boyardee” Morris. This was borne of the e-mail war that erupted between me and my Bay Area relatives during the 2002 NLCS. In Game One, Matt had a particularly distasteful outing, which included meatballs served up to David Bell and Kenny Freaking Lofton.

The 2003 bullpen was collectively known as “The Gas Can Gang.” The likes of Steve Yan and Pete Borbon II always seemed to be adding to the fire, sted dousing it. Indeed, the GCG finished with a collective OPS against of .806, second only to Kansas City’s .828. Sweet.

Ron “Can’t.” This doesn’t really need an explanation.

Fire away with your favorite nicknames.

Book report

It’s been ages since my last post, and, of course, I have nothing to add to the excellent work being done by other Cardinals bloggers.

I do, however, wish urge everyone to visit their local library (or online bookseller) and pick up a copy of “Lords of the Realm” by John Helyar. For those who don’t know, it’s basically about the history of baseball’s labor strife. The late and beloved Gussie “85″ Busch figures prominently early on as one of the more militantly hawkish owners.

Helyar relates a great anecdote about getting an unsigned Ted Simmons to drop his Hancock:

Gussie Busch cornered Simmons in manager Red Schoendienst’s office before a game and harangued him. The first pitch had to be delayed until Busch was through.

Classic.

NRIs: A-OK or DOA?

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted, so I thought I would take a look at this year’s non-roster invitees. Of course, THAT news has been around awhile, but I don’t think anyone else has touched it, and you can’t accuse me of being timely. So here goes:

PITCHERS: Andy Cavazos, Brian Falkenborg, Randy Leek, Blaine Neal, Jeff Nelson, John Riedling, Richard Rundles, Dennis Tankersley, Brad Voyles, John Webb
CATCHERS: Brian Esposito, Gabe Johnson
INFIELDERS: Dave Berg, Brian Daubach, Kit Pellow
OUTFIELDERS: Ramon Nivar, Prentice Redman

Wasn’t Dave Berg the guy who drew “The Lighter Side Of…” for Mad magazine?

But I digress. Again. These names intrigue me:

Tankersley: A native of Troy, Mo., Tank was a one-time star in the Padres organization, even shinier than Jake Peavy at one point. Early in his minor-league career, he was a strikeout machine, averaging more than 11 per 9IP in A and AA ball. He also averaged 10 and 9 during his 2001 and 2002 stops, respectively, in AAA. His minor-league walk rate was rather frightening, tho, going as high as 5.29 per 9 for Portland in 2002. Still, his career minor-league peripherals seem promising: 9.6 K/9, 7.57 H/9, 0.68 HR/9. It’s that 3.47 BB/9 figure that creeps me out.

His major league tenure is telling:1-10, 7.61 ERA, 20 BB, 23 K in 28 IP. There’s obviously no doubt he can strike guys out. It’s just that he puts a whole lot of guys on, too. I don’t know what kind of stuff he throws, but maybe a stint at Camp Duncan could turn some of those walks into groundballs.

Falkenborg: He had a nice little stint in Memphis last year, posting a 14/5 K/BB ratio in 16 innings and 5 saves. Besides that, his career has been mostly forgettable, again the walk rate that’s the killer. His previous organizations (Baltimore, Seattle, Los Angeles) had him starting, but any hope for the show will have to be in middle relief.

Leek: Another longtime minor-leaguer, Leek will be 29 not long after the season starts. He’s been a starter his whole career, and while his K rates are fairly mediocre, it’s his walk rates that give me pause: Last year in Springfield, he walked only 29 guys in 185.2 IP. For his career, he’s allowed 1.68 BB/9.

Redman: I hadn’t heard of this guy until the NRI list came out. Looks like the Mets gave up on him after six years and 24 MLB at-bats. An outfielder, his minor-league numbers show he’d at least consider taking a walk.

That’s it? Only four guys worth spending time writing a paragraph about? Thank goodness that Pujols guy seems like the real deal. Out of this group, Nelson is the surest thing, and even he’s not a total lock. Daubach would be next as the veteran lefty with pop off the bench. After that, only major injury would bring any of the above guys up. Knock-knock.

Mar-keys to the Bentley

Good gravy… $5.15 million? I don’t think anyone in the Cards blogosphere foresaw Brother Marquis getting that much money, even through arbitration. Guess he really isn’t going anywhere.

Dan at Get Up, Baby! takes a good look at Marquis now that he’s officially under contract for 2006. Check it out, dudes.

Knoedler: Ich bin ein Springfielder

I’m gonna veer off topic today and try to appeal to my hometown audience, and point you all to a story about Giants catcher and Springfield native Justin Knoedler.

He’s been up for a few mocha lattes (in the parlance of our times) the past few seasons, and obviously hopes to stick with the big club in 2006.

He also talks of getting to play with former Cardinal Mike Matheny:

“It was great, because they put my locker right next to his, so I didn’t have to actually go over there and talk to him, I was right there. First day we introduced ourselves, and from there it was just whenever I had a question, it was like feel free to ask.”

He later relates how he helped Brett F. Tomko reach a contract incentive late last season, and also the weirdness of catching Jeff Fassero, but not for the reasons you think. Fassero also is from Springfield, and both he and Knoedler went to the same community college, although not at the same time.

“I was like wow, what are the odds of two Lincoln Land Community College players in the same (big league) battery? Let alone the fact that he’s 43 and I’m 25, so we’re 18 years apart.

Anyway, another good read from Hal Pilger.

Marquis name

Great headline on Derrick Goold’s feature on Jason Marquis:

“Marquis wouldn’t mind arbitration.”

It reminds me of one of the quotes on Cot’s Baseball Contracts’ lead page, from Mike Norris:

“No problem. I was either going to wake up rich or richer.”

That basically sums up Marquis’ thoughts about what he’ll be paid for the 2006 season. Seriously, tho, he talks about being OK with going to arbitration. Seems like an acknowledgement that he doesn’t plan on being back with the Cardinals after 2006 (if he’s not traded before).

But later in the story, Goold talks about the light seemingly going on in Marquis’ head toward the end of 2005.

Saddled with a rep for being stubborn, Marquis finally started listening to Dave Duncan again for the seminal August start against the Nationals. Goold writes that Marquis threw 82 sinkers en route to two-hitting the Nats that day. Marquis then seemed to realize the need to throw the two-seamer:

Really all I had to do was go back to basics. I finally snapped out of that funk and learned from my mistakes. I won’t get in that rut again.

Great, Jason. Glad to hear it. Realizing what your strength is and then putting it to good use will yield positive results. And there’s nothing like impending free agency to motivate a guy to listen to his coach.

I’m sure I’m not the only fan who grew frustrated with Marquis’ sometimes maddening inconsistency. He seemed to fall in love with his four-seamer at times, which could have led to his overthrowing the two-seamer with bad results.

Keep it simple, keep it on the ground, and keep on keepin’ on with that fat contract after this season.

The guy is still Young

Rotoworld reports that the Orioles have designated 1B Walter Young for assignment to make room for Kevin Millar.

And as Erik from Play a Hard 9 promoted the cause that is Russ Branyan, I’d like to do the same for Young. Walt is a big (6-5, 290) lefty 1B who has a career minor-league batting line of .286/.344/.489. I’ve yet to find a site that shows minor-league splits, but his 2005 major-league splits show 30 AB vs. righties and only three vs. lefties (but he did manage two hits). I guess that answers that question.

But still, for a team that has invited Brian Daubach to camp, the Cards could do worse than to take a chance on Young. They extended that courtesy to his 2005 Ottawa Lynx teammate Ramon Nivar. Maybe Danny Sheaffer down at Memphis could get Walt to lose a few pounds and teach him to play outfield. It’s not as if there’s an abundance of power bats in the pipeline, anyway.

I am an idiot

Why, you ask? I’ll tell you why… it’s because I totally flaked on the Cardinals Caravan coming to Springfield on Friday. I work for the damn newspaper, and I failed to notice the advance about the Caravan in the sports section. I missed the whole thing without ever knowing it was here. Too bad, too, because Anthony Reyes was in the house. I would have loved to ask him some questions.

But failing that, here’s longtime State Journal-Register sports writer Hal Pilger’s piece on Reyes. I like the kid’s attitude about the Sid Ponson signing:

“As far as I know, I’m still in the mix. Hopefully in spring training I can compete for that job and win it. It’s going to be great, ’cause I like competition.

Weaver wobbles

Ken Rosenthal over at FoxSports.com reports that the Cardinals presumably are one of the teams rumored to be pursuing former Dodger Jeff Weaver.

I sure hope he doesn’t end up here. I’ve never cared for him as a pitcher even when he was with the Tigers. When he was traded to the Yankees, I thought that was a nightmare waiting to happen. Sure enough; Game 4 of the 2003 World Series sorta proved that inkling correct. It seems that if he gets hit around a bit, he loses his confidence and starts chucking it up there just to get the hook.

I happened to catch one of his starts in 2004 when the Dodgers were at the Stadium. The inning in particular (a shout-out to Retrosheet for jogging my memory) was the fifth, when the Cards managed to string together some hits off him, and with each successive baserunner, it seemed that his shoulders slumped more and more and more. His body language gave it away. Anyway, it was bases-loaded situation in the fifth, with the crowd really getting behind the team. He steps off and asks for a new ball to try to quiet the crowd. All that did was turn the cheers into boos. He rushed his delivery and left a pitch up to the inimitable Hector Luna, who stroked it into center to score Lankford and Edmonds.

He seems to be the way I was when I pitched Little League. The slightest bit of adversity flusters him, which leads to more adversity, which in turns flusters him more, etc.

In passing on the link to Rosenthal’s story Thursday, lboros at Viva El Birdos says the Cardinals theoretically could afford the free-agent Weaver. To do so, the team would have to trade Jason Marquis. lboros then astutely points out that it would be counterproductive given that Marquis is a similar pitcher and he’s already here.

And speaking of similar pitchers, I checked out Weaver’s comparables on Baseball Reference. While Marquis wasn’t on the list, the following dudes were: No. 7 was Our Own Sidney Ponson, and No. 3 was Brett F. Tomko. Eep! Anybody who hasn’t repressed their memories of Tomko’s 2003 (the first half, anyway) for the Cardinals will shudder in horror at the recall. Those kinds of numbers we don’t need, certainly not for the amount of money he’ll end up getting from a more pitching-starved team.

Split decision

First, I would like to thank everyone for checking out my 2004 World Series replay, especially all the new visitors (thanks for picking it up, lboros!). I had a lot of fun playing the games, and I also enjoyed posting the results online. I only wish I had been able to update on a more timely basis. Working full time and raising two kids younger than 5 doesn’t leave a whole lot of time to spend on such a delightfully trivial matter. That, and I also am trying to get through David Halberstam’s “The Fifties,” which I’ve had checked out from the library for about three months now. I’m a good 80 percent through it.

As such, I know I’m way late on this, but I wanted to add my two cents’ worth to The Great Bruce Sutter debate.

On an emotional level, I am elated to see Sutter join the ranks of baseball’s greatest. I can still vividly recall my 7-year-old self jumping around like a scalded cat after Sutter whiffed Gorman Thomas to seal the 1982 World Series. And that he was the first to employ the splitter as a tool to make major-league hitters look silly.

But my rational self (one that’s admittedly smaller than the former) wonders if the above contribution got him in this year more than his stats, especially when compared to those of that deserving bridesmaid Rich “Goose” Gossage.

Other, more competent bloggers have done the comparo between the two, so I won’t rehash it. But take a look at their respective similar pitchers and you’ll see that Goose’s two most comparable are none other than the Hall of Fame’s first two relievers: Rollie Fingers and Hoyt Wilhelm. The simple question is this: If the man’s closest numerical kin both are enshrined, why isn’t Goose?

Looking at Sutter’s comparables, his two closest are the inimitable Doug Jones and Tom Henke. Meh.

And while both had nine dominant seasons, Goose had eight more borderline-great to more-than-acceptable seasons, while Sutter had just three mediocre or worse seasons before hanging it up. Yes, he was injured, but I think part of becoming a Hall-of-Famer involves not only the bread-and-butter seasons but also putting up numbers as a successful-but-no-longer-transcendent major leaguer. Goose certainly qualifies there; it’s not as if he was hanging around the yard collecting a paycheck.

I don’t intend for this to read like I think Sutter doesn’t belong in the Hall; I really think he does belong. I just that I don’t understand how Sutter gets in but a guy like Goose is kept out. (EDIT: Goose has some choice words for the unenlightened Hall voters.)

p.s. It also could be argued that Sutter had his best seasons with the Cubs, but earned more acclaim with the Cardinals. Should he have gone in with a Cubs hat?