Roster churn

My fortnightly post is gonna be a quick one.

Per Bernie Miklasz on the STLToday forums (tip of the hat to LBoros):

Adam Kennedy in as 2B; can’t verify money… (reportedly 3-15).
Kip Wells in the back end of the rotation…
Gary Bennett re-signed as backup catcher…
Eli Marrero signed to a minor-league deal.

Can’t say I’m upset or disagree with any of the above signings.

It’s nice that there will some stability at the keystone for the next few years. Kennedy, you will recall, was traded (along with the inimitable Kent Bottenfield) in 2000 to Anaheim for Jim Edmonds. Offensively, he seems roughly analogous to the other second-basemen that management has been trotting out the past few years. His walk rate is no great shakes, and he’s not exactly thunderous with the lumber, so I imagine he’ll fill the No. 7 hole in the batting order. I find it more difficult to get a handle on a player’s defense without watching him. But respected baseball researcher David Pinto at Baseball Musings puts Kennedy in the lower half of major-league second basemen.

Kip Wells appears to be the Dave Duncan Pound Puppy™ for 2007: He’s a mid-career groundballer recently beset by injuries, pitching only 44.1 innings in 2006.

Gary Bennett is Gary Bennett, and welcome back Eli Marrero.

Gordo mails it in

After a refreshing break from blogging to bask in the afterglow of the World Series, I return to the Cardinals blogosphere with my fingers-cut-out gloves, warming my hands over the burn barrel that is MLB’s free-agent frenzy.

You’re thrilled, I know.

The autumn GM meetings are coming to a close, and not much has come of the meetings save for a couple of low-level trades.

The real action begins with the winter meetings, held this year in Orlando, and St. Louis’ own Jeff Gordon runs down the names that could be switching teams come December in his Free-Agent Shopping Guide.

Unfortunately for Gordo, either he wrote this like three weeks ago and nobody bothered to update it before it was posted, or this was an extremely lazy, half-assed and at times incredibly stupid attempt to inform people. You know, like the way we do here at The 26th Man.

The column contains numerous factual errors and a few misspelled names, the endless trumpeting of things like pitchers’ won-loss records and hitters’ batting averages and a near-total ignorance of meaningful things like, oh, slugging and on-base percentages. You know, things that are relevant to today’s game.

It doesn’t take long for the bull to start flowing, so strap on your hip boots, folks… it runs deep:

Daisuke Matsuzaka, SP: The Red Sox reported spent $45 million just for the right to negotiate with the Japanese star. Signing may cost another $30 million over three years.

“Reported spent $45 million”? Don’t be fatuous, Jeffrey. This column was posted a full day after it was reported that Matsuzaka was posted to the Red Sox for $51.1 million. I guess you didn’t bother to check your employer’s Web site regarding the Red Sox bid. You’re also delusional if you think Scott Boras will let him sign for a mere 3/$30M.

Juan Pierre, CF: He was really, really happy when the Twins exercised their option on Hunter. Pierre made the most of last season, batting .292 and swiping 58 bases for the otherwise lifeless Cubs.

Sure, he made the most of last season, if that’s what you mean by him having a below-league-average OBP and leading the league in outs (ain’t cherry-picking stats fun?). This cat had only one more base on balls than our own David Eckstein despite playing in 40 more games. And Gordo lists Pierre as a “high-end free agent.” Zuh?

Vincente Padilla, SP: He is a big, sturdy 29-year-old coming off a 15-10 season for the Phillies.

Um, Jeff? Padilla’s first name is “Vicente,” and he played for the Rangers. At least you got his record correct. So you got that going for you, which is nice.

Moises Alou, OF: Sure, he will turn 41 next season. But Alou swatted 22 homers and 25 homers in 345 at bats last season while hitting .301. We don’t want to tell Walt Jocketty how to run his team, but he would be a perfect semi-regular for the Cardinals in left field.

Alou swatted 22 homers and 25 homers last season, eh? That’s the quietest 47-homer campaign in history then. The Alou blurb began a run of subtle homer references, which continued with…

Luis Gonzalez, OF: From his perch in the FOX broadcast booth, Gonzalez campaigned for a Cardinals gig next season. He hit 52 doubles last season, along with 15 homers, and he would offer a significant defensive upgrade over Chris Duncan. He saw the success Larry Walker had in St. Louis at the end of his career and that appeals to him.

I’ll concede that Gonzo would probably have fewer adventures in fielding fly balls, but as a wise man once said, “If ya ain’t got the hose, the water just won’t come out.” And if by the “success Larry Walker had” Gordo means the 60 games Walker missed in 2005, the Cardinals could probably do without that kind of success.

David Dellucci, OF: He followed a 29-homer season in Texas with a .292 season in Philadelphia…

Nothing like trying to make your case with apples and oranges.

Gil Meche, SP: During his last four Mariners seasons, he won 44 games and started 106 games. He got that ERA down to 4.48 last season, so he set himself up pretty well.

Obviously, Gordo doesn’t read Viva El Birdos.

Greg Counsell, SS: It too much to ask him to play every day, but he can still fill in for prolonged periods and provide some spark.

Greg Counsell? Awesome.

Ronnie Belliard, 2B: We headed back to Cleveland, where, apparently, he has a LOT of favorite restaurants.

We headed back to Cleveland? I had no idea that Gordo and tha Gangsta of Glove were pals. I’m thinking he meant “Was headed back…” And way to slip a fat joke in there, Gordo. Pure class.

I haven’t even mentioned the many other instances of him trumpeting the fact that such-and-such pitcher had “back-to-back 12-win campaigns” or said batter “hit .301 at age 39. Do people still care about pitchers’ wins? Do people see a .300 batting average and still shit themselves with glee?

If it seems I’m picking on ol’ Jeff Gordon, well… I am. There’s really no excuse for him to turn in a piece so riddled with errors and inaccuracies. He put not only his name on it, but that of his main employer to say nothing of the fine folks at FoxSports.com. It just reflects poorly on everyone involved.

Baseless projections revisited, or fun with Fangraphs

Back in January, when I was still wet behind the ears as an Internet Web site journal blog maker, I made some baseless projections as to how I thought various Cardinals would do statisically.

Now, in November, when I am a more experienced but still untalented blogger, I’m going to see just how wrong I was. I don’t have a fancy program to crank out HTML tables, and I’m too lazy to code them by hand, so I’ll do something like .xxx AVG .xxx, with the left number being the “then,” and the right being the “now.” I wrote the original post in order of what I thought the batting order might be, so I will follow that same pattern.

DAVID ECKSTEIN
4 HR 2
.284 AVG .292
.366 OBP .350
.386 SLG .344

While Eckstein’s batting average was little changed from last year, the drop in his walk rate caused his on-base percentage to suffer. And his power, what little of it he had in the first place, fell to a career low in terms of Isolated Power. I’m sure much of this can be attributed to his various injuries this season. Eckstein does do a good job of fouling a lot of pitches off and generally being a pest, but I think he is miscast as a leadoff hitter. Unfortunately, he’s the best option.

LARRY BIGBIE
17 HR 0
.268 AVG .240
.348 OBP .321
.470 SLG .280

Ah, that was money well-spent. Did he actually appear in 17 games this season? It seemed as if he was on the disabled list the entire season with a sprained bellybutton or whatever he had.

ALBERT PUJOLS
47 HR 49
.342 AVG .331
.427 OBP .431
.621 SLG .671

If not for that dreaded oblique tweak, Albert probably would have had a Top 5 all-time transcendent season. Instead, his was just eye-poppingly fantastic. His start out of the gate was unsustainably ferocious, batting .346/.509/.914 in April, before settling down somewhat in May and joining Bigbie on the DL for much of June. The oblique injury ended his career-long streak of 590 or 591 at-bats per season.

SCOTT ROLEN
27 HR 22
.285 AVG .296
.372 OBP .369
.502 SLG .518

Rolen’s surgically repaired shoulder was a factor his hitting a mere 22 home runs, his lowest since 1997. The 48 doubles could be a sign that his home-run power may return next season. His walk rate fell to a career-tying low, perhaps a sign of him trying to prove his shoulder was OK. But keep in mind that these are baseless projections for a reason.

JIM EDMONDS
22 HR 19
.298 AVG .257
.412 OBP .350
.497 SLG .471

A commenter in the original post had said:

If Edmonds only hits 22 homers, then I’m going to cry.

Well, Rob, he didn’t even get to 20. But in fairness, that was because he missed several weeks because of a sprained hippocampus. During the winter, I thought Edmonds should worry less about hitting home runs and more about taking walks, hence my baseless projections for him. But reality was less kind to Jimmy Baseball than I. His batting average hit Cardinals-career low, which might not necessarily be attributed to mere bad luck. His dropoff in ISO is rather dramatic as well. As far as the taking-more-walks thing, his BB rate, while still fairly good, also was at a Cardinals-career low, as was his BB/K rate.

JUAN ENCARNACION
15 HR 19
.277 AVG .278
.344 OBP .317
.452 SLG .443

For some reason, I guess I thought Instant Breakfast could sustain the type of walk rate he’d shown in 2004 and 2005. I was wrong. I suppose his $3.5M salary for 2006 was somewhat of a bargain for a league-average hitter, but that’s all he’s likely to ever be. His escalating salaries for 2007 and 2008 will mean he will be overpaid, especially as a right fielder.

JUNIOR SPIVEY
8 HR n/a
.273 AVG n/a
.362 OBP n/a
.440 SLG n/a

I’ll let Mr. Subliminal handle this one:

“Junior Spivey didn’t really work out (washed up). You were overly optimistic (high as a spyplane), although your baseless predictions weren’t wildly out of line with his career norms (steroids).

YADIER MOLINA
8 HR 6
.254 AVG .216
.312 OBP .274
.362 SLG .321

It’s funny how a horrible regular season is forgiven when you hit .358/.424/.547 en route to a World Series championship. The ends justify the means, as they say.

Pitchers up next.