All posts by Brian Walton

Brian Walton runs The Cardinal Nation, covering the St. Louis Cardinals and minor league system.

Will Holliday pull a Lohse or a Weaver this off-season?


While Matt Holliday’s hitting surge as a Cardinal is good for the present, will it damage his chances of remaining with the club in 2010 and beyond?

Having covered the Colorado Rockies since its inception, the Rocky Mountain News’ Tracy Ringolsby remains well connected with the club and its players, current and past. Writing for FOXSports.com, the Baseball Hall of Fame writer notes that agent Scott Boras is likely in for a busy weekend as six of the remaining 18 unsigned first round draft picks are his clients.

Down the page was a tidbit that could be both concerning and encouraging to St. Louis Cardinals fans.

Revisiting Matt Holliday’s departure from Colorado and his trade to Oakland, Ringolsby noted the Rockies’ failed bid of four years, $72 million with a reminder that his representatives (read that the Boras Corporation) were looking for a “Mark Teixeira-type deal”.

As a footnote, the Yankees first baseman and Boras extracted a commitment of $180 million for eight seasons from New York after jilting the Boston Red Sox.

Looking at Holliday’s results with St. Louis cause one to wonder if he isn’t playing himself back into Teixeira’s price range. His .493/.523/.813 line as a Cardinal is superb. Even though his lofty numbers are not sustainable, Holliday’s impact is indisputable.

In terms of the past, this was Ringlosby’s summary: “Holliday had enjoyed his career with Colorado, and then got a wake-up slap in the face when he was dealt to Oakland.”

Holliday’s poor play with the A’s this season gave critics further ammunition in asserting he was an over-inflated product of Coors Field. Ringolsby offered this quote to help explain the outfielder’s substandard stint with Oakland:

“I think the Rockies looked for the most miserable place possible and dealt him there,” said one (Rockies) teammate.

But here is the quote that may offer St. Louis fans hope:

“Now that he has escaped and landed in St. Louis, there are friends of Holliday who think he will be more aggressive in directing his pending free-agency negotiations.”


Of course, the definition of “more aggressive” remains to be seen, but it could signal intent on Holliday’s part to not sit back and let Boras play his hand.


I am not going to revisit Boras’ history, as I have done that adequately already. Suffice it to say that in a vast majority of the time, 88% by my research, Boras’ free agents not only test the market, they usually change clubs, ala Teixeira.


Optimistic Cardinals fans happily point to the exception to the rule – Kyle Lohse, who by most accounts ordered Boras to settle with the Cards last fall rather than take the risk of being disadvantaged in free agency again.


Lohse was on firm ground as Boras had turned down three years, $21 million for the pitcher to return to the Phillies in 2008. When Boras found no other takers the rest of the winter, Lohse had to accept a cut-rate one-year, $4.5 million deal with the Cardinals with two weeks remaining in spring training. Fast forwarding to when the market contracted last winter, both Boras and Lohse ultimately won with his four-year, $41 million deal signed last September.


Yet other Boras clients have left the Cardinals, such as 2006 post-season star Jeff Weaver. Despite Weaver wanting to return to St. Louis, Boras took him to a disastrous stint in Seattle for more money after turning down St. Louis’ offer.


Perhaps Holliday has wizened to the realities of the business of baseball as a result of the failed negotiations with Colorado and the subsequent bad experience in Oakland.


On the other hand, Holliday’s strong play and the looming spectre of Albert Pujols’ contract extension could mean that with every hit, Holliday further prices himself out of St. Louis’ willingness to pay. While the early vibes from ownership have been positive, there is a lot of ground to be covered before any celebrations can be planned.


In the meantime, Cardinals fans can only wait and wonder.

Can Wainwright continue his streaks?


As St. Louis Cardinals starting pitcher Adam Wainwright takes the mound against the San Diego Padres on Friday night at Busch Stadium, fans know his primary focus will be on trying to help increase the Cardinals’ 4 ½-game lead over the Chicago Cubs in the National League Central Division.

Many also are aware that on the personal side, the 27-year-old right-hander will be gunning for his 14th win of the season. That would tie Wainwright’s MLB career best, set in 2007.

Fewer probably know about three current streaks that Wainwright will be looking to extend on Friday. In one case, he already owns the top mark in MLB this season. In another, he can tie for the lead and in the third, he will be gunning to tie for second.

They are:

  • Six or more innings pitched, where Waino’s run of 22 games and counting is the best in MLB this season.

  • Two or fewer earned runs allowed. With a tenth straight such game Friday night, Wainwright will tie for the MLB lead this season with Arizona’s Dan Haren, Seattle’s Eric Bedard and Kansas City’s Zach Greinke. All three of those streaks have ended.

  • Five or more strikeouts. If he continues Friday, Wainwright’s consecutive run of 12 five-K games would tie six other pitchers for the second-longest stretch across MLB this season. Atlanta’s Javier Vazquez is the runaway leader with 23 and counting, so Adam will be unable to pass him in 2009.

The details follow: (* denotes current streak)

Six or more innings pitched, consecutive starts, MLB 2009

Team StreakStart Streak End G W L GS CG SHO IP H R ER BB SO HR ERA
Adam Wainwright STL 4/16/2009 8/8/2009 * 22 12 7 22 1 0 154.2 149 53 48 45 135 13 2.79
Ubaldo Jimenez COL 5/1/2009 8/12/2009 * 20 9 6 20 1 0 139.1 110 47 45 46 121 8 2.91
Danny Haren ARI 4/7/2009 7/18/2009 19 10 5 19 3 1 138 93 32 30 18 137 12 1.96
Josh Beckett BOS 5/5/2009 8/12/2009 * 18 12 2 18 3 2 128.1 96 37 31 26 114 9 2.17
Tim Lincecum SFG 4/18/2009 7/17/2009 17 10 1 17 3 2 126.1 91 31 27 29 149 4 1.92
Zach Duke PIT 5/12/2009 7/29/2009 15 6 6 15 2 0 104.1 104 40 40 25 52 11 3.45
Jon Garland ARI 6/3/2009 8/12/2009 * 14 2 6 14 1 0 93 91 42 35 24 50 7 3.39
Roy Oswalt HOU 5/10/2009 7/22/2009 14 6 2 14 3 0 97.1 87 37 37 21 80 8 3.42
Ted Lilly CHC 5/2/2009 7/11/2009 14 7 4 14 0 0 95.1 88 34 32 18 85 12 3.02
Cliff Lee CLE 4/16/2009 6/25/2009 14 4 4 14 1 1 101 102 25 25 21 69 6 2.23

Two or fewer earned runs allowed, consecutive starts, MLB 2009

Team StreakStart Streak End G W L GS CG SHO IP H R ER BB SO HR ERA
Erik Bedard SEA 5/5/2009 7/25/2009 10 3 2 10 0 0 52 38 18 17 28 58 6 2.94
Danny Haren ARI 5/28/2009 7/18/2009 10 7 1 10 2 1 75 45 14 12 9 74 4 1.44
Zack Greinke KCR 4/8/2009 5/26/2009 10 8 1 10 5 2 75 54 8 7 12 81 0 0.84
Adam Wainwright STL 6/26/2009 8/8/2009 * 9 5 3 9 1 0 67 63 12 11 17 62 1 1.48
Clayton Kershaw LAD 6/16/2009 7/29/2009 9 5 0 9 0 0 56.2 34 6 5 26 55 0 0.79
Dallas Braden OAK 5/31/2009 7/11/2009 8 3 2 8 0 0 51.1 41 16 14 12 36 2 2.45
Jair Jurrjens ATL 4/17/2009 5/24/2009 8 2 2 8 0 0 50 41 11 11 14 32 3 1.98
Wandy Rodriguez HOU 7/2/2009 8/9/2009 * 7 5 0 7 1 1 47 35 4 4 9 41 3 0.77
Felix Hernandez SEA 5/24/2009 6/27/2009 7 4 0 7 1 1 53 38 10 5 14 51 2 0.85
Johan Santana NYM 4/6/2009 5/11/2009 7 4 2 7 0 0 46 31 8 4 13 60 2 0.78

Five or more strikeouts, consecutive starts, MLB 2009

Team StreakStart Streak End G W L GS CG SHO IP H R ER BB SO HR ERA
Javier Vazquez ATL 4/8/2009 8/9/2009 * 23 10 7 23 1 0 155.1 129 53 50 32 171 13 2.90
Tim Lincecum SFG 6/12/2009 8/12/2009 * 12 7 2 12 4 2 93.1 63 20 16 18 110 3 1.54
Danny Haren ARI 5/12/2009 7/18/2009 12 7 2 12 2 1 89 60 22 20 9 86 9 2.02
Josh Beckett BOS 4/30/2009 7/1/2009 12 7 2 12 1 1 81.1 69 33 27 21 76 7 2.99
Justin Verlander DET 4/11/2009 6/10/2009 12 7 1 12 2 1 82.2 62 24 21 23 102 4 2.29
Chad Billingsley LAD 4/13/2009 6/9/2009 12 7 3 12 0 0 79.2 68 26 24 34 86 2 2.71
Roy Halladay TOR 4/11/2009 6/7/2009 12 9 1 12 3 1 93 84 25 23 11 86 4 2.23
Adam Wainwright STL 6/16/2009 8/8/2009 * 11 7 3 11 1 0 80 77 18 17 19 75 4 1.91
Ricky Nolasco FLA 6/12/2009 8/7/2009 11 6 1 11 1 0 73.1 53 23 21 14 84 7 2.58
Felix Hernandez SEA 5/24/2009 7/22/2009 11 7 0 11 1 1 83 59 17 12 20 81 3 1.30
Tim Lincecum SFG 4/7/2009 6/2/2009 11 4 1 11 0 0 71.2 67 27 24 21 91 2 3.01
Zack Greinke KCR 4/8/2009 5/31/2009 11 8 1 11 5 2 82 62 12 10 12 88 0 1.10
Johan Santana NYM 4/6/2009 5/27/2009 10 7 2 10 0 0 66 52 20 13 20 86 5 1.77

A special thanks to Tom Orf for the data.

Carpenter’s historic strikeout-to-walk ratio


Strikeouts. They are the flashiest of all possible mound outcomes for a pitcher.

While Greg Maddux once uttered, “Chicks dig the long ball,” had he spoke about pitchers, he easily could have uttered the phrase “Chicks dig punchouts.”

Yet by themselves, strikeouts don’t always tell the complete story.

Take the Mets’ Oliver Perez. This season, the veteran lefty has fanned almost one opposing batter per inning – 58 in 60 1/3 frames. However during that same time, Perez has issued a whopping 55 free passes to enemy hitters.

So while Perez’ strikeout rate is impressive, his strikeout-to-walk ratio of 1.05 is actually quite mediocre. Not surprisingly, Ollie is carrying a losing record and an ERA right at six.

Closer to home, St. Louis Cardinals right-hander Chris Carpenter is the anti-Ollie as he won his seventh straight game and 12th of the season Wednesday night. The 34-year-old went seven strong innings against Cincinnati, the sixth consecutive start he’s gone at least that long. Amazingly, the two runs allowed actually increased his ERA from 2.26 to 2.27.

Getting ahead in the count was key as Carp threw first-pitch strikes to 22 of 29 hitters. His control was impeccable as he fanned ten opposing batters for the second time this season but did not issue one walk. Carpenter has not given out more than two free passes in any of his 19 starts this season and had one or none in an impressive 13 of them.

Putting that all together from a 2009 season perspective, he has 97 strikeouts and just 19 walks in 130 2/3 innings, for a strikeout-to-walk ratio of 5.11.

How does that stack up, you might ask?

It would be a franchise record-breaker. Not just since 1954, but forever.

In the entire storied history of the St. Louis Cardinals, no pitcher has ever delivered a full-season strikeout-to-walk ratio of over five. In fact, only seven times in history has a Cardinals pitcher accrued a ratio of at least four.

This isn’t new territory for the 2005 Cy Young Award winner. Of the seven complete seasons of a four-or-greater ratio in club annals, Carpenter had three of them.

In comparison, Hall of Famer Bob Gibson managed just one – a 4.32 ratio during his signature season of 1968. The best year from Dizzy Dean, generally acknowledged as the second-greatest Cardinals pitcher ever, was “just” 3.68. Control artist extraordinaire Bob Tewksbury (1993 and 1992) had the best two full seasons currently on the club’s books, at 4.85 and 4.55 respectively.

Still, Carpenter has competition on his own roster. Not to be outdone, if the season ended today, Carpenter’s teammate Joel Pinero’s strikeout-to-walk ratio of 4.47 would also rank fourth-highest in franchise history.

Strikeout-to-walk ratio, season, St. Louis Cardinals history (minimum 100 innings pitched)

Rk Player K/BB IP Year Age G H R ER BB SO ERA
1 Chris Carpenter 5.11 130.2 2009 34 19 109 34 33 19 97 2.27
2 Bob Tewksbury 4.85 213.2 1993 32 32 258 99 91 20 97 3.83
3 Bob Tewksbury 4.55 233 1992 31 33 217 63 56 20 91 2.16
4 Joel Pineiro 4.47 148.1 2009 30 22 151 63 53 15 67 3.22
5 Lindy McDaniel 4.38 116.1 1960 24 65 85 28 27 24 105 2.09
6 Bob Gibson 4.32 304.2 1968 32 34 198 49 38 62 268 1.12
7 Chris Carpenter 4.28 221.2 2006 31 32 194 81 76 43 184 3.09
8 Chris Carpenter 4.18 241.2 2005 30 33 204 82 76 51 213 2.83
9 Chris Carpenter 4.00 182 2004 29 28 169 75 70 38 152 3.46
10 Bob Gibson 3.68 175.1 1967 31 24 151 62 58 40 147 2.98
11 Dizzy Dean 3.68 315 1936 26 51 310 128 111 53 195 3.17
12 Dizzy Dean 3.64 197.1 1937 27 27 200 76 59 33 120 2.69
13 Bob Tewksbury 3.59 155.2 1994 33 24 190 97 92 22 79 5.32
14 Rheal Cormier 3.55 186 1992 25 31 194 83 76 33 117 3.68
15 John Tudor 3.45 275 1985 31 36 209 68 59 49 169 1.93
16 Matt Morris 3.43 216.1 2001 26 34 218 86 76 54 185 3.16
17 Bruce Sutter 3.35 122.2 1984 31 71 109 26 21 23 77 1.54
18 Dick Hughes 3.35 222.1 1967 29 37 164 72 66 48 161 2.67
19 Bob Tewksbury 3.33 145.1 1990 29 28 151 67 56 15 50 3.47
20 Darryl Kile 3.31 232.1 2000 31 34 215 109 101 58 192 3.91
21 Matt Morris 3.16 192.2 2005 30 31 209 101 88 37 117 4.11
22 Bob Gibson 3.11 294 1970 34 34 262 111 102 88 274 3.12
23 Dizzy Dean 3.11 293 1933 23 48 279 113 99 64 199 3.04
24 Rene Arocha 3.10 188 1993 27 32 197 89 79 31 96 3.78
25 Matt Morris 3.08 172.1 2003 28 27 164 76 72 39 120 3.76

Across Major League Baseball this season, Carpenter ranks fourth behind former Cardinal and current Arizona ace Dan Haren (6.65), Toronto’s Roy Halladay (6.57) and Javier Vazquez of Atlanta (5.34). Carp’s current season would rank 84th-best all-time in MLB.

Speaking of all-time, the franchise career leader in strikeout-to-walk ratio is none other than Carpenter at 4.21. In fact, he is the only pitcher in team history to exceed 3.62, the mark of second-best Lee Smith.

Most impressively, the current Cardinals are represented by four in the top 15 all-time with Pineiro at sixth (3.03), Ryan Franklin at 14th (2.57) and Adam Wainwright at number 15 (2.47). In addition, Kyle Lohse ranks 26th in team history (2.28).

Strikeout-to-walk ratio, career, St. Louis Cardinals history (minimum 200 innings pitched)

Rk Player K/BB IP From To Age G H R ER BB SO ERA
1 Chris Carpenter 4.21 797.1 2004 2009 29-34 117 701 282 263 156 656 2.97
2 Lee Smith 3.62 266.2 1990 1993 32-35 245 239 92 86 68 246 2.90
3 Rheal Cormier 3.41 438.2 1991 1994 24-27 87 471 222 201 75 256 4.12
4 Bob Tewksbury 3.27 968.2 1989 1994 28-33 154 1047 424 375 125 409 3.48
5 Joe Hoerner 3.06 244 1966 1969 29-32 206 187 68 57 62 190 2.10
6 Joel Pineiro 3.03 360.2 2007 2009 28-30 59 400 181 166 62 188 4.14
7 Dick Hughes 3.03 307.1 1966 1968 28-30 68 221 101 95 76 230 2.78
8 Darryl Kile 2.79 544.1 2000 2002 31-33 82 525 228 214 151 421 3.54
9 Dizzy Dean 2.69 1737.1 1930 1937 20-27 273 1684 676 577 407 1095 2.99
10 Jack Powell 2.66 338.1 1901 1901 26-26 45 351 168 133 50 133 3.54
11 Woody Williams 2.62 588.2 2001 2004 34-37 93 551 246 231 157 412 3.53
12 Matt Morris 2.61 1377.1 1997 2005 22-30 237 1368 612 552 378 986 3.61
13 Rene Arocha 2.61 320.2 1993 1995 27-29 118 346 155 138 70 183 3.87
14 Ryan Franklin 2.57 202.2 2007 2009 34-36 187 187 68 64 49 126 2.84
15 Adam Wainwright 2.47 576 2005 2009 23-27 139 557 228 209 180 445 3.27
16 Paul Dean 2.44 669 1934 1939 21-26 124 691 307 275 144 351 3.70
17 Todd Stottlemyre 2.40 565.2 1996 1998 31-33 85 492 260 237 209 501 3.77
18 Harvey Haddix 2.39 786.1 1952 1956 26-30 127 742 355 319 228 544 3.65
19 Ron Taylor 2.38 278.1 1963 1965 25-27 142 271 124 116 78 186 3.75
20 Buddy Schultz 2.35 210.2 1977 1979 26-28 133 184 83 78 74 174 3.33
21 Bruce Sutter 2.33 396.2 1981 1984 28-31 249 351 133 120 111 259 2.72
22 Bob Gibson 2.33 3884.1 1959 1975 23-39 528 3279 1420 1258 1336 3117 2.91
23 Donovan Osborne 2.32 840 1992 1999 23-30 143 851 415 366 231 535 3.92
24 Reggie Cleveland 2.32 706.2 1969 1973 21-25 116 716 346 301 193 448 3.83
25 John Tudor 2.30 881.2 1985 1990 31-36 128 757 284 247 195 448 2.52
26 Kyle Lohse 2.28 287 2008 2009 29-30 49 297 133 126 76 173 3.95

While many have suggested the Cardinals’ urgency to win should be driven by a desire to not waste Albert Pujols’ prime years, “What about Carpenter,” I ask?

At age 34, Carp may not have too many more peak performance seasons remaining. Let’s fully enjoy them while we can.

(Thanks as always to Tom Orf for the tables.)

Weekly live blog on FOX Sports Midwest: Wednesday, August 12


I am returning as a panelist for FOX Sports Midwest’s weekly live blog session to be held throughout Wednesday evening’s Reds-Cardinals game.

You can participate via FOX Sports Midwest’s website or once the event begins, you can enter your comments and questions right here in the “CoveritLive” area below.

Going for his 12th win, Chris Carpenter faces former Reds top prospect Homer Bailey as the Cards try for a 2-1 edge in their three-game home series against Cincinnati.

Wednesday’s first pitch is scheduled for 7:15 p.m. Central.

Cardinals hit by pitch overreaction… or is it?


As the entire Cardinal Nation knows as old news by now, Pittsburgh Pirates closer Matt Capps was ejected for hitting Albert Pujols with a pitch in the back during Sunday’s series finale at PNC Park.

Capps relieved starter Zach Duke with one on and one out in the eighth inning. His first batter faced, pinch hitter Skip Schumaker, hit a two-run home run to give the Cardinals a 4-3 lead. Pujols was up next.

On the 0-1 pitch, Capps drilled Pujols with a fastball to the back. Pujols glared at Capps, but took first base as Capps was immediately ejected by home plate umpire Mike Estabrook. Pujols was the third Cardinals batter hit in the series, while the Pirates had one.

Cardinals manager Tony La Russa was unhappy. “I think (Estabrook) read it exactly right. I think it was an intentional hit. And there’s no doubt in my mind it came from the bench. I really believe it didn’t come from the manager. Don’t ask me to expound on that. That’s my comment. It was intentional. It came from the bench; it wasn’t the manager who ordered it. The umpire handled it properly.”

La Russa implied the hit was ordered by Pirates’ pitching coach Joe Kerrigan. Once he calmed down, Pujols was more politically inclined with his remarks.

Pujols said, “I don’t think he did it on purpose, but it looked bad after that home run.”

In a most predictable reaction, Capps denied intent.

“Albert Pujols, he’s the classiest guy in baseball, he’s not a guy you’re going to intentionally hit, especially in that situation.” Capps said. “We were playing a good game. I understand I just gave up the homer, but I had him 0-1. I tried to go in and got too strong and it got away from me. I wasn’t happy he threw me out.”

Like others, I am awaiting a ruling from MLB disciplinarian Bob Watson, especially after Cardinals pitcher Brad Thompson was slapped with a three-game suspension for a pitch that did not even hit the Mets’ David Wright last week. There are differences in that Thompson’s pitch was near the New York star’s head, yet Brad was also not ejected as was Capps.

I would have let this story drift into history without comment had I not come across a 2007 article when reading about Milwaukee’s Prince Fielder’s well-publicized rage when hit by the Dodgers’ Guillermo Mota last week.

See if this scenario sounds familiar. If you have trouble making the connection, re-read the early part of this post.

In May, 2007, the Brewers and Pirates were squaring off when Milwaukee’s J.J. Hardy blasted a three-run home run off Capps. The Pirates’ closer, lauded for his excellent control in the game story, went 0-1 on the next batter, Fielder. Capps’ next offering came in at the slugger’s head, but fortunately was deflected by Fielder’s shoulder. Not surprisingly, Prince took exception to his shabby treatment, though he did not attempt to enter the opponent’s clubhouse as he did in Los Angeles.

Capps denied he hit Fielder, but Watson slapped him with a four-game suspension that even the Pittsburgh papers agreed with.

Further, just last month, these same Pirates and Brewers were involved in a bench-clearing incident as the result of another beaning. It was allegedly retaliation for an earlier plunking of Brewers’ star Ryan Braun, though Capps personally was not on the mound this time.

Clearly there is a pattern in Capps’ behavior (and that of his club) that needs to be reflected in a suspension. It is not obvious that one is coming, however.

I can’t help but wonder if Watson’s action would have been immediate had one of the New York teams had been involved.

Will Cincy’s deadline trades pay off with a wild card?


I read an interesting blog post from the New York Times on Sunday entitled “Wild Card Is a Tease”, regarding the wild card and deadline trading intended to help clubs capture it. The author, Jim Luttrell, points out that only five of the 28 wild card entrants since 1995 were more than five games out at the non-waiver trade deadline.

The conclusion is that many teams further out in the standings that were making trades were wasting their efforts and perhaps hurting themselves for the future.

As the reader comments that follow point out, eight of the 28 reached the World Series and four of them won, a sample that is too large for my tastes. I am not going to go off on how badly the 162-game season has been devalued by a first-round best-of-five series. I won’t, but I would really like to. Well, maybe I will just a little bit.

A baseball purist at heart, I can begrudgingly acknowledge the value of the wild card for fan interest purposes. Still, the first round of the playoffs needs to be extended to seven games even if it means shortening the regular season. Further, the wild card must be put at a greater disadvantage (only one or two home games at most). (The first point caused an awful flashback to Ford Frick and his fricking 1961 asterisk.)

At any rate, Luttrell’s post left me wanting. The most important question was left mostly unanswered.

Which teams were not within five games of the wild card at the non-waiver deadline but still made trades that are most likely to do them no good?

I am not sure why the writer stopped short of the logical conclusion, so I will satisfy my own curiosity, focusing on the National League.

First and foremost, the St. Louis Cardinals were in first place by a half-game on July 31. The other NL Division leaders were Los Angeles and Philadelphia. The co-wild card leaders were San Francisco and Colorado. Other teams within five games of the two were Chicago, Florida, Atlanta, Milwaukee and Houston.

In other words, only six of the 16 NL teams were not either leading their division or sitting within five games of the wild card.

Somewhere Bud Selig is uttering “excellent” while tenting fingers together, even if he isn’t counting his money at the time. (Heading further astream, is it just me or can anyone else see the resemblance of a rug-free Bud with Mr. Burns from The Simpsons?)

Two of the “out of it clubs” are from each division. They are New York and Washington from the East, Cincinnati and Pittsburgh from the Central along with Arizona and San Diego from the West.

Pittsburgh dumped half their team. San Diego shipped off ace Jake Peavy. Washington jettisoned first baseman Nick Johnson. The Mets and Diamondbacks basically did nothing of substance.

That leaves the one schizophrenic seller-buyer-seller, the Cardinals current opponent, Cincinnati. Walt Jocketty’s Reds made three deals, the biggest in adding former Cardinals third baseman Scott Rolen from Toronto.

This trade probably won’t turn out to be quite as bad as the ill-fated deadline deal made by the Bucs two years ago when they inexplicably picked up Matt Morris, but is as equally puzzling. The Reds were 12 games under .500 at the July 31 deadline and have gone 3-5 since.

In a weird and unfortunate parallel with the Cards’ earlier acquisition of Mark DeRosa, the newest Red has been able to play in just four games for his new club. Rather than a wrist injury, Rolen’s problems have resulted from a beaning suffered a week ago Sunday at the hands of his ex-St. Louis teammate, Rockies pitcher Jason Marquis.

As Cincinnati falls further back in the standings, they made a waiver trade on Sunday sending reliever David Weathers to the Milwaukee Brewers. They had earlier sent infielder/outfielder Jerry Hairston to the Yankees. In other words, if the Reds were a buyer for one day last week, they were a seller immediately before and after.

So there you have it. Other than the odd trade of Edwin Encarnacion and two prospects for an aging, injury-prone and expensive Rolen, none of the NL teams considered too far back in the standings made any such questionable deals.

Maybe that is why the author didn’t bring his original post to its logical conclusion. At least in the NL, there doesn’t appear to be much of anything to say.

Cardinals spring training demographics


I have been a long-time admirer and supporter of spring training, an event I have attended for at least the last twenty years, first as a fan then later as a journalist.

Still, I can understand that writing about spring training in August may seem odd. Yet there is a method to my madness.

In my recent electronic travels, I came across a brand new study which assesses the economic impact of spring training on the Florida economy. The Bonn Marketing Research Group, Inc. was contracted by the Florida Sports Foundation to do the work. In addition to financial data, the study team interviewed over 2,100 game attendees this spring.

As the summary says,

‘The study documents demographic and behavioral characteristics of those attendees whose expenditures contributed to the overall economic impact. Included in this economic impact analysis were operating expenditures for teams, stadiums, concessionaires and game attendees expenditures.”

While there is considerable detail on each of the elements noted above, I will quote just the highest-level conclusion:

“During 2009, the total value of MLB Florida spring training upon the Florida economy represented $752.3 million in total spending, which generated $284.2 million in total labor income and supported or created 9,205 part-time and full-time jobs.”

That isn’t why I am posting about the subject here, however. There were several supporting data areas buried in the study detail that I found interesting as a St. Louis Cardinals watcher.

Homes of spring training attendees

I am not alone in my travels as the Cardinals rank fourth of 16 Florida teams in the percentage of out-of-state spring training attendees at 61%. The average is 48%.

Interviews FL in-county FL non-county Out of state
Cardinals 119 19 16% 27 23% 73 61%
Total 2110 510 24% 586 28% 1014 48%

Spring training attendance

Though the Cardinals ranked seventh in total spring attendance with over 101,000 fans in 2009, their per-game attendance of 5,652 is just ninth. That total is below the Florida average of 6,030 per game.

Attendance Rank Dates Per game Rank
Cardinals home 101,740 7/16 18 5,652 9/16
Florida total/average 1,561,873 259 6,030

Listed capacity of Jupiter’s Roger Dean Stadium is just under 7,000, officially 6,871. On the average, the Cards games are at 82% capacity.

Here I will step away from the study for a moment to show the changes in Cardinals spring training attendance over the last decade.

Attendance at Jupiter’s Roger Dean Stadium for Cardinals games is down 20 percent since 2000 even while overall MLB Florida per game spring attendance (including the Cardinals) grew by ten percent.

Cards spring home Attendance Dates Per gm YTY FL attendance Per gm YTY
2009 101,740 18 5,652 -2.2% 1,561,873 6,030 -7.4%
2008 92,465 15 5,779 -18.4% 1,677,858 6,478 3.6%
2007 102,619 15 6,841 3.5% 1,716,840 6,243 6.2%
2006 92,070 15 6,603 4.5% 1,604,393 5,855 -6.6%
2005 94,543 15 6,303 -1.0% 1,598,454 6,244 7.2%
2004 95,483 15 6,366 5.4% 1,557,934 5,792 9.0%
2003 84,336 14 6,024 -8.2% 1,397,144 5,272 4.6%
2002 97,733 16 6,516 -4.5% 1,538,444 5,028 -5.8%
2001 95,369 14 6,812 -4.5% 1,500,184 5,320 -2.9%
2000 99,655 14 7,118 1,598,255 5,473
2009 vs 2000 -1,466 -20.6% 557 10.2%

The rest of the study data is not broken out by team, but here are a few of the top-level spring training demographic tidbits for all clubs:

• “College Graduate” was the most frequently reported level of education for attendees at an average of 40.8%.

• 72.6% of attendees have and average household income of over $50,000, with 37.3% of attendees having an average household income of over $80,000.

• Over 87% of attendees for the 2009 MLB Florida spring training season were Caucasian.

• On average 63.6% of attendees intercepted during the 2009 MLB Florida spring training season were male compared with the 36.4% that were female.

• “Married” was the most frequently reported marital status for attendees at 71.3%.

• The average spring training party is 2.9 individuals and they remain an average of 5.8 nights.

• 36.9% of attendees reported that they were first time attendees of MLB Florida spring training.

• The attendees’ average number of games attended in the past three years was 8.9 games.

• 91.9% of MLB Florida spring training attendees plan to attend MLB Florida spring training in the future.

Reinforcing that last point, I am one of the majority and hope to see you there next spring!

You can read the entire 56-page study document here.

Pujols: 100 is a serious number


There is something about triple digits that capture the fancy of the numerologist in all baseball fans.

On Saturday night in Pittsburgh, the St. Louis Cardinals’ Albert Pujols drove in three runs with a bases-loaded double. In the process, he crossed the 100 RBI threshold for the ninth time in nine Major League seasons and extended his Major League lead in the important category.

As such, Pujols only trails Hall of Famer Stan Musial in years with 100 or more RBI as a Cardinal. “The Man” finished his illustrious career with ten such seasons, the most in team history.

At the age of 29, the opportunity may be ahead for Pujols to double that mark before his career concludes.

100 or more RBI seasons – Cardinals franchise history

From To Ages Seasons
Stan Musial 1946 1957 25-36 10
Albert Pujols 2001 2009 21-29 9
Joe Medwick 1934 1939 22-27 6
Jim Bottomley 1924 1929 24-29 6
Johnny Mize 1937 1941 24-28 5
Jim Edmonds 2000 2004 30-34 3
Joe Torre 1969 1971 28-30 3
Bill White 1962 1964 28-30 3
Enos Slaughter 1946 1952 30-36 3
Chick Hafey 1928 1930 25-27 3
Rogers Hornsby 1921 1925 25-29 3
Scott Rolen 2003 2004 28-29 2
Mark McGwire 1998 1999 34-35 2
George Hendrick 1980 1982 30-32 2
Ted Simmons 1974 1975 24-25 2
Ken Boyer 1963 1964 32-33 2
Ray Jablonski 1953 1954 26-27 2
Whitey Kurowski 1945 1947 27-29 2
Ripper Collins 1934 1935 30-31 2

With the three-RBI game Saturday, Pujols extended his franchise career lead over the last 55 years in such games to 115.

Three or more RBI games – Cardinals (1954-2009)

Games
Albert Pujols 115
Ken Boyer 83
Stan Musial 78
Ray Lankford 75
Ted Simmons 74
Jim Edmonds 73
Bill White 55
Mark McGwire 55
Scott Rolen 50
George Hendrick 49
Willie McGee 43
Keith Hernandez 43
Joe Torre 42
Curt Flood 34
Edgar Renteria 33
Brian Jordan 31
Todd Zeile 30
Lou Brock 29
Mike Shannon 28
Ken Reitz 28
Tom Herr 27
Wally Moon 26
Ryan Ludwick 25
Julian Javier 25
Pedro Guerrero 24
Terry Pendleton 23
Tim McCarver 23
J.D. Drew 23
Ozzie Smith 22
Darrell Porter 22
Joe Cunningham 22
Ron Gant 21
Jack Clark 21
Craig Paquette 20

Thanks to Tom Orf for the research.

DeRosa: Long balls at a record pace


On Friday night in Pittsburgh, St. Louis Cardinals third baseman Mark DeRosa blasted his eighth home run of his short Cardinals career. The fourth-inning shot to centerfield was part of a three-hit night for the 34-year-old, his best game since joining St. Louis from Cleveland for relievers Chris Perez and Jess Todd on June 27.

It is unknown the extent that DeRosa’s swing is being hampered by his bad left wrist that will require off-season surgery to repair a torn tendon sheath. The right-handed hitter is currently batting just .212 as a Cardinal, but is making his hits count. Half of his 18 safeties have gone for extra bases.

Friday marked DeRosa’s 22nd game wearing the Birds on the Bat. His eight homers in that span put him in a three-way tie for the fastest home run start for a new Cardinal since at least 1954. The others are Dick Allen (1970) and Reggie Sanders (2004).

It was DeRosa’s first home run in five contests after he earlier set the team mark for fastest to seven long balls (in 17 games).

DeRosa, a free agent-to-be, would need to hit another long ball on Saturday to capture a share of the mark for fastest Cardinal to nine home runs in at least the last 55 years. That record is owned by re-born outfielder Rick Ankiel in 2007. Allen was also the fastest to ten homers, in his first 26 games, followed by Mark McGwire in 27 contests (1997).

The table below, courtesy of Tom Orf, is sorted by the fastest to eight home runs.

New Cardinals fastest to one through ten home runs in games (1954-2009)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Allen 1 5 7 8 15 16 18 22 25 26
Sanders 5 5 11 11 14 15 18 22 32 49
DeRosa 7 7 8 12 13 14 17 22
Ankiel-2 1 3 3 9 17 19 22 23 23 39
Pujols 4 7 9 11 18 18 20 23 29 30
McGwire 8 11 12 12 14 20 20 24 25 27
Edmonds 2 6 8 9 10 13 21 25 26 28
W.Clark 2 3 4 5 20 22 22 26 32 45
Walker 5 6 9 14 21 22 27 27 32 35
P.Wilson 1 5 9 12 17 21 30 31 48
Spencer 7 8 10 12 14 27 32 33 50 72
J.Clark 1 5 15 21 26 29 32 33 44 45
Paquette 1 8 11 13 17 26 33 34 35 36
Brunansky 4 5 5 11 26 30 35 38 60 64
Drew 2 7 7 12 12 24 27 41 47 50
Gant 2 4 9 13 29 31 34 42 44 46
R.Smith 10 10 18 19 25 26 32 42 43 45
Cepeda 1 6 10 11 18 34 36 44 47 47
Boyer 1 16 24 27 31 38 38 44 44 55
Cunningham 1 2 2 7 14 23 45 46 54 55
Torre 4 7 12 21 29 43 45 46 50 56
Rolen 12 13 25 26 35 37 40 46 47 47
Duncan 9 10 15 25 33 39 40 49 53 55
Moryn 11 21 29 30 34 40 43 49 50 57
Guerrero 13 19 38 41 43 45 49 50 68 82
Mather 7 20 26 28 30 36 39 54
Gaetti 6 11 17 24 39 47 47 55 69 69
Encarnacion 20 24 25 26 34 48 50 55 65 65
Tatis 10 12 22 27 35 38 48 55 56 57
Jeffries 3 4 4 21 22 28 48 56 58 64
Hendrick 3 17 26 30 35 36 41 56 57 64
Whiten 3 11 12 15 21 28 57 59 66 76
T.Martinez 27 27 38 42 43 50 57 61 76 78
Glaus 25 40 56 57 60 61 63 67 70 75
Ludwick 24 27 31 33 41 41 50 69 70 76
B.White 10 13 14 24 27 57 63 71 106 112
Rasmus 20 30 33 34 41 46 54 71 74 75
Ankiel 13 14 54 56 56 62 70 72 75 76
Dunston 2 19 21 32 39 63 67 75 95 104
Van Slyke 6 7 9 15 44 54 60 77 103 137
Lindeman 2 23 23 25 43 44 70 79 93 102
Brock 7 25 26 64 66 67 79 80 83 84
Jordan 19 21 23 28 29 75 79 84 89 89
Spiezio 7 14 22 58 62 81 83 84 98 99
Galarraga 39 40 53 55 58 73 79 86 91 94
Hague 2 33 39 49 62 64 84 87 108 108
Zeile 3 32 44 54 68 81 84 88 92 108
Flood 11 22 38 44 49 69 88 89 96 97
M.Anderson 6 10 11 13 49 66 96 103
T.Howard 2 19 85 86 88 89 103 104 107 133
Freed 3 23 30 36 48 56 57 108 119
Shannon 32 57 64 70 83 111 112 115 117 121
Grudzielanek 17 24 32 66 83 97 105 117
Lankford 15 22 24 69 90 112 119 119 120 131
E.Perez 16 24 30 31 81 91 93 127 128 129
Molina 45 51 83 91 114 115 116 127 139 149
Marrero 9 10 18 44 57 82 111 128 129 140
Renteria 34 47 47 54 68 118 129 134 135 139
Jose 7 9 16 31 39 119 148 148 159 168
Eckstein 37 45 99 102 107 126 130 149 173 275
Simmons 14 54 76 129 140 147 195 202 210 213
Luna 1 12 75 125 151 166 176 207
Schumaker 29 98 108 158 172 208 210 214 218 254
Gibson 80 122 133 152 177 180 233 243 256 260
O.Smith 7 15 226 229 268 307 429 453 492 504
Holliday 7 9 9 13
Cedeno 1 6 10 14 16 27
Laga 3 6 18 19 38
Nunez 3 15 18 22 76
Plantier 1 5 18 25 40
Musial 8 15 19 26 26 42
Ryan 8 12 26 31 197
J.Rodriquez 3 5 10 34 50 118 123
McNertney 4 10 13 34
Bonilla 4 8 21 38 48
K.Greene 11 13 40 41 42
LaRue 19 25 29 42 68
Lopez 19 20 29 42
Groat 2 3 37 46 70 113 306
Bennett 41 43 45 46 80 117
Hart 6 40 41 48
Belliard 15 42 45 49 49
Barden 31 34 35 61
Wise 17 57 58 61
Wainwright 17 84 100 136
Lugo 1
T.Greene 5 12
Stavinoha 41 61
Thurston 21
McDonald 1 2 5
Simpson 3 5 23

Pujols: Extra bases in bunches


St. Louis Cardinals fans would probably rather forget Wednesday afternoon’s collapse at New York’s Citi Field as the Mets shut out the visitors by a 9-0 score.

Still, there was at least one positive to come out of the game. After hitting a double and two home runs on Tuesday night, Albert Pujols came back strongly on Wednesday, proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that his recent slump is totally behind him.

Albert stroked a pair of doubles in three official at-bats Wednesday, both to left field. The first was hit so hard that despite running at full speed, Pujols barely made it into second base before the throw. (He also reached base a third time when hit by a pitch.)

The two Mets contests became Pujols’ 13th and 14th multiple extra-base hit games this season. In the process, he extended his 2009 Major League Baseball lead in the category over Milwaukee’s Prince Fielder and the Dodgers’ Andre Ethier, both with 11.

Multiple extra-base hit games – 2009 MLB

Games
Albert Pujols 14
Prince Fielder 11
Andre Ethier 11
Mark Teixeira 10
Cody Ross 10
Justin Morneau 10
Nick Markakis 10
Adam Lind 10
Raul Ibanez 10
Brad Hawpe 10
Ryan Braun 10

The best season of such games by a Cardinal player since at least 1954 was set at 19 by Pujols in 2004 and tied by him again just two years later. In fact, Pujols has registered seven of the top 15 seasons with multiple extra-base hit games by a Cardinal over at least the last 55 years.

Considering the quality of hitters that have donned the birds on the bat uniform back to and including the second half of Hall of Famer Stan Musial’s career makes Albert’s feats even more impressive.

Multiple extra-base hit games, season – Cardinals (1954-2009)

Year Games
Albert Pujols 2004 19
Albert Pujols 2006 19
Mark McGwire 1998 18
Ryan Ludwick 2008 17
Jim Edmonds 2004 17
Stan Musial 1954 16
Mark McGwire 1999 16
Jim Edmonds 2003 16
Stan Musial 1957 15
Albert Pujols 2009 14
Albert Pujols 2008 14
Albert Pujols 2003 14
Scott Rolen 2003 13
Albert Pujols 2002 13
Albert Pujols 2001 13
Jim Edmonds 2000 13
Ken Boyer 1960 13
Dick Allen 1970 13
Fernando Tatis 1999 12
Scott Rolen 2006 12
Jack Clark 1987 12
Garry Templeton 1979 11
Scott Rolen 2004 11
Albert Pujols 2005 11
Ray Lankford 1996 11
Felix Jose 1991 11
Jim Edmonds 2005 11
Orlando Cepeda 1967 11
Lou Brock 1967 11

Given the high number of top individual seasons already put into the record books by Pujols means it is not surprising that he leads the Cardinals in such career games in at least the last 55 years. Albert’s total of 126 games is a whopping 40 percent higher than accumulated the closest player, Ray Lankford.

Multiple extra-base hit games, career – Cardinals (1954-2009)

Games
Albert Pujols 126
Ray Lankford 90
Jim Edmonds 80
Lou Brock 77
Ken Boyer 76
Stan Musial 71
Ted Simmons 58
Bill White 51
Scott Rolen 46
Mark McGwire 46
George Hendrick 45
Keith Hernandez 42
Willie McGee 40
Curt Flood 39
Brian Jordan 36
Joe Torre 33
Garry Templeton 31
Edgar Renteria 30
Ozzie Smith 28
Ken Reitz 27
Ryan Ludwick 27
Todd Zeile 26
Julian Javier 25
J.D. Drew 25
Terry Pendleton 24
Wally Moon 24
Tim McCarver 23
Orlando Cepeda 23
Rip Repulski 22
Darrell Porter 22
Joe Cunningham 22
Fernando Tatis 21
Vince Coleman 21
Ron Gant 20
Jack Clark 20

Here in 2009, Pujols still has roughly a third of the season, 52 games remaining, to build onto his total. If able to maintain his pace the rest of the way, Albert would end with 21 multiple-extra base hit games. That would vault him to the top with the best season in the category by any Cardinal in at least the last 55 years.


Extra innings coverage – Pujols also leads in five-or-more RBI games

Pujols’ five-RBI outing on Tuesday night was his fourth of the 2009 season. That is the most such games in a single season by a Cardinal since at least 1954. In doing so, he broke a tie with himself in 2006 and 2007, Mark McGwire in 1999 and an unlikely name, Joe Hague, in 1970.

Five-or-more RBI games, season – Cardinals (1954-2009)

Year Games
Albert Pujols 2009 4
Albert Pujols 2007 3
Albert Pujols 2006 3
Mark McGwire 1999 3
Joe Hague 1970 3
Ted Simmons 1973 2
Ted Simmons 1980 2
Scott Rolen 2006 2
Edgar Renteria 2003 2
Albert Pujols 2001 2
Albert Pujols 2004 2
Stan Musial 1954 2
Stan Musial 1961 2
Mark McGwire 1998 2
Brian Jordan 1996 2
George Hendrick 1980 2
Pedro Guerrero 1990 2
Ken Boyer 1956 2
Ken Boyer 1961 2

Pujols has now doubled up Big Mac for the most five-or-more RBI games in his Cardinals career with 16.

Five-or-more RBI games, career – Cardinals (1954-2009)

Games
Albert Pujols 16
Mark McGwire 8
Stan Musial 7
Ken Boyer 7
Ted Simmons 6
Scott Rolen 4
Edgar Renteria 4
George Hendrick 4
Jim Edmonds 4
Bill White 3
Willie McGee 3
John Mabry 3
Ray Lankford 3
Brian Jordan 3
Keith Hernandez 3
Joe Hague 3
Pedro Guerrero 3
Curt Flood 3

Thanks to Tom Orf for the data tables.

Cardinals quiz of the day: August 6, 2009


By Brian Walton and Tom Orf

Who is the only St. Louis Cardinal to drive in seven runs in a game without the benefit of a home run?

You might think Albert Pujols. He has collected seven RBI in a single game twice in his career, including April 11 of this year at Busch Stadium against the Houston Astros. However all of Albert’s RBI that day occurred via the long ball as he hit both a grand slam and a three-run home run.

So, who is this player?

He accomplished the odd feat on August 28, 1980 against the Atlanta Braves and he did all the damage during the first four innings. Three of the runs would be charged against former Cardinal closer and current broadcaster Al Hrabosky.

In the bottom of the first inning, this Cardinals left fielder delivered a two-out, two-run double off Doyle Alexander after Keith Hernandez walked and George Hendrick was hit by a pitch to put the Cards up 2-0.

In the second, the Cardinals added three more runs, knocking Alexander out of the game. Hrabosky was brought in and intentionally walked Hendrick to load the bases. Our mystery man, batting fifth that day, delivered a three-run double this time, scoring Hernandez and Hendrick again along with Tony Scott to make it 8-0.

Our hero came up again against Hrabosky in the fourth inning following a walk to Hernandez and a Hendrick double. This time he delivered a two-run single for his sixth and seventh RBI of the day, and advanced to second on the throw home. After going to third on Terry Kennedy’s groundout, he scored the final Cardinal run on a Hrabosky wild pitch to make it 11-0.

His line that day: 5 1 3 7 (AB R H BI)

For the Cardinals, Bob Forsch pitched a complete game in the 11-2 victory.

How many of you came up with the answer?

The player: Dane Iorg. For those interested, here is the link to the box score.

St. Louis and Memphis: Like father, like son


The other day, I wrote an article lauding the progress made by the Triple-A Memphis Redbirds this season to claw back from an 8 ½ game deficit to claim first place in the Northern Division of the Pacific Coast League this past week. Given their struggles in recent years prior to a second-place finish at 75-67 in 2008, Memphis’ current situation seems noteworthy.

As I scanned the stat sheets of the Major League club this past afternoon in New York, I began to notice some striking similarities between the Cardinals and their Triple-A brethren – and I don’t just mean the names on the rosters as players have gone up and down between the two clubs all season long.

The Cardinals are also in a dogfight for their division, within a half game of the National League Central lead one way or the other since the 26th of May.

The two club’s records through Wednesday are almost identical. Memphis has played one more game and has one more loss.

Both clubs had winning Aprils and Julys, but experienced losing months in between in May and June. I found this most striking.

Each of the teams’ longest winning streak is five games. The Cardinals have done it three times; the Redbirds twice.

Memphis’ longest losing streak is one more game than St. Louis’ at six.

When considering run scoring, the two are close, though not identical. The Redbirds are two games better than .500 when plating three, while the Cardinals are slightly better when scoring more than three.

The big difference is in play on the road. The Cardinals are following part of the formula I was taught long ago for a playoff season – win half of your road games. Where they are failing is in not winning two of every three at home. (The formula would get a MLB team playing a 162-game schedule 95 wins.)

Unlike St. Louis, the Redbirds are close to the 66 percent home victory ideal, but are eight games under .500 away from AutoZone Park. As was noted by “Memphis25” the other day in the comments following the initial Memphis article, the majority of the Redbirds’ remaining games are on the road, 20 of their remaining 32. On the other hand, St. Louis has 27 home tilts and 25 away games ahead.

“Memphis25” also commented on the difficulty of schedule facing the Redbirds, with all but one series remaining against the top two teams in their respective divisions. The Cardinals are approaching a stretch with relatively weaker opponents in Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, San Diego, Houston and Washington in August. The list includes all three NL cellar-dwellers and each of those clubs listed currently has a losing record.

While St. Louis may appear to have the easier road ahead, the games have yet to be played, says the tired but accurate cliché.

Still, when all is considered, the similarities between where these two clubs currently stand seemed interesting enough to call it out.

Thru 8/5 St. Louis Memphis
Record 59-51 59-52
By Month
April 16-7 12-8
May 13-14 14-16
June 12-17 11-16
July 16-11 18-11
August 2-2 4-1
Streaks
Win 5 (3x) 5 (2x)
Loss 5 6
Record when
< 3 runs 5-26 6-30
3 runs 10-12 10-8
> 3 runs 44-13 43-14
Record
Home 31-23 37-22
Road 28-28 22-30

Wednesday afternoon live blogging on FOX Sports Midwest

I am returning as a panelist for FOX Sports Midwest’s weekly live blog session to be held throughout Wednesday afternoon’s Cardinals-Mets game. I will be sitting alongside Pat Parris at New York’s Citi Field and other FSM personalities will be joining in, too.

You can participate via FOX Sports Midwest’s website or once the event begins, you can enter your comments and questions right here in the “CoveritLive” area to be added below.

Kyle Lohse faces Jonathan Niese as the Cards try to sweep their two-game road series in New York.

Note the early start as Wednesday’s first pitch is scheduled for 11:10 a.m. Central.

Minor league affiliates are miles away


Since this blog and the main site are all about “The Cardinal Nation”, I thought this post I ran across the other day would be worthy of a few seconds of your time. A writer from the minor league-focused blog called “Bus Leagues Baseball” calculated the distance in miles from each Major League to their top six affiliates.

Here is the NL Central roll call, listed in order from closest to farthest away in average miles:

Pittsburgh: 374 miles

St. Louis: 546 miles

Cincinnati: 695 miles

Chicago: 943 miles

Houston: 953 miles

Milwaukee: 970 miles


Closest Cardinals affiliate: Springfield Cardinals (AA), 217 miles from St. Louis

Farthest Cardinals affiliate: Palm Beach Cardinals (A+): 1,136 miles from St. Louis

Closest NL Central affiliate: Dayton Dragons (A), just 49 miles from Cincinnati

Farthest NL Central affiliate: Arizona Brewers (Rookie): 1,790 miles from Milwaukee


The details by club with links to other divisions as well can be accessed here.

Maloney guides Memphis back from the dead


Monday night’s game might have appeared like any other as the Memphis Redbirds took a 5-2 win over Omaha at AutoZone Park. It wasn’t.

The win in game 109 put the Redbirds on the same lofty perch as their St. Louis parent – in first place. Memphis now sits atop the Pacific Coast League’s Northern Division as they passed Nashville.

It has been all about resilience.

Some number of expert baseball watchers left the Redbirds for dead after having lost their top starter, Clayton Mortensen (ten quality starts, seven wins, 105 innings, 82 strikeouts), top reliever, Jess Todd (24 of 26 in save opportunities), and top hitter, Brett Wallace (.298 BA, number one Cardinals prospect), via trades in the last two weeks.

Instead of folding, Monday brought the Triple-A club’s fifth consecutive victory and their second five-game run in those last two weeks. They are now seven games over .500 at 58-51, tying their season high water mark first set on May 9.

To put the magnitude of their recovery into perspective, the Redbirds were 8 ½ games out of first as recently as June 21. Losing at Iowa that night, Memphis hit a season-low six games under .500 at 32-38. They were coming off a disastrous 4-14 stretch of losing baseball.

I was with the club during that series and saw a team that seemed to lack timely hitting and had no appearance of a group that could pick up nine games in the standings, let alone play 13 games over .500 in the ensuing six weeks.

Yet that is precisely what Chris Maloney’s club did.

Despite St. Louis having made at least 19 different calls for players from his club this season, many of them have been taken away multiple times, the man known as “Hammer” has more than held his team together.

One shouldn’t be surprised, as Maloney is a proven winner. In fact, among those managers with at least six years of service, he is the winningest skipper in the Cardinals system over at least the last 43 years. Maloney has compiled a .519 victory mark coming into this season amassed at six different levels since 1991.

Maloney’s 2009 Redbirds have just over one month remaining, with their final regular-season game scheduled on September 7. They should be an exciting team to watch as they go down to the wire.

Cardinals quality starts come from quality starters


While the offensive exploits of newcomers Matt Holliday and Mark DeRosa have dominated headlines, the St. Louis Cardinals have been winning as much or more because of their quality starting pitching.

Coming into Sunday, the Cardinals starting pitching staff had worked an National League-high 664 innings this season, posting a league-best 45 wins while ranking second in ERA (3.56). Three of the Cardinals starters are among the NL’s top 10 in ERA: Chris Carpenter (2.10, first); Adam Wainwright (2.79, eighth, pictured) and Joel Pineiro (2.84, ninth).

Another pitching metric is the term “quality start”, coined to reflect a good outing by a starting pitcher. Specifically the appearance must be six innings or more allowing three or fewer runs.

Currently, there is a three-way lead in the NL at 18 quality starts this season held by Dan Haren, Josh Johnson and Tim Lincecum. Pineiro is among a group tied for sixth at 15, with Wainwright and Carpenter right behind at 14 each. Only St. Louis, Arizona and Atlanta have three starters with as many as 14 quality starts in 2009.

In terms of ongoing streaks, Pineiro leads with nine games, Wainwright has eight in a row including Sunday while Carp has just six. However, the latter also had a seven-start run earlier this season.

With the Cardinals this decade, Pineiro’s and Wainwright’s current streaks are third and tied for fourth longest, respectively. The longest? It was Carpenter of course, at 22 consecutive quality starts during his Cy Young Award season in 2005.

Cardinals consecutive quality starts (2000-2009)

Streak Start Streak End G W L GS CG SHO IP H R ER BB SO HR ERA
Chris Carpenter 5/12/2005 9/8/2005 22 17 2 22 6 3 173.1 120 34 32 33 158 11 1.66
Woody Williams 5/15/2002 7/1/2002 10 6 3 10 1 0 69.2 51 19 18 18 55 8 2.33
Joel Pineiro 6/12/2009 7/29/2009 * 9 4 3 9 2 1 66 48 18 12 6 32 1 1.64
Adam Wainwright 6/26/2009 8/2/2009 * 8 4 3 8 1 0 60.1 56 11 10 17 56 1 1.49
Matt Morris 4/11/2001 5/17/2001 8 6 1 8 1 1 59 43 11 10 13 47 3 1.53
Chris Carpenter 5/25/2009 6/25/2009 7 3 2 7 1 0 50.2 29 13 13 5 35 3 2.31
Jason Marquis 4/11/2004 5/14/2004 7 2 2 7 0 0 47 42 15 14 18 23 3 2.68
Matt Morris 4/5/2003 5/9/2003 7 4 2 7 2 0 52.2 40 13 12 15 45 6 2.05
Darryl Kile 6/18/2001 7/22/2001 7 3 1 7 0 0 48.1 46 14 13 9 42 4 2.42
Rick Ankiel 8/23/2000 9/27/2000 7 4 0 7 0 0 45.2 31 13 10 16 54 4 1.97
Andy Benes 6/12/2000 7/18/2000 7 5 1 7 1 0 47 44 17 16 20 50 5 3.06
Andy Benes 4/18/2000 5/21/2000 7 4 1 7 0 0 45.2 44 19 19 11 41 6 3.74
Chris Carpenter 7/5/2009 8/1/2009 * 6 5 0 6 1 0 45 44 8 8 8 30 2 1.60
Braden Looper 7/28/2008 8/24/2008 6 3 2 6 0 0 42 30 12 11 8 23 4 2.36
Todd Wellemeyer 5/9/2008 6/5/2008 6 4 0 6 0 0 38 30 9 7 9 22 2 1.66
Adam Wainwright 7/31/2007 8/26/2007 6 3 1 6 1 0 42 39 10 10 11 35 2 2.14
Mark Mulder 8/17/2005 9/17/2005 6 3 1 6 2 1 48 37 8 7 9 24 1 1.31
Chris Carpenter 5/9/2004 6/7/2004 6 5 0 6 0 0 44.2 34 11 11 5 32 6 2.22
Woody Williams 8/31/2001 10/5/2001 6 5 0 6 3 1 48 20 7 5 11 35 3 0.94
Dustin Hermanson 7/25/2001 8/21/2001 6 5 1 6 0 0 38.2 36 17 12 17 27 5 2.79
Bud Smith 7/16/2001 8/13/2001 6 2 1 6 0 0 39 34 12 12 10 25 5 2.77
Dustin Hermanson 4/22/2001 5/20/2001 6 4 0 6 0 0 40 35 11 10 10 21 6 2.25
* current streak

Thanks to Tom Orf for the above table.

Cardinals employ two top athletic trainers


The Professional Baseball Athletic Trainers Society (PBATS) has announced the winners of their annual Minor League Athletic Trainers of the Year awards. These awards are given to one member of each of the 16 Minor League divisions in baseball with an additional award given to the Minor League Coordinator of the Year.


St. Louis Cardinals athletic trainers at two levels are 2009 winners. Memphis’ Chris Conroy and Tim Steinhaus with the Gulf Coast League Cardinals (pictured) have been named Minor League Athletic Trainer of the Year for their respective leagues.


Steinhaus joined the Cardinals organization after spending two years as the assistant athletic trainer at Middle Tennessee, focusing on the school’s baseball players. He was with the Milwaukee Brewers organization in 2004 and 2005 and was named Minor League Athletic Trainer of the Year in the Arizona League in 2004. Prior to that, Steinhaus held trainer positions with the University of Cincinnati, University of Missouri and Francis Howell Central High School in St. Charles, Missouri.


Conroy is in his fifth year with the Redbirds and eleventh in the Cardinals organization. He graduated from the College of Charleston with a bachelor’s degree in physical education in 1998 and became the trainer at Rookie League Johnson City in 2000. He followed that with two years as the trainer at Class A Potomac and two more years with Double-A Tennessee. Conroy previously worked for the NBA’s New York Knicks.


Conroy, Steinhaus and the other league winners and the coordinator winner are eligible for the Minor League Athletic Trainer of the Year award voted upon by the PBATS executive board and awarded at the Major League Baseball Winter Meetings in December.


Congratulations to Chris Conroy and Tim Steinhaus, leaders in their profession and keeping Cardinals minor leaguers healthy and active!

Why Holliday should bat second


By Ian Walton

The Cardinals were rightfully pleased to add new cleanup hitter Matt Holliday to their roster in their quest to reach the playoffs and the World Series here in 2009. Holliday provides a significant upgrade in left field and has helped to spark St. Louis’ offense ever since his arrival. I do have one concern, however. Holliday does not belong hitting behind Albert Pujols in the clean up spot.

Why would I say something crazy like that? Wasn’t the entire purpose of acquiring Holliday to provide Pujols with some protection in the batting lineup? Now I’ll readily grant you that I may, in fact, be crazy. However, I’m still fairly sure that Holliday’s suitability for the cleanup role rests solely upon his reputation from playing in Coors Field. Let’s turn to the cold, hard data:

Holliday career PA AB H BB K 2B 3B HR SB CS AVG OBP SLG OPS
Total 3405 3031 964 303 569 217 24 140 79 21 0.318 0.388 0.544 0.932
At Coors Field 1517 1353 483 129 230 106 16 84 28 9 0.357 0.423 0.645 1.068
Outside Colorado 1888 1678 481 174 339 111 8 56 51 12 0.287 0.360 0.462 0.822

The differences here are clear. Holliday is a quality batter either way, but his batting average and particularly his slugging percentage undoubtedly benefited from being a mile high. In a standard full season of plate appearances away from Coors Field, he could be considered fortunate to average any better than 20 home runs.

Uh oh? Well, maybe not. Despite not mashing like a true cleanup hitter, Holliday is by far the Cardinals’ second best hitter when ranked by OPS this season. He is flashing solid doubles power, has seen a dramatic improvement in his plate discipline for the second straight season, and has even chosen to make himself an increased danger on the base paths when not playing in the land of the home run and leads the Cardinals in steals. Despite only ranking as the 51st best player in the major leagues in slugging percentage, he does rank 16th in on-base percentage. That sounds a heck of a lot like a top of the order hitter to me. Sure, he probably has too much power to burn hitting leadoff, but batting second in the order may not be a bad fit at all. So who hits behind Pujols? Let’s look at this season’s top three options:

2009 PA AB H BB K 2B 3B HR SB CS AVG OBP SLG OPS
Matt Holliday 437 375 116 52 64 29 1 12 13 4 0.309 0.400 0.488 0.888
Mark DeRosa 385 343 89 33 82 14 0 20 1 1 0.259 0.328 0.475 0.803
Ryan Ludwick 337 302 81 28 62 11 1 17 4 0 0.268 0.333 0.480 0.813

Here we see very similar slugging percentages among Holliday, Mark DeRosa, and Ryan Ludwick. However, it is clear that the latter two have filled their numbers with round trippers while the former is all doubles. DeRosa and Ludwick apparently don’t reach base terribly often. Their strengths lie in driving in runners, not in reaching base to be driven in by others.

Ludwick has been fairly secure in the number five spot of late, but DeRosa has been bounced all around the order since returning from injury, primarily landing at numbers two or seven in the lineup. Really? You either want to hope that your .328 OBP hitter gets on base for Pujols and the heart of the order or you want to bury your team’s fourth highest OPS way down in the seventh hole?

Well what about the rest of the team? Of the regulars, Skip Schumaker has an OPS of .757, Colby Rasmus .737, Yadier Molina .718, Rick Ankiel .702 and everyone else is even lower. Of those, Rasmus and Ankiel have slugging percentages over .400 (.431 and .411 respectively), but despite their ability to mix up the middle of the lineup with a left-handed hitter, their numbers don’t exactly cry out heart of the order. What about on-base percentage? Well, only Schumaker at .360 and Molina at .350 can even top Ludwick’s numbers in this group, and Molina is too slow to bat second. Sure, Julio Lugo is playing well over his head in limited action this season, but his career numbers say that he should come back to earth soon.

So why not go with Schumaker-Holliday-Pujols-DeRosa-Ludwick instead at the top of the lineup? Your five best hitters (by OPS) get the most at-bats and everyone is slotted into a role that suits him. Your centerfielder for the day, whether Ankiel or Rasmus, can provide a second lefty in the lineup at number six and Molina and the shortstop du jour can round out the bottom of the order. If you don’t trust DeRosa’s power, having seen it only emerge over the past couple of seasons, put him fifth and let the career .506 slugging Ludwick bat cleanup. On the other hand, DeRosa has already hit seven home runs in 65 AB for the Cardinals.

So to summarize, Holliday is a great ballplayer, but despite his reputation as a power hitter, his skill set outside of Coors Field profiles him as a much better hitter in front of Pujols than behind him. Batting Holliday second would have the added benefit of placing DeRosa in the heart of the lineup where he belongs and bumping the team’s lesser hitters lower in the order where they see fewer at bats.


All statistics above are accurate through 7/31/2009. Thanks to Baseball Reference for statistical support.

Holliday hitting and getting on base at a record pace


Hitting cleanup behind superstar Albert Pujols, new St. Louis Cardinals left fielder Matt Holliday is clearly loving it. In every one of his eight games in the uniform to date, Holliday has at least one hit, 17 in total.

His long list of safeties include six doubles and a home run, with his most recent carnage consisting of three singles and the game-tying double in four at-bats Friday night as the Cardinals came back to defeat the Houston Astros 4-3.

Holliday is the first player to begin his Cardinals career by hitting safely in his first eight games since the great Roger Maris in 1967. If he keeps on this pace through the weekend, he will tie Charley Smith (1966) and Alvin Dark (1956) for the longest such Cardinals streak in at least the last 55 years, ten games.

In terms of getting on base multiple times per game, Holliday’s eight-game-and-counting run is already the longest by a new Cardinals player since at least 1954. The previous record was just five games, set by quickly-forgotten Chuck Carr in 1992.

Holliday will certainly be remembered longer. Perhaps much longer…

Consecutive Games with a Hit to Start Cardinals Career (1954-2009)

Streak Start Streak End G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SO BB SB CS BA OBP SLG
Charley Smith 4/13/1966 4/24/1966 10 37 6 18 4 1 1 2 1 3 0 0 .486 .525 .730
Alvin Dark 6/15/1956 6/24/1956 10 45 9 21 1 1 1 3 4 1 2 0 .467 .468 .600
Matt Holliday 7/24/2009 7/31/2009 * 8 29 6 17 6 0 1 8 6 6 1 1 .586 .649 .897
Roger Maris 4/11/1967 4/22/1967 8 33 8 14 4 1 0 4 3 2 0 0 .424 .444 .606
Bo Hart 6/19/2003 6/26/2003 7 35 7 18 2 2 1 5 4 1 0 0 .514 .528 .771
Cesar Cedeno 8/30/1985 9/8/1985 7 17 5 9 2 0 2 6 2 0 0 1 .529 .529 1.000
Terry Pendleton 7/18/1984 7/24/1984 7 29 4 12 2 0 0 2 3 2 0 0 .414 .452 .483
Gino Cimoli 4/10/1959 4/17/1959 7 27 5 11 2 0 0 5 2 3 1 0 .407 .467 .481
John Rodriguez 7/18/2005 7/23/2005 6 21 4 8 2 0 2 3 5 2 0 0 .381 .435 .762
Tony Womack 4/5/2004 4/11/2004 6 26 6 11 3 0 0 1 5 3 4 0 .423 .483 .538
Chuck Carr 9/8/1992 9/17/1992 6 25 4 9 3 0 0 2 4 4 5 0 .360 .448 .480
Mike Fitzgerald 6/23/1988 6/28/1988 6 25 3 7 1 0 0 1 3 0 0 0 .280 .280 .320
Ken Boyer 4/12/1955 4/18/1955 6 28 4 9 2 1 1 6 5 1 1 1 .321 .345 .571
Wally Moon 4/13/1954 4/20/1954 6 23 7 8 2 1 2 5 2 4 0 0 .348 .429 .783
Julio Lugo 7/24/2009 7/29/2009 5 25 5 10 2 2 1 3 5 1 1 0 .400 .423 .760
Will Clark 8/1/2000 8/6/2000 5 14 6 9 1 0 4 7 1 5 0 0 .643 .737 1.571
Royce Clayton 4/1/1996 4/6/1996 5 25 2 8 3 1 0 5 5 2 2 1 .320 .357 .520
Steve Lake 8/12/1986 8/19/1986 5 16 1 5 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 .313 .313 .375
Lonnie Smith 4/6/1982 4/11/1982 5 20 5 8 0 0 1 6 2 3 4 2 .400 .500 .550
Willie Davis 6/6/1975 6/11/1975 5 22 4 8 2 1 0 1 0 1 0 0 .364 .391 .545
Ken Reitz 9/5/1972 9/8/1972 5 21 4 12 1 0 0 2 0 0 0 1 .571 .545 .619
Jose Cruz 9/19/1970 10/1/1970 5 17 2 6 1 0 0 1 0 3 0 0 .353 .476 .412
Julio Gotay 8/6/1960 6/18/1961 5 17 3 7 1 0 0 2 3 0 1 0 .412 .412 .471
Don Blasingame 9/20/1955 9/25/1955 5 16 4 6 1 0 0 0 0 6 1 1 .375 .545 .438

On-Base Streak – Two or More Times per Game to Start Cardinals Career (1954-2009)

Streak Start Streak End G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SO BB SB CS BA OBP SLG
Matt Holliday 7/24/2009 7/31/2009 * 8 29 6 17 6 0 1 8 6 6 1 1 .586 .649 .897
Chuck Carr 9/8/1992 9/16/1992 5 21 4 8 3 0 0 2 3 4 4 0 .381 .480 .524
Ron Gant 4/1/1996 4/5/1996 4 13 5 5 0 0 2 8 2 5 1 0 .385 .550 .846
Willie Davis 6/6/1975 6/9/1975 4 18 4 7 2 1 0 1 0 1 0 0 .389 .421 .611
Don Blasingame 9/20/1955 9/24/1955 4 12 3 5 1 0 0 0 0 6 1 1 .417 .611 .500
Julio Lugo 7/24/2009 7/26/2009 3 14 4 8 2 2 1 2 3 0 1 0 .571 .571 1.214
Aaron Miles 4/3/2006 4/6/2006 3 11 3 7 2 1 0 3 1 2 1 0 .636 .714 1.000
Yadier Molina 6/3/2004 6/5/2004 3 10 3 3 1 0 0 1 2 3 0 0 .300 .462 .400
Bo Hart 6/19/2003 6/21/2003 3 12 3 7 2 2 0 3 1 1 0 0 .583 .615 1.083
Jim Edmonds 4/3/2000 4/6/2000 3 8 5 3 1 0 1 5 3 5 0 0 .375 .615 .875
Mike Matheny 4/3/2000 4/6/2000 3 11 3 6 2 0 1 3 1 1 0 0 .545 .583 1.000
Pat Borders 4/1/1996 4/6/1996 3 14 1 6 2 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 .429 .429 .571
Danny Sheaffer 4/30/1995 5/4/1995 3 11 4 6 1 0 1 4 2 1 0 0 .545 .583 .909
Bob Horner 4/4/1988 4/8/1988 3 9 2 2 0 0 1 1 1 4 0 0 .222 .500 .556
Roger Maris 4/11/1967 4/15/1967 3 13 4 7 2 1 0 1 1 1 0 0 .538 .571 .846
Dick Groat 4/9/1963 4/13/1963 3 13 5 6 0 1 2 3 1 2 0 0 .462 .533 1.077
Bill Virdon 4/12/1955 4/16/1955 3 15 4 6 1 0 1 1 2 2 0 0 .400 .471 .667
Joe Cunningham 6/30/1954 7/2/1954 3 11 5 5 0 0 3 9 1 2 0 0 .455 .538 1.273

* current streak

When Houston was on the Cardinals’ side


Houston, Texas may be the home of the St. Louis Cardinals’ weekend opponent and NL Central Division rival, the Astros (formerly known as the Colt .45’s), but the city also has a rich heritage as one of, if not the most important minor league club in the Cardinals system.

With the trail blazed by future Hall of Fame executive Branch Rickey, the Buffaloes were a Cards affiliate from 1921 through 1958. Countless future major league stars such as Dizzy Dean (pictured in a Houston uniform), Ducky Medwick and Ken Boyer played there. As a result, many Houstonians and Texans for that matter, have a soft spot in their heart for the organization, having been long-time members of the Cardinal Nation.

As a precursor to the Major League club’s three World Series appearances (and two wins) from 1942 through 1945, the Buffs took three straight Texas League regular–season crowns in 1939, 1940 and 1941, winning 97, 105 and 103 regular-season games respectively. In 1941, future Cardinals star left-hander Howie Pollet paced the league with 151 strikeouts, a 1.16 ERA and tossed a no-hitter.

The Buffs took a total of eight league titles under the Cardinals umbrella, including four during the 1950’s – 1951, 1954, 1956 and 1957. Jerry Witte led the Texas League with 38 home runs in 1951 while Bob Mabe paced the circuit with 21 wins and 195 strikeouts in 1956.

Over the past few days, my friend, historian and Houston blogger Bill McCurdy has penned two excellent articles about the Buffs. One highlights players from his formative years, focusing on the period 1947-1953, while the other lists a broad cross-section of future major leaguers that once wore the Houston uniform. It is a very, very impressive list and both offer some great reading for Cardinals history buffs (pun intended).

“My Team: Houston Buffs Forever!”

“Roll Call of the Buffs”

Pujols moves up on list of Cards last at-bat winning hits


In Wednesday night’s 15-inning marathon 3-2 win over the Los Angeles Dodgers, St. Louis Cardinals first baseman Albert Pujols finished 3-for-7 with a walk-off RBI single.

With the help of Tom Orf, let’s put that walk-off into Cardinals historical context.

While the walk-off is the most exciting of game-ending hits, it is just one of three related flavors of last at-bat winning hits. As the table below indicates, a road club can also collect a game-winning hit in their last at-bat in the top of the final inning. Finally, a home team can score in their last at-bat in the bottom of the eighth to secure a win.

No matter which of the game-enders interest you, the data is below. The subset of each kind of game-ending hits which were home runs are broken out separately.

When considering the long franchise history of the Cardinals, it is not surprising that Stan Musial leads in two of the three types of last at-bat winning hits. However, Pujols is rapidly moving up the ranks, already leading the Cardinals in eighth-inning last at-bat winning hits.

Last at-bat game-winning hits – Cardinals history

Walkoff Road Home 8th All
HR-Total HR-Total HR-Total HR-Total
Stan Musial 12-21 8-23 3-4 23-48
Lou Brock 3-12 5-11 1-6 9-29
Albert Pujols 7-11 6-7 6-10 19-28
Ted Simmons 1-8 4-14 1-4 6-26
Ken Boyer 5-13 5-9 0-3 10-25
Enos Slaughter 3-12 1-3 4-8 8-23
Joe Medwick 3-9 1-6 3-6 7-21
Ozzie Smith 1-7 0-9 0-4 1-20
Curt Flood 2-10 3-5 0-4 5-19
Red Schoendienst 0-9 0-7 0-3 0-19
Terry Moore 2-9 2-7 0-1 4-17
Tom Herr 2-9 1-6 0-2 3-17
Ray Lankford 3-9 3-7 0-1 6-17
Tim McCarver 1-9 1-4 2-3 4-16
Willie McGee 2-9 0-7 0-0 2-16
Tom Pagnozzi 3-10 1-5 0-1 3-16
Ken Reitz 1-6 3-8 0-2 4-16
Pepper Martin 3-9 1-3 0-2 4-14
Joe Cunningham 2-6 1-5 1-3 4-14
Brian Jordan 1-4 2-4 2-6 5-14
Terry Pendleton 0-4 0-5 1-5 1-14
Mike Shannon 0-5 1-7 1-2 2-14

Holliday and more: Recapping the last week


It has been a busy week both for the St .Louis Cardinals and those of us who cover them. This post is an attempt to pull together some of my thoughts and organize them a bit.

Yesterday, I received a note from a long-time reader suggesting that someone needs to step up and give credit to the Cardinals “front office and management for giving the team a chance to win. They truly stood up.”

I have dissected the Matt Holliday trade, trying to define how the success of the deal could be quantified. At the time of the Mark DeRosa acquisition, I gave ownership kudos for backing up their infamous “dry powder” comments from the off-season.

Yet I haven’t really said much about the events of the last week in a comprehensive manner.


Let’s start with the Chris Duncan for Julio Lugo trade. It was unfortunate that the behind-the-scenes unhappiness of Duncan’s father became public. While pitching coach Dave Duncan usually gets praise from this corner for being a straight shooter, his comments critical of the front office would have been better left unsaid.

If Chris Duncan is truly healthy, his poor results on the field dictated something needed to be done. A fresh start with an American League club where he can both compete for time at first base and designated hitter may be best for him over the long haul. Instead, had Duncan remained around following the arrival of Matt Holliday, his opportunity for at-bats would have evaporated, anyway.

The acquisition of Lugo with little to no salary commitment for the next two months plus the entire 2010 season was a nice return for Duncan in my opinion, despite what Papa had to say. In the upcoming days, I am hoping to see more of the Lugo at second, Brendan Ryan at shortstop combo.


Jess Todd being selected by Cleveland as the player to be named later in the DeRosa trade was a tough pill to swallow, coming on top of losing Chris Perez in the same deal.

Stepping back however, the Cardinals believed that Todd, their Minor League Pitcher of the Year in 2008, was better suited to a relief role than starting. Given their obvious need at the back end of the big league rotation, they would not have made the change with Todd had they not believed it was best.

Of all the commodities that make up a baseball team, arguably right-handed relievers may be the most plentiful. That is not to say that Perez and Todd may not be fine major leaguers for a long time, but they are more replaceable than most.


That brings me to the Holliday trade. My initial reaction was negative, as losing six years of Brett Wallace for two guaranteed months of Holliday alone seemed imbalanced – even before adding Clayton Mortensen and Shane Peterson to the Oakland A’s take.

Again looking at the bigger picture, the Cardinals did what they felt they needed to do to win this year. That could be expanded to include future years if DeRosa and Holliday can be re-signed.

At this point, anyone questioning the commitment of Cardinals ownership would seem to be on very shaky ground.


The St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Joe Strauss has consistently bashed those who follow the Cardinals minor league system, coining the derogative term “Hyperventilating Prospect Geek Fraternity” to describe them.

For awhile, that bothered me until I reminded myself that Strauss isn’t making this stuff up. He may very well be reflecting a strong line of feeling emanating from those with whom he deals regularly.

Real tension remains in the organization, but how much is too much? By definition, when one faction is missioned with “winning now” while another is to build for the future, tradeoffs have to be made.

Perhaps one such “HPGF” member is Erik Manning, well-known from his past work at Future Redbirds. Blogging for FanGraphs, Manning expresses disappointment over the recent trades, saying they “gutted” and “razed” St. Louis’ farm system.

I can understand where he is coming from, though as noted above, I am going to let the season play out before second-guessing such an aggressive set of moves clearly intended to win now.

What bothered me, and apparently Rob Neyer of ESPN, too, is Manning’s use of the trades to attack Tony La Russa.

Manning asserts the deals were made to “assuage” the manager. Apparently, he feels that because La Russa made public comments about liking Holliday as a player, it translates into ownership rolling over for him.

The reason Manning states is to convince La Russa into staying in St. Louis beyond this season. Never once was it noted that the Cardinals are a better team right now as a result. Never once was it suggested that a more competitive team is what Albert Pujols has said will be his biggest factor in deciding whether to re-sign with the Cardinals.

I just don’t buy Erik’s line of thinking.

Commitments to win come at a cost. We all understand that. If Manning sees the price to have been too high from his vantage point as a prospect-watcher, I can accept that, too.

But dredging up La Russa’s past squabbles with Scott Rolen and Adam Kennedy seem to be a huge stretch. Does anyone really believe that the trades this July would have been unnecessary if Rolen and Kennedy were still Cardinals?

Further, blaming La Russa for Rolen’s issues with the Cardinals organization is a gross oversimplification. The genesis of Rolen’s problems was with the medical advice and treatment prescribed by the club’s physicians. The other issues were a by-product of Rolen’s unhappiness.

Who knows all the details behind Kennedy’s problems? Not being in the clubhouse every day or in many cases never, means we may be tempted to try to draw firm conclusions from snippets of data. Team chemistry cannot be measured by WAR or UZR.

But anyway, what does it matter? Rolen and Kennedy are irrelevant to Holliday and DeRosa, irrelevant to here and now.

As Neyer concludes, “What I’m saying is that La Russa, after 2,516 wins, may have earned the benefit of the doubt on personnel matters.”

Manning closes with a stern warning: “I can only fear what will happen to the Cardinals if they keep him (La Russa) around longer.”

Who knows? They might even win another World Series.

Wednesday live blogging on FOX Sports Midwest


I am returning as a panelist for FOX Sports Midwest’s weekly live blog session to be held throughout Wednesday evening’s Cardinals-Dodgers game.

You can participate via FOX Sports Midwest’s website or once the event begins, you can enter your comments and questions right here in the “CoveritLive” area below.

Joel Pineiro faces Clayton Kershaw as the Cards try to go up three games to none in their four-game home series against the team with the best record in Major League Baseball.

Wednesday’s first pitch is scheduled for 7:15 p.m. Central.

Carpenter’s consistency continues


On Monday evening at Busch Stadium, the offense and defense received the majority of the attention in a 6-1 St. Louis Cardinals victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Though he was not dominant, Cards starting pitcher Chris Carpenter held the visitors to just one run over seven innings. He was aided by solid defensive play, especially from shortstop Brendan Ryan and right fielder Ryan Ludwick.

In quietly picking up his ninth win of the season against just three losses, the 34 year-old-ace lowered his season’s ERA to 2.19. As always, Carpenter did not beat himself, allowing just two walks over his  seven mound innings.

In fact, it was the 32nd consecutive start by the right-hander in which he issued two or fewer walks. Tom Orf helps us put this into context by providing the list of such Cardinals streaks this decade.

Cardinals consecutive starts with two or fewer walks (2000-2009)

Streak start Streak end G W L CG SHO IP H R ER BB SO HR ERA
Chris Carpenter 7/30/2006 7/27/2009 * 32 14 9 5 2 214.1 183 74 70 34 157 12 2.94
Chris Carpenter 5/29/2005 9/18/2005 21 14 2 6 3 163.2 118 35 34 25 142 10 1.87
Joel Pineiro 4/22/2009 7/24/2009 * 17 7 9 3 2 116.2 108 45 35 9 49 2 2.70
Woody Williams 6/16/2002 5/10/2003 17 10 2 1 0 112.1 90 28 28 18 82 8 2.24
Kyle Lohse 5/13/2008 7/27/2008 15 9 1 0 0 95 96 36 33 17 54 11 3.13
Matt Morris 5/9/2003 8/28/2003 15 5 4 2 2 85.2 99 49 47 16 55 10 4.94
Darryl Kile 6/24/2000 9/7/2000 15 7 5 4 1 106 98 41 38 18 81 13 3.23
Adam Wainwright 4/26/2008 9/13/2008 14 7 2 1 0 91.1 86 37 34 19 62 11 3.35
Matt Morris 9/15/2004 6/6/2005 13 7 1 1 0 81.2 76 39 34 16 58 8 3.75
Joel Pineiro 7/21/2008 4/10/2009 11 5 3 0 0 64.2 83 44 41 12 37 14 5.71
Chris Carpenter 7/30/2004 4/10/2005 11 6 2 1 0 64.2 62 29 25 11 52 7 3.48
Jason Simontacchi 5/7/2003 9/2/2003 11 4 3 1 0 59 73 45 42 15 44 14 6.41
Kyle Lohse 8/23/2008 4/23/2009 10 5 0 1 1 64 62 23 20 14 42 4 2.81
Braden Looper 7/4/2008 8/24/2008 10 3 5 0 0 63 58 25 24 12 36 11 3.43
Andy Benes 4/29/2000 6/17/2000 10 5 2 0 0 64.1 73 32 32 14 59 12 4.48

While Carpenter’s current run is by far the longest for the club this decade, he also holds the second-longest such streak, accomplished during his stellar Cy Young Award campaign in 2005.

Another active streak is tied for third on the list. Fellow starter Joel Pineiro currently is working on a 17-game run. Even more amazing is that Pineiro has given out just nine free passes and allowed only two home runs in total during those 17 starts.

Pineiro will be trying to extend his streak when he opposes the Dodgers on Wednesday night.  Carpenter will be pitching this weekend against the visiting Houston Astros.

Scout.com Cardinals site gets new name


Effective Monday, July 27, Scout.com’s St. Louis Cardinals’ website has been renamed “The Cardinal Nation”. “The Birdhouse” name has been retired.

While our name has changed, in terms of site access, nothing has changed – other than a new logo and the fact that the URL thecardinalnation.com will be pointing to stlcardinals.scout.com, instead of here.

All of our writers remain and their content continues uninterrupted, including prospect interviews, team reports, and insider news. Our great free features continue like our daily major and minor league reports, extensive player database with photos and links to an entire career of feature articles, along with free message boards to discuss and debate the Cardinals and their minor league affiliates.

“The Cardinal Nation blog”, thecardinalnationblog.com, continues right here with my more personal commentary and opinion-type pieces.

To summarize the URLs:

Scout.com website, The Cardinal Nation: stlcardinals.scout.com or thecardinalnation.com

My blog, The Cardinal Nation blog: thecardinalnationblog.com

I appreciate your readership and hope you like the changes and increased energy we are bringing to the Scout.com site.

As it has all along, this blog will remain ad-free, clutter-free and will offer new Cardinals news and commentary on a daily basis – because I love what I do. Thanks for stopping by!

Holliday, Lugo fast starters for Cardinals


On Friday night in Philadelphia, the newest St. Louis Cardinal, outfielder Matt Holliday, celebrated his trade from Oakland with a four-hit game. That tied his career high. It was Holliday’s 15th career four-hit game and third of this season. The first two were on May 19 at Detroit and this Monday, July 20 at Minnesota.

Holliday was just the third Cardinal in at least the last 55 years to have as many as four hits in his first game wearing the uniform.

Cardinals most hits, first game (1954-2009)

Player Date Hits
Matt Holliday 7/24/2009 4
Aaron Miles 4/3/2006 4
George Altman 4/9/1963 4

New infielder Julio Lugo, who joined the club the day before from Boston, also got into his first game action as a Cardinal on Friday night and ultimately had an even better first weekend than Holliday. Lugo collected eight hits and Holliday seven over the three games at Philadelphia.

Lugo hit for the weekend cycle, including two triples, two doubles and a home run while Holliday had four doubles among his seven safeties. The two are currently tied for third for the most extra-base-hit games to start a Cardinals career since at least 1954 and have a chance to move up the list this week as the Cards entertain the Dodgers at Busch Stadium starting on Monday night.

Extra-base-hit games to start Cardinals career (1954-2009)

Start End G
Will Clark 8/1/2000 8/6/2000 5
Charley Smith 4/13/1966 4/16/1966 4
Matt Holliday 7/24/2009 7/26/2009 * 3
Julio Lugo 7/24/2009 7/26/2009 * 3
Bo Hart 6/19/2003 6/21/2003 3
Ray Burris 5/10/1986 5/30/1986 3
Cesar Cedeno 8/30/1985 9/2/1985 3
Reggie Smith 4/5/1974 4/10/1974 3
Ted Kubiak 7/31/1971 8/4/1971 3
Wally Moon 4/13/1954 4/17/1954 3
* still active

Lugo is the fourth player in at least the last 55 years to start his Cardinals career with three two-or-more-hit games and is the first during that period to have eight hits in his first three games with a hit in each game.

I find several of the names on the lists surprising, including an especially large concentration of catchers.

Most multi-hit games to start Cardinals career (1954-2009)

Year Games
Julio Lugo 2009 3 *
Bo Hart 2003 3
Pat Borders 1996 3
Roger Maris 1967 3
* current streak

Most hits over first three Cardinals games, hitting in each game (1954-2009)

Year Hits
Julio Lugo 2009 8
Matt Holliday 2009 7
Aaron Miles 2006 7
George Altman 1963 7
Mike Matheny 2000 6
Pat Borders 1996 6
Danny Sheaffer 1995 6
Bill Virdon 1955 6

In the oddest of these odd stats, only two Cardinals have doubled in each of first three games since 1954. Prior to Holliday, pitcher Ray Burris did it in 1986, but it took him 21 days of elapsed time to accomplish the feat.

Doubles in first three Cardinals games (1954-2009)

Year
Matt Holliday 2009
Ray Burris 1986 *
* over 21 days

Watching the two new Cardinals in person in all three games this past weekend, I was actually more impressed with Lugo’s hitting. He seemed to put the bat squarely on the ball each time, hitting the ball hard, even into outs. Over his career in Citizens Bank Park, Lugo is now batting over .500 (21-for-41).

Thanks to Tom Orf for the data pulls and in indulging my questions.

TCN blog’s Pineiro facts featured on KSDK Channel 5


On Sunday, July 26, our recent article about Joel Pineiro’s pitching and hitting feats, “Pineiro carries the load”, provided the basis of “The Play of the Week” segment of the “This Week in Cardinal Nation” television program, shown twice every Sunday on KSDK Channel 5 in St. Louis.

We are proud to have been selected again to be highlighted by our friends at Channel 5, the Sunday home of the St. Louis Cardinals. Now, on to the video!