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Will Leitch is a Cardinals fan and founder of Deadspin? That’s kind of amazing considering how much Deadspin craps on the Cardinals year-in and year-out.
Apparently, fandom is secondary to attention and clicks. Using it as a springboard into traditional media, he eventually left Deadspin behind.
If the Brewers only win 78 games that would be the shock of the year. I think they win more like 88.
Leitch’s most damaging attack was when he accused Pujols’ personal trainer of being a supplier of HGH. Probably because the trainer was a relative unknown, Deadspin plastered Pujols’ photo all over the article, and he became guilty by association. This generated a lot of national attention, all negative, as you can imagine.
Four months later, an investigation by real journalists, from the Los Angeles Times, not Deadspin, determined that the trainer was another man, not the one connected to Pujols. Of course, the damage was done but Deadspin had already received all its attention.
Leitch apologized to the trainer, but nothing about Albert was said, other than they added a footnote to the original article stating that they intended no connection to Albert (likely lawyer-driven). They also removed Pujols’ photo, but the apology received almost no attention compared to the original expose’.
Even if Leitch is the most talented writer in the history of mankind, I cannot understand why his past as the founder and long-time leader of the web’s worst lowlife, muckraking sports site has been ignored. This isn’t just satire – it is direct attacks on people who may be innocent – with zero accountability.
Who cares if reputations are destroyed? We have some great dirt on someone you know from a questionable source. Whoops, we made a mistake – sorry about that. But hey, I got a great new job in the mainstream media. Look at me, I am legit!
If you want to read about it, here is a link.
https://thecardinalnation.com/midslingers-again-take-aim-at-pujols/
I put some weight on gambling odds because people are willing to put money behind them. I just received the latest today. (Source is bovada.lv)
MLB Win Totals
Houston Astros 96½
Los Angeles Dodgers 96½
Chicago Cubs 94½
Cleveland Indians 94½
New York Yankees 94½
Washington Nationals 92½
Boston Red Sox 91½
Arizona Diamondbacks 85½
St. Louis Cardinals 85½
Los Angeles Angels 84½
Milwaukee Brewers 84½
Minnesota Twins 82½
Colorado Rockies 82
San Francisco Giants 81½
Seattle Mariners 81½
New York Mets 81
Toronto Blue Jays 81
Tampa Bay Rays 77½
Texas Rangers 77½
Philadelphia Phillies 75½
Atlanta Braves 74½
Oakland Athletics 74½
Cincinnati Reds 73½
Baltimore Orioles 73
Pittsburgh Pirates 73
Kansas City Royals 71½
San Diego Padres 69½
Detroit Tigers 68½
Chicago White Sox 68
Miami Marlins 64½Here is a national writer from MLB.com who is very high on the Cardinals. He did not predict a win total other than to say he likes the Cards better than the Brewers. OK, but he is using five-year regular-season won-loss record to assert that the Cards have not been on a decline. I thought this was a lost tweet from 2015!
Only 2 teams have won more games than the Cardinals over the last five years. If that's a decline, sign me up. https://t.co/TDbkKG4WWi
— Mike Petriello (@mike_petriello) February 16, 2018
As if on cue, an announcement from Bernie.
On behalf of the great @williamfleitch we humbly ask for assistance as we near the launch of our Cardinals podcast. Your creativity and depravity are essential; we need a damned title for the thing. Ready set GO!
— Bernie Miklasz (@miklasz) February 16, 2018
This will be a good one to remember. From Bernie at The Athletic.
“…I have several reasons to envision the Cardinals exceeding their FanGraphs projection of 87 wins…”
“Here are the baseball factors that should lead to an increase in wins, to get the Cardinals to the 90+ level…”
From page 1 of this thread, here is what Bernie wrote just last month about last year’s predictions.
“…the sunshiny, blue-sky forecasts from fans and media that had the 2017 Cardinals winning 90+ games…”
And now, he is making the exact same kind of prediction for 2018 that he criticized for 2017 in hindsight.
What do you think? Do you see the 2018 Cardinals team as being seven or more games better than last year’s edition? Why or why not?
I’m going to say we will not be seven games better than last year due to too much volatility in the rotation and bullpen. One mitigating factor would be an aggressive move or two at the deadline but that would be out of character for our front office.
I agree with this assessment. Outstanding article.
According to Fangraphs, the Cardinals’ schedule is worth one win to them in 2018. They have the Cards down for 87 wins before and 88.3 including schedule adjustment. Their St. Louis playoff odds are currently 71%.
https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/here-are-the-projected-2018-strengths-of-schedule/
The Bounce Back Teams.
Difference between projected WAR and 17 WAR, minimum 200 PA in 2017, grouped by team;
1) Blue Jays
2) Red Sox
3) Orioles
4) Tigers
5) Rangers
6) Cubs
7) Rays— Eno Sarris (@enosarris) March 21, 2018
From the “spring training results do not matter (or do they?) dept.”:
Tied for best spring record in MLB – Milwaukee 17-7 (.708)
Tied for 4th-best spring record – Cubs 16-10 (.615)
Tied for 10th-best spring record – Cards 13-11 (.542)Heyman says there are seven “super teams” then a few others fighting to get a seat at the table.
https://www.fanragsports.com/mlb/inside-baseball-preseason-power-rankings/
In the why I dont trust projectiions catagory – baseball reference has Steven Baron projected for a .741 OPS even though his career high minor league OPS is .735 and every other season was below .700.
I agree that example is bad, but painting all projections, no matter the source, with the same broad brush seems unfair.
I want to believe in the Team and the offense could be scary good based on what I’ve heard and seen the last 10 days. Dejong hitting 7th got me giddy although Molina hitting there would be best.
The pitching and manager still has me holding back a bit. I say were at this point on the cusp but right now just outside of playoff spot. Plus how many losses will we sustain due to our pitchers still unable to throw to a bag?
Booyah, Zach Rymer with Bleacher Reports along with Picota projections agree with you regarding the Cards just missing the post-season. BUT they still have to play the games.
************************************************************************St. Louis Cardinals
2017: 83-79
PECOTA 2018: 85-77
The Cardinals won 83 games last year despite not really being good at anything. That should change at least on the offensive front in 2018. Assuming he can pick up where he left off after a career-best 2017, Marcell Ozuna will be the big slugger the Redbirds were missing.
The real question is how the Cardinals will perform on the mound. The upside of guys like Carlos Martinez, Michael Wacha, Luke Weaver and Alex Reyes (who should return from Tommy John surgery in May) is a reason to hope for the best. Even so, this is a list of names that only covers a fraction of the entire ensemble. That’s a reason for unease.
Prediction: 84-78
P-D columnist Ortiz pegs the Cards to finish in first place ahead of the Cubs.
If you care about the #STLCards, you owe it to yourself to read the @stltoday special section on the Cardinals. Call me homer, but I picked the Cardinals to win the NL Central. https://t.co/eQYTQ6QEuW
— Jose de Jesus Ortiz (@OrtizKicks) March 25, 2018
The pitching and manager still has me holding back a bit. I say were at this point on the cusp but right now just outside of playoff spot.
I am pretty much in line with 858booyah’s assessment on the 2018 club. I do not think we have the quality nor depth in pitching to hold up over the course of the season. We will go through some stretches where the offense is clickling and reel off 5,6,7 in a row by scoring 6-10 runs per game. But I think we will also go through times where the offense will stall a little and we are not able to win those games. This will keep us from being in contention at the end. Below is a copy-paste of my thoughts as I expressed them in the Regular season game 1 thread:
The plan to move relievers back and forth between Memphis and St. Louis does not bode well in my opinion. They say they are going to do it to keep fresh arms available at all times. So what is Stubby supposed to do when he has one of the “shuffled” players, not use him? Plus we are dealing with people, not robots or player cards from a table top game. I would think all of the moving around and changes in roles, locations, levels of play etc would make it tough for a guy to get into a groove.
Hopefully I am wrong and the club “goes crazy” and wins 97 games or so. With some better fundamentals than last year, they could add a couple of wins right there. But it just seems like they are running the show in the way Matheny always does things, which is micro-manage. You cannot do that and expect players to get the most from their talent.
My prediction is a low 80s win total.
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