2022 Cardinals MLB Game 116 thread – Wednesday, August 17 vs. Rockies

Gorman won’t play 2B he will likely DH. Edman will play 2B as always should.

GameCard…Eddie’s showing the he’s coming back to life after the HR yesterday and a 2 for 2, with a double, an IF hit and a SB in Sunday’s ballgame. He’s one of my favorites and I’d still like to see him back in the lead-off slot, but if that doesn’t happen anytime soon, I wouldn’t mind at all if he were placed in the 9 slot and traded places with Nootz up in the order at 6. I think both players are better suited to those two placements in order. At any rate, in my view there’s no way the 6 slot for Eddie is suited for this offense, and with him at 9 the order has a decent chance to turn over with him aboard the bases for the big kids with the bats to push him across HP. Thoughts on that?

He is a solid player.

Oliver…Yeah, it’s real difficult to not see his value. I’ll be the first to concede that he hasn’t been getting it done with the bat for several weeks now, but he hasn’t been too terribly bad and seems to be starting to scuffle his way back to the guy I’ve come to know. Let’s hope so anyway. I’m confident that he’ll amp it up for the stretch and into the post-season if the Cardinals do indeed qualify for bonus baseball.

Edman at 9 makes a lot of sense. I kind of like Nooty in the top spot, with Carlson at two.

Goldy over 90 RBI now. Good to have him in a run producing place this year, after having him at 2 most of last year. I think he ended at 97 RBI last year, or around there as at 2 you do not quite get the opportunities that come with the 3 slot.

A broken record here, but am still not sold on DeJong. I would slide Edman over to short and put Gorman at second against righty pitchers, with DeJong in for defense late in games where we lead, and Tommy back over to second. Although Gorman looks athletically well suited to play second full time in the future.

BikeMike…Yeah, it seemed to be the lastest fashion for a while for several teams to place a hitter like Goldschmidt in the 2 slot. I never understood that and always thought it was a given that your best hitter be firmly entrenched at 3. DeJong? I’m thankful for what he’s featured since his return, but the genuine reality is that it’s alway been feast or famine insofar as his bat. He feasts during the run of holidays and suffers through extended periods of slow and painful starvation for the remainder of the year. In any event, his glove remains very reliable and consistent.

In Quintana’s debut with the Cardinals in Chicago he worked 6 IP, allowing only 1 hit and 1 run on a solo HR in the 1st inning of that game and still received a ND after holding a 2-1 lead thru 6 IP when the baseball was handed to Hicks to work the 7th. He suffered a similar fate in yesterday’s ballgame. He hadn’t allowed a solitary hit or run thru 5 IP last night. He allowed 4 consecutive hits to begin the 6th. 2 were ground balls that found holes in the IF, 1 was an IF hit that he deflected to the 2B’man, and the other was an off the end of the bat lazy flare to RF. I thought it was a tough luck inning for Jose. Redbirds ultimately win the game and Hicks did a nice job to record all 3 outs and limit the damage in the 6th to hold the 3-2 lead and still keep Quintana in line for the win. But we saw what happened when the Redbird manager sent Jordan out to work the 7th. This isn’t a second guess. This is a guess that has been formulated over the course of several games during the entire season. When Hicks works more than one inning, expect trouble. Granted that what may have been the hardest hit baseball of the entire game by Colo. was the inferior slider offered up by Packy that was laced into RF by Blackmon for a 2 run double and a Colo. 4-3 lead, but I won’t even get into the decision to use Naughton in that high stakes situation. In any event, the Redbirds are 3-0 in all 3 of Quintana’s turns. He’s been pretty good.

GameCard…Not sure about 3rd best, but he may very well be the 3rd most important component of this ballclub concerning position players. Eddie’s a good one and he seems to be scuffling his way back to the guy I know. Let’s hope that’s the case.

Do you ever comment on anything else but Edman? WAR is a good tool but all that says about Edman is that there are not that many good second basemen. He wouldn’t get a sniff of an MVP vote.

GameCard…Yeah, I’ve seen on NL leaders on the baseball reference site where he places in a few of the ‘WAR’ categories. It looks like good stuff, but I really genuinely don’t know precisely how they formulate most of those categories that display the WAR ratings. I always check the runs scored leaders (even I can figure that out) and he’s been near the top in the NL all season long and let’s face it, his primary role is to be pushed across HP by the big bats. Runs are still pretty important…I watch almost every game, so I don’t need to check anything statistically in regards to his glove or the sort of ballplayer he is. And if there were a category for baseball acumen, I’m not sure anyone in the entire Big Leagues would eclipse him. He plays very smart and seems to always know the precise game situation. He’s a pretty good one. Glad you enjoy watching him play for the Redbirds. I sure do.

He is not in the lineup today. Gorman is playing second.

I came up with a formula one time that I applied to a bunch of players throughout history, and it basically showed what we all know, that the greatest players are indeed who we think they are (Ruth, Mays etc).

It’s been awhile but it was something like (Runs + RBI – homers)/Plate appearances. Or you could approximate plate appearances by using at-bats plus walks.

The goal was to determine who were the best players at putting runs on the board on a per plate appearance basis. Someday in retirement, which will be soon, maybe I will put that back together and see who are the best run producers in the game today.