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Haha! I don’t much watch Hogan’s Heroes anymore, Rats, but I hardly ever miss the film, The Great Escape, when it’s occasionally on. The theme song from that movie may be my all-time favorite from any film or program. And at the end, after being recaptured, when McQueen is once again placed into “the cooler” with his mitt and a baseball and starts bouncing the baseball off of the cell wall and back into his into his trusty mitt and that song starts playing I can’t ever help but to get amped up. The hairs on the back of my neck never fail to stand up and salute…Haha!
“Well yeah, that’s reasonable, BW. However, a legitimate question would be that if he was “never right” why did the Redbird manager continue to hand him the baseball up until mid-season?”
Boy, is that ever a good question. Well asked, Andujar.
And for anyone interested, here’s the link to that highly enthusiastic VerHagen article from Spring Training — the one I said I was linking to and then neglected to do so. Sorry ’bout that, 27.
If you love Hogan’s Heroes, Rat, you should check out the movie Stalag 17. Same general set-up, but a blend of the comical and serious.
You can only keep one:
1) Hudson or Pallante?
2) Yepez or Burleson?
3) Carlson or Nootbaar?
4) Woodford or Thompson?
5) Donovan or Gorman?
Stalag 17’s another one I always try to catch when it’s on, but nothing beats McQueen attempting to clear the barbed wire fence of a border frontier and escape into neutral Switzerland on a commandeered motorcycle! I better quit before I get in trouble with BW for talking off topic…Haha! Hey, he does play a little baseball in his numerous stints in the confines of the cooler, so maybe I’ll be okay.
1.Hudson
2.Yepez
3.Carlson…Why do I feel like Meryl Streep in Sophie’s Choice?
4.Woodford
5.Donovan…Another Sophie moment.I need a hug…
Really I would get rid of more of those guys and get a couple more like Donovan, out two of those at top of lineup, move goldy and arenado down to 3 n 4 and I would be satisfied. I never have been a big fan of batting your best offensive options in top three spots. I see why they do it but instead of more opportunities for them, I would rather they have more opportunities with guys in scoring position than just plain opportunities.
Thankfully, they’ve been placing Goldy and Nado in the 3 and 4 slot, but you never really know what they’ll conjure up in the future. I never could see the overall advantage of batting Goldy second, but he was placed there for long stretches in seasons past. I thought someone spiked my orange juice with a potent hallucinogen when I saw Pujols in the 2 slot last fall. When I saw Donovan at #5 in the order, well, I can’t say what I thought.
Maybe the choices should be based on which is more likely to show up for work rather than lay around on the IL or hobble along with a mystery ailment. Here is my list off the top of my head, not having researched and probably forgetting about stuff.
Pallante not Hudson
Burleson not Yepez
Nootbaar not Carlson
Woodford not Thompson *
Donovan not Gorman* I would keep both Woody and Thompson over a bunch of other gimpy guys, but between them I would go with Woodford from a reliability/durability angle. Why? Only because I remember the talk back when Thompson was selected. He had shoulder trouble in high school which derailed any thought of going pro at that time. Then he had elbow trouble in college. There was talk about his delivery being problematic, and even talk about maybe he’d be more durable as a reliever even though he profiled as a starter. I’m not remembering any trouble as a pro, but my memory stinks these days. Can’t remember Woody having any injury trouble either, but then there is the fact that he could hit 95 in high school but not now.
Bling… switch Hudson for Pallante and I’m with you.
The participants responding are all astute Cards fans and all with different opinions.
jj…. a good Sophie’s choice questionnaire. Makes for some good hot stove chatter.
I am somewhat intrigued by Pallante. Magically beamed up to MLB from AA and did pretty good both starting and relieving in his age 23 season.
In my alternate reality baseball universe, populated by cigar chompers who sweat pine tar, we break camp with Pallante, Thompson and Woodford rounding out the rotation along with Mikolas and whichever of Matz and Wainwright is still healthy by then. You go to war with horses not grandma’s fine china.
1. Pallante
2. Burleson
3. Nootbaar
4. Thompson
5. GormanThe only difficult choices for me were 2 and 5 because Yepez can put up big numbers and Donovan is the quintessential Cardinal-like gritty player but Gorman has a higher ceiling.
I thought I would take a peek at Fangraphs 2023 projections.
Gorman (age 23 season): .238/.298/.437/.735 wRC+ 109 WAR 1.5
Donovan (age 26 season): .270/.362/.392/.754 wRC+ 120 WAR 2.9These are TD’s “Youneverknowgraphs projections” for my Sophie’s Choices…
1. Hudson…W/L 11-7 ERA 3.79 IP’ed 160.1
2. Yepez…PA’s 360 .259/16/52
3. Carlson…PA’s 580 .267/19/68
4. Jake Woodford…W/L 4-4 ERA 3.43 IP’ed 68.1
5. Brendan Donovan…PA’s 505 .270/9/51…He’ll cross HP 80 times. Disclaimer; If he’s slotted at #5 in the order the evil baseball gypsies may see to it that the Redbirds don’t win a game until towards the end of April.I can agree that Gorman’s ceiling as far as hitting home runs off righties is higher, but in every other aspect of the game, offensively and defensively, I think he will be outperformed by Donovan, often by a wide margin.
Gorman may see his chances limited this year, because Donovan’s OBP is needed at the top of the order before the thumpers come up. So Gorman will be competing with some others for playing time. I can’t see any way around that. Right now he’s an out of position, part time platoon hitter who strikes out too much.
I’m thinking that If DeJong does not look too wretched this spring, he will get some chances early. If he is going to be in the lineup, then it makes sense to benefit from his glove so he would be at short. That would push Edman to 2B which would push Donovan to DH unless you want to have his OBP sitting on the bench. That would further complicate things for Gorman.
I can clearly envision an article by Gould in the local paper around the time position players report to Jupiter that enlightens us as to all the good things that have happened to DeJong’s swing over the winter. If he does well in ST it wouldn’t surprise me even a little bit if he’s the starting SS for the ’23 opener. The poor guy hit .157 in ’22 and still collected 237 PA’s. I wouldn’t guess that would be a possibilty on either the Pittsburg, Pirates or the Oakland, A’s.
GS, I agree.
1) Pallante
2) Burleson
3) Nootbaar
4) Thompson
5) GormanThe tough ones for me was 4 & 5.
1) Pallante had a WHIP issue last season (1.417) but I favor his debut season over Hudsons career BB%. Very similar, ball in play pitchers.
2) Yepez has a softball swing I don’t believe in.
3) Noot has raw power and BB% over Carlson. Give Noot 81 games in CF and I wonder if I like him better than Dylan.
4) Thompson as reliever:
0.91 ERA, 0.843 WHIP, .190 slg% allowed in 29.2 IP5) A +.040 BAbip and 14 HBP gives me regression concerns for Brendan, but so does a 33% K rate for Nolan. Their D favors Donovan, but Gorman may provide the LH power we simply are lacking.
Extremely tough choice because Jon Jay is my Donovan comp.I don’t understand how a guy who was awarded a GG (albeit kind of a gimmick sort) and placed a .394 OBP on the board (close to Rickey territory) in almost 470 PA’s, could be set on the bench unless he required a wheelchair to reach his position on the field. This guy has to play every day.
True enough TD, but there were 6 million reasons why he got the PAs and there will be even more reasons why he will get them again in 2023. I really do hope he does well since there will be some talented youngsters sitting on the bench when he’s out there.
Although I can only go by interviews and watching them play on TV along with occasionally attending a game downtown, the Cardinals seem to have a roster full of pretty good guys. However, ballplayers are obviously human. If I’m sitting on the bench while consistently featuring a nice performance and a guy that’s hitting .157 is taking my position on the field, I may well develop a bit of a grudge towards my field manager or coaching staff. I think that’s human nature.
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