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Can you imagine John Tudor trying to break into the bigs now days, especially here. Here is a quote from him:
Tudor: “I came up throwing in the low 90s; 92-93. I was probably down to 80-81 when I finished, because I had some arm issues. Over time, I had to become more of a ‘pitcher.’ When I came up, I was more of a thrower. Early on, my command was nowhere near what it was over the last several years of my career.”
Over a 12 year career, 1,700+ IP, .260 BABiP against, 0.8 H/9. His career K/9 was 4.9.
He would have been shown the door his first day in camp.
That quote is from this article, which is an enjoyable read:
https:
//blogs.fangraphs.com/a-conversation-with-former-st-louis-cardinals-southpaw-john-tudor/#:~:text=Laurila%3A%20How%20hard%20did%20you,low%2090s%3B%2092%2D93.Yep and outside forsch, Tudor was and is my favorite cardinal pitcher ever. He just flat out could pitch and yea, he wouldn’t even get a shot with this version of the Cardinals. It’s a sad state of affairs when there isn’t anybody in high position running things that really knows anything organic about the game of baseball
The Cardinals front office knows a great deal about baseball. Especially BDW. He’s student of the game and the young players.
On the subject of pitching, is a SP’er working on the road credited with a CG for 8 full innings of work during a team road loss in a 9 inning game? For some reason I was under the impression that he was. Or at least he used to be.
bccran…You can tell Billy Jr. is one of the all time great students of the game simply by the way he looks while he’s sitting in his field level box. Next time the camera pans over to him on TV, watch closely and pay particular attention to the manner in which he eats his popcorn and wears that old Redbird cap…Haha!
I think BDW knows the business of baseball inside and out. I doubt he has much to do with the nuts and bolts of talent evaluation. Like any good business owner, he hires professionals whom he believes know what they are doing with the nuts and bolts.
1TD – I talked to BDW at a party one time and asked him about several of my favorite players at the high A level. He proceeded to tell me about their strengths, as well as the things they’re working on. He’s a student of the game. He loves the young players. That’s why he likes to give them a pathway when they produce.
bccran…I’m sure he knows his stuff about baseball, but he certainly never impressed me as a table dancing party guy…Haha! I’m in a good mood and just joking, but I really do like that old Redbird cap he always wears. That thing looks like it’s been through more battles than the one that our old friend Steve Kline used to wear…And he eats his popcorn like he’s mad at it!
BW…Thanks! I was pretty sure that used to be the case, but thought they may have changed how they score and record it primarily because of the steady increase in innings alloted to BP’s over the years which, when I think about it, really shouldn’t make any difference. There’s been so many changes lately, I sometimes have a hard time keeping pace. The first time I came back into the den from the kitchen and saw an opposing baserunner standing on 2B in extras, I began uttering bad words under my breath towards the Cardinal relief pitcher for allowing a lead-off double…Haha! At any rate, thanks for setting me straight, BW.
Here’s another question about pitching…Can anyone forsee a time in the not too distant future when the number of SP’er shutouts in the Big Leagues will be at or near the number of no hitters in a single season? I think it’s a real possibility.
I agree Oliver. Seems like one post season series win in 8 years, for a team with a solidly mid-range payroll, is kind of a no brainer.
Cardinals Sign Andrew Suarez To Minor League Deal
By Steve Adams | January 27, 2023 at 5:23pm CDTThe Cardinals announced Friday that they’ve signed lefty Andrew Suarez to a minor league contract and invited him to Spring Training. He’ll provide some left-handed depth and a potential bullpen option after spending the past two seasons pitching in the Korea Baseball Organization (2021) and Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball (2022).
A second-round pick by the Giants back in 2015, Suarez pitched parts of three big league seasons in San Francisco, impressing with a solid 4.49 ERA in 160 1/3 frames as a rookie in 2018 before regressing to a 5.79 ERA in 32 2/3 innings during his sophomore season. Suarez tossed just 9 2/3 innings during the shortened 2020 campaign, bringing his career ERA to 4.66 in 202 2/3 innings. He’s fanned a below-average 17.8% of his MLB opponents but also posted strong 7.8% walk and 49.8% ground-ball rates as a big leaguer.
Suarez, 30, was excellent with the KBO’s LG Twins back in 2021, pitching 115 1/3 innings of 2.18 ERA ball with a 26.6% strikeout rate, 8.7% walk rate and 57.1% grounder rate. That landed him a deal with NPB’s Yakult Swallows for the 2022 season, which he surely hoped to use as a stepping stone for either a raise on a second season in NPB or a return directly to the big leagues.
Like I said, I don’t think the Dewitts know anything about baseball other than what a casual fan who just loves spending time at the ballpark knows. Maybe they do but appreciate money more so they would rather look at statistics that don’t really tell the tale. Knowing them personally means nothing to me. I go by what I see play out season after season not what I want to see.
Willie – Do you have any idea of the amount of baseball expertise BDW has that has produced winning seasons in all but one season since the turn of the century?
Bccran, that’s a nice statistic. Winning seasons in all but one since turn of century. But I’m not going to give him a lot of credit for the pujols years but he gets some. I’m more interested in the years following pujols. Sure it’s a nice feat. But st Louis fans, the serious ones, look for pennants and world series championships. In that regard he’s been a failure in that time. Maybe not to you, because you are ok with mediocrity. But I would be far more impressed with a couple more world series trips and a couple losing seasons over just being middling in a very weak division. I’m old school. That’s how the Cardinals did it back in the day. Sure maybe there was a losing season here n there but I always knew that something good was coming. A trade made here, a good call up there. It’s ok if you are ok with being what I call middling. But I would expect someone that owns the Cardinals to not be. For that I don’t think he knows what he thinks he knows. Far as I can tell they just basically follow analytics which isn’t really knowing anything. Owning, managing, coaching a team in my opinion takes more than some fancy numbers on a spread sheet, it takes a feel. My opinion. I don’t own a team and would be lousy at all probably but cardinal teams of the pre Dewitt era had guys that excelled at times. Be it in ownership and on the field. That’s what I’m looking for now, not just being happy with being just good enough and getting there. That’s not excellence.
Willie – were you a fan of the Cardinals in the 1950s, 1970s, and 1990s? If you were, you’d more appreciate the Cardinals after the turn of the century. My expectations may be different than others. I’d like to see a WS appearance at least once a decade. It happened in the 2000-2009 decade.
It happened in the 2010- 2019 decade.
And I’d like to see it happen again in the 2020-2029 decade. I think it will.Bccran…Could it then be proclaimed that as a result of 3 WS Chamionships during the team ownership of the Busch family that this would be solid evidence that they clearly possessed more “baseball expertise” than the DeWitt ownership group? I’d have to say that based on this simple formula, the score is 3-2 in that ballgame…Haha! In any event, I’ll take legendary Bill Veeck over each of the aformentioned owners. Despite having only one of his teams ever win a WS Championship, he was undoubtedly the gold standard in the area of “baseball expertise” as is clearly illustrated in the following concept and quote…”I have discovered in 20 years of moving around the ballpark that knowledge of the game of baseball is usually inverse in proportion to the price of the seats”…
I think this is the essence of the difference of opinion. Just one World Series appearance per decade, not championship mind you, just getting there, is a pretty low bar. If there are no repeaters, only five teams in the league wouldn’t do that.
When seven more years remain until your expectation would not be met, there need be no sense of urgency or concern. I get it now.
Many others have their sights set much, much higher. In fact, I bet if the DeWitts were asked, their bar would be higher, too. It had sure better be.
The Cardinals have won 11 WS championships in roughly 130 years of existence so winning one WS per decade would be more appropriate than appearing in one per decade.
Understand, gscottar. History bears it out. Getting to the WS and winning the WS are both extremely hard. It doesn’t happen every year. It usually doesn’t happen every 5 years. Or even every 10 years for most organizations. The Cardinals have been more successful than most other franchises. I root hard for the Cards to win the WS every season. Everyone does. But I’m also a realist and know that you have to make the playoffs first. Then anything can happen. How often have the #1 or #2 ranked teams going into the playoffs actually gone all the way? Not very often. I take each game as it comes, and hope (yes, hope) for the very best in October.
WS? It’s currently the dead of winter this day of Jan. 28th…At this very moment I’d be more than happy to take in the enjoyment of watching the action on the field of ANY regular season Redbird ballgame. Even one that resulted in a loss…Haha! What I’m driving at, is what others on here have pointed out. You ain’t gonna win ’em all. I can only speak for myself, but I like to remind myself that, win or lose, I’m thankful that I have an immensely enjoyable past time that not only affords me countless fond memories from the past, but also never fails to provide me with the hopeful anticipation of the coming season. Besides, I’ve found that the longer you wait for something good to happen, when it indeed does, it’s that much more satisfying and special. At any rate, obviously it’s nice to win it all, but I’m not sure I’d appreciate winning so much if there wasn’t the presense of the losses and we won’t have to wait too very much longer to experience the peaks and valleys of both. As Veeck so eloquently put it, “There are only two seasons…Winter and Baseball.”
The Cardinals had a lot of their winning seasons by virtue of the unbalanced schedule against one of the weakest divisions in baseball.
The problem with aiming “just to get in” is that you often fall short. It’s like when US automakers designed their cars to last 100,000 miles, and Japanese automakers designed their cars to never fail. Who had the better quality? What happened to market share as a result?
Same thing in sports. You should always be trying to build a team to win the WS – subject to two major constraints: 1) Budget 2) Roster space. If your bar is “just to get in”, you will almost inevitably fail at winning it all. I don’t know when the Cardinals first publicly proclaimed their goal was just to get in, but I do know the first time I heard it was when they were missing the playoffs.
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