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I could not find any definite information on internet searches that the Cardinals use this system wide, but did stumble on this quote regarding Trajeckt Arc:
“Major League players, including Brendan Donovan of the St. Louis Cardinals, are utilizing the machine to practice against high-level pitches before facing them in live games.”
This tells me our club at least has one. Some teams apparently have them throughout their minor league organizations as well as at the big league level.
If a change is made, Stubby or Skip are probably the front runners abs safest choices. I have floated Terry Pendleton’s name out, but am not sure he is interested in managing. He strikes me as a natural, and played for a couple of great ones in Whitey Herzog and Bobby Cox.
Since Ollie got an extension though, my guess is he will get a shot to manage next year. Personally I don’t see anything special about him, and don’t understand his batting orders. He also baffles me at times with his pitching decisions.
But on the plus side, he has us around .500 most of the year despite being well outscored overall. So he has not been horrible this year by any means. The unknown is the clubhouse and what the players think.
I agree on Lynn in that he has been what was expected, but as a team we did not fare well enough to keep him next year. However, I am not sure what intangibles he has brought as far as mentoring younger pitchers.
Then again, our staff is mostly old guys anyway. After two mostly non-competitive seasons it is time to give the younger guys a turn and move on from the Busch Bavarian Bismark Beast, and Kyle “I’m Not Bob” Gibson.
Saw that about “Big City” as well. I always thought he would make a real good player for the Rockies and they should have pursued him.
That playoff game took me back to thoughts of Matheny’s mishaps managing against the Giants in the 2014 post season. He did much the same thing.
Sparse crowd tonight even with Skenes going. This one might see the youngster throw a perfect-o.
Yeah, I guess that’s it. Like last year when the reigning MVP and run producing machine Paul Goldschmidt was used like an “on base” guy.
Heck, Ted Williams would get on base 50% of the time some years. Our manager would have him lead off!
I will never understand Ollie hitting Burleson at 2 and Donovan at 5. You put the better on base guy lower in the order, and more of a run producing slot, and the better power guy in what is more of an “on base” slot.
A small thing, but do this and make odd pitching changes and before you know it, you are compromising the skills of your players to the point of where you are costing your club 2 or 3 games.
Burly is a little bit of a mirage. Despite his good hitting this year his OPS+ is only 105 – he’s 5% better than league average. Combine that with poor defense and he is not all that valuable.
In around 1000 at bats Gorman has a 3.4WAR. Burly in approaching 900 ABs is only at .3 WAR.
Like some have said, Burly exudes a great attitude, and he has trended up while Gorman has trended down. But Gorman has shown elite level production, and Burly has been more of a pleasant surprise but not elite.
The real questions are can Burly keep improving, and will Gorman stay where he is and possibly keep getting worse? I would put Burly in a trade and take the chance that he is at his highest value, and Gorman will get back to where he was and then some. Could be a mistake, and I can understand those who would not do that. But this club will need to take some risks and hope their luck changes. Trades in recent years seem to always be negative for us.
Interesting article. The author concluded that he would put one of those guys (Walker, Gorman or Burleson) at first base, one at DH, and trade the other. His opinion is to put Walker at first, Burleson at DH, and trade Gorman.
I am okay at putting Walker at first, but would keep Gorman and trade Burleson. Right now Gorman’s value is low, while Burly’s is high. Sell high on Burly. In addition, Gorman has more defensive options. Yeah, he is not great, but he can at least handle second and could always be moved back to third.
This off season I would let Goldschmidt walk, welcoming him back someday as a Cardinal Hall of Famer, trade Arenado and Burleson, and plan on a 2025 infield of Walker, Saggese, Winn and Gorman. Baker is a possibility as well.
Then go Donovan, Siani/Scott and Noot left to right. Donovan is also insurance at second and third should we acquire a good outfielder, or someone in the system jumps up and makes the club. It could be ugly, but you let Walker and Gorman play and roll with the punches. Get someone to teach Walker to balance out his stance, and Gorman to work on making contact. Get both to focus on driving balls up the middle. Forget the whole launch angle stuff – preach hard contact up the middle, and the natural power will follow. Don’t worry about Walker hitting balls on the ground – contact is the key. Good hard contact, and with their young age each guy will hit the long ball more as they mature.
Well the Denver Broncos are looking a bit like the football version of our Cardinals early on. Basically kind of boring, a rookie at quarterback, not much offense. Wait, they just ran a flea flicker and completed a long one!
Right now the Cardinals are the worst team in the NL Central in run differential, and their record is starting to reflect that. Only three teams in the NL are worse, making us 12th out of the 15 teams. A lot of work to do.
For post season, historically I root for teams with former Cardinals. The Dodgers have two such members, Edman and Flaherty, but I am going to go for the Padres and manager Mike Shildt. In the AL, I will put my support behind Cleveland, but am okay with Kansas City and Michael Wacha as well. I also like Baltimore.
The elimination number is shrinking – in single digits.
If the combined wins/losses number to clinch is the “magic” number, what is the combined number for elimination? Maybe the “mortal” number?
Think our “mortal” number might be something like 7.
4-1 now on only four hits for the Blue Birds. Red Birds with two hits. Looks like the hammer will officially fall on this season next week.
Sac fly makes it 5-1 Jays. Blue Jays with nice uniforms today to go with what looks to be a victory.
Saw the box score showing we were 2 for 19 with RISP last night, and stranded 12. Can’t win too many that way.
I would be in favor of an overhaul. This method of trying to be just good enough each year and playing for the current season has worn down the talent. After some 10 years of that, we have nothing to show for it and not a lot of top tier players on the roster or the farm.
And as we have discussed over and over, the manager and coaches do not inspire excellence. It would be tough to go through, and we would be a team where opening day is the only sellout and many games feature 10,000 or less in the stands. Not too mention guys like Winn and Donovan would have to be part of a losing culture for a period of time. But I think it is the right approach at this point.
I understand the reason for the rule, to save pitching staffs from being over worked. Also they want to keep from having four hour games, although at that point it gets kind of fun to see if you can hang in there for the marathon.
But I would use a hybrid version and keep playing “real” baseball for three extra innings. If after the 12th the game is tied, then go to the runner on second rule.
Or you could do like pro football, and keep playing for 12 innings and if the game is still tied, call it just that, a tie.
Uniforms seem to be trending towards the absurd little by little. I was disappointed in the Twins attire in our series up there recently. They had a different uni for each game, and none were near as good as their classics.
1TD will have to explain his logic of the sun setting in the west being a 50/50 chance. Seems more like 100/0 in favor of it doing that in my experience.
The Cardinals at 50/50 for post season is a bit optimistic. I would need a lot better odds than to risk only a 50/50 bet on us making the post season.
Odds are we win about half our remaking games, and Atlanta and New York win a little more than half. It would be a major upset along the lines of 1964 for us to play in October.
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Din-din here? I am doing the dog/house sitting gig again at my brother-in-law and sister-in-law’s place. Did a 2 1/2 week gig in August,and back for a week while they jet-set to Rome. Put together a roast pork and potato burrito with Hatch green chile salsa, avocado, lettuce and cheese. Excellent!Oh, and again on the lineup I would flip Donovan and Burleson. But I say that every game and it ain’t gonna happen.
Big time sports are indeed stupid in a lot of ways in these modern times 1TD.
College football, once possibly the greatest of all sporting passions, has deteriorated into maybe the worst of the lot. Players get paid big money, conferences are ridiculous. Being a west-based dude, it was great back in the day when the Big 8 had Nebraska-Oklahoma every Thanksgiving. Now my dad’s Cornhuskers are part of the “Big 18” (I think that is the count), and instead of playing regional rivals Kansas, Oklahoma and Colorado (although they did a two game set against the Buffs as non-conference affairs), they might play Rutgers, Maryland and the latest are UCLA or USC.
Stupid, stupid, stupid. I understand revenue drives the truck, but something bigger has left the building. Baseball is the same way. Still great, as is college football as we see these fabulous athletes do amazing things on the field, but man, those old days were special.
But maybe I am just an old guy living in the past and the younger folks today will have every bit as good of memories about the games today when they look back some 40 years from now.
I fully anticipate our club officially eliminated from post season tourney action by the time Insee them out here a week from next Wednesday. Given that I hope the lineup looks like this:
Herrera – c
Baker – 1b
Sagesse – 2b
Winn – ss
Arenado – 3b (because we are facing the Rockies)
Donovan – lf
Siani – cf
Walker – rf
Burleson – dh
McGreevy – pLet the youngun’s play.
All the best Rats. My wife had an endoscopy. Month or so ago. All was good, but she is frustrated as she has had acid reflux and never had it much before.
Like what I see of the young Saggese. Has made some good contact, good reflexes and athleticism. He already has better hitting mechanics than Walker. Will be interesting to see how his career progresses.
But I missed this one as well. I met up for lunch with a couple of old work buddies from our accounting/finance group back in the day at Starz. Always great catching up with old friends.
Arenado puts one over the wall to break the scoreless streak against Redleg pitchers at 12 1/3 in this series. A young fan makes a nice grab of it, resulting in a review.
Yep, I have said for awhile now that Walker’s stance and swing do not look like they will translate to success at the major league level. He is off balance and lunges. If he gets a pitch in his wheelhouse he can launch it due to the leverage he possesses, but he’s really not at all able to put power onto pitches on the outer half nor down in the zone. He needs to balance out more on the left leg and close his stance a bit. You want to generate power to the barrel of the bat, but he depends totally on leverage.
On another note, why are they even starting Lynn at this point? We should be starting McGreevy and Greceffo every five days the rest of the way. This organization is as messed up and Walker’s hitting approach.
When I graduated from college in ‘84, I considering moving to St. Louis as I was such a huge Cardinal fan. But I decided to be smart about it and was able to hustle an interview with the Cardinals to see if there was any way I could get on in the accounting/finance area, or really most anything.
A guy named Mike Bertani interviewed me. I was escorted to his office, and was waiting for him, and he comes in carrying a six pack of Michelob that he puts in the small fridge in his office. I am thinking, “talk about a dream job – working for the Cardinals and having beer in theoffice!!!” 🙂
Alas they did not have anything for me, and Bertani said most of those jobs go to friends and relatives of people already in the organization.
Okay, our granddaughter got tickets to the Rockies-Cardinals game on September 25th. It is through her work and in a suite no less. The Cards will be eliminated from post season by then so who knows what kind of lineup they will trot out, but would be good to see some of the younger guys.
That Torre-for-Kranepool deal sounds familiar and I think I have heard that as well. I was shocked we traded Cepeda, as was my dad. A cornerstone of two consecutive pennants and a year removed from the MVP. Pretty risky move.
Buck and Stram were indeed great on MNF. I heard of people turning the television commentary off as Howard Cosell drove them nuts, and they would put the radio broadcast on.
Stram would often say stuff like, “the Rams can do some business on the left side of the line if they want to run there.” He used that “do some business” phrase quite a bit. 😀