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Exactly BW. I do not pay much attention to early Spring games, although it is that time of renewal, and fun to see who might emerge as a dark horse to win a big league job. Then again, that can bite you later on. Sometimes a guy you did not expect to play well has a nice spring, so you make a decision to move another guy, and the spring-phenom becomes a flop.
No logo seems lame. It reminds me of those Topps cards as kids, where they would sometimes black out the hat logo on players who were traded. Which brings up another option, no hats. Topps used to have those “no hat” cards back in the day as well, although as kids we always hated those cards. Especially when they used them for a guy that was not traded. (check out the ’61 Mays or Bill White, or ’62 Ken Boyer). On second thought, no logo is preferable to no hat.
Still, even in tough decisions pick a team. Maddux should be in a Braves hat. LaRussa could have gone with either Oakland or St. Louis. He started with the White Sox of course, but his legacy really developed in Oakland, and he continued that with a long career in St. Louis.
Vlad played longer and was a little better with Montreal than the Angels, so I agree that he should be an Expo. But no one asks us. 🙂
Maybe with players more apt to play in multiple cities these days, the Hall needs to redesign the plaques and have two images of the players. For guys like Cal Ripken it could be two distinct looks, and for guys like Vlad or Albert it could be one in each of the caps for which they had significant playing time.
Mike Shannon hates those Sunday night contests. I don’t like ’em either. Strictly a TV gimmick. But big time sports are run by money, and the money is so huge today that it runs the show.
I keep hearing Arrieta and the Phillies will be the match. I do think we need to solidify our rotation with a solid veteran that can be counted on every fifth day. Lynn could be that guy, but he is no doubt waiting to see what happens with Arrieta.
A few years ago the Rockies bumped up their weeknight start times to 6:40. It is actually a win-win, because if you work in an office it is a great excuse to get out a little early to have time to get to the park, and then the game ends a little earlier.
That’s not as good as the long-ago days of daytime baseball. Games would start around 3PM, so the working stiff got a chance to take a good chunk of the afternoon off and run out to the ball park. Games would usually end around 5:30 at the latest, so there was still plenty of time to be home for dinner. 🙂
I think Hall of Famers should have the cap insignia for the team they are most identified with. For Albert, that will be St. Louis. He was a multi-MVP, two-time world champ, and all star with the Cardinals. He’s just playing out the string in Los Angeles. For some guys that is hard to do. Nolan Ryan could have been an Angel, Astro or Ranger. I think of him mostly as an Angel, but his plaque shows him as a Ranger.
Orlando Cepeda won his only championship and MVP with the Cardinals, but his best years were with the Giants. He rightly has a Giants cap on his HOF plaque. Speaking of which, he is in the hospital after a fall earlier in the week. Hopefully he is doing well.
Robinson was a toss-up, as he had two distinct and great careers, one with each organization. He also played with a few other teams, but like Albert now he was just playing out his career with them and not the dominant player of his Reds and Orioles days. There was some bad blood between him and the Reds for awhile, but as I understand it that was resolved and he has been back there a few times, including a ceremony where his number was retired.
I met Robinson last summer and got his autograph on a ’62 Topps card, which was from his Reds days. Unfortunately it was not a setting where you could really talk to him though.
A comment on Albert’s Hall of Fame plaque. He really should be shown in a Cardinal cap, as those are the years that put him on the map.
He is a little like Frank Robinson in a way, except Robinson still had great years in Baltimore. Frank played longer in Cincinnati though, yet his HOF cap is as an Oriole.
I think as long as there is no bad blood between Albert and the Cardinal organization when he is inducted, he’ll be shown as a Cardinal. But if there is a falling out somewhere along the line, he will no doubt pressure the Hall to have him in an Angels cap.
The consequences of television is a great point jags. I wonder if there are any metrics available to compare the between-innings-break times from 40-50 years ago and the times today? And of course we have the replay situation now.
College football is brutal. They have that guy with the white uniform who stands on the field and signifies when the commercials are over and play can resume. It really drags things out. It’s especially tough when you are at a game where the weather is not all that great, which is not that uncommon out here in the mountain west.
But the big difference in football is they only play a few games. Baseball is played every day, with most games on week nights. It’s tough for a lot of people to commit three-plus hours on a week night for baseball.
In watching games, the two primary reasons they take so long today seem to be primarily the batter-pitcher confrontations are drawn out much moreso than in the past, and the number of foul balls.
I understand that when you are playing the game, each at-bat is lightning fast in your head. Thus you try to slow it down by stepping out if you are the hitter, or take your time to make sure you and the catcher are on the same page as a pitcher. But it seemed like pitchers used to be in a better groove at one time, and could get the ball and be ready to go.
I have no idea if more foul balls are hit today than say 30 years ago, but it sure seems that way sometimes. Not much anyone can do about that though, unless a limit was put in place. But that would be far too radical.
Cardinals management had it right in the negotiations with Albert, offering him a 7 year deal. That would have made this his last year on the agreement. He could have cemented a legacy here. But the Angels offered a ridiculous deal that would make anyone walk away from their former employer.
The club would certainly be in a higher risk situation with Albert’s contract had he stayed on a 10-year deal, but they would have figured a way to pay it.
The team also dodged a bullet when Jason Heyward walked, although he still has a chance to be productive. But after two years his deal looks bad as well. It’s a little easier to take for the Cubs since they are 2-for-2 on division titles since signing him, and have a ring. But they’ve won despite Heyward rather than because of him. The Angels have only one post-season trip since inking Albert I believe, but look to be contenders this year. Again though, they look good on paper despite Albert.
Predictions? It depends somewhat on how Ohtani’s role evolves. I’ll go with .255/18/67 on BA, homers and RBI.
The Rockies might have a good one in Kyle Freeland. I wish we had a couple of lefties in the rotation, as I think it really makes a difference during a season when you can keep putting guys out there from each side and give the opponent a different look. When your rotation is fairly monogamous, all righties throwing fastballs and sliders, even if they do throw mid-90s, hitters have an easier time adjusting. The Cubs are set up nice with a couple of good lefties, although Lester is getting a bit past his prime.
We do have some lefties out of the ‘pen which helps, although Cecil needs to bring his “A” game this year.
Nothing wrong with taking a low risk gamble like this. Plus the organization probably felt that after what Jason did for them in the second half of 2011 and all of 2012, the least they can do is offer him a shot.
I thought he would be a good middle innings guy here (Rockies) last year, but the consistency was lacking.
A bit of a “chicken or egg” deal with systems and developing hitters. Pujols for example would have been a great hitter where ever he matriculated. He just happened to be a guy most scouts felt had a bad baseball body, and would not hold up in the big leagues.
Wow, if he turned down a six-year deal with an AAV of $21M, his agent has lost it. A pitcher over 30 thinking he could (or should) get more than that?
Has the baseball world lost it for good? There was some grumbling about players going on strike during Spring Training because some guys are not getting the big deals, yet when an offer is presented, assuming this offer was indeed given to Arrieta, he turns it down.
This is where you need one of those icons from the old forum that has the guys banging his head.
And no, they aren’t going to increase roster sizes to 26 or 27. That costs real money.
That’s the point that irks me. At one time teams carried only around 22-23 players (pre WWII). Then 25 became the norm, as the game evolved and more players were utilized. And again there was a time where a team could carry 28 (I believe, although that number may not be quite right) for the first month or so, giving teams a chance to use guys a little longer than just Spring Training before paring the rosters down.
With the modern game heavily bullpen dependent, roster limits really should be expanded by one or two. But then professional sports are first and foremost a business. Everything else, with common sense way down the list and even including winning at times, falling behind in the pecking order.
Agree with Brianpnoonan. 13 pitchers is ridiculous, especially early in the season with the off days. You’re going to have many games where you cannot use most of your roster. Plus if you have an injury to a position player, you’re really hampered.
The Cubs keep their rotation solid, with a top four of Lester, Darvish, Quintana and Henricks. We have Martinez, then a bunch of questions marks related to either health or youth – Wacha, Wainwright, Weaver, Flaherty, Mikolas. Plus they have a couple of good lefties, while we are all righty.
On paper, our rotation is not likely to make up the 9 games we were behind last year, but then you never know how a season will play out.
Continuing…
Lee Smith – Big Lee always strolled in from the bullpen looking like he hurt everywhere. He had what looked like a pained expression on his face, and he walked slowly and lumbered as if it was a chore to make it from the bullpen to the mound. Then he would throw darts for warm up pitches and look fluid and effortless doing it. His 160 saves as a Cardinal are second all-time to Jason Isringhausen’s 217. Smith pitched for mediocre teams in the early ’90s, when the brewery still owned the club but did not put much effort into the product.
Ray Lankford – Probably under-rated a bit as he played in an era when the Cardinals were not very good. He came up after the good ’80s teams, and left before the good 2000s teams. He did return for 92 games with the great 2004 club, and that was his last season. Finished 5th all-time on the Cardinal home run list, although he is also second all-time on the strikeout list, 20 behind Hall of Famer Lou Brock. Had an OPS+ of 124 as a Cardinal, meaning he was 24% better than the average player. Again comparing to Brock, Lou was +112 with us. But then Lou played longer, and was best when the light shined brightest. Ray played in a couple of post seasons, 1996 and 2000, hitting .189.
FWIW, my take on the four new guys.
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Vince Coleman –
Vince is a bit of an enigma, as the new metrics do not value him all that high, yet his impact on a game was significant. It’s tough to value the characteristics that Vince brought to a game; the extra bases accumulated from steals, with low caught-stealing numbers. Just the threat of him on base would change an inning. I probably do not consider him of team Hall of Fame recognition, because he did not play long enough with the Cardinals. But I have always valued him much higher than the stats show. He won games in ways that are not quantifiable.
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John Tudor
– Tudor threw 10 shutouts in 1985, and had only 6 over the rest of his career. He was a major benefactor of our ballpark and the construction of our club at the time. The difference between pitching in Busch II and Fenway, where you had Ozzie Smith and Terry Pendleton gobbling up most everything on the right side, might have benefited him more than any other pitcher in recent memory. His line shows 20 WAR (BR) in only 5 seasons with us, which is quite impressive. By comparison Steve Carlton had 20.9 WAR in seven seasons with us. Tudor and the prior candidate, Vince Coleman, were guys whose value to our club at that time, with the speed-and-defense game, was greater than had they been with most any other team. A classic example of the word “synergy” in a baseball application.
Oops, we gotta run. I’ll comment on Lee Smith and Ray Lankford next.
The market does seem slow. Still though, maybe the players think it’s wrong but you are not going to get any sympathy at all from fans. The “goose that laid the golden egg” analogy is accurate. Multi-millionaires going on strike is ridiculous.
Professional sports is at a bit of a precarious time. The NFL has lost much of it’s luster, and if other sports continue to disregard the impact of their actions on the fans, it could lead to an era where sports as an industry is not overly popular. People love their teams, but will always find other things to do when the industry stops distributing it’s product.
My guess is guys will get deals and we’ll see things back to normal by the end of February. Some guys might be better signing one-year agreements, and then hit the open market again next year.
I say “both” as well. The main gripe I have with Matheny is his constant lineup changes. It does seem like he has a few guys that he tends to rarely stick with over a stretch of games if they have a bad game or two.
But to be fair in terms of Grichuk, he has not improved his game enough to where he earned regular time. The second half of 2016 he looked to be on the verge, but still struggled with poor plate discipline.
Molina has been a great Cardinal, and still is contributing in a positive way. Kelly did not show much with the bat last year, and may still be a year away. But not getting much of a chance makes it tough to know what he could do with regular playing time.
Gotta disagree with Jags on the comments of Ozzie and Molina changing the game and being models of the modern player at their positions. Ozzie is really more of the pro-typical shortstop of the ’60s and ’70s. The top shortstops in that era were primarily defensive gems, and any offense you got was a bonus (Harrelson, Maxvill, Belanger, Concepcion (who hit better as he matured), Kessinger, etc). The game-changer was Cal Ripken, and today we have many examples of bigger shortstops who field well, and hit with power.
Catchers like Yadi have been around forever. The gold standard is Johnny Bench, with great offense and Molina-like defense. In fact Molina may not top Ted Simmons in WAR once his career is done, so it is debatable if he is even the best catcher in Cardinal history. Some of Ted’s numbers were with other teams, but as I said once Yadi’s career has played out it will be debatable who was better.
Still Ozzie and Yadi have been great in their own right. But calling them the standard for how their position is played today is over-reaching.