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It seems worth a shot as we need the bullpen help, and improving a shot at the post season today is worth a lot. If Alvarez becomes an everyday regular in the bigs, then we most likely overpaid unless we go deep into post season, but as others have pointed out we have depth at second, and so this is not going to cripple the organization. Not a real high risk, and while a bit of a long shot, the potential reward is decent.
I am liking Martinez at first base. His defense there seems better than in the outfield, although that is not saying much as he is a butcher in the outfield. But he actually does okay at first, and his bat might be the best on the team.
We might want to play him every day the rest of the way and see what we’ve got, although Matheny rarely does that.
Hang in there, 14. I saw something on the news that this could be the first year in over 100 where two storms of least a category 4 hit the U.S. in the same year.
St. Louis now 5 behind Chicago, and a game and a half behind Milwuakee. Still a chance, but my sense is this will be like last year where we end up close, but not quite there.
Still some positive things about this club. The young players are talented. And we have a good core of young vets like Wong, Pham, CMartinez. Gotta somehow get Lynn back for ’18, and maybe shop Carpenter for bullpen help plus a prospect.
Good point on the comparison with Duke. Seems like keeping Siegrist over Duke would be the better way to go. But maybe the club sees Duke as a much better option in case we do have a chance at a post season berth, and they will worry about next year after this one is done.
Haven’t you learned by now people. Mike Matheny can’t manage a bullpen. He can barely manage at all and isn’t good enough to manage this franchise.
I can’t put the blame on Matheny for this one. Personally I would have liked to see Lynn come out for the ninth, but the game is rarely played that way anymore. With us and a bullpen in flux, it made sense to me, but then I figured we would go to the bullpen with Lynn at 100 pitches.
Still we lost on a pitch low and outside where Posey just happened to get enough of the bat on it to bloop it to shallow right. Then in the 10th, Molina and Piscotty had bad ABs. I was “yelling” at Molina to look for something to hit to right field, which he did not do. Same with Piscotty – go up there with the notion that you are going to go the other way unless you get behind in the count.
We’ve lost a lot of games this year because of poor fundamentals. I think we are 19-27 in one run games, which shows we either do not play fundamental ball, or we are victims of bad breaks. Today was a combination of both of those.
Good call on Charlotte, as that is an area that seems to be a decent sports locale. Another one might be Nashville.
But as mentioned, before you expand you need to figure out a way to strengthen the existing franchises that are perennial financial drains. Florida has never been a big regular season baseball area, although it is great for Spring Training.
The Athletics were an iconic franchise, but since the late ’30s when Connie Mack ran the franchise into the ground due to mot being able to finance the organization like it should have been, in turn brought on by the Great Depression, they have mostly struggled to make ends meet. First the move to Kansas City where the owner was a New Yorker, and the club became the major league farm team of the Yankees turned out to be a joke.
Then they had an owner who wanted to build a winner, but his personality was so abrasive he alienated the big shots in Kansas City, who wanted nothing to do with him. Finley then moved the team to an area where baseball already had a toe hold, but was struggling. The Giants were not drawing all that well at the time and had a bad ballpark.
At any rate once again, you gotta strengthen what you have first, before diluting the product.
A new St. Louis Browns team is fun to think about, but I doubt the area can support two teams despite the rabid following the Cardinals have. That has been built up over many decades, and putting a new team there and calling them the Browns might work for awhile from a novelty standpoint, but would not be sustainable. Plus I doubt the Cardinals would allow it to happen.
Wow. Not sure how to read this. Is it throwing in the towel, or simply making room for better options and getting out from at least part of a bad contract? Definitely the latter is true, and because Leake has been so bad since May we are not really losing much. His last start was better, but he has not been anywhere near the pitcher we had hoped he would be. He has not been “Kip Wells” bad, but he has been mostly bad.
I mentioned before that I think Leake could work out as a good bullpen guy in ’18, but am fine with the club pursing a deal. That was a tough contract to take from the get-go, as I had hoped back then that we would have worked harder at retaining Lackey.
For this off season, I hope management works hard at retaining Lynn.
With inter-league play fully integrated into the game today, there really is not a big need to get the leagues evened out in terms of number of teams.
With some clubs struggling quite a lot, like Miami, I am not sure it makes much sense to further dilate the product. Personally I think there are too many teams in all professional sports as it is. But it is a reality of the times because the industry is so big dollar-wise.
Good to get the comeback win. A loss there and you really feel any chance of making a run slipping away. A win keeps things positive for now.
As for Leake, I wonder if he might thrive in the closer’s role? He has a bit of that crossfire delivery, and reminds me somewhat of Dennis Eckersley. He’s not as good as Eckersley of course, but kind of looks like him and has sort of a similar delivery. Eck had almost perfect control though, and while Leake is not bad he is not as sharp.
But maybe in 1 inning stints, where he can just let loose and throw he would be very effective.
Management needs to seriously look at bringing Lynn back, although he’s probably going to cost more than we are willing to offer, and then audition Leake for a bullpen role in 2018.
But Lynn “costing more than we are willing to offer” is why we struggle to get to post season. At some point we need to hit on a key player, and not keep coming up with the second best offer.
I am travelling right now, so do not have the exact information. However, a recent SABR publication had an in-depth article on the percentage of draftees that eventually reach the big leagues. I believe it was even broken down into percentages of anyone who appears in even one major league game, and percentages of those who reach a certain threshold, like 500 games or some amount of innings pitched or appearances for pitchers.
Bottom line, the chances of reaching the “show” were small. I believe even for first rounders it was 50% to even get there, with percentages dropping from there on down. I will see if I can dig that out when I get back home next week.
I think the club will look at Wacha and Leake as bullpen pitchers for 2018. And perhaps one of them will evolve into the closer role.
Rotation would be Martinez, Wainwright, Reyes, Weaver and then Lynn or someone from the farm that has already been mentioned (Flaherty, Hudson, etc).
The club should look seriously at bringing Lynn back, as I don’t think they will want to go with three rookies in the rotation (counting Weaver as a “rookie”). But on the other hand, the Rockies have gone with four rookies this year, and have had some good success.
We need Wacha in the rotation for the remainder of 2017. But he might be an answer to help shore up the bullpen next year. Hopefully Reyes and perhaps Weaver can be starters next year, we can bring Lynn back, and we have Wacha as a late inning guy. He might even make a great closer.
bikemike, what player uses two hands to catch today? Back in the 50s and 60s we had those little gloves with the short fingers… some were four fingered and we had to use two hands. Young players of today would laugh ’til they peed if they ever actually saw one.
True to a point. In the mid-’60s I needed a new little league glove, and my dad got me a Ted Williams mitt from Sears that was pretty big. I had to get used to using it in fact, as it had that deep pocket. Definitely by then the gloves were plenty big enough to catch the ball with one hand.
But if you still cannot even catch it with these big gloves in today’s game, you gotta use two hands. Doesn’t matter what everyone else does, you need to do what works for you. Most guys are fine with the one handed catch. Grichuk, Pham, Fowler – they never miss a ball. Martinez though, is not coordinated enough in the field to play that way.
Good to see the offense stay on this post-all-star-break roll. We needed every one of those 11 runs last night. But that was a brutal game.
First, Jose Martinez might be the worst outfielder I have ever seen. He can hit, but is a proto-type DH. Why in the world doesn’t anyone use two hands to catch the ball anymore, like us kids of the ’60s and ’70s were taught. I guess because it doesn’t look cool. It’s okay for guys who can actually catch the ball do that, but Martinez needs to be told he absolutely must use two hands every time on routine fly balls, or he is fined.
Man, our bullpen. As Al said last night, when you’ve got eight guys out there and feel like you’re not covered, something is wrong. Mayers cannot even protect an 8 run lead, Cecil is a roll of the dice, as is Oh. Bowman might be slightly better, but is nowhere near a lock down guy. There is no one in that group of 8 at this point that you can say will almost assuredly keep a game in check. Lyons might be the one guy who we can turn to as a reasonably consistent bullpen arm.
From here on, or until someone steps up as a shutdown guy, Matheny needs to get at least 8 innings out of the starter if they have pitched mostly low stress innings, like Martinez did last night.
It looks like the difference between us winning the division and not will greatly hinge on whether or not we can come up with a strong late inning pitching combination.
We might need a white knight, a “1964 Barney Schultz” to ride in and literally save the day. Is that guy out there, or on the roster right now? We will see. I think Brebbia or Tui are candidates to be that guy, although neither made a strong case for themselves in their most recent outings.
One thing to consider on the Sutter comparison, is that closers were used differently when he pitched. Sutter averaged roughly 1.5 IP per appearance while with us, whereas today closers are almost strictly one inning pitchers, with an occasional 4-out appearance.
Essentially Sutter went 2 innings every other appearance. That would tend to increase the standard deviation of his outings – in other words, chances are greater for him to get the blown save, or a win or loss rather than a save.
Rosenthal’s W-L record was 8-20 coming in to 2017. If you look at Sutter’s W-L with us, he had many more times being the pitcher of record; 26-30 in four seasons in St. Louis.
Sutter was +8 over Rosenthal in W-L, and had to get more outs per save than Trevor. Not that this data in and of itself makes Sutter a more reliable closer than Rosenthal, but it presents a more complete picture in comparing the two.
It will be interesting to hear what the deal was with Rosenthal. I was surprised he threw an off speed pitch on that 3-2 count before he came out. The TV announcers were all over it before he even came out, saying his velocity was down a little.
Some nights guys just don’t have it, and of course Rosenthal tends to be more up and down than many. Usually a guy like Kimbrel is fairly consistent, but Rosenthal as we are painfully aware of, can be very good or very bad.
That was one of those games where I just never felt like we were going to win it. It was eerily like our earlier season games, where we score early, and cannot add to the lead.
That ninth inning was horribly played. We looked defeated by our actions and body language – all the timeouts, the stalling. The umpire got to our heads, similar to 1985 game six. Once that happened you could just see where were unsure, and kept stammering like we knew the inevitable would happen, but maybe if we just do not pitch we can keep it from happening.
Just a weird game. What is it about us playing Boston. Seems we can never beat them. Fortunately we do not play them much.
Right field has been our weakest offensive spot so far, and it is a position that is customarily offensive oriented (along with a strong arm if possible). So while Upton does offer a significant upgrade there if you use April-mid August numbers, that does not necessarily mean he does the same thing from here on out.
I am not convinced he is a significant enough upgrade to take on now, and looking ahead we appear to be looking at a glut of outfielders.
So I would pass on acquiring him. However, if we do make the plunge I would not be overly upset about it.
Well the streak had to end sometime. We need to keep playing steady baseball – just keep winning series; don’t lose more than 2 or maybe 3 in a row the rest of the season. Avoid the long losing streak, and we’ve got a good chance at the division.
Thanks to the hot streak, Matheny has cut off two games from his Actual-to-Pythagorean deficit this year. We are now only a -3, with an expected record of 64-53 compared to 61-56 actual. He was -5 a week ago.
Joe Maddon is -1, 60-55 compared to an expected mark of 61-54. Milwaukee is right there as well, with an expected mark of 61-58, one better than the 60-59 pace they have set.
Thus based on runs scored vs runs given up, we are the best team in the Central over the first roughly 70% of the season. We have been sabotaged by poor fundamentals, inconsistency on both offense and defense – some of which is due to injuries, an under-performing bullpen much of the year, and some less-than-stellar late-and-close game management decisions.
I think what has gotten us back on track, is a steady lineup that has come together, and the improved bullpen pitching. We finally have a solid eight starting lineup and fairly consistent batting order. A major key has been the return of Kolten Wong to everyday status, and Dexter looks much better since coming back. Grichuk responds better to every day play and needs to stay in right field the rest of the season. Pham is a lock in left, and DeJong has rejuvenated the shortstop position.
Eight is great! Sort of an “ugly” win yesterday though. The ninth turning out to be a stressful inning for Rosenthal, and he no doubt is unavailable today. Matheny probably should have stayed with Martinez another inning at least, but we still got the “W” despite the bad ninth inning.
Wacha has been as consistent as any starter the last six weeks or so. We’ve got a great shot at number 9. I imagine Dickey is no fun to face though. Remember back in the ’80s when Whitey would never play Silent George Hendrick against Phil Niekro? Hendrick said one game against Niekro would “mess up my swing for a week”.
Clark is a real nice guy. At least he was when I met him at an autograph event a few years ago. Does anyone know if he and Pujols patched up their differences, or are they bitter enemies still?
Speaking of Pujols, I wonder if he will be there in 2024 or 2026 when the Cardinals celebrate a reunion of the 2004 and 2006 pennant winners and World Series champs, respectively? He will still be on the Angels payroll in a non-playing capacity, so it will be interesting to see if he shows up. My guess is that he will be there and receive a huge ovation. Tune back in in 7 and/or 9 years to see if my prediction is correct.