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Memphis won 13-10 to advance to the PCL finals. Diaz, O’Neill and Garcia 8 hits and 8 runs. Wisdom 4 batted in with a first inning homer. O’Neill and Garcia also a first inning homer.
Mayer an effective relief outing. Zied allowed one of Pearce’s runners to score and got the win regardless. I hate to see him come into the game.
I have never bought in to the idea that pitchers have very little control of whether they win or not.
Good pitchers make good pitches in critical situations. It may be in a 1-0 game or a 7-6 game but a good pitcher will make a number of quality pitches in critical situations. Sometimes they get into trouble early but you better finish them off or you could have seen your last run.
I am reminded of the time when Gussie Busch got angry at Carlton and had him traded to a hapless Philly team for Rick Wise a 50-50 pitcher. So the story was that Wise would do much better for a quality Cardinal team. Well Wise continued to be basically a 50-50 pitcher while Carlton won something like 26 games for a very poor Philly team.
Bottom line is the pitchers have more control than the hitters in the game. Good pitching will almost always stop good hitting.
We have to give Waino credit for making the most of his opportunities. That is what a quality pitcher does. Martinez on the other hand loses games he should win due to melting down in many tough situations. He will probably become a great Cardinal pitcher but still has something to learn from a savvy vet like Wainwright.
Good analysis
With about 10 days to go in the season Springfield, State College and Johnson City were in position to make the playoffs but they all tanked, particularly Johnson City with 7 straight losses.Bull pen woes were a big culprit. Springfield just had no effective bullpen guys down the stretch and Johnson City struggled with both starters and bullpen.
Memphis has an uphill struggle as they have a lot of parts missing from the team that dominated the league most of the season.
I have not been in the Matheny is always right crew or the one who criticizes every move, every lineup and every decision. It is amazing the accuracy of 20/20 hindsight. Also how infrequent decisions that turn out ok is noted after the fact.
I though Whitey was a master at evaluating talent and keeping his players fresh, even by rotating them back to AAA if they were not getting action. Also thought he was good strategy wise. His downfall was when Gussie turned the team over to the brewery and Whitey lost infleunce.
Tony was a master at determining the appropriate roles that a winning team needed played and apparently was effective working with management to get the right players to fill those roles. His decisions appeared to be computer driven which always gave him a basis to defend them. He never seemed to play the hot hand.
I admire Schoendienst as a person and player but lesser so as a manager.
I see Matheny’s strength as recognizing talent. Most of the people he brings up from the minors are pretty effective. Exception Mayers but who would give up on a guy with mid-90’s stuff and a good minor league track record. And how many minor leaguers scuffle with their first major league appearances. Like the welcome to the bigs Alcantara got facing his first hitter.
When I see Boston using Kimbrel other than in the 9th or the Cubs use Davis elsewhere or the Dodgers use Jansen elsewhere and it really work I will be more critical of Matheny’s attempt to establish regular 7th, 8th and 9th inning bullpen guys. That does seem to cause some imbalance in workloads. Seems the genius guys tried to broaden the use of key bullpen guys Chapman and Miller in last year’s post season and both wore down pretty badly by the end of the series.
I am concerned about some things.
This season our defense and base running appear to be very careless. A bad record and those kind of problems often lead to a fired manager.I don’t like our approach at the plate. We take a lot of first pitch fastballs right down the middle. Guys like Grichek, DeJong and Diaz need every swing they can get and can’t afford that. We also take a lot of close pitches for called third strikes while other teams seem to foul off a lot of the close ones. Every team swings at too many pitches out of the zone. We seem to do so on third strikes often.
Also we send struggling hitters to Memphis where they seem to be refreshed and come back and do better for awhile. Maybe the Budda is our best hitting coach.
We seem to have far more than our share of pitching injuries. Seems like we have lost at least one key pitcher to Tommy John surgery every year that Matheny has been manager. Bad luck or something wrong with our conditioning program?
In some cases we seem to cater to the players and Mike is known as a players manager. I liked Carpenter much better as a .300 hitter with few strikeouts than the present version. Particularly in the leadoff position. He does not run will and strikes out too much in search of more power. Yet he always gets back to the leadoff position.
The Leake, Cecil and maybe even the Fowler acquisitions have not turned out well. Fowler has had a good second half offensively (still strikes out too much) but in my opinion he does not belong in center field. We seem to have great scouting and if Matheny isn’t heavily involved in front office moves we are missing out on one of his best talents. Unlike the LaRussa years we seem to have too many resources in some roles and not enough in others. That may be on Mo’s head more than Matheny’s.
But if we finish dead last I will still be a big Cardinal fan.
I somewhat agree with Scudder. We tend to be impatient. We tend to be negative and ready to dump anyone at the first slump.
Before we go nuts trading prospects think Jeff Bagwell for Larry Anderson and John Smoltz for Doyle Alexander. Or look at the early trade action for Adam Jones, Josh Donaldson, Jose Bautista, Edwin Encarnacion, Corey Kluber, Anthony Rizzo, Jake Arrieta and Nelson Cruz.
The difference between us fans and the pros is that they have a much better idea about the upside of a player.
Just because Diaz melted down doesn’t mean that DeJong will suffer the same fate. It is all about adjustments and I believe DeJong has shown an ability to adjust. We are talking about moving a potential 30 homer shortstop with at least average defense off the position. Sure he hit 13 of them at Memphis but at the same rate per plate appearance as he did at St Louis when he hit his 20th. A little troubling that he hasn’t hit one for awhile. But he is still hitting the ball hard.
Diaz just got totally out of kilter. On his front foot, lunging and wild swings at everything. He is coming on lately at Memphis. Budda seems to have got him more stable at the plate and Steve Selby is complimentary of his defense at both short and third.
Having said that I do believe Mo has not shown an ability to time his few trades to get a maximum return. On the other hand he has few if any guys he let go lite things up with their new team.
The Cardinals face real challenges this year and the front office can make some collosal mistakes or on the other hand make a breakthrough deal or two. You have Bader, Sierra, O’Neil, Adolis Garcia, Flaherty, Hudson, Gallen, Alcantara, Helsley, Alvarez, Sosa, Kelly, Knizer, Machado close with some seriously blocked except for the pitchers, most of whom can bump a number of our current bullpen staff.
Then there are those like Valera, Wisdom, Martini, Anthony Garcia and Mejia who suddenly are either solid AAAA’s or key pieces on someones 25 man roster. We could have all of them exit the system this year. But how do you keep them on the roster with the above group pending. And a number of them will qualify as 6 year free agents.
Baseball is a game of adjustments. I doubt that we have an overwhelming list of all-stars in the above names. But with the right adjustments a number of them could reach that status. For example; Wisdom is an excellent defender at third. If he can make adjustments to cut his strikeouts and raise his average to something like .260 with 30+ homers, who wouldn’t want him as their third baseman.
Wacha’s problem seems to be that he seems to have a hard time staying within himself when he gets a runner on early in the inning. He overthrows, misses his spots and then in trouble grooves one. He is usually great through the first nine batters then often struggles the second time through.
I don’t think they are throwing in the towel but I do think they are starting to look hard to the future. Flaherty should do OK. Actually what more does he need to prove at Memphis. He needs to avoid what Weaver did last year and try to be too fine. This year Weaver is trusting his stuff more and going after the hitters and getting ahead in the count.
I do think the Leach move is an early step in adding by subtraction. Should also be a strong message to others.
Would like to have had Adolis Garcia or Alvarez and Morales instead of Nogowski, and Reyes.
Glad to see Knizer and Mercado on the list.
I guess Alcantara will not debut in St Louis this year.
Believe that O’Neill and Adolis Garcia are the best potential big bats. Wisdom would be except for the K’s and low average. He is a good defender. Probably AAAA but he has the power.
DeJong, Bader and Carlson probably the next best possibilities.
I like players who move up and improve at the next level. DeJong had 22 homers and .784 OPS last year at Springfield. 33 homers and .900 OPS at AAA and major league in 2017. Bad news is that his K rate is similar.
He seems to make good adjustments. They were getting him to chase up and in and down and away for a while, but he seems to have adjusted to that scheme.
One thing I think the Cardinals don’t do well is foul off the close pitches. While some do many just take a lot of third strikes looking at pitches too close to take.
Premature to give up on Mayers. Mid-90’s heater. Needs to learn how to use his stuff better and better command at the major league level.
Also Adolis Garcia, multi-talented guy who is red hot. Maybe the best arm in the system and great speed.
Springfield romped over Corpus Christi 12-5. 3 hits each by Adolis Garcia, Alvarez and Nogowski. Alvarez two doubles and 6 RBI’s.
Memphis 4-0 over the Baby Cakes. Wisdom his 28th. Gant the winner.
I don’t think he dropped the ball because of one hand. He clearly lost it in the lights or didn’t keep his eye on the ball. No way the ball hits the heel of the glove that way if he is seeing it. Particularly since he was not running for the ball.
I’m not usually as critical of Matheny’s bullpen moves as others but last night was an exception. With Mayers history he sould have had no more than 4 hitters faced if not only 3. Then in the 9th when he sent Bowman out there I suspected Oh wasn’t available. But he had to use Oh anyway. In my opinion he is too reliant on Bowman.
I have always been a Velora fan but the Cardinals don’t seem to see him as a contributor. Also not Brian,s ranking of Valera. Brian probably has a lot more insight to the team officials thinking than most of us.
Sorry, meant Mercado. Also Wisdom is a likely loss. Good fielder with 20-30 HR power. K’s seem to mean a lot less now.
Who do we really have that could help land an impact player or top prospect. Really not many except our top prospects. I do agree that getting even a mid level prospect is better than non-tendering.
We must protect O’Neill, Bader, Sierra, Alvarez, Alcantara, Machado, Weaver. I don’t believe we have to protect Flaherty and Sosa could slide by because of serious injuries two years in a row.
Pearce, Gomber, Morales, Gant and Wick may be exposed.
I believe that we lose Mejia, Martini, and Valera to the 6 year free agency route. If we call up Valera I doubt that he would get much playing time and we will probably remove him from the roster. I like Voit but I think the jury is really still out on him and we don’t need a second first baseman. Would not be surprised to see him dropped from the 40 man roster. I think there are teams out there that would risk a rule 5 on several of these guys.
Our problem may be that our less than high ceiling depth would just create the same problem for another team that we would bundle a bunch of guys for.
The problem I have is I don’t know who other teams are even interested in and what other teams needs are.
Bottom line is we have to do the best job we can at addition by subtraction.
We were really put out because we lost Cordoba last year. Think how we would feel if Sosa, Alvarez and Wick or all of them were claimed. Teams are smart enough to look past injuries, particularly position players.
Also, Alvarez is swinging the bat much better since his return and Wick is pitching well as well. Sosa just played his first rehab game. Not in favor of that move.
But we are going to have to make some tough decisions. I expect to see a fair number of 40 man roster guys non-tendered, up to and including guys like Greg Garcia.
One thing critical with Leake is the umpire’s strike zone. Last night it was a tight one with a lot of pitches in the edge of the zone called balls according to the square on the screen. Leake needs the low strike to survive.
Each umpire has their own strike zone and most are consistent with it. I really don’t like the arrogance of some umpires in that they have their own strike zone regardless of the rule book. But it is what it is.
Not defending Leake. We probably would have done better accelerating one of our youth than paying all that money for a 50/50 pitcher. Couldn’t have hurt as we didn’t do well last year and Leake was not good.
Going into tonight’s games the Cardinal minor league teams are 70 games over .500. This includes the 7 games under .500 by our very young DSL team. Of course Memphis is 40 games over.
If you go deeper in the stats Alcantara has six consecutive quality starts, 36.2 innings, 29 hits, 6 earned runs, 21 bb (ouch) and 25 ks. He is a model for the Cardinal philosophy in developing prospects. Challenge them with a level above their current development, give them around a half season to catch up.
