Archive for July, 2009

My last night in Springfield brings another ugly blowout to the S-Cardinals. Tomorrow night you’ll have a surprise DFR writer as I make my way back to the St. Louis area.

Palm Beach was postponed and Johnson City was suspended. Late night double header for Memphis as well — I’ll have game 2 details in the morning.

This DFR is brought to you by the new Comedy Central Presents Jim Breuer.

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The Cardinals have certainly been busier this season than any in recent memory. They’ve made trades to augment a club that they feel has both a legitimate shot at going to the plays and going deep.  The recent trades (DeRosa, Duncan, Holliday) have all seen the acquisition of veteran players to fill holes in a lineup decimated by injuries and ineptitude.  The philosophical undertones and impact on the farm system are important but not easy to dissect.  What follows is my best attempt to show what this trade means for a) individual players, b) individual prospects, c) the organization and d) the fans.

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I’ll have my take on the Matt Holliday trade and more sometime in the next couple days. This trade has so many subplots to it. It has a huge impact on the farm system. It has meaning for Shelby Miller. It says a lot about the front office and the coaching staff. There’s a lot to talk about and I want to make sure that I get all my thoughts in a cohesive manner. Bear with me.

A 4+ hour game for Springfield means I’m jumping straight into the DFR.

One quick link from a commenter: Casey Mulligan does a mean thriller routine.

This DFR is brought to you by a really lame Comedy Central Presents Chris Porter. Not funny.

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HPGF fanboy characterized above.

{Azruavatar update:

What a topic. We’ll make sure and have a new thread on this again tomorrow. There’s a lot of secondary information that can be derived from this trade . . . and I mean a lot.

FWIW, I’m not nearly as negative about this trade as most.}

Quick hits, sorry for being redundant, I just don’t want anyone to think I totally am vehemently saying this is the worst trade ever:

• Brett Wallace is not a sure thing. But he is at least a top 50 prospect and that has a lot of value. My feeling is, defensive limitations at 3B aside, he would have been at least an average player for the Cardinals, which means he would have been worth 2 WAR a year, worth around 8-9 million bucks on the free agent market. For a cost-controlled player, that is valuable. Maybe he doesn’t meet that reasonable expectation, stranger things have happened.
• With that in mind, Wallace’s value may never have been higher than it was before the trade was made. But to give up Wallace and Mortensen and Peterson for 2-months of Matt Holliday is a very steep price to pay.
• Holliday had better mean playoffs. But that is no slam dunk. If all goes to plan, Holliday means an extra couple of wins. That might mean the difference between staving off the Cubs and Brewers, it may not. Even if STL makes the playoffs, Philly and LA will be tough to beat.
• IF this means they resign Holliday, groovy, as long as it’s not too cost-prohibitive. There again is that word if.
• IF Holliday is simply offered arbitration and declines, the Cardinals get two high draft picks, including a first rounder. That’s good, but for every Colby or Wallace, there has been Ottavinos and Kozmas. Nothing against those two, but they are C prospects and not really valuable commodities.  That actually is par for the course, which is why a top 100 prospect is worth more than draft pick compensation. It’s the whole proverbial bird in the hand…
• If they don’t bring back Holliday/biff the draft next year, then this will hurt, flag or no flag.  I’m sorry, but I remember fans on ledges in 2007 when they missed the playoffs, a year after they own the World Series. You can build to win now and in the future, you don’t have to choose.
• While I don’t think Mortensen or Peterson will be anything really super special, I’m bummed about Morty leaving. He had that sinker and some upside. Cost-controlled back-end starters have their value, even if that’s all you felt his upside was. Peterson never really did much for me, even though he was hitting pretty well this season. I do have this odd sensation he’ll surprise us all.
• The farm system will probably be in the bottom 20′s after enjoying being a top ten system for a while. If they don’t sign Shelby Miller, the farm system will look really bad. Which, sort of selfishly thinking, makes this site less fun for all of us until draft day. They had better sign Shelby Miller, but even if they do, he’s still a big risk.  I’ve heard 4th OF too often thrown around when discussing DJ Tools. I’ve heard some good comparisons too. (Desmond Jennings) Descalso is nice. Todd is nice. Lynn is OK. Getting Garcia healthy again is good.  But no “impact” player in the system right now, really, other than Wagner Mateo, who is like a decade away and a huge risk as it is.
• Not a real fan of Mo right now at all, but I admire his guts. I just hope this wasn’t some sort of peace offering for trading the pitching coaches’ son. Not sayin’, just sayin’.  Eh, probably not. Just musing.

For more of my take, see this post at BtB and FanGraphs.

Speaking of which, I thought now would be a good time for addressing some questions that you may have thought and didn’t want to ask After pulling a Brett Favre on blogging, I’ve joined FanGraphs because it’s paid gig. Nothing huge, but for blogging, it’s nice.  I’m a self-employed contractor and have been looking for a job with a company for a while, about since my wife found out she was pregnant. I would like to write for a living (who wouldn’t?) but few people get that privilege. So when I’m asked to do get paid for something I like doing, and for a blog with good exposure and that pays, well, why not?

This is the second of the bi-weekly GCL updates. Keep in mind that these stats are to be ingested with a grain of salt as the GCL is the most informal of all American minor leagues.

So, with that in mind, I’ll check in on three “names” on the GCL roster, three players who have played well and three players who have played not so well.

The GCL Cardinals have gone 10-13 so far on the year, they are in 4th place in the GCL “East” Division.

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The Faberge Eggs are busted. And I am so disgusted. Koo-coo-ca-choo is flying the coop, along with my favorite pitching prospect.

FR is not going to be the same without the Walrus. Or Morty for that matter.

Link.

Wallace for Holliday was bad enough as it was. Then they gave away Mortensen too. And Peterson (meh). Still nothing official, but this is a sad day for the HPGF.

edit: Don’t misunderstand me, if Holliday means playoffs, then I can understand it. I don’t think there is a guarantee he does, or that he even vastly improves the odds that happens. I also just think they gave up a lot, and writing for FR becomes quite a bit less interesting.

Please trade Allen Craig. Just to spare my soul the anguish of watching this guy waste away in AAA. He just turned 25 not even a week ago, so it’s not like we are afraid he’s too young. The Cardinals have a knack for watching a guy be hot in AAA and then not calling him up until that phase has passed. You may say “Well, until he got hot, he’s only been putting up a .700 OPS or so” and I say to you look at his home-road splits. Autozone suppresses runs. Craig gets on the road and he mashes. If he promises to sprint to first on walks and play 40 feet away from homeplate while manning the 3rd sack, can he get the job? Craig’s problem is that he is over 6 feet tall and was born with God-given talent.

/rant

After Tonight, Mitchell Boggs’ last 21 innings have seen 19 strikeouts, 8 BBs, 15 hits and 1 ER (which came tonight). I’m extremely excited about both Mitchell and Blake going forward as starters. I would very much like to see them get shots at that 5th starting spot so we can see how they fair at the MLB level. Mitchell’s big knock was that he didn’t have ANY secondary pitches. Hopefully, that is no longer the case. If anyone can refine his breaking stuff, it’s Chris Carpenter…who he should be around every waking moment of every single day.

{azru edit: Just an FYI — I’m making a weekend trip to Springfield to watch the S-Cards face off against the Arkansians from the north western part of the state. I’ll be around for Friday and Saturday’s DFR with a special fill-in on Sunday.}

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Palm Beach is 11-13 in the second half and sits in 3rd place in the FSL South division after going 29-41 in the first half.

The Florida State League is a pitcher’s league, so some of the struggles of the hitters can be contributed somewhat to the park factors and the pitchers dominance in this league. The Palm Beach pitcher’s problems…not so much.

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Billy Beane may have the last laugh yet. Word is Mo may be willing to part with our Beloved Walrus to get Matt Holliday. This is simple math, people.

Brett Wallace is one of the most valuable commodities in all of baseball. Baseball America recently ranked him the 24th best prospect in baseball. According to Victor Wang’s studies, that means his surplus value is about $25 million bucks. Matt Holliday is probably worth a win or two (closer to two) to the Cardinals, or about $7-9 million. He stands to get paid $6 million more for the rest of the season. He’s going to be a Type A free agent, and the general accepted value is a 1st round pick is worth about $5 mil. So Holliday’s total value is something around $8 million.

$25 million > $8 million.

You don’t trade a top 25 prospect for a rental. Period.

(Thanks to Sky for the inspiration).

Update: According to playoff odds, Holliday increases the Cardinals odds of reaching the playoffs by 15%, and up to 45%. So he’s no guarantee to vault the Cards into October. Sure helps, but no guarantee. According to Jonah Keri, a playoff appearance is worth $25 million. So $25*.15 and figuring inflation and you got another $4M. $25M is still greater than $12M. Hat tip, vivaelpujols.

The Sweet Tune of Organizational Harmony

“The way I look at it is he was traded for a player who had very little (leverage) … he was designated for assignment,” Duncan said. “It’s highly unusual for a major-league roster player to be traded for somebody like that. So somebody wanted to get him out of the organization, and they’ve accomplished what they wanted to accomplish.

“Either that or we don’t have anybody in the minor leagues that they wanted for (Lugo). One or the other.”

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