See ya Springer

It looks like Russ Springer is going to sign a one year deal with the A’s, reportedly for 1 year at $3M. MLB.com says Springer will likely setup for “dual closers” Brad Ziegler and Joey Devine. I wasn’t aware Oakland was going with a two-headed closer tandem, but regardless, bully for Springer.

Springer was a pretty pleasant surprise the two seasons that he was a Cardinal. After posting tRA’s of 3.48 and 4.41 in 2005 and 2006 with the Astros, Springer showed a lot of improvement while in St. Louis, putting up tRA’s of 2.63 and 3.30. Oddly enough, these marked improvements came between ripe old ages of 38-39.

Despite all of his improvements, Springer was under appreciated by the Cardinals. For one, they didn’t offer him arbitration and showed no interest in bringing him back. That part I can understand a little, after all, he did turn 40 and the Cardinals have no shortage of options when it comes to right-handed relief. I get the front office’s stance towards Springer, but I don’t understand La Russa’s.

I say that because Springer was the best reliever the Cardinals had two years running, but despite that, TLR never really seemed to trust him in the high leverage situations. Springer led Cardinal relievers in WPA/LI two seasons in a row, 1.65 in 2007 and 1.01 last season, yet his average leverage index was .78 and 1.05 the past two seasons. To put that into context, Ryan Franklin had a WPA/LI of .03 last season and his average LI was 1.7. McClellan had a WPA/LI of .14 and his leverage index was 1.58. Jason Isringhausen’s LI was 1.5 and his WPL/LI was a dismal -.8. Perhaps more damning is how Randy Flores had average LI’s of 1.34 in ‘08 and .94 in ‘07. How in the world could anyone trust Randy Flores more than Russ Springer? How could you trust anyone less than Randy Flores is probably the better question.

While La Russa pitched him more in higher leverage situations last season, he gave Ryan Franklin and Jason Isringhausen opportunity after opportunity and they blew something around 8 bazillion saves and it cost the Cardinals a chance at playing in October. La Russa had Springer all along and yet he never gave him one save opportunity.

Now Springer’s headed to Oakland and it looks like he’ll be given more of a chance to pitch in key situations. Guesstimating some, Springer should post around a 3.50 ERA over 60 innings. The average LI for a set up man is 1.3. So that makes him project to be worth 1.3 WAR, worth about $5.8 M. That would be the high end of his worth, but I think it’s at least realistic considering his new home ballpark. On the low end, let’s say he regresses and gives the A’s a 3.80 ERA and lower his leverage to 1, then he’s worth .6 WAR or $3.3 M, which is still a little less what they are paying him.

Leave it to the A’s to know a decent bargain when they see one.

PAH9 Moved

After a brief stay here at WordPress, I’ve packed up and moved over to MVN.  Update your bookmarks and RSS feeds according, yes, that means all seven of you.

Glaus half full or half empty?

Yesterday, out of the blue, we learned that Troy Glaus underwent surgery to repair a torn muscle near his right shoulder and could miss 5 weeks or more of the season. That sucks and certainly calls into question “why now?”, but there’s not much that can be done about it now. So can the Cards weather this? I think so.

First of all, let me say there’s not a good enough reason to bring up Brett Wallace right now. If there were no other viable 3B options in house, then maybe, but there’s no reason to start the Walrus’s service time unless you plan on keeping him up in the big leagues for good. Let the big guy work on his defense in the minors where it doesn’t matter and then install him permanently as the regular 3B next season after Glaus walks. 

That brings us to David Freese. Why? Because he has little left to prove in AAA and will turn 26 early in the season. He’s an able defender and a decent hitter.  Freese’s CHONE projection calls for a .335 wOBA, a far cry from Glaus’ .372, but it’s respectable enough. I knocked down Glaus’ plate appearances to 500 and give 155 of them to Freese and it knocks the team off 3 runs. I also knocked Glaus’ projected .372 wOBA to .365, considering he may start slow coming back.  You can see the results here. 

The short of it is the Cardinals as they stood before this news had 88 win talent. Minus some Glaus, plus some Freese, the result is 87.4 wins. In other words, if Freese does play and plays as projected it costs the Cardinals only 6 runs. Not good, but certainly bearable. 

Now if La Russa mismanages the roster (and he very well could, knowing Tony) and plays a lot of Brendan Ryan at 3B, that could cost the Cardinals another 4-6 runs. Here’s hoping Freese has a strong showing in spring training and that he lives up to his prospect billing as a Cardinal rookie.

The bottom line is having Glaus out of the lineup for a month isn’t going to break the season. Barring a big move, the season right isn’t riding on Troy’s health so much as it is on Carpenter’s.

John Mozeliak can talk smack with the best trolls

I’m not sure why Mo would agree to chat with the nuts that hang out at stltoday.com given the general mood over there, but hilarity ensued. 

I Hate Bill Dewitt!!: Mo, Please describe what it’s like living in your little land of make believe where you honestly believe that Cardinal fans should be excited about this team. If you wouldn’t mind, go into details, about how in MO’s world people are celebrating are three horrible new lefty relievers, and the signing of our awesome new .213 hitting shortstop.

John Mozeliak: First of all, I would rather would live in my world then yours…it is sunny out today??? No, you’re right it is 30 something degrees, my girlfriend dumped me, and my car won’t start. It is not as if we stink (unless you ask yourself these questions in the mirror) and we make decisions based on scouts, stats, and other information. If we thought Greene was going to hit .213 we would not, I repeat, not make the deal. Go back to your world and I hope by mid summer you’re ready to come out for air.

I LOVE it!

This cartoon sums it up well. What ever happened to being the The Best Fans in Baseball(TM)? Right now, the dumbest fans are squawking so loudly that it is drowning the rest of us out.

Feels like an arbi’s night

Only two Cardinals remain eligible for salary arbitration; the Cards have signed Todd Wellemeyer, Chris Duncan and Brad Thompson have all re-upped for another year. Let’s do a quick rundown: 

• Todd Wellemeyer signed for $4.05 in his final year eligible for salary arbitration. While the stupid sector of fans continue to lambaste Mozeliak for taking his chances on low-hanging fruit, taking a flyer on The Colonel has certainly worked out rather well, hasn’t it? Consider this: Welley was traded by the Cubs for two minor leaguers who never panned out, then DFA’d by the lowly Marlins and again by the Royals. Dave Duncan worked his magic by helping Wellemeyer morph a respectable starter. I have serious doubts he’s going to repeat his 3.71 ERA, 32 starts from last season, but if he can hit 150 innings and manage his to make his CHONE projected 4.38 ERA, he’ll be worth double his salary.
• Chris Duncan is a walking science experiment now with his new titanium disc. He says he feels as good as new, so it’ll be an interesting to watch, maybe his surgery will prolong a few more major leaguers careers.  Dunc signed for $825,000. If he can get to his CHONE projection (around 460 PA’s, .351 wOBA, terrible defense), I have him down for .8 WAR, worth $4M on the free agent market. With the OF as crowded as it is, and the uncertainty of how Metal Dunc will pan out, I scaled him back to 200 plate appearances, reducing him to .4 WAR, which is worth $2M on the FA market. 
• Brad Thompson, $650,000. Kyle McClellan seems to have already bumped him out of the “6th starter” spot, and if the team keeps the normal two LOOGY’s on the roster, he looks like the odd man out for a roster. CHONE has him at .2 WAR, worth $1.4 M. I don’t think Puppy Kicker will get a whole lot of innings other than garbage time, but perhaps he’ll get a few spot starts here and there.

That leads us to the two outfielders, both due for a couple of good sized raises: 

• Rick Ankiel asked for $3.3, the Cards countered with $2.35. Look, Ankiel has done it two years in a row now, just give him his money. I’ve guesstimated Ank to get 500 plate appearances and CHONE has him at a .345 wOBA good for 1.9 WAR. That’s worth about $9M on the free agent market, and Ankiel is just a year away from that. I know they try and compare apples with apples when working these contracts out. The problem is Rick is a mackinaw peach. :Flag! No more than 2 Seinfeld references per post!:  
• Ryan Ludwick is asking for $4.25 M, a pretty hefty raise. The Cardinals offered only $2.8M, so they are worlds apart right now. Is Luddy Bubba Trammell or Jim Lemon? (Hat tip to Pip for coming up for the Lemon comp). I think he’ll get a healthy amount of playing time and CHONE has him projected at a .364 wOBA. If he can net that and 575 PA’s, I have him at 2.6 WAR, worth a fair market value of $12.3. Considering his service time is less than 4 years, I think $4.25 actually seems pretty fair. Of course, I have no idea as to what all goes into these negotiations, but I’m sure it’s not WAR and CHONE projections.

With the exception of Thompson, these players represent some pretty strong value to the team, a total of 6.6 wins above replacement according to my little spreadsheet. Hopefully the Cards get things done w/Ank and Luddy without having to resort to arbitration. It just doesn’t seem worth a whole lot of haggling with their agents at the expense of possibly hurting some feelings.

I need your input!

Over at Beyond the Boxscore, Sky had a great idea of putting together a community WAR project, which I volunteered to help participate in. It’s pretty cool- different team specific bloggers get input from their readers on how to enter the projections, and in the end we should have a pretty interesting projections, and we’ll all keep updating as the season goes on. CHONE, Marcel, ZiPS, et al crunch the numbers, but we fans who follow the team closely know some things the projections don’t, like who is expected to see an increase/decrease in their playing time, who is battling injury, etc. Now I know the blog is relatively new here and we’re still growing in readership, but those of you who read, I’d like to hear your input.

Here is the community spreadsheet as I entered it. What would you change? For example, we’re hearing a lot of positive press about Carpenter’s health out of Winter Warm Up.  Should I project more than 85 IP for Carp? Less? Leave it the same? Other things to consider is how much playing time will Chris Duncan or Colby Rasmus actually see…there is the matter of who will be the utility IF, outfielder playing time, etc.  You get the idea.

I’m not saying I’m going to make just any change, but if it’s something reasonable and we’re able to come to a consensus, great.

Cubs sign So Taguchi

Get out of our dumpster, you vagrants!

:shakes angry old man fist:

Preemptive letter to hurt Taguchi fanboys-

Dear Cult of So:

Don’t misunderstand me, I love So in way only a Cardinal fan could. He’s classy, he hustled, and he took Billy Wagner deep in Game 2! He worked hard to acclimate himself to our culture and went from looking like a total failure of a baseball player in America to a pretty decent 5th outfielder, at least for a few seasons (‘05-’07). I just find it humorous the Cubs keep signing Cardinal cast offs. 

The 31st Team would finish under .500

Over at Bird Land, Derrick Goold puts together a pretty fearsome looking lineup made up strictly of the remaining free agents on the market and poses the question: How would this “expansion team” fare in the NL Central? Off the cuff, you’d have to think a lineup featuring-

• Manny Ramirez, Bobby Abreu and Adam Dunn in the middle of its order,
• a middle infield that boasts two former Gold Glove winners plus a defensive stalwart such as Joe Crede at the hot corner,
• a rotation headlined by Ben Sheets, Oliver Perez and three other innings-eaters with solid reputations,
• topped off with a bench made up of three former all stars (and a future Hall of Famer) 

-would do pretty well, right?

The readers of Bird Land seem to think so. As I write this, according to DG’s poll 33% believe they’d actually overtake the Cubs as the favorites to win the division. Another 33% think they’d finish 2nd. Not so fast. Thanks to Sky’s newly updated, user friendly WAR spreadsheet, I attempted to answer that question. To cut to the chase:  79 wins. That’s it.  And that assumes a pretty healthy rotation, which is a stretch considering Sheets and Wolf’s injury history.

• You can see the lineup projects to be pretty good, but after Sheets, the rotation is built on a lot of #4 type starters, some masquerading to be better than they really are. (Perez, Garland). 
• The bullpen is less than inspiring as well. I wasn’t sure who else to fill it with, so I threw in a couple of retreads in Izzy and Chad Cordero. 
• That is one horrific defensive outfield. Perez and his crazy fly ball tendencies would definitely suffer. 

While this team boasts a lot of all star talent, it just isn’t that good. Even in this buyer’s market, this team would also likely surpass any team in the division’s payroll. The Cardinals in their current condition are the better team.  With Sky’s new and improved sheet, I have the Cardinals now at 85 wins, which seems more accurate then before. More on that later.

Cards WAR 2.0

I tweaked the original a bit and came up with exactly 87 wins this time.

• This time I used CHONE projections. For some of the more optimistic projections, I scaled down some, as in the case of Molina, Greene.
• For the pitchers, I used FIP instead of their projected ERAs. I then shaved off a .1 or .2 up or down, depending on the pitcher.

It’s not quite a perfect world scenario, but it does assume everyone but Carpenter remains healthy, so feel free to shave off 2-3 wins in your mind.

You’ll notice there are four tabs.  The 2nd tab I added Orlando Hudson and Randy Wolf.  John Perrotto today said that Hudson has received zero offers to this point and the poor team Nats are biding their time, hoping to scoop him up on the cheap for a 1 year, incentive-laced deal.  I would think the O-Dawg would prefer St. Louis, if the Cardinals are interested.  The downside: He’s a type A, which will make liveblogging the draft over at FR a real bore, at the minimum.  His projection of 2.4 WAR also concludes he’ll bounce back some defensively.

Derrick Goold also earlier in the week tweeted that the Cards are interested in Oliver Perez and Randy Wolf.  Ollie is still probably priced out of the Cards’ budget, while Wolf is more of an injury risk and should come for less $/yrs.  Goold also said the market may push Jon Garland their way.  Bah.  They may as well have offered Looper arbitration.  All three pitchers project to be around equal value, and again, if all goes well, then O-Dawg +  either Perez/Wolf/Looper/Garland could push the Cards up to 90 wins.

The third scenario is the Summer of Colby.  Pushing Luddy to LF, Slick Rick to RF and assuming Colby will provide some darn good defense in CF  bumps the Cards to 88 wins without adding anyone.  (87.7 to be exact)  Combine this w/ the “sign free agents” scenario and it might do the trick. 

The final tab is the ever hopeful, no moves, 90 win tab.  That’s the dreamland scenario of Carpenter winning the comeback player of the year award and Colby having a ROY campaign of a season.   Hope springs eternal.

Kawakami to Atlanta

I’ve been advocating patience, but honestly I’m a little bummed out about this one. NPB Tracker is saying it is believed to be a 3 yr. /$24 M deal. His park/league neutral CHONE projection calls for FIP’s of 3.99, 4.06 and 4.09  over the next three seasons. CHONE believes he’ll only reach 122 innings, and then 110 and 98 from there, which is pretty pessimistic. If that’s what he does, then the contract is a moderate bargain, but if he throws 160+ innings per year, it’s a great buy on Atlanta’s part. Kawakami would be worth 2.5 to nearly 3 wins annually in that case.

Unless Kawakami really wanted to go to Atlanta for some reason, or there’s some sort of injury concern I don’t know about, I believe Mo missed the boat. Barring a trade, he’s now left with free agent pitchers who are either out of his price range or too mediocre to really matter.