Derrick Goold is reporting tonight the Cardinals shipped Chris Perez to Cleveland for Mark DeRosa.
DeRosa, the Bugs Bunny of players because he can play all over the diamond, has ostensibly been brought in to play third for the Cardinals.
This begs several questions.
(a) Is the Khalil Greene experiment at third base over? Khalil played short in today's 5-3 win, after playing the previous 7 games at third. Why did the team let him work at third if it wasn't a long term solution? Khalil's UZR at third is 0.00, with the usual caveat that a seven game sample is not statistically significant.
(b) Will DeRosa actually play third? He played mostly second while with the Cubs, although he's played either at third or in the OF with the Indians this year. He did play some third with Chicago, and his UZR numbers are good, but he didn't play 60 games there in his two seasons on the north side. He played 42 games at third for Cleveland, with a UZR of -5.4.
For his career he has negative UZR at third. Defensively his best position is RF, which is not a spot we need more candidates for.
Based on his and Khalil Greene's UZR numbers, and assuming he plays the infield where the team needs assistance, I suggest he play short and leave Khalil at third.
(c) where will DeRosa hit in the order? With Cleveland he hit all over - #2 (28 times), #4 (3), #5 (19), #6 (12), #7 (6), and #8 (2). Heck, hit him fourth - only Pujols has more than his 13 HR and 50 RBI this season on the Cardinals (Ludwick is next with 11 and 38, respectively). Never mind he's 1 for 12 hitting cleanup this year, I'm sure that's a statistical abberation.
So, to summarize: Cardinals sent Chris Perez to Cleveland for Mark DeRosa. Don't be surprised if DeRosa plays short and hits fourth tomorrow.
BT BT
I had some time last night to mess with the site a little bit. You'll notice some improvements throughout the page. Allow me to summarize them for your convenience:
- Added a widget for Blog Talk Radio. Now, instead of having to go to the site, you can listen to all the UCB episodes from here with a click of the button.
- Added a Cardinals schedule widget. You'll have to scroll all the way to the bottom of the page to see it; I tried it in the margin, but it doesn't fit well. I assume it will be updated with actual wins/losses as they happen, although early returns don't indicate that'll be the case.
- Added a photo of the Cardinal retired numbers. I've always wanted to inlcude that on the list. I finally 'stole' the one from here, because it's the best one I'd seen.
- Re-ordered the blog links in the margin. All the blogs that were formerly there are still, but I decided to break them into new categories: "recommended", "cardinals blogs (which do not include the couple which are recommended)", and "other sites of interest". I had the title of the last post at each site included in addition to the logo and time since last update, but that got too cumbersome. I don't display all the blogs in those respective categories, but the list does reorder as sites are updated. Also, there's a link you can click to see all the blogs in that particular list.
- Changed the blog archive section. Instead of a pull down menu, it now shows stuff by year, with sub-folders for months. No real reason for doing it other than I thought I'd try it out.
15 minutes ago
2 comments:
I'd rather not see DeRosa at SS, because I think Ryan's been doing pretty well lately. He's been well above average with the glove, and he's sporting the 3rd (well 4th now that DeRosa's here) OPS on the team. In reality, I'd expect DeRosa at 3rd, and Ryan splitting time at short with the Greenes (and hopefully starting at 2B when they face a lefty, since Skip's just about helpless against LHP).
What I'd like to see is DeRosa play 2nd, and move Skip back to LF. It improves the team defensively at 2 positions (and doesn't weaken SS, since Ryan could still start), and we keep Skip's relatively good OBP in the lineup.
Granted, that leaves us with either Thurston or Khalil at 3B, so maybe David Freese could get another shot (and actually get some playing time this time), or they could call up Allen Craig. Neither one is exactly tearing up AAA, but I don't think they could do worse than the other two fellows I mentioned.
Good comment.
Based on it, I took a look another look at some 2008/9 fielding numbers at fangraphs.com.
Ryan is better than DeRosa and Greene at SS for 2009, just as you said. What I didn't know is (a) Ryan is also better than DeRosa and Schumaker at 2B, and (b) based on UZR, statistically DeRosa and Schu are the same at 2B (-7.4 to -7.6, respectively); I used DeRosa's numbers from 2008 to do the comparison.
For this year, DeRosa is a far better LF than Schu, again based on UZR. Perhaps that's why he started in LF today.
Since Schu's bat is keeping him in the every day lineup, I would expect him to keep playing 2B. And with our glut of OF, I don't see DeRosa playing a out out there. I think he'll spend the majority of his time playing SS or 3B.
I'm glad I don't have to set a lineup every day for this team...
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