Well... So Much For That

First, a Public Service Announcement: the United Cardinal Bloggers Radio Hour will continue on through the off-season, at least for now, and specifically for tonight. Dan Shoptaw will host today's show, scheduled for 7:30 PM Pacific time. Adjust your schedules accordingly. I hope to dial in and talk with him, as always, but that's contingent on a few other things lining up tonight.

It's been 4 days since the Cardinal season finished with a thud. I thought the Cardinals had a good chance of winning this series. I remember looking at various predictions of the NLDS, both at ESPN, CBS Sportsline, and other places, and virtually everyone picked the Cardinals to win in 4 or 5 games. That kind of uniform thought started me thinking something had been missed. For me, I didn't fully appreciate, until the series was over, how razor-thin the Cardinals' margin for error was. Their roster contained 4 players - Carpenter, Wainwright, Pujols, and Holliday - who in 2009 were arguably better than anyone the Dodgers could run out there at any position. However, looking at roster slots 5-25, the Dodgers were better. Better bullpen, better bench, better.

In order for the Cardinals to have won that series, their 4 studs had to play at their A-game level every game. Objective analysis indicates only Wainwright succeeded (8 IP, 3 H, 1 BB, 7 K). AP (3-10, zero extra base hits) was largely neutralized, Holliday had a HR in Game 2 but was 1-11 otherwise, and Carpenter pitched poorly. With 3 of their 4 big guns scuffling, the team just didn't have enough to compensate.

I think the fact Troy Glaus got 2 post-season at bats underscores that point.

I said before Game 3, that when you find yourself pinning all hope to Joel Piniero (after August 1: 4.64 ERA, .738 OPS against), you're in trouble.

So the off-season started Sunday. I would expect there won't be much activity on any front until after the playoffs end around Christmas. As an aside, isn't is asinine all 4 LDS series are over but we still have to way until tomorrow for the LCS round to start? The Yankees will have had 5 days off between games, the Angels 4, the Dodgers 4, the Phillies 3. Why can't MLB run their playoffs like hockey does - once the two series winners are known, start the next round no more than 2 days later. All the excitement that had been generated last week is gone. No wonder MLB is losing the next generation of fans.

There are already reports that Ankiel probably won't be re-signed. Dave Duncan is leaning towards returning if LaRussa returns. LaRussa hasn't decided if he wants to manage yet next year. Then there's Molina being sued for failure to make contracted autograph appearances and other minutiae.

Anyway. This will be the fourth off-season for the ol' blog. I've got some things lined up - there are Baseball Bloggers Alliance award justifications to write, a fantasy baseball wrap, roster analysis, and so on - that will be up over the coming days/weeks. Not to mention stories as warranted about the ongoing playoffs. So check back - hopefully you'll find something worth reading.

Ankiel shaves mustache, drives in two

There's a commenter over at "Kissing Suzy Kolber" named "The Future Mrs. Rick Ankiel". She may be the only person upset at the loss of the porno mustache. Or maybe not; only she knows.

As for me, I couldn't care less, as long as it doesn't get large enough to distract him from playing defense or swinging the bat.

Rick has stuggled with the bat so far this season, but over the last 5 games is starting to show signs of snapping out of it. He's hit 2 HR in that span. Last night gave the latest evidence in his resurgence, two two-out RBI singles, which powered the Cardinals to a 3-2 win over Atlanta.

The three runs was all Joel Piniero would need. Piniero, continuing his surprisingly good start, went 6 and 2/3 allowing only one run. His record now stands at 4-0, tying his 2001 start for his best start ever to a season. And as has been mentioned here before, the Cardinals really need him right now given the state of their rotation.

With the Dodgers losing to San Francisco, the Cardinals now sport the best record in baseball at 14-6. Who would've thunk it?

I'm in class again (there's a shock), and our first test is Thursday, so the next few posts may be bereft of substance; please bear with us.

Kyle Lohse's knee against Jo-Jo Reyes tonight. Reyes is 0-1 with a 7.94 ERA this season. In his career he's 3-6 at the TED, 3-9 in the first half of the season, 4-9 in night games, and 0-2 against St Louis.

Oh, yeah - he's also left handed. So you know you can throw all those statistics out the window.

Break out the brooms

The bridge crew searches for an effective Met pitcher

Albert Pujols brought the whooping stick. Rick Ankiel saw past his cheesy porno mustache and made a fantastic catch to go with his first HR and 2 RBI. Lohse pitched 5 exciting innings, but wiggled off the hook when needed.

Under the bright sunlight, St Louis swept New York out of town, winning the finale 12-8.

For all the good in this game, and offensively, there was a lot of good, the bullpen continues to be a question mark. Called upon to get 12 outs, they responded by giving up 6 runs. Most of that fell on PJ Walters, but his pen mates did a lousy job stranding inherited runners.

With the reshuffled rotation, Lohse's start today marked the beginning of the fourth time through. Looking back at the first three trips through, some interesting items have come up.

- As Rick Hummel mentioned in yesterday's article, Piniero's effort on Wednesday was the first quality start since Wellemeyer's 13 Apr start at Arizona.
- After averaging 6 1/3 innings per starter the first time through, they're averaging 5 2/3 innings since. Which is a lot of work for the bullpen. Piniero's Wednesday start marked the first Cardinal starter to get into the seventh since that same Wellemeyer start.
- Cardinals starters haven't left the game behind since Carpenter's 9 April start. Yes you read that correctly. Lohse and Wellemeyer were tied when they left the game this week.
- Don't expect to see Reyes or Walters pitch tomorrow. Everyone else should be available.

No bullpen statistics yet that I'm willing to talk about here. I discovered tonight that one of my metrics (K/9) is messed up. This is because I'm using 0.3 and 0.7 to signify 1/3 and 2/3 of an inning, respectively. Well, that messes up the metric; for instance, if a guy throws 2/3 of an inning, and has 2 strike outs, he should have a K/9 of 27. But if 2/3 of an inning is represented by .7, the calculation is 25.71. I'll figure out how to correct that this weekend.

The evil empire comes to town tomorrow. We owe these guys. Let's keep rolling fellas!

Ankiel Settles, Ludwick Next?

Just moments before going into the hotel room at the Days Inn, the Cardinals and Ankiel agreed to a 1 year contract for $2.83M. Details of the deal weren't released, so we don't know if this is his entire base salary, or what the contract could be worth if he meets all his incentive clauses. My guess is this is the total value of the contract.

Ryan Ludwick is also scheduled to go to an arbitration hearing on 17 Feb. He's asked for $4.25M, and the Cardinals offered $2.8M.

Before the agreement was reached and reported, I made a comment here on what I thought would happen in this arbitration hearing. One of the other commenters pointed out the decision reached by the arbitrator would be one salary figure or the other. I looked it up, and guess what? That guy was right.

To summarize what's in that last link, at the arbitration hearing the arbitrator listens to arguments from both sides, which can present the following:

- The player's contribution to the club in terms of performance and leadership

- The club's record and its attendance

- Any and all of the players 'special accomplishments,' including All-Star game appearances, awards won, and post-season performance

- The salaries of comparable players in the player's service-time class and, for players with less than five years of service, the class one year ahead of him.

The parties may not refer to team finances, previous offers made during negotiations, comments from the press, or salaries in other sports or occupations.

(It would have been interesting to hear the comparable players arguments, since Ankiel was a pitcher until 2 years ago.)

I gotta ask. Since the result of the arbitration will be one of the two values submitted, why even hold a hearing? Why not certify someone as an impartial coin flipper and just flip a coin? Its the same 'go/no-go' criteria, and it doesn't waste the hour or the palatial hotel accomodations. Everyone could get in an extra round of golf. It's a win/win.

I would think an arbitrator would look at the offer sheets, listen to arguments, and arrive at a conclusion, which could be (a) the high number, (b) the low number, or (c) some number in between. I'm sure these guys go through an extensive training process to become an arbitrator, and probably sit in on a number of hearings as on-the-job training before being handed a case to try on their own.

Arm and Hammer

We got some good news and some ho-hum news yesterday.

First the good news: Carp threw off the mound for about 10 minutes and reported no discomfort. That's the best news this week for Cardinals fans. Of course, with the adrenalin pumping and the excitement of being able to throw from the mound, everything feels great; how he feels physically this morning will be the real test. Duncan correctly pointed that out in the article.

The Cardinals aren't taking any chances with Carp. Kyle McClellan is prepping as if he'll be a starter this spring, and his workouts are the same day as Carp's. Nice planning. If Carp suffers a setback that prevents him from starting the 28 Feb game, McClellan will be ready to step in.

Next step, according to Carp, is to mix in some off-speed stuff and see how the arm responds.

If (and although yesterday's news was encouraging, it's still a big IF) Carp is ready to start the season with the big club, the rotation may shake out to be

Chris Carpenter
Adam Wainwright
Kyle Lohse
Todd Wellemeyer
Joel 'punching bag' Piniero

One thru four were pretty good last season. Not to drink the Kool-Aid, but all indications are Piniero worked his butt off getting ready for this season (oh yes, it is the final year of his contract), so he could be much improved over last season, which would make this a very good rotation.

The ho-hum news is all the banter about Rick Ankiel's arbitration hearing, scheduled for today. Seems the Cardinals offered him $2.35M and he wants $3.3M. I'll tell ya, in this economic environment I'll take the $950K difference and be quite happy thank you very much, but that's not how this cookie crumbles.

So it's Scott Boras and his stat-heads against the Cardinals. The Cardinal front office apparently has a couple of guys who worked arbitration issues for MLB in the past (John Abbamondi specifically, and he specialized in this stuff for 4 years). Boras is 3-5 in his past 8 arbitration hearings, and is widely considered to be an ass, so I'm sure that won't help Ankiel.

Rick is in Phoenix today for the hearing.

Yes, Phoenix. Apparently the hearing's in a hotel.

I find this incredibly funny. MLB is a multi-billion dollar operation, but they don't have an arbitration room/wing/floor in their coroprate offices to hold these kinds of hearings? Does the MLB players association not have an office building where they could do this kind of hearing? They have to do it in a hotel room?

I wonder if this is the notification Ankiel got: "Hey, your hearing is 12 Feb 09 at the Days Inn. Take 10 West out of the airport past Avondale. It's the first Days Inn you see off the highway. We're in the room with the Mystery Machine parked in out front."

8 guys crammed into a room with 2 queen-size beds deciding how much Ankiel gets paid next season. That would be hilarious.