RedbirdRay

If you sort PECOTA by upside, then combine hitters and pitchers, you will get a pretty similar list. I would suspect that's where Neyer got his "idea". Other than a few adjustments he made, I guess you could say BP "agrees" with him much more than the majority of you guys. FWIW, on the BP list, Longoria projects to the 7th best position player over the next 5 years and Braun 10th. Henley was number one. Wright was 3.

Fangraphs now has pitch data at the bottom of it's player pages. If you scroll down to the bottom of Sheeter's page (the link), you will see a breakdown of how often he throws each pitch. The number in parenthesis is the average speed of said pitch. It might be tedious to compile the team data by looking up each player, but it's the only place I know of that has the data. PS...fangraphs is like cool or something. EDIT 2: sbrylski beat me 2 it.

It's a bad sign when anytime a pitcher is thrown aside, he's automatically linked to your favorite team. Narveson was a minor league free agent, so we didn't cut him. But, I really thought the organization should have held on to him. I hope it doesn't bite us. We kinda have a log jam for A, AA, and AAA starting pitching slots. That's why we let him walk. It's ironic we have such a logjam because we dont' have too many guys with a ton of upside, though.

I've always been a Gomes fan. I think he's hugely underrated, especially by his own team/manager. You can ratchet him further up my like list now. Dave Duncan's other son seems to be a real punk. Maybe I just have blinders on regarding Chris. Afterall, I guess he did "hump" the World Series trophey.

The Cardinals had to do this a lot last year. Believe me, it's not a good sign.

I am skeptical about Clement. It was a no-harm/no-foul sort of signing...1.25 million plus some stair-step bonuses for innings pitched. They have an option on him next year for around 8 million should he re-prove himself. But, i doubt he will. Nothing against Clement, it's just the success rate of pitchers post-shoulder surgery is pretty darn low. Likewise, I think Mulder's career is probably in the bucket also. One positive about Mulder, he didn't really throw that hard in the first place...so, I guess some lost velocity isn't as big of a deal with him. Carpenter recovering from Tommy John, I have high hopes for...Mulder and Clement, I'm am just happy are off the books by next year. Mulder has an 11 million option, but I have serious doubts he'll be worth picking it up. EDIT: Clement will not be ready at the start of the season. They are projecting just a few weeks behind. The reason is poor arm strength. Also, there are now reports the Cardinals are looking at Kyle Lohse for a one-year deal. I am not sure how I feel about that. I am sure it will be cheap and one year, but still not sure we should be spending money with no chance at a post-season anyway. The rotation right now looks like Wainwright, Looper and Reyes.....with Thompson and Wellermeyer filling in until Mulder, Piniero, Clement ...or long-term Carpenter returns. We have a couple minor leaguers who might get a look but are nothing to get excited about. Still, I'd rather see what they have and give them some experience in a rebuilding year than seek out a one year deal for a stop-gap. Our low-level pitching is looking decent and we don't have enough minor league starting jobs to spread around...seems like a no-brainer to me.

I don't think a major injury to the Cardinals staff would make them any worse. I mean, they really don't have a staff other than Wainwright. Looper will probably regress. Replacing any of the others with replacement level is well....treading water at the worst. Maybe Reyes will turn out the be the prospect he was thought to be. I hope so, but kinda doubt it. The Pirates have no offense and I think Gorzellany is hurt. He had some problems last year and something looks wrong this spring. It kinda looks like the staff has it's first casualty anyway...Piniero is having shoulder problems. Oh well.

OT, sorta. Did anyone see this Dusty Baker quote: He talks about Dunn in the link also. I was thinking the Reds could be a darkhorse before I saw that. God help poor Jay Bruce and Joey Votto.

Not really going out on a limb with that revelation! I actually kind of hope they do, but doubt they finish behind the Pirates. I think a last place finish would be a wake up call for the front office, but then again...I really dont think the new regime is making bad decisions. Our payroll was out of control under Jocketty. There was no fixing this year's team. The new GM resisted any temptation to try to throw money at the problem or trade any of our prospects. No moves out there would have improved us enough to compete with you or the Cubs. The Izturis signing was questoinable, but...one year < 3 million is nothing to get that worked up about. We're all hoping he's DFAd along with Kennedy. I doubt they will cut them both, though. The main reason I hope we finish last would be the draft pick. We pick 13th this year. 3 years ago our farm system was ranked in the bottom 3 depending on who was doing the rating. Now, we are middle of the pack. Not great, but moving in the right direction. Another strong draft or two and it will be something to be proud of. I honestly think if Jocketty were still at the helm we would have traded Rasmus this off-season. Jocketty also yielded to Selig's slotting system. Indications from the Mo are that is a thing of the past. The best player available will be the one taken. Jeff Luhnow seems to have a nice nose for drafting. Our fans are looking for small things to watch for this year...Carpenter's return ( we don't expect much this year from him), whether our Rule 5 pickup will stick and what he will do, whether Ankiel can really hit 30 homers and have an OBP around .300, our army of young RH relievers coming up, and the probably mid-season arrival of the Colby Rasmus era. In regards to all the discussion of Pujols' elbow around the forum lately....well, I don't know how I feel about that. I agree it would be timelier this year. It would be better to be rehabbed and strong in 2009. But, tommy John for position players is about 6 or 7 months. So, I guess he could shut things down after a couple months (when it's obvious even to his stubborn self that we are out of the race) and still be back for next year. Additionally, he injured it in 2003. It's gotten a little worse each year...but, you can't really argue that he's been too awful bad playing injured can you? He's cranked three homers this spring since the "new" reports of his elbow problems came out and doesn't exactly have poor rates so far...or in 2004...or 2005...or 2006...you get what I mean. I'm looking forward to next off-season. I don't think we can completely turn the team around in one winter, but after a year of letting youngsters play we should have a pretty good idea of what we have and what we need. We have a TON of money coming off the books. The free agent crop is better than it has been in a few years. Carpenter should be strong by then and the prognosis for Tommy John patients is pretty nice. Colby should be adjusted. 2009 should be much better. In regards to Juan Gonzalez, I don't think the Cardinals are really serious about him. Pujols and Molina lobbied hard for him and TLR loves him some PED veterans, so I think the minor league contract was a little pacification after the front office slapped down TLRs Barry Bonds request. Today was the first day all spring Juan played the field. Most of the beat writers and fans think that's writing on the wall. Our only fear is TLR will win out and we will lose our Rule 5 (Brian Barton) to create a roster spot for Juan. Since giving him a roster spot will lose the system a player, I don't think the choice will be Tony's though. I would guess either Juan will be traded to an AL team for a low level prospect or he will be allowed to "prove" himself at AAA until some team becomes interested. He can't play center and he won't get playing time over Baby Duncan or Ankiel. I really don't want him on our bench either. Not really because I don't like him, I just don't think he's worth the oppurtunity cost.

Just wanted to say good luck to everyone and I hope to see some good baseball. Was pretty cool seeing Suppan get his ring and all his old buddies giving him hugs. He really is a great guy.

Someone from another board figured out how to get into gameday links during ST. Guess it doesn't seem to be officially up and running or anything, but it's something. linky linky

Has anyone seen Mark Pankin's work? I guess he presented it at SABR 36. Basically, he's placing the value of OBP at around 1.8 Slg.

Ya, pretty hard to estimate what will happen over the course of a season with PAs. I was more interested in the comparison between teams than an actual estimate of Cardinal runs. I know it's pretty much just starting 8, but I thought each team would be at the same disadvantage and would give a rough estimate of a ranking of offenses. I don't really buy the Brewer ranking however, due to the amount of upside Weeks/Fielder/Hart/etc have. I thought the fungoes article had the right idea running it with several different line-ups (a righthanded and lefthanded line-up), figuring out runs/game and then estimating how many times each lineup would be used. Still a lot of assumed variables. Hadn't seen much critique of Pinto's toy. If you stumble on any of those articles, could you throw them my way? Are you going to make your line-up toy visible on your blog eventually? Did you mess with Dan's toy at all? I played with it a little. Was going to run it for Capellan and a few others, but hadn't gotten around to it yet.

Tangotiger has some interesting news about MLB's efforts tosupply more batted ball data soon. That could really help the defensive metrics in particular.

Well, the Cardinal ZiPS are up. I didn't want to create a new thread, because I realize most people probably don't care much about the Redbird projections. But, it's winter, I'm bored, and I figure a few of you do. The coolest thing about this year's StL ZiPS, IMO, is discussion prompted Dan Szymborski to create a reliever-to-starter projection tool. He mentions it in the comments, then even goes on to give it out for free. Dan is the man! What prompted it was a request to project Wainright as a starter. Near the end of the comments, Dan projects Papelbon also. I noticed after the Suppan signing, someone linked one of my favorite blogs to visit. There's a lot of saber-talk at this site...of course, in reference to the Cardinals. There are a couple pretty cool write-ups analyzing the ZiPS if anyone's interested. Here's the offense discussion. And, here's the pitching. The StL chapter of Sabr.org also had very similar postings. A cool part of the offensive analysis is an estimate of all NL Central teams runs per game.

MGL says the Cardinals target is $2 million per marginal win for free agents. That will probably need some adjustment considering this year's boom, but still...the Cards aren't the type of team to overpay. We still don't really have a 5th starter, yet WJ is showing no signs of panic. It can be frustrating at times, but I really really respect their business practice.

Agents don't always do what's best for players, that's for sure. Considering the market, I don't know why guys like Jeff Weaver or Mark Mulder look for multi-year deals. Jeff has all kinds of talent and looked like he might have been getting himself back on track at the end of last year. If he truly believes this, why would he lock himself into four years of pay at an average-pitcher price? It seems like these types of guys should shoot for one or two year incentive laden deals to try to 're-prove' themselves and cash in later.

Didn't think this deserved it's own thread, but wasn't sure to stick it. I couldn't find any threads dedicated to this year's Chone projections. One of my favorite posters from another board pointed my head in the direction of this seasonal standings projection based on Chone.

Boy, don't I feel like a jerk.

Marginal wins don't seem to mean much, but they do add up. The difference between 82 and 84 wins might not be a big deal, but the difference between 91 and 93 wins is huge.

Ya, I'm so dumb. I was counting total hits as singles on my spreadsheet. Trying to be too fast and not thinking about what I was doing as usual. I really respect the simplicity of it. I guess it's my least favorite due to it's ranking with the other systems. Seems most do at least one thing pretty well (either pitching or hitting) and marcel is bottom of the pack on both.

marcel tangotiger put up the marcel projections a few days before xmas. didn't think they were posted here yet. Either my formula for slugging is messed up (they are not calculated on the spreadsheet, you have to figure it yourself) or there are several guys projected above .700. probably my least favorite of the projections anyway.

I've heard several times all these guys and their agents are waiting until after the Zito signing to negotiate in hopes it will drive up $. Zito is certainly drawing it out. I wish he'd sign already so Boras can get on to his other clients and some of these other guys would sign.

MGL is my hero. I'm sure you probably saw it Ennder, but THT had a 5 part series on the subject awhile back. Here's the first.

Suppan is a great guy, very funny, good in the clubhouse and a fan favorite. There is a lot to be said for his game prep, sticking to his game plan and his durability cannot be understated. Good mechanics, control pitcher...he really, really knows how to pitch. He also has a good head on his shoulders and doesn't get rattled by pressure of big games, defensive errors, etc. As mentioned, he's good with his stick. I'm going to miss him. Having said all that, I'd like to make two points... he was greatly, greatly aided by the Cardinal defense (which ranked #1 in baseball last year). He is an extreme groundball pitcher and needs a good defense behind him. The Brewers have a ton of talent and a lot of positives. You guys know me and know I'm a closet fan so keep that in mind when you read my next question...Is the Brewers infield defense good for an extreme groundball pitcher? Also, when you really look at Suppan's FIP, K/9, etc...he really isn't much better than average. So...is durability and a history of pitching well against your team enough to justify the 11/per x 4 years some team will probably pay him? The Cardinals don't think so. It's the only reason we aren't bringing him back.