More on the Move

As Lando said, “This deal is getting worse all the time!”

All it takes was a simple sentence from Cardinal beat reporter Bernie Miklasz. “Pineiro will start a game this weekend.” So a reliever who hasn’t started in a couple of years (stop me if you’ve heard THAT one before) is going to move straight into our rotation at a time when we are trying to get some momentum going. That just doesn’t seem logical. Sure, he might get a little boost because he’s never pitched in the NL before and players won’t have seen him, but that doesn’t seem like the reason you’d throw him right into the mix, especially since he’s not shown in his performance, well, ever, that he deserves to be there.

But then I took a look at the rotation for this weekend in Washington. Anthony Reyes, Kip Wells and Adam Wainwright. Assuming that the weekend rotation is right and people won’t be moved up or back, who do you think will miss the start? Wainwright is the closest thing we have to an ace right now–he’s pitching every time out like clockwork. Wells has struggled most of the year, but is improving lately as we’ve documented here. Plus, even when he was struggling it took a long time before LaRussa and Duncan gave up.

Which leaves us with the 2007 Whipping Boy of the Year, Anthony Reyes. Even though he got his first win this last time out against the Brewers, the same team that leads the division. Even though he looked extremely sharp and conserved pitches. Even though we have to have players like him (read young, cheap and talented) to compete in this division going forward. Even though even in his rough year he’s had more success than, say, Mike Maroth. All of this apparently will be going out the window and he’s being told that a crappy reliever can come in and do his job better than he can.

I don’t know that Reyes is going to be the savior of the staff. I don’t know that he’ll ever be more than a #3 starter. But until he gets a chance to get out there and pitch the way he knows how and the way he’s proved he can in the majors, we are never going to know. And being that he is out of options and must be on the major league roster in 2008, this would be a good time to find out what he’s got.

I seriously can’t believe they didn’t trade him off today, if this is true. They’ve obviously got no use for him. Hopefully it’s just a situation where he gets moved up or back a day, something like that. Otherwise, I really question the management of this team.

EDIT: Thankfully, there are a few sane heads around there. According to the official site, Reyes has been moved to Thursday, with Pineiro scheduled for Saturday.

First Move Made

The Cardinals have acquired Joel Pineiro from the Red Sox for a minor leaguer to be named later. And Cardinal Nation collectively says, “Huh?”

I mean, he was a name that was floated in the offseason, but we’ve gotten quite a collection of starter/reliever types with middling-to-worse results. I know Pineiro had some success in Seattle and he’s only 29, but asking Dave Duncan to fix yet another one seems to be pushing the boundaries of believability.

Walt had some practice with designated-for-assignment types last year, as apparently Pineiro is. Jeff Weaver came over after being DFAd, as did Jorge Sosa. One worked out, one not so much. And Weaver took a while to click as well, though thankfully he did in October.

This just seems like a deal that doesn’t need to be made, unless a reliever is about to be traded elsewhere. We have enough of these types–adding more makes it seem like Walt has a completionist mentality–have to collect them all!

Overestimating Their Hand?

The Cardinals had a great weekend, taking three of four from the division leading Milwaukee Brewers, winning two games with multiple runs in their last at bat, getting a win for Anthony Reyes finally. They even pulled within 6 games of the division lead. Apparently, that was enough to change management’s default setting from selling to perhaps buying at today’s trade deadline. But is that a good idea? Has anything really changed?

Six games is still a pretty good row to hoe for a team that has only one 4 games in a row one time this year. Granted, with Adam Wainwright on the mound tonight, they’ve got a good chance to win it and have 5 wins in their last 6 games. They still have 6 games against the Brewers and 7 against the Cubs. So there are possibilities, but unless the team plays inspired baseball after this weekend’s dramatics, it seems like it might be a winning streak at the worst possible time.

It’s hard to say that you should scrap the season and start looking to the future. I mean, it’s a young Brewers team that’s already coming back to the pack and the Cubs who historically have had their issues down the stretch. And if this team could start to put it together, get some of that October magic back, maybe they could make a run.

But without Carpenter, how likely is a run really? The Cards might get a boost late in the year if Mark Mulder makes a return, but you don’t know what kind of Mulder you’ll be getting. Mike Maroth still hasn’t gotten things figured out, if this weekend was any indication, and I’d think he’s about one blowup away from staying in the bullpen, though I don’t know which reliever would move up to the rotation.

The pitching is improving, the offense seems to be waking up. Scott Rolen should schedule cortisone shots on a bi-weekly basis the rest of the year, if they are going to boost his bat this much. Albert is Albert, and he’d make any team dangerous. Chris Duncan is providing pop and Juan Encarnacion has been hot.

So there are a lot of factors in favor of making a run. But I don’t think the consistency is there for this team to actually get over the hump, and I’m afraid there will be a short-sighted deal of some young players for a “veteran” that may or may not make an impact.

Sometimes, you have to make a stand and say “We’ve got to rebuild, we’re not chasing after fairy tales.” The relievers in the pen could probably bring in some young promising players, as could perhaps Encarnacion and Eckstein. Should everyone be dealt? No, but if you’ve got a chance to get a good player, I think you should be pulling the trigger. Take for example yesterday’s deal of Mark Teixeira to the Braves. Even if the Rangers were on the fringes of the race, that was a deal they probably should have done because it will make them better longer. Tough to sell that to fans with a short-term instant gratification complex, but it’s really the best idea for the long-term health of the organization.

All this is probably moot. With the trade market the way it is these days, the odds of Walt making a big deal either way is pretty slim. Of course, he’s been known to do big things after the waiver deadline (Woody Williams, Larry Walker) but I think the deadline will come and go today and the roster of the Cardinals, for good or bad, will be the same.

Some Wins are Sweeter Than Others

The Cardinals brought the bats last night. It was a grand thing, not only because of Chris Duncan’s slam. It was great to see Pujols’s five RBIs and see him get closer to that 30 HR mark that is his trademark. Possibly the best thing though, at least in my book, was the fact that they did a nice portion of that damage against Mr. Jason Marquis.

Most players, when they leave St. Louis, don’t have much animosity follow them. Mike Matheny was beloved even after he went to San Francisco, because we knew it was time for Yadier Molina. (And speaking of Molina, can you believe that steal of third last night? He’s a speedster!) Matt Morris left for more money, but Cardinal Nation pretty much agreed it was time to part ways, while appreciating what he did for the team. Edgar Renteria more blatantly left for more money, even going to the team that had just defeated the Cards in the World Series, but for the most part he still has high esteem among Cardinal fans. Heck, John Mabry played for the Cubs and still got a standing ovation in Busch.

Jason Marquis, though, drove us so far to distraction the last couple of years, there is very little good will following him around. I was a Marquis defender the first year he was in Cardinal red, pointing out that he had really pitched better than some of his stats indicated. However, by last year, when he was feuding with Dave Duncan and seemingly avoiding the best way for him to pitch, he used up any patience I had with him. Numerous people in the media pointed out that his ERA last year would have been better “if he’d not been kept in a couple of blowouts to save the bullpen.” Well, who made it a blowout in the first place? And, without doing the number crunching, I’m betting his ERA wasn’t affected too much by staying in. The difference between 7 in 3 innings and 9 in 6 innings isn’t much. He probably got a couple of scoreless innings in that he normally wouldn’t have.

So it was a no-brainer for the Cards to let him go in the offseason. We laughed when the Cubs overpaid for him and considered it more Cub foolery. Then, we started to wonder if we were wrong when he started out like a house afire, even beating the Cards twice in April.

However, as the weather has warmed up, so have the bats and that’s not a good thing for Mr. Marquis. He’s got an ERA pushing 6 the last two months and we can only hope that he will crush some more Cubbie hearts by blowing a game they need to win to play in October.

Having said all that, even as satisfactory as last night’s win was, it didn’t change the landscape very much. The Cards still trail the Cubs by six games and the Brewers by 8. Even a 4-game sweep of the Brewers this weekend–which would give the Cards their first five game winning streak since the middle of last year, I believe–wouldn’t do much but probably get the Cubs into first place. Hopefully Walt realizes this and is still in “sell” mode. If he can move parts like Eckstein, Encarnacion, etc., more power to him. I just hope some quality prospects come back to us.

All’s Wells Now?

Tough loss for the Cardinals last night, which, as my father has told me in the past, is why they play the games. On paper, the Cubs should have dominated, especially the pitching matchup. Carlos Zambrano came in with 12 wins, Kip Wells with 12 losses. The ERA spread between the two was over two runs. Yet Wells did all he could to win that game and just about pulled it off.

The Kipster seems to be a different pitcher since his temporary reassignment to the bullpen. I know I said I wouldn’t be doing this terribly often (or very well), but let’s crunch some numbers:

Before the bullpen: 14 games, 76.2 innings pitched, 84 hits, 59 earned runs, 12 home runs, 42 walks, 57 strikeouts, 6.93 ERA, 1.64 WHIP

Bullpen and after: 7 games, 25 innings pitched, 22 hits, 6 earned runs, 0 home runs, 8 walks, 19 strikeouts, 2.16 ERA, 1.20 WHIP

If you take out that disastrous Philadelphia start right after the All-Star Break, it’s even more stunning, as Kip has a 0.75 ERA and a 0.88 WHIP. So that bullpen session apparently clicked for Wells. But what’s been the difference?

Before doing this stat compilation, my guess was that he wasn’t dilly-dallying around, but going right after the hitters, trusting his stuff to move enough to create problems for the hitters. That’s not borne out by the pitches per batter data, though. Before the switch, Wells was at 3.71 pitchers per batter faced. Afterwards, it’s 3.91.

What is the reasoning behind that? You’d think that as P/BF went up, the results would get worse. My guess is that his stuff is creating problems for the hitters, so they are taking more pitches instead of hacking at the first strike they see and putting it into play with not-so-pleasant results.

What else is different between the two stat lines? He’s not walking people, which again makes that increase in P/BF counterintuitive. Bad Kip was walking about a batter every two innings (.55/IP) and his K/BB ratio was only 1.36. Good Kip is walking one batter every three+ innings (.32/IP) and the K ratio is up to 2.38. (BTW, it’s .29/IP and 2.57 without that 4 runs,1 inning Phillies game.)

He has also improved his GB/FB ratio, which is big with this regime, as we all know. Before it was 1.64 GB/FB, which is still a good number, but since then it’s 1.95, so he’s really killing some worms.

All in all, it appears that Wells has really turned a corner. If this keeps up, the Cardinals should approach him about an extension soon. Next year’s rotation has few answers. Adam Wainwright will be in it, of course, and Mark Mulder should be back to take a slot. Mike Maroth could return, but that’s really going to depend on how he does down the stretch. Anthony Reyes has to be in the majors, but if LaRussa is returning, it very well may mean that Reyes has a different uniform on next year. Brad Thompson is earning a look for next year as well. The innings appear to be getting to Looper, and I’m not sure I’d want to see him starting games again next year.

No matter how you slice it, though, Carpenter’s loss leaves a hole in the rotation. This new-look Wells could be the guy to fill it.