The Void

I once read a quote, which I can’t find right now, that went something like this:

“There are only two seasons, baseball season and the void.”

The void is now upon us, after Isringhausen made it interesting, as he usually does, but got the final out and preserved the victory, like he usually does. And with that final out, the 2007 season came to an end.

It’s not going to be a season fondly remembered by fans years from now, but it was baseball. One thing I’d forgotten until it was mentioned this weekend was just how good the pitching looked in spring training. The team ERA was around 3 or so, just amazing for the spring. Which proves that spring training stats aren’t worth the web page they are published on.

A season with so much promise ended on opening night, for all intents and purposes. When Carpenter had a rough outing and came up lame soon after, we should have realized what we were in for. Injuries with the Cardinals are never simple things, where the player is back soon and all is forgotten. Injuries with the Cardinals drag out, start to look better, then get worse. I personally don’t buy into the “Carpenter on the mound by late July” talk going around. If he’s there by September, like Mulder this year, I’ll call it a surprise.

Then the pitching fell apart, Hancock died, everyone that wore Cardinal red came down with some sort of injury, and through all of that, they hung in there.

Spoiler

It’s a different feeling here in late September. The Cardinals are playing games that matter, but they matter for the other team. However, it’s a credit to the “hard 9″ mentality of the team that they’ve been able to pull out wins the last couple of nights, crippling other teams’ postseason dreams. Not that you take a whole lot of joy in that–especially the Brewers, because it looks like the Cubs are going to October–but it’s something to take solace in.

Nice to see the Cards take care of business against Pedro Martinez last night. Not having Pedro was one of the reasons the Cardinals were able to take care of the Mets last October, I think. So it was nice to know that they, at least for one night, could beat a top pitcher.

More impressive was Joel Pineiro spinning 8 scoreless innings with only three hits. There has been a lot of talk about Pineiro coming back next year. It seems to me that he’s gotten better as he’s gone along. I thought that when he first came around, a lot of balls were being hit hard at people. Then he had some games where the ball was hit hard–period. A rough calculation of his BABIP is .278. If he could maintain that, he would be a serviceable fifth starter. If the price is right, the Cards probably should bring him back.

Albert scored another run, bringing him to 97. He’s also just 2 shy of 100 walks, which was his goal coming into the year. For all the talk about his good eye and discipline, 98 walks is a career high. He’s disciplined enough to wait for his pitch, but he usually gets it and doesn’t miss. Also, in the past he’s had more potent of a lineup around him, so he’s never gotten the Barry Bonds treatment since Edmonds or Rolen would come up and make pitchers pay.

If Pujols can hit like he has in the past in Pittsburgh, he’ll get both of those marks this weekend. I’m still not sure he can get 3 runs in 3 days, but it’s definitely in the realm of possibility.

Apparently the NL Central is going to be won the way it was played most of the year–by last team standing. The Cubs have done their best to give the division away, being swept by Florida. Milwaukee, though, won’t take advantage of it. They hit Pujols in Wednesday night’s game, opening the floodgates, then make 5 errors last night against the Padres. I can’t see the Brewers winning all three games left against San Diego, so I think we are resigned to Cubbie blue going into October. Hopefully it won’t last long. I’m not sure I could handle a deep Chicago run!

Number Crunching

OK, after doing the daydreaming yesterday, I thought I’d see if Santana would even fit into the budget. I was a little encouraged to hear Bill DeWitt say that they were increasing payroll by some amount anyway, but would make a significant increase for the right player. Surely, we can agree that Santana would fit that description.

Problem is, I’m not much on projections, at least salary-wise. So please let me know where you think I’m too low on any estimates. The actual numbers are taken from Cot’s website.

Milestones

It was great to see Pujols get that pesky 100th RBI out of the way early last night, swatting a solo home run to lead off the game.  What I was really surprised about was the fact that he scored 3 runs, pulling him within 4 of the 100 level there as well.  I’d written off his chances at the run milestone this year, but if he’s playing entire games and running the bases well, there is still an outside shot that he’ll get there, especially if he’s healthy enough to take advantage of Pittsburgh’s PNC Park, where he typically goes nuts hitting.

It was also nice to see the Cardinals get everything clicking and win one against a tough team.  Sure, it helped out the Cubs, and it’d been nice to see the Brewers pull within one game, but if you can’t root for your team in these situations, what good are ya?  I hate seeing the Cubs in the postseason as much as anyone, but I was glad to see the Cards start putting up the runs.

It’ll be interesting to see if they can do that today against a Mets team that desperately needs a win.  The Cardinals send out Pineiro, who could be good, could be ugly.  It depends on how many of the hard-hit balls will be caught by the fielders.  I understand that the Cardinals are considering bringing back Pineiro as a fifth starter.  As long as that’s all he is (and he comes at a price that is appropriate), I could handle that.  He’s not as good as he’s shown, but we’ve seen a whole lot worse.

The Mets rely on Pedro Martinez.  Not usually a bad thing, and possibly won’t be today either.  Pedro had a little better recovery from his surgery than Mark Mulder did and will have some adrenaline going today, I’m sure.  The good news for the Cardinals is that he’ll probably be out after 5 or 6, so hopefully they can hit some of the Mets bullpen before they get to Billy Wagner, who can be gotten too as well, just not that easily.

Daydreaming

Mike Claiborne of AM 550 said it last night on the pregame show.

“I want Santana.”

Well, duh, who doesn’t?  That’s something I’ve been talking about here for a little while.  However, can we make it happen?  I was expecting that we’d have to wait until the 2008 offseason, when he’d be a free agent, to even be able to consider it.  That’s probably still true, but that doesn’t mean we can’t do some daydreaming.

I’ve never been good at coming up with trades, so I would expect ridicule in the comments for this one.  (Hey, at least then I’d be getting comments!)  I’ll explain why I think it might be feasible, but let’s lay it out there.

Johan Santana for Chris Duncan, Anthony Reyes, Bryan Anderson, and another prospect.

OK, so let’s look at this semi-rationally, if at all possible.   Minnesota will have to decide 1) if they are going to contend next year, 2) if they have a chance of resigning Santana and 3) whether it makes sense to maximize the yield by trading him in the offseason rather than the trade deadline.

Santana’s contract for next year is $13.25 million, per Cot’s Baseball Contracts.  There are a few bonuses, and as I read it he does have a no-trade clause.  However, after his comments at the deadline, he possibly could be persuaded to have that bought out.

Money-wise, this would be a slam dunk for the Twins.  From the same site, Duncan made $400K this year.  You’d expect that will go up a bit, but he is not arbitration eligible yet, so the Cardinals don’t have to do anything big.  Reyes made just under $400K, and the same applies to him.  Anderson would make the league minimum, whenever he made the majors, and likely the other prospect, maybe Jamie Garcia or Mark Hamilton, would do the same.  So, add that all up, you get not even a million for next year.  That’s a large savings for Minnesota, which has often been pinching pennies in the past.  That would let them make a run at Torii Hunter, if they wanted, or come to terms with people like Joe Mauer, Joe Nathan or Justin Morneau.

So, financially, it’s good for them.  How about talent?