The 2017 Cardinals are America

title taken from the last lines of this really good article mookie posted about Dexter Fowler.

i liked the way earlnash kicked off the reds thread
so i'll rip him off, sorry:

1 man, i am really dreading all the coverage about wainwright trying to maintain his ace status, because it's obviously carlos martinez. wainwright's peripherals in 2016 were better than you'd expect, but i watched most of his starts, and it was just ugly most of the time. his contract runs out in 2018, and the best-case scenario for him is that he manages to hold onto the 4th starter role. leake will be leake, but even an average defense behind him in the infield should improve his results a little. lance lynn is one of the players i'll be watching closely in spring training. people seem bullish on his ability to bounce back, and his recovery seemed to go smoothly. his contract is up after 2017, so if things go south before the trade deadline, he'll be gone. i will feel better about alex reyes tommy johnsoning once the season is underway, i suppose, but right now it's a bleak way to start the season. we'll have to wait until late 2018 to see if he'll be able to improve his command at all. even if he doesn't, his stuff can still be jaw-droppingly effective. his floor is elite reliever, and it wouldn't be surprising him to be the kind of pitcher who can bust out a 14K gem at any time. his spot will go to either wacha or luke weaver, i'd guess. there are arguments to be made for both of them, but ultimately i think wacha's arm condition will point him in the direction of the bullpen, and weaver's stuff is 4SP or 5SP level. i'm not sure they'll end up in there in 2017, but by 2018 that's where they'll be. there's also a small possibility of a rosenthal experiment, but that would require either catastrophic early performances from both wacha and weaver or an exceptional performance (and surprise development of a third pitch) from rosenthal.

the bullpen should be strong. too bad matheny doesn't know how to use one. he's not quite as bad with it as his reputation suggests, but he still used broxton on a regular basis and you just know he's going to do it again this year. i will miss watching oh after this year. hopefully we'll get to see him all year. along with lynn, he'd be one of the first guys to go if the team isn't in contention mid-year, and regardless he'll be gone at the end of the year. i can't remember the last cardinal player with a knockout slider on oh's level. it's just wicked. you know it's coming, but it fools everyone.

2 yadi's contract goes through 2017, with an option year that will almost certainly be exercised in 2018. one of the bigger storylines going for the cardinals right now is how the transition to carson kelly is handled. kelly is the top-rated MLB catching prospect and having him on the bubble is comforting to me - i don't see him as a perennial all-star but i expect above-average catching (he won a minor league gold glove in 2015, not bad for a guy who first began playing the position a year before) and average hitting. it's molina's job for 2016, of course, but an ideal transition would involve reducing his time at catcher in 2017 (and maybe more time at 1B?), but it's hard to see matheny letting that happen. anyway, not sure why i'm talking about that since it's likely to play out more prominently in 2017, but an injury to yadi might introduce that storyline a little earlier.

3 matt carpenter moves (again) from 3B to 1B. his relative offensive positional value might take a hit as a 1B, but his average-y defense might balance things out since he should be better than whatever we were playing there last year. his leaving 3B should theoretically help the defense there as well since either gyorko or peralta would represent a step up (more confident in gyorko, but peralta might be decent as well since his problem is range, not his arm)

4 second base is kolten wong's to lose, again, in 2017. as long as he doesn't go two games in a row with an 0 for 4, he should be ok. as we all know, the matheny penalty for consecutive games in a row with zero hits is a spell of imposed adversity. matheny deploys this spell as an area attack inflicting multiple enemies (e.g. the minor-leaguing of randal grichuk), but since his INT is only 4 the roster has some decent depth, the overall effect is weak and merely annoying. the defense up the middle should improve with regular playing time for wong. i don't know if his hitting will ever come around, at least not consistently. but he's still capable of speed and power at any moment.

5 gyorko vs peralta in the battle to see who can be the king of beef. i guess i'm a jerk but something about gyorko rubs me the wrong way. i'm not sure i've ever even heard him talk but i imagine him to be the guy who stuffs you in the locker and then refuses to own up to it to the principal. he's probably not a jerko, but he is jedd gyorko. in some ways i can see him peralta-ing even more than jhonny peralta did between his age 32, 33, and 34 seasons. it's amazing how much baseball abilities can balance on an edge, and peralta's a fine example of that. he lost a step at SS and suddenly became a liability there. his swing looks just a bit slower than it was a few seasons ago, and now it seems like he can never catch up. perhaps he'll end up in the best shape of his life after spring training but for now he seems like he should serve as depth or trade bait if he manages to impress before the break.

6 it's still hard to believe aledmys diaz is real. we can rightfully expect regression, but anyone watching him every day last year knows he's not a fluke. he tailed off a bit in the second half but that can probably be attributed in part to his thumb injury, and he still managed good power and kept his walk rate up. his defense was an issue in the first half but he really calmed down during the second half. i think his floor is higher than a lot of people expect, and wouldn't be surprised at another all-star season.

7 grichuck shifts from CF to LF, which should help the defense there. moss held up ok last year, but holliday was painful to watch. grichuk was a strong 2-outcome player (HRs and strikeouts, very few walks) after he recovered from the matheny spell of minor imposed adversity, but if he goes into any sort of slump, matheny will be there to make sure that he never forgets it. at that point you have tommy pham as the fourth outfielder, a guy who might have turned into a starling marte if his body weren't made of glass and swizzle sticks. if anyone goes down with injury and pham becomes an everyday player, the cardinals will need to decide between an early promotion for harrison bader or some sort of trade for depth.

8 the optimistic version of the 2017 goes like this: fowler works a 6-pitch walk, is able to use his speed to make it over to third on a single by diaz, and then makes it home on a 7-pitch carpenter sac fly or hit. if all three of those guys can manage .360+ OBP it will be a much more entertaining team to watch than last year. i haven't seen him on defense too much, but i'm sure everyone will be watching to see if the improvements in 2016 were attributable to his deeper positioning or not. i like dexter fowler a lot. don't fuck this up, st. louis and baseball fans and world in general.

9 puuuhscotty. puuuh-scotty. i can't stop saying his name like that, really slow and drawn out, sometimes with a b at the beginning instead of the p. he kind of epitomizes the current cardinal configuration. his floor is average, his ceiilng is slightly above average. he'll get into a mini-slump every once in a while but he's generally steady. when you see a prospect that rates out to average to just below average in all categories, it's kind of boring and hard to work up too much enthusiasm, but piscotty is a good example of what that kind of profile can result in. you never wind up in an in-game situation where you think "goddamn it, if only it wasn't piscotty!". you're always mildly optimistic when it's him coming up.

http://i.imgur.com/2cACL3w.gif

wow that was a lot of text, sorry. months of off-season boredom all pent up, i guess. here's the summary, i guess: if the cardinals manage to grab a wildcard spot in 2017, i think they're going to need stronger than expected performances from grichuk and wong. the 2017 cardinals have a high floor and a low ceiling. if anyone's going to be a pleasant surprise this year, it's going to be grichuk or wong (outside chance to harrison bader). the worst case scenario is a repeat of 2016 - the team is close enough at the trade deadline to decide against selling, but they don't have quite enough to make the wildcard. a result like this year would be particularly bad because they should have good depth/tradebait (peralta/lynn/oh/weaver) that could really help out for 2018.

fowler's already getting the st. louis welcome

for sure. and i think it drew in a fair amount of non-cardinal fans as well.

(fwiw i interviewed gyorko back when he was a padres prospect and he was perfectly nice. and actually had a personality, unlike matt adams. i am a bad interviewer tho)

http://www.vivaelbirdos.com/2017/2/23/14706270/overlooked-moments-in-cardinals-world-series-history-pt-1-1982

some great clips of the on-field pandemonium after the last pitch in 1982. it's crazy how unruly things used to get, it feels like a different world.

@Cardinals
Luke Weaver removed from game. Left with the trainer. We'll pass along more information once available.

oof.

@RobRains
Matheny says Luke Weaver had spasm in lower back, removed for precautionary reasons. #STLCards

exhale

*reverse oofing noise*

he's almost certain to be depth SP this year anyway, at least until someone else goes down.

"it's crazy how unruly things used to get, it feels like a different world."

I think the Chambliss HR in the Bronx has to be one of the craziest.

this is awesome: http://www.stltoday.com/sports/baseball/professional/birdland/goold-wainwright-gives-prospect-sherriff-a-license-to-drive/article_406cb9e5-d0e8-5fa4-86e1-19de631a0f2c.html

(might have been worth pointing out that one of the reasons he didn't have a car was probably that MINOR LEAGUERS DON'T GET PAID FOR SPRING TRAINING but anyway)

http://i.imgur.com/bZtQi8R.png

i love the small angry secondary mouth between his eyebrows.

It appears the right lat muscle soreness Cardinals righty Trevor Rosenthal has been battling will kill his chances of winning a place in the team’s rotation. Moreover, it could stop the ex-closer from beginning the year as a multi-inning fireman, reports Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “Rosenthal – now, saying could he get the innings he needs to contribute as a starter or a multiple-inning relief appearance? “I think that is still in question,” said manager Mike Matheny. “It’s very important that at some point this week he gets into a game and we can get that pitch count up.” Regardless of whether Rosenthal is well enough by April to toss multiple innings in an appearance, someone figures to serve as that type of weapon for the Cardinals. General manager John Mozeliak called it “very appealing” to Matheny, and Goold adds that John Gant, Matthew Bowman, Miguel Socolovich, Tyler Lyons and Sam Tuivailala are possibilities to fill that role.

the problem with trying to replicate the andrew miller role is that we don't have anyone approaching andrew miller. Oh is the closest, but he is the closer so he must be used only for 9th inning save opportunities. if we're midseason and matheny is deploying tyler lyons in key high leverage moments and then leaving him in for 3 innings (only taking him out after letting him bunt with 1 out in the inning before, of course), we're in deep shit

also i am really looking forward to DR vs PR tonight (carlos martinez is starting, hopefully yadi is too)

i know i'm falling prey to recency bias because he has been absolutely awful today, but i see wainwright as the 5th best starter in the rotation this year. martinez is clearly better, no need to elaborate. lynn has looked like his old self. wacha has been a pleasant surprise as well. leake will probably keep being average, but that's better than wainwright these days. he made a big deal about his alleged rediscovery of his curveball a few weeks ago, and said that over the offseason he was tossing the ball around with his wife and suddenly realized (after fasting and praying passionately for 40 days and 40 nights) that back during his old tyme excellent curveball days he had employed a ~different grip~. With his redisovery of the blessed grip his curveball would be back to where it once was. the way he talked about was like the prodigal son had returned. he also admitted that he never had a feel for the curveball in 2016.

anyways, it's been painful watching his pitch today, but it's not that much different from watching him pitch last year.

good lord, i typed all that before that grand slam

wainwright:
1.2 innings
4 BB
0 K
10 ER
7 H
1 HR

game score of -8

honestly it looked way worse than that

bengie has some thoughts on the yadi extension:

"It annoys me how the Cardinals have put some distance with him," Bengie said. "He's not asking for seven years or 10 years or $200 million. He's asking for three years, at least, in his hometown, in the place that he's sweat in that jersey so much. He's given his all for that jersey all his career since the Minor Leagues.
"Don't you want to have this kid? This is a leader, man. This is a kid who can help your catchers, take care of your catchers. This is a kid who can take care of the pitching and show them so much. Don't you want to let him finish his career, three more years, and whatever he wants? He just wants to be the best-paid catcher."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWQACEMW0i4

he had me until the last sentence

puuuhscotty. puuuh-scotty. i can't stop saying his name like that, really slow and drawn out, sometimes with a b at the beginning instead of the p

when i was a kid i said it like this too, until i finally realized i was supposed to pronounce it steven spaghetti

punxsutawney, obvs

@LangoschMLB
Matheny hinted that Matt Adams will see his first game action in the outfield later today. Stay tuned.

who said spring training was boring

Matheny's brain

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/4a/6e/ee/4a6eeee98d87505f483e26ca04955064.gif

https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--sDpwVVlr--/blrasaynicot8xuf4moo.jpg
and he's still injured from that #Mike

one of the rules of america card nation is that we must have a completely inappropriate person ready to play outfield at any moment. if none can be found, matheny will just find someone on the DL (a Grichuk) who can't throw and force them to play there.

tbf they are not the team that just signed 30-year-old, 250-pound pedro alvarez -- a man who committed 23 errors as a first baseman in 2015 -- with the idea of making him an outfielder

Don't give Matheny ideas! There is a chance he reads ILX

Give Matheny ideas! There is a chance he reads ILX

Has anyone experimented with switching the LF/RF with the batter's handedness, so instead of having a "left fielder" and a "right fielder" you have a "good fielder" and a "bad fielder"?

i'm imagining 2011 lance berkman puking his guts out after running back and forth from LF to RF 3 times in an inning

So Wong couldn't make it to the opener as the everyday 2b... feels familiar?

ugh, really? did they announce it?

in similar news, jeremy hazelbaker, oops, i mean jose martinez, made the club, pham down to the minors.

if that's true about wong, they should trade him. enough fucking around with him. matheny can't handle it, just trade him to a smarter team and at least get something in return

lots of juicy wong drama here:

http://www.stltoday.com/sports/baseball/professional/cardinal-beat/wong-would-rather-be-traded-than-platoon-at-second-base/article_9d03dd0f-b604-5be7-8a44-0287814094da.html

as i mentioned above, i think they should trade him, but it's nagl for wong to be complaining about playing time when he's not clearly better than gyorko/garcia.

god, i'm watching the espn feed of the mets/cardinal and there was some really sad commentary on the matt adams in LF experiment. paraphrasing: "the first ball hit to matt adams in LF will be the first ball he ever catches in LF during a game. i asked adams how he was feeling about this game and he said 'eduardo...i'm nervous.'"

we are all nervous. goddammit matheny, every year i think i have prepared myself but you keep innovating

they sent pham down to the minors and go with the hot hand in the immortal jose martinez. granted, pham was having a crappy spring training, but he's a reliable backup in the field and his bat is usually decent. instead we get jose martinez. it's not hard to imagine a scenario where one of the three starting OFs goes down with an injury, martinez sucks ass for 3 weeks, and then magically you have matt adams as your temporary LF for a while. or they send wong out again to give it a shot. there's going to be a lot of adversity this year.

much of Matheny's roster dicking last year was all a cascade effect of when Moss went into a horrible slump but Matheny kept playing him at 1st and would look everywhere else for offense.

I'm pretty sure the recent Wong drama coincided with a 1-0 spring training loss.

His mental process is so obvious and he's usually reacting to his own bad decisions. Like "I should play Wong in LF b/c he needs to get at-bats to get out of his slump!"

brisbee predicts 4th place (although he admits that he's trolling and actually thinks it's 3rd place).

It’s been a bad idea to underestimate the Cardinals for, oh, about 20 years or so. But here’s a partial list of what I’m not buying:

Kolten Wong’s bat
The team finding about 75 homers on the bench again
Mike Leake’s viability in a homer-happy era
Adam Wainwright’s ability to bounce back at 35
Aledmys Diaz being the great hitter he was in the first half, instead of the solid hitter he was when he came back from injury
Lance Lynn returning like nothing happened
Michael Wacha putting his miserable 2016 season entirely behind him
Dexter Fowler repeating his career year

Add it up, and what do you get? I'm predicting a fourth-place finish, but what we'll actually get are 93 wins and Rookie of the Year votes for Harrison Bader. I’m no dummy. I know exactly how this is going to look stupid by August. But when you spend 7,000 words writing predictions, sometimes you just want to watch the world burn. Of all the would-be contenders, though, the Cardinals have the most obvious worst-case scenario, and it doesn’t take a lot of suspension of disbelief to get there.

http://www.sbnation.com/a/mlb-2017-season-preview/st-louis-cardinals

Yadi, 55 millions for 3 year per mlb dot com.

rosenthal says 55-65 million, and that molina will be the highest paid catcher in the game (per bengie and yadi's wishes, it seems), at least per AAV

in cold baseball terms it's probably an overpay, but the cardinals ownership has had a surplus that they keep threatening to spend the last few years, so if this is how they do it, so be it. it would be great to see him close out his career as a cardinal, and hopefully get a chance at one more championship before replacing matheny as manager.

commenter on mlbtraderumors that wrote that lucroy just popped a bottle of champagne otm

twitter is brutal
http://i.imgur.com/7M0ZOhN.jpg

in cold baseball terms i'd say it's a ridiculous overpay, but i think it's cool that they did it

It could have been worse, they could still owe Pujols 150 million.

lol, yeah.

i don't know, i think $55 million for 3 years isn't too bad. $8-9/WAR is the going rate for free agents these days, and three years from now that's likely to be around $11 to 12. So assuming a middle ground of $10 million per WAR, they're asking yadi to generate 5.5 WAR over 3 years. i think he'll do that, or at least come close. the effect on fans and attendance is more limited because most games come close to selling out anyway. people will turn out to see yadi's final days but they were probably going to the game anyway.

America's opening day starting lineup:

CF: Dexter Fowler
SS: Aledmys Diaz
1B: Matt Carpenter
3B: Jhonny Peralta
C: Yadier Molina
RF: Stephen Piscotty
2B: Jedd Gyorko
LF: Randal Grichuk
SP: Carlos Martinez

Wong is probably having feelings right now

Peralta batting cleanup was a possible worst-case scenario for this season, but i didn't think it would happen on opening day. hopefully the guy bounces back this year but...probably not.

plus WAR undervalues catchers, especially their defensive effect of the game.

xpost

yep - i think BP's WARP incorporates some additional defensive catcher value that fangraphs and baseball reference don't use, and it boosts yadi's value quite a bit

Cards fans cheering on Fowler like they just signed Mike Trout.

He seems like a good guy

He's immediately pretty much the most interesting person on the team, apart from Martinez. Nearly everyone else is very, very boring

writing this as oh is coming in

mike matheny. you are dumb. bad process. you are dumb. i hate you.

i don't care if oh gets the double plays and the save next inning, mike matheny is the woist

schwarber and rizzo, both lefties, coming up, so he brings in the right-haned Oh to get a 5-out save. and never even had a second guy WARMING UP! nope, why would you warm up a lefty and a righty at the same time? no reason to do that. especially on opening day, when no one is tired...at all.

the rain begins

Matheny's thinking process vindicated, back to America.

And I'm proud to be an American where at least I know I'm free

GET SOMEONE WARMING UP

Too late.

Oh just threw his 31st pitch.
Matheny just NOW had Brett Cecil get loose

fuck

fire matheny.

you know the stupid asshole in the stands who yell "BALK!" whenever they see the weird fake pickoff move to 1B before throwing to 3B, and then loudly explain to everyone what a balk is, even though it wasn't a balk?

i would take that stupid asshole over matheny any day of the week

mike matheny is america

what a fucking dumbass

xpost lol

he already got bailed out by getting out of the 8th inning + a 2-run Grichuk HR in the rain, and then he somehow finds a way to make the worst possible decision anyway

made this a couple years ago, should have made it the thread header:

http://i.imgur.com/PnPNAU6.gif

to be fair, things are most probably fine if Carpenter doesn't pull that bonehead flip/indecision error.

first auto-intentional walk in MLB?

matheny owes grichuk at least $20

carlos martinez is so good

yep, the confidence drop off after him that any of our other starters can get through the cubbies lineup 3 times without getting destroyed... is not so good.

piscotty apparently signed an extension this morning

That's strange timing.

@keithlaw
Yadier Molina has had a great career so far. He has not had a Hall of Fame career so far.

he got some replies

https://twitter.com/keithlaw/status/848709486365855749

i would not consider him a HOFer either

i almost revived the hof thread to bring this up earlier. he may be a borderline case if he can keep it up for another few years and some sort of cacher defensive retroanalysis emerges that bumps his value up. but...probably not.

but i've heard numerous announcers recently referring to him as a "future hall of famer", some with a bit of consideration, others just stating it as a fact. one of the espn people said it last night, and i heard it a few times during the WBC too. he's certainly a legend in st. louis. it's totally cheesy and cliche but "his legend is growing" for real. everybody loves yadi.

- signed #1 yadi fan, america

career wRC+ = 100

he also trails rough contemporary russell martin in WAR

yes but his intangibles have been 140+ for almost a decade now

carlos martinez is so good

― na (NA), Monday, April 3, 2017 2:11 PM (four hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the hype was intense but so is easy 100mph gas.. jfc.

can we do a POO: Russell Martin, Yadier Molina, Buster Posey thread lol. it'll be interesting when they're all retired to see how they stack up.

Jesus. Piscotty got hit three times on his trip around the basepaths: HPB from arrieta, hit by catreras taking second on a pitch in the dirt, then hit it the head from a throw by rizzo as he scored. That last one was brutal to watch. Hope he's ok.

Also, in the second game of the season - Matt Adams in LF

'matt carpenter is my first baseman'

https://mobile.twitter.com/Andrew__Carter/status/849431000811790336

Juuuust a bit outside

re: that pitch, wainwright says it was an intentional last-second move to avoid hitting molina after they had a miscommunication about the pitch: http://www.stltoday.com/sports/baseball/professional/birdland/wainwright-safety-was-the-reason-for-one-of-the-worst/article_61cd8187-4fbe-577e-b47f-afbb81b96f02.html

lol. oooook waino.

http://i.imgur.com/GPU7ePL.png

hmm, matt adams made an ass out of himself starting in LF, weird

maybe try a shortstop out there next? #Mike

~YOU~ be the mathenager!

7th inning, you're up 4-2 and Cecil is pitching. the first and second runners get on, after a bizarre strikeout in the dirt that gets stuck in yadi's chest protector, and a walk to jon jay. still no outs. schwarber is coming up. then bryant and rizzo. what should you do??

A) don't worry about it. Cecil is fine. No reason to think about the bullpen, especially not during the third game of the season, after an off-day, when absolutely no one is tired.
B) well it wouldn't hurt to look at the bullpen.

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
YOU CHOSE A
you stare blankly. your emotions remain locked up in the hidden place where they can't hurt anyone ever again... (GO TO ENDING)

YOU CHOSE B
you look to the bullpen to check out your options. but wait. you forgot to get ANYONE warming up. again. just like the first game of the season. it is now the third game of the season. managing is really hard. oh well, just gotta trust god and keep your head down and baseball is a game where you hit the ball and run the bases and try to score the most runs, you gotta make the big outs and execute the fundamentals...(GO TO ENDING)

ENDING
tim mccarver mentions how weird it is that no one's even warming up. why would no one ever be warming up, that's just ludi-Dan McLaughlin breaks in - now hold on, there might be a good reason that he doesn't have anyone warming up, if you consider that-

Schwarber crushes a 3-run HR. you decide it might be time to get someone warming up. after 2 visits to the mound, a walk by bryant and a single by rizzo, it is finally possible to take brett cecil out of the game. you just got a contract extension. everything is fine, just got to go with the hot hand, baseball is a game where you mess up several times out of ten and it's less about what happens on a day-to-day basis and more about playing the game the right way...

i'm not gonna say this is *good* mathenaging, but i think leaving cecil in for schwarber was defensible as a lefty-on-lefty matchup and cecil having decent splits. trying to stretch it past bryant to rizzo much less so.

at any rate, matheny is hardly alone -- it was not worse than what sam dyson was permitted to do last night for texas

Cleveland - Top of 9th                                                  SCORE
Sam Dyson pitching for Texas                                            CLE TEX
Dyson relieved Bush.                                                    4  6
Díaz singled to center.                                                 4  6
Naquin singled to left, Díaz to second.                                 4  6
Gomes lined out to right.                                               4  6
Almonte walked, Díaz to third, Naquin to second.                        4  6
Santana walked, Díaz scored, Naquin to third, Almonte to second.        5  6
Lindor homered to right (401 feet), Naquin, Almonte and Santana scored. 9  6
Jeffress relieved Dyson.                                                9  6

yeah, i guess my main beef with matheny (who probably doesn't even realize i have beef with him...what a jerk!) is not having anyone going in the bullpen at that point, that late in the game. especially with the best part of the order coming up. oh well.

i know it's very early but both oh and cecil have looked v v bad in both spring training and the regular season. i'm sure they'll both bounce back soon, but with cecil it's hard because i haven't seen him throw a good inning since some random blue jays game i caught sometime last year

Dude schwarbed the hell out of that ball though.

he did. he picked up right where he left off in the 2015 playoffs (and the 2016 playoffs too, i guess)

someone on twitter recently asked which current ballplayer most deserves the middle name 'fucking', as in mike fucking trout. someone else replied that josh donaldson would be most likely to use it in real life. my answer was schwarber

i'd agree with that. although pedro fucking alvarez was probably my choice before kyle fucking schwarber came on the scene

here's matt adams trying and completely failing to catch that rizzo double in the 6th: https://twitter.com/SimulacruMusial/status/850069427156602880

he made it look so impossible that both mclaughlin and mccarver said that no one would have been able to catch it, dismissing the thought that perhaps it was because matt adams, who has never played LF and is no one's idea of someone who could easily make such an abrupt transition - was playing LF. statcast said that 69% of the time (nice) that ball is caught.

http://i.imgur.com/xGMZn90.jpg

if they have to have adams' bat in the lineup, wouldn't it make more sense to put carpenter -- a guy who presumably showed some agility as a one-time middle infielder -- in left?

the only fair way to do it is to give all of the infielders some time in LF, let them play it out, and go with the hot hand

i feel certain it's because 'carpenter is my best hitter and a proven veteran; it is literally illegal to ask him to do something new'

http://www.espn.com/blog/buster-olney/post/_/id/16450/olney-yadier-molina-deserves-to-be-a-hall-of-famer

because i can find something to complain about even after a 10-4 victory, i must point out that matt fucking adams started in left fucking field again today. and he batted cleanup as well, because why not. in a turn of events that absolutely no one could predict, he failed to catch what turned into a triple for Zack Cozart. Jim Edmonds (who is now in the cardinals booth, on occasion) said that it difficult enough to be a "once in a lifetime" play.

Jenifer Langosch
@LangoschMLB
For a reference point, Zack Cozart's triple had a catch probability of 96 percent, according to #Statcast.

i cannot fault jim edmonds for that

yet

matt adams is in LF again today. and wong is apparently on the shit list already.

remember all that bullshit this offseason about how defense and athleticism were the key things they were going to focus on? wtf

BP was probably right. your fearsome starting lineup:

Fowler CF
G. Garcia SS
Carpenter 1B
Piscotty RF
Adams LF
Gyorko 3B
Wong 2B
Fryer C
Leake RHP

Adams is starting in LF again. Meanwhile Tommy Pham is tearing it up in AAA, and Jose Martinez, a AAAA outfielder who is still better than Matt Adams in LF, can't get a start even though he has a 201 wRC+ in lol 9 PAs this year

mike leake has put this team on his shoulders

no joke, he's looked pretty good this year, including spring training! he's not going to set the world on fire but he looks like a solid #3 SP this year.

also, matt bowman is slowly working his way up the bullpen hierarchy

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/whats-the-point-of-the-matt-adams-outfield-experiment

glad to have that immortalized so that years later i can refer back to this idiotic time

i like this quote from lance lynn:

"We've got to pitch better, we've got to score runs and we have to play defense," Lynn said. "If we start doing that, we'll be fine."

trying to figure out what matheny could possibly be thinking with adams, and the only thing i can think of is that he thinks he has to get adams' bat into the lineup at any cost. but adams is hitting .143/.294/.143 and striking out more than 40% of the time. aledmys diaz' fielding was awful in april of last year but no one minded too much because he more than balanced out with his bat. matt adams hasn't been a good hitter since 2013. and if matheny was truly desperate to get him in there he'd just move Carpenter back to 3B, play Adams at first, and let Peralta retire, i mean ride the bench for a bit.

maybe mozeliak's grand strategic plan is to make everyone else feel sorry for the cardinals (something said to be impossible) so that we can get a decent deal trading adams for an actual outfielder (or to make room for pham, preferably)

https://twitter.com/alexcards79/status/852891050054217728

it's real, i checked

omfg
willie mcgee enters the crisis!!

http://www.stltoday.com/sports/baseball/professional/cardinals-bringing-in-mcgee-as-outfield-tutor-for-adams/

The Cardinals oft-stated dedication to defense and their oft-revealing hunt for offense have converged in left field, where the club has become increasingly committed to getting Matt Adams playing time for the promise of his bat.

They expect him to improve on the fly.

“He hasn’t been a blocked punt out there,” Matheny said when asked to reconcile the two goals. “The conversation, the statement was we’ve got to balance what will be our best lineup with that — how do we put the best defense? We’re going to get what we get out of a guy who hasn’t played out there that much. I think we’ve seen opportunities to make an impact offensively.”

On Wednesday, Adams made his fourth start of the season in left field, spelling Randal Grichuk against Washington ace Max Scherzer. What started as a late-spring exploration of what was possible has become an in-season workshop. Matheny’s belief in left field being a place for Adams to get playing time isn’t just revealed by how often he’s been sent out there.

It’s also who the Cardinals are bringing in.

When the Cardinals return to St. Louis so will special assistant Willie McGee, Matheny said. The former MVP and outfielder will tutor Adams. Matheny said he sees that as part of the team’s pledge to improve defensively, while acknowledging that he’s limiting the starts for an above-average fielder like Grichuk for added at-bats from Adams, a career first baseman in the pros. The bat plays, Matheny has said.

“So we’re going to continue to get him opportunities, especially when we’re looking to find some offense,” Matheny said. “We know what his bat can do. He’s in a real good spot, in my opinion. We like where Adams is and he is going to have to just continue to improve so we can put him in the outfield and make that a viable option.”

the 2017 american cardinals: how do we put the best defense?

xpost

loooooooool that's real?? that is amazing. matheny's never going to play him again, if someone can explain to him what twitter is.

Carlos Martinez walked 8 batters and struck out 11 over 5 innings. One earned run, and that came from a wild pitch in the first. Weird game.

Carlos Martinez is the first MLB pitcher with at least 8 walks and 11 Ks since Randy Johnson in 1993. He is the first Cards starter to do so since "Wild" Bill Hallahan in 1930.

@jay_jaffe
3 out of 53 teams in Wild Card era who started the year 3-9 or worse made the playoffs. Take your beef up with baseball history, not me.

https://www.si.com/mlb/2017/04/17/st-louis-cardinals-losing

bologna sandwich on that walk in the first inning. clearly a strike, and mccutchen was out at 2nd.

for posterity

http://i.imgur.com/AqAKfEe.jpg

i was surprised yadi didn't have the presence of mind to reach up and tag him but i guess it was instinctual self-preservation

yeah, it all happened so quick, too. also i think maybe coghlan would have been allowed to full-on tackle yadi, since yadi was standing up the third baseline and blocking the path? so maybe he was bracing for a collision, if anything. no one ever expects the leaping-over-your-head-somersault move, which is what makes it such a good job interview tactic

sorted by wRC+
http://i.imgur.com/lgf9MjD.png

Matt Carpenter is the first Cardinal to hit a walk-off grand slam in extra innings since Tommy Herr on April 18, 1987.

http://deadspin.com/cardinals-fan-sitting-behind-dugout-hit-by-stray-bullet-1794903270

i guess the 2017 cardinals really are america (trenchant social commentary)

for tonight at least, first place. possibly the last day of the season that will be true, but nice while it lasts

http://www.vivaelbirdos.com/2017/5/10/15604992/the-tweet-that-said-too-much-st-louis-cardinals-twitter

http://www.sbnation.com/2013/10/4/4802638/one-night-with-the-ladies-in-houston

driver's seat

Call hurts #Cardinals
Strike 3 should be ball 3
Bot 8 Scott vs Grichuk
4% call same
3.9in from edge pic.twitter.com/QqDV5NmMy5

— Cards Strike Zone (@CardinalsUmp) May 18, 2017

Call helps #Cardinals
Strike 3 should be ball 3
Top 9 Oh vs Bradley Jr.
0% call same
5.6in from edge pic.twitter.com/uJDX5hotES

— Cards Strike Zone (@CardinalsUmp) May 18, 2017

Jeff Kellogg, an exciting major league umpire

That may have been tha worst inning of baseball I've seen in a long time. Bad fielding, bad managing, bad umpiring, more bad managing, and then a rain delay.

with a score of 0-0 in the 11th inning, a rain delay

too bad the cardinals wasted carlos' start. he threw a maddux.

93 pitches, 9 innings. the rest isn't quite as impressive (5 Ks and a walk) but still

think we might've had an ILX spy at this game

we all communicate via secret lemon juice letters taped to the undersides of seats located in row 77

game score of 93

Not just the best start of Martinez's career, in the top 15 Cardinals starts of the modern era by Game Score. https://t.co/wfl0Z2pLFC

— Ben Godar (@bengodar) May 21, 2017

i feel bad for (slippery rock's own) matt adams : /

big city

it's probably better for him to play somewhere else. even if matt carpenter got injured, i think they'd probably just shift piscotty to 1B and make pham a starter in the OF. adams had no home. not even in LF

i know. being a rejected big donk is tough tho

he'll be ok. he's a big donk tough guy, he'll muddle through

thanks man

i feel like now is the right time for all of us to curl up in matt adams' arms and hear a bedtime story

come on big city, get over here and let's make a nest

adams ends his cardinal career with an UZR/150 of -36.0 in LF

matheny owes him a really nice dinner and apology

The starters completed a turn through the rotation giving up only 3 runs over 38 1/3 innings, and somehow only won two of the five games.

almost certainly tommy pham's fault

grichuk optioned . . . to high A

weird.

on the broadcast just now, jim hayes, the sideline reporter guy, said (paraphrasing:

"mozeliak said that sending him to memphis (AAA) would have been the obvious thing to do, but the team has already seen that he can hit well there, so they wanted to do something out of the box to spark him."

grichuk is definitely feeling sparked right now

he has been truly awful this year, with kozma-esque levels of production without the plus defense

the only good part of last night's game was the thought that maybe this would be the broxton performance that would finally get him released. turns out that it was. broxton released, gant called up

@RobRains
Sierra RBI single makes him first player in #STLCards history to get hit in first 8 games of his career.

I'm at wrigley

First time (!?!?!)

hope you don't have to hear that song at the end of the game

where are u sitting

Section 222 , behind home

I thought it would be amazing but turns out you can sit pretty far away from home when you're behind home

One of these three makes sense. pic.twitter.com/SJdPGldyWk

— viva el birdos (@vivaelbirdos) June 6, 2017

scooter gennett's 7 RBI game (so far, 4th inning) is the first one given up by the cardinals since 2012, to marco scutaro. if someone can just finish this post for me by making a scoot-related joke i'd appreciate it

Scooter: 3 HRs, 8 RBI

jhonny p dfa'd

cardinals also canned their 3B coach and invited lance berkman to speak at 'christian night' in july

lol, they got rid of Maloney.

I'm surprised but anyone had got to be better than him. You know you've got a bad base coach when you actually notice him and his decisions. I wish oquendo would come back.

Also,

Peralta is currently on waivers, and once he clears waivers the Cardinals will likely release him so that he can become a free agent. Mozeliak acknowledged that he did not spend any time seeing if there was a trade to be had for Peralta because of the urgency to make moves that altered the clubhouse.

Er...yeah, that's one reason they didn't bother looking to see if anyone wanted to trade for Peralta, I guess

Apparently they recently asked peralta to do some training at 1B so that he could be an option there, and he refused. Guess he's just ready to retire

can it be true?

http://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2017/6/10/15773780/cardinals-manager-mike-mathenys-job-isnt-so-safe-anymore

Public Service Announcement: In a one-run game, #Cardinals have double-switched No. 3 hitter Piscotty. Pitcher now in that spot. #stlcards

— Derrick Goold (@dgoold) June 22, 2017

#STLCards are optioning SS Aledmys Diaz to Triple-A Memphis. They are purchasing the contract of INF Alex Mejia.

— Jenifer Langosch (@LangoschMLB) June 28, 2017

whoa. didn't expect that. on a possibly unrelated note diaz is/was the only player on the cardinals who was training using some sort of special strobe zone lights (??)
http://mlb.nbcsports.com/2017/06/24/aledmys-diaz-is-trying-to-improve-his-defense-with-strobe-glasses/

mozeliak: hey it worked with grichuk!

cardinals to hold MAJOR PRESS CONFERENCE at 2pm

apparently just mozeliak becoming president and some other dude getting the gm title

Who is the current cardinals president? I don't even know

Mozeliak is now president of the United States. Assistant GM Mike Girsch is now GM. Mike Matheny is still Mike Matheny

http://i.imgur.com/IQaUSZg.jpg

luke voit: big suburbs

did you see that HR? i'm surprised it only came out at 442 ft, he crushed it

http://www.mlb.com/images/8/2/2/242336822/071517_cardinals_trex_med_0mo5ypyl.gif

i'd worry about the cardinals selling off prospects in return for half a season of JD Martinez, but...that's not going to happen.

oh has kind of torpedoed his trade value, too

pfp failure for trevor rosenthal

i was out of town the last few days so i didn't see any of the cards/mets series, but it looks like they blew today's game in classic 2017 cardinals fashion

Critical shot: pic.twitter.com/r8WMWsfjUf

— Gif Weaver (@SimulacruMusial) July 20, 2017

pic.twitter.com/iUtBkTEnha

— Gif Weaver (@SimulacruMusial) July 20, 2017

The Cardinals announced a series of roster moves prior to today’s game. Outfielder Randal Grichuk and lefty Zach Duke were both activated from the 10-day and 60-day DL, respectively, while catcher Carson Kelly was recalled from Triple-A. Righty Sam Tuivailala and outfielder Magneuris Sierra were optioned to Triple-A last night to open up two roster spots, and catcher Eric Fryer was designated for assignment today in another corresponding move.

how do you solve a problem like carson kelly? on most teams he'd be ready to enter into a time share and gradually take the lion's share of the starts over the next year or two, but that won't happen here unless molina gets hurt. i'd like him to be a part of the next run of success (hopefully eta 2018) but i have a bad feeling he's going to be traded. catching is maybe the weakest position in baseball, prospect-wise, so i'm sure quite a few teams would pay up for him.

the idea of the cardinals being buyers this year gets slimmer and slimmer with every passing game. but regardless, they're gonna have to make some moves because they have too many good OFs to protect in the 40-man. time to bundle 'em up and try to get at least one all-star caliber player imo

naturally they just traded for outfield prospect tyler o'neill (canadian!)

i wish this typo/mistake in the mlbtraderumors description was true:

"Power is O’Neill’s calling card, as he has 89 homers over 396 minor league plate appearances..."

i don't know anything about o'neill but i'm glad they were able to get a good prospect in return for marco gonzalez. marco was really promising before his injury, but the time he missed put him in a weird spot in the organization since there's no opening in the rotation and there's a wave of better pitchers coming up around and behind him.

o'neill has pretty much torn the minors up until the first half of this year, when he struggled and struck out a lot. caught fire this month, tho, with help from a visit to albuquerque, where he hit five homers in five games. i think he's pretty good, but as you pointed out, the cardinals have a lot of outfielders. and tommy pham deserves a spot, dammit

i think pham will keep his spot, at least he gets injured again. i still can't think of him as anything other than an injury time bomb.

at least ^until^ he gets injured again

waino deserved better today

wonder if it's possible to trade away dejong before other teams notice his walk rate

http://i.imgur.com/Q8mv4tf.jpg

(not that we really have a good shortstop ready to move in)

how quickly we discard the fifth-place finisher for 2016 NL rookie of the year, damn

heh, i don't think diaz is bad, but also...probably not good. i think he could probably hold down the fort for the next year or two, though

Congratulations to my cousin Harrison on getting called up to the majors. I think that's pretty cool! https://t.co/UewTv4SD7c

— Chris Baio (@OIAB) July 25, 2017

that's the bass player from vampire weekend

didn't know that, that's kinda cool i guess!

i've been looking forward to bader's call-up for a while, hopefully he can apply some devil magic

almost beat out a routine grounder in his first AB, and got a standing O from the BFIB for it

it was a nice moment, honestly. but, instead of being hailed as someone who Plays the Right Way, i suspect that if he were black, ppl would merely marvel at his speed

trust me, this is paul dejong's body

http://i.imgur.com/1giot0d.jpg

also harrison bader ginsburg

http://i.imgur.com/BSw4v4C.jpg

sorry

http://mlb.nbcsports.com/2017/07/31/mike-matheny-complains-that-some-cardinals-fans-are-just-so-bitter/

i guess they almost tried to trade for Sonny Gray (Piscotty + Weaver/Flaherty, according to Rosenthal). glad they didn't do that - starting pitching hasn't been the problem, and they have plenty of depth for next year already (the return of alex reyes, weaver, flaherty, dakota hudson, gant, alcantara, etc)

http://www.stltoday.com/sports/baseball/professional/cardinals-can-t-find-a-deal-they-re-comfortable-making/article_ac03c549-404f-5063-957a-8d43e9eeef05.html

it's a shame they're wasting the unexpected great season of tommy pham this year. 18th in WAR despite playing much less than everyone else ranking above him!

6 in a row, one behind Cubs! But their cat is missing.

http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/20304837/st-louis-cardinals-say-rally-cat-missing

the stupid groundskeeper dude who got scratched up decided to run straight out to the stan musial statue and let it go. come on kid, you know someone's gonna want to adopt that cat!

i've been trying not to jinx this winning streak. the team suddenly seems a lot more "fun", but it's hard not to seem like that when you're putting up 8+ runs each night.

wainwright threw a 59.4 mph curveball

don't tell carlos beltran

you said it, not me!

i won't be surprised at all if waino needs some sort of surgery within a couple weeks.

lol

it's a shame that mets fans have basically disavowed him. it was a nearly perfect pitch (if perhaps not as good as endy's catch)

Tired of sputtering along, Yadier Molina and Adam Wainwright moved to re-establish order. On the Cardinals last road trip, they summoned their teammates to The Precinct, a high-end steakhouse.

To appreciate the Cardinals’ recent surge and their newfound belief in each other, it helps to understand what transpired at a former Cincinnati police patrol house on Aug. 3.

That’s the night Molina, Wainwright, Matt Carpenter and a few other veterans dropped the law on their teammates and pulled them into a more united team.

“The message that was given both by me and collectively from everybody was that if we’re going to win this thing we’re going to have to do it together,” Carpenter said. “That’s why you see the new rallying cry that’s happening.”

In case you’re wondering, the Cardinals’ new rally cry is a two-handed gesture. The players execute it in their teammates’ direction after clutch hits and runs. They lift their hands near their heads and then interlock and unlock their fingers as they bring their hands together and squeeze multiple times, symbolizing team unity.

well great, first rule of fight club etc

have to admit that the new rally gesture is possibly better than the last one, though, which i believe was the miming of tit-squeezing

http://deadspin.com/cardinals-rudely-presume-feral-cat-that-ran-on-field-is-1797920735

i know this is coming from a known anti-cardinals publication but jesus fuck i hope this cat is not allowed to be adopted by the fucking cardinals, this is absolutely gross

It is now up to St. Louis Feral Cat Outreach to determine whether living in a ballpark with Mike Matheny as caretaker qualifies as a “happy and healthy life.”

loooooool

St. Louis Cat Nonprofit To Cards: Bullying Us Over Rally Cat Is "Inconsistent With The Cardinals Way"

it's actually consistent with the Cardinal Way. It's in there near the end. They added it in after LaRussa left. I've been trying to tell people about this for years but everyone has blinders on

http://i.imgur.com/QON7ugb.png

Adam Wainwright is on his way back to St. Louis to have his arm examined by Cardinals team physicians, Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch writes. Wainwright allowed five runs in three innings yesterday and has been plagued by persistent pain in his elbow when pitching. MLB.com’s Jenifer Langosch notes that Wainwright hasn’t reached 90 mph in either of his past two starts and has yielded nine runs on 15 hits and nine walks with just one strikeout in his past 11 innings (Twitter link). Wainwright recently spent a bit more than two weeks on the disabled list due to a back injury.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DIH3g_YU0AAeHje.jpg

timely

America

Jack Flaherty, 21 (Harvard-Westlake HS), tonight becomes youngest starting pitcher to debut for Cardinals since Rick Ankiel in 1999.

— Bill Shaikin (@BillShaikin) September 1, 2017

now 2 behind the Rockies for WC2

lance lynn is outperforming his FIP at a historical level (ERA of 2.99, FIP of 4.71)

https://www.vivaelbirdos.com/st-louis-cardinals-sabermetrics-analysis/2017/9/7/16248452/cardinals-lance-lynn-earned-run-average-fielding-independent-pitching-luck-peripherals

my condolences to whoever wins the Lance Lynn free agent sweepstakes

(to be clear, i think he'll be a solid #3 in someone's rotation for a few more years at least. but i can also imagine a team overpaying for that shiny sub-3.00 ERA)

pham picked up both his 20th SB and 20th HR today

it's been about a minute since he hit the HR, and somehow the broadcasting team has not made a reference to 20/20 vision. i don't understand why it's taking them so long since they talk about his vision every single game

tommy pham, despite missing the first month because mike matheny thought it was a better move to play matt adams in left field, is 10th in the NL by fWAR. and by fWAR/600, he's second, just ahead of harper and behind only rendon. definitely a bright spot in an otherwise frustrating year

http://mediadownloads.mlb.com/mlbam/2016/06/16/images/mlbf_818435583_th_45.jpg

look you don't know any better, Matheny gets up close views of his players in action, he knows their strengths

Juan Nicasio batted with two runners on in the 9th inning of a pennant race. WITH A 40 MAN ROSTER. https://t.co/edzYDcRjPf

— stlCupofJoe (@stlCupofJoe) September 23, 2017

of course it worked out because the pirates WAIVED A DECENT RELIEVER LEST HE BE CLAIMED BY A DIVISION RIVAL

FOR WHOM THE PHILLIES AT LEAST GOT SOME SHITTY PROSPECT

jfc

man i know Bryant is hot right now but Matheny just IBB'd him to load the bases with 1 out and Rizzo and Zobrist on deck

ha and it paid off of course

bad process / passable results is the matheny way

congrats to the cubs btw

Players with at least 23 HR, 23 SB, .410 OBP since 1987:
Altuve
Trout
TOMMY PHAM
A-Rod
D Wright
Abreu
Chipper
Bagwell
L Walker
Rickey

— viva el birdos (@vivaelbirdos) September 28, 2017

arb eligible at 31, free agency at 34 ;_;

RIP 2017 cardinals, and america

that final play was a perfectly agonizing, fitting end to the season

will they be *spoilers*, like America?

i think they'll be half spoilers. wild (card) prediction: i think they'll take 1 of 3 from the brewers, and the rockies will manage to pick up at least one from the dodgers. even if matheny plays his B squad all weekend, that's still a pretty decent team, capable of winning at least one from the brewers.

"high floor, low ceiling" will be the epitaph of the 2016-17 cardinals

RIP 2017 cardinals, and america

that final play was a perfectly agonizing, fitting end to the season

― Karl Malone, Friday, September 29, 2017 4:15 AM (thirteen hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

there's always next year! as a Cubs fan, watching Matheny and the Cards dugout was "good times", i'm sorry to admit...

https://media.giphy.com/media/8TNHNwBEhhc4g/giphy.gif

ICYMI

https://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2017/9/29/16388812/busch-stadium-cardinals-protest-stockley-verdict

fuck yeah, they're bringing oquendo back to 3rd base coach and giving willie mcgee some sort of job

happy willie mcgee's birthday

https://i.imgur.com/jEG0gNL.jpg

cardinals figurative boner is getting impossibly hard this offseason

Cardinals "Bitter" After Being Turned Down by Giancarlo Stanton

wow guess he wasn't ready for the cardinal way(TM)

https://i.imgur.com/oDYy5Hy.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/H2uBVJo.jpg

luke gregerson, 2 years/$11 million

i think i like this deal? all of his troubles last year seem to come from a huge spike in FB% + HR/FB, plus a jump in BABIP. the rest of his peripherals seem to be in line with the rest of his career, so he seems like a good bounceback guy

I'd think the only thing would be a second year on a reliever at age 33. He was always good with the Padres.

also he can tell the cardinals all of jeff luhnow's secrets

yeah, ideally all relievers could all be signed for a single year given how volatile they are, but that's the risk you run i guess...

encouraging to see that 3 of his HRs last year were of the minute maid bullshit variety (http://www.hittrackeronline.com/detail.php?id=2017_6059&type=pitcher) and a 4th wouldn't have been a HR in almost half of MLB stadiums.

cardinals/astros and yankees/marlins should hold a secret-sharing slumber party