2007 Cardinals - We da Champs!

We are still bad, on the bright side Chris Carpenter was in my office today :O

fucking Pujols is killing three of my rotisserie teams

Get back on the HGH Albert!

"fucking Pujols"

Pujols breaks a 61 SB homer slump with his 7th.

61 AB^^^

Did you get some Ichiro in your Pujols?

Uh, clarification: Ichiro Suzuki was caught stealing Thursday, ending his AL record streak of 45 consecutive successful steals, five short of Vince Coleman's major league record.

wow, Rick Ankiel is hitting .286/.323/.608 (in Memphis)

TAKE A WALK ALREADY

you Sabrett geek

Scott Spezio has been hitting cleanup lately. This is never a good sign for a baseball team.

Scott Spezio has been hitting cleanup pitching in relief lately. This is never a good sign for a baseball team.

Fixed. /cry

That LaRussa - always thinking outside the (batter's) box!

I'll be in St. Loo next month, suggest LaRussa heckles pls.

hello mike maroth

And many surrendered hits.

Goodbye __________?

And would you like some more 2002 Tigers?

Shane Halter is the proto-Eckstein. I think. Maybe.

Also, I think you mean 2003.

Also, I think you mean 2003

No, 2002, Weaver hater.

The outrage over this is hilarious. "You just don't trade a starting pitcher who is 10-4 over the last two years!"

oh hell yeah its on now

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/a/ad/Jered_Weaver_-_Card.png/300px-Jered_Weaver_-_Card.png

wow, some ugly lot in their rotation. those ERAs!

And tonight, they start their new acquistion, who has the worst OPS-against of all pitchers with 60+ IP.

ppls be saying a full Jocketty/TLR turnover after this season.

However it MIGHT be worth mentioning that said acquisition has a career 3.75 ERA against NL teams (in something like 25 starts).

M. Maroth (STL)
7 1/3 IP, 2 H, 1 ER, 4 K
@ NYM
8th

The only reason I noticed this is because he's on my fantasy team, but whytf is Chris Duncan not playing every day?

The only thing I can figure is that they don't think Duncan can play the outfield very well or hit a left hander.

Um they aren't wrong in either of those assessments to be fair.

And yet he's still a far better option against lefties (by about 200 OPS points, if we're making decisions based on small sample sizes and I'm sure we are) than his replacement. Love LaGenuis.

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news;_ylt=AnsK.v0kGghmZZw8dUS6EKg5nYcB?slug=ap-cardinalsatbreak&prov=ap&type=lgns

One sign of the tough times: A fan suggested on manager Tony La Russa's weekly call-in show that slumping second baseman Adam Kennedy might benefit from taking the rest of the year off, and La Russa saw merit.

"If you take a month off, how do you do that?" La Russa said after the show. "If a guy says 'OK, I don't need money for a month?'

"But I think it's interesting, very creative."

Rolen admits being hurt FINALLY, shuts it down.

Carpenter might need the Tommy-John. Could be out all of next year.

TLR to reporter asking why Pujols didn't bother to step towards first base on a dropped line drive: "you looking for trouble?"

Kip Wells is still in the rotation omg wtf kill me please.

Please Brewers put us 10 games back so we can hit the reset, scrap heap button. Trade Juan E. for a hot pocket. Bring up Ankiel. Bring up Reyes - find out if he will ever be a major leaguer. Let Duncan hit lefties.

lolarussa also said he didn't want to pitch Wells against Cole Hamels, and then he didn't want to pitch him on espn Sunday Night Baseball because they would talk about his win-loss record. Hey, Genius, maybe you shouldn't lay out your rotation around your worst pitcher's fragile ego?

What, do local broadcasters fail to mention how shit Kip Wells has been? Or is there a chance lolrussa (BEST NICKNAME EVER) can hold off pitching Kippy until there's a game that's not being broadcast by anyone? Perhaps a Winter League game?

Ha - maybe TLR & DD should have Kip pitch a simulated game where folks are heckling the shit out of him & a broadcast crew harps on his shitty performance, & see how he reacts to the criticism.

Also, bnw - the Yankees were 10 games back just last week, but now they're only 8 and "back in the thick of it" - KEEP HOPE ALIVE (and trade Braden Looper ASAP).

The bullpen is 18-5!

Don't tell Tony that - he'll have them start the game!

ANKIEL = THE NATURAL

It's pretty amazing. I can't decide whether this or Josh Hamilton is more impressive.

there are some epic youtubes if you get a chance to surf on your lunch hour.

Lolarussa forced to play kids b/c Juan E. Hustle and Adam flirting with .225 Kennedy get hurt. Speez in rehabz. Kip Wells, Reyes, possibly not 100% terrible? Son of Jorel Pinerio kneel before Dunc. 4 1/2 out in comedy central.

Only seven games off their World Championship-destined '06 pace.

4.5 games out.

plus Mulder rehab starts incoming...

seven scoreless Wainwright innings vs Milw...

6-0 Cards in 9th! Looks like 2.5 GB.

Yadi the Body tripled his homerun total for the year :O

Ryan (Columbia, MO): So if the Cardinals were, by some crazy chance, to win a second title in a row, as bad as they've been this year, where would that rank among baseball's great statistical improbabilities?

Rob Neyer: (12:05 PM ET ) It would be No. 4, behind only DiMaggio's Streak, Mike Benjamin's Magical June, and Freddie Patek's 3 Homers in Fenway.

.500!!!!1111
"the nl comedy central: no team left behind"

really, anyone but Cards. Tony will win another MOY if they pull this out.

idk where else to ask this, but - what was that thread where yall talked about pujols' ORGASM FACE that he has at every at-bat? there was a pic and everything!

dunno, there was some snickering about his uh lip sores in last years playoffs. To me he always looks like he's exhaling when he swings. be a pretty joyless o face :/

just from sportscenter snippet encarnacion injury seems terrible, really horrifying...said shattered like an eggshell. i am like purposely trying not to read more or think about that conceptually.

I watched the entire Cardinals/Reds series this past weekend. I have to say that I am impressed by Rick Ankiel's entire game. Not that it is a great stretch to take the Reds pitching staff to town, but Ankiel did hit two jacks and a grand slam. The thing that impressed me about Ankiel is that the guy has a pretty solid all around game. He can really run and is quite a good outfielder with of course a hell of an arm. Ankiel's arm caused Brandon Phillips to have to retreat back to third on a deep fly to right that would have been a run against most outfielders.

Yeah his only weakness AFAICT is his plate discipline. If he could draw even a few UIBB he would be even better.

that will come in time, for now I'm just enjoying the ride

haha Rick Ankielosaurus

I picked him up in my keeper league, much to my own amazement.

Ankiel ankilled 2 more. That puts him 2 ahead of JD Drew for those keeping score.

Three different football analysts this morning:

"No more feel-good stories in baseball anymore, waaa waaa waaaaa...."

Here we go again...

doesn't NFL decode as HGH?

"Should we really be that surprised, people? A few years ago, this guy couldn't even get the ball over the plate, and now he reappears as this home-run hitting god."

Seriously, mods, delete football.

Except rabid Lou Holtz. He sounds like he wants to kill all of Oregon for the sake of U-of-M football. (Not that I give a shit about U-of-M football.)

ANYWAY, one game back.

It does kind of take the shine off the story. (fwiw I told someone I thought he was juiced last week after seeeing a shot of his arms where he looked like popeye).

I have a bad feeling the cards and cubs will tie each other up enough in their 4 games together that the Brewers get in.

more than four games left in the season though right?

I really don't think it's a bad thing at all for a player to use steroids/hgh when recovering from an injury. Regular folk use steroids to recover from or deal with health problems all the time, so why should athletes be any different?

HGH doesn't do much for ballplayers, besides.

That's what they say, but here are three irrefutable facts, in chronological order:

1. Rick Ankiel was a pitcher.
2. Rick Ankiel took HGH.
3. Rick Ankiel is now seemingly an amazing hitter.

Maybe HGH didn't help. Maybe he earned his improvements via hard work and dedication, and HGH is just a panacea. But every dude who relies on "common sense" as a foundation for his opinions is going to look at those three facts and jump to the seemingly-obvious conclusion, so get ready for the crucifixion.

Common sense? I thought the medical establishment has weighed in on the inefficacy of HGH in improving athletic performance at professional levels (please excuse the non-primary cite). Also, you mean "placebo," not "panacea."

TS: Brian Molko vs. Mathis Mootz.

CF:

1. Marvin Bernard was an outfielder.
2. Marvin Bernard took HGH.
3. Marvin Bernard is now seemingly out of baseball for not being able to hit the ball out of the infield.

Replace Marvin Bernard with Alex Sanchez, Jason Grimsley etc.

I didn't say I believed HGH helped Ankiel or anyone else, but thanks for correcting me unnecessarily! (except for the "panacea" thing, ugh).

Well that's what happens when I took "every dude" to refer to me, jerk. ^_^

peepul, peepul ... as a diversion I will excerpt a Stark chat!

Grant (NYC): Come on! It was a legal prescription when there was no ban. This is a non-story!

Jayson Stark: (1:21 PM ET ) It's a non-story? How is it a non-story? I suggest you read it more carefully. It's NOT legal to get a prescription for HGH if you're not a patient of the doctor. And there has to be a specific medical purpose for a specific malady. The story quotes Gary Wadler of WADA saying there are very few legitimate medical reasons a healthy athlete in his 20s would need a prescription for HGH. And if this had taken place after 2005, I have no doubt that baseball would suspend him, much as the NFL did with Rodney Harrison. Now if you want to get into the inconsistency between how people react to a baseball player and a football player essentially being accused of the same offense, I'd be more sympathetic. But I completely disagree that it's a non-story.

Pedro Gomez is on the case...

hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha fuk the Cardinals. Even the one thing they had to feel good about has gone sour.

nah we got at least 10 others I can think of.

Ankiel = 1 - 14 since HGH story broke

Flushed down the toilet, obv.

Yadier Molina = 2 for 17

how is that a big slump for him?

he was batting like .285, don't knock the baby mo

Ankiel was really bad in the field today. He should have had two errors in the same inning, but the Cinci scorer somehow gave Griffey a double on one of the plays.

Considering that Ankiel became a complete basket case as a pitcher when things started to go bad, you have to wonder how he will work though this bit of controversy.

ankiel ledgewatch:

1 - 18

Ankiel knocks in tying and winning runs in the ninth inning of the Cardinals' last home game.

Ledgewatch:

1 - 906

Out w/ Jocketty

isn't there a firing embargo during Actober?

Why fire Jocketty? What is that about?

Doing fuck all good over the last couple of years I am guessing.

Pretty sure they won the World Series last year and made the playoffs many times prior to that.

There's been talk all year about Jocketty and LaRussa wanting out of St. Louis, so this isn't exactly a huge surprise.

"Pretty sure they won the World Series last year and made the playoffs many times prior to that."

Pretty sure they play in a division with the only GMs dumber then they are too (Brewers guy excepted obv.) Dave Littlefield fer chrissake!

What the hell are you talking about? The Cards won 100+ games as recently as 2004-5, when the division (and league!) wasn't as weak as it is now. And it's supposed to be Jocketty's fault that he's better than the other GMs? Was John Hart a shitty GM in the 90's for Cleveland because the AL Central was so weak? What about Atlanta when they won all those division titles -- I mean sure, they won like 100 games every year, but they weren't any good, the division was just weak!

listen BarryB, not everybody can be a genius like Billy Beane and win countless division titles year after year.

Has more to do with politics/power then Jocketty's record. Cardinals farm system has been pretty terrible up until Jeff Luhnow was put in charge against Jocketty's wishes. I can't imagine Lolarussa will stay now. Rumor is they both may up with the Reds.

Okay dumb is a bit extreme because he's made any number of smart moves over the years, but he's also made a lot of really dumb ones the past couple (including one that's probably going to end up being viewed as historically dumb i.e. the Mulder deal) where he appears to have been building the team largely by the Brian Sabean/Ned Coletti EXPERIENCE MATTERS model.

That makes no sense to me. Mulder was fantastic with the A's, and there was really no way to predict his decline. He never had major injury problems with the A's. I just thought it was unlucky for the Cardinals, and they sent great prospects for the chance to get an ace. It didn't work out.

Mulder was fantastic with the A's, and there was really no way to predict his decline.

Um... Mulder's mechanics have always been considered unorthodox and high-risk for long-term.

(xpost)I disagree. He fell apart at the end of 2004 for no explainable reason and his BB/SO ratio had been getting steadily worse for years. The Cardinals gave up a solid #2 starting pitcher who was three years younger and cheaper and looked to be just about as good as Mulder was in the past going forward, plus a solid reliever and a blue chip prospect. Everyone thought it was a steal at the time and it's only looked better for the A's as time has went on.

Admittedly the Hudson deal has not turned out as well, but that was a TRUE case of a prospect for a year of a star, and the prospect hasn't panned out really at all and the star was pretty good.

A better comp for the Mulder trade is this year's Atl-Tex trade, where Atlanta knowingly gave up good prospects (and taking the risk of looking stupid for doing so in a few years) to rent a star for at least one year. However, Alex's irrationally selective memory aside, Jocketty's trade history is here: http://stl.sabr.org/fungoes/?page_id=736.

There are plenty of great trades there ... McGwire for next to nothing, Edmonds for next to nothing, Larry Walker for next to nothing, getting short term use from guys like Will Clark, Edgar Renteria, Woody Williams, Jesse Orosco, Jeff Weaver, (the list goes on) and smartly letting them walk when they'd outlived their usefulness to the club. Not to mention that the Cards have won more games duing his tenure than any other NL club, probably save Atlanta.

Yeah but the problem with that comparison is that Haren WASN'T a prospect anymore. He'd pitched at the major league level and held his own during their 2004 post-season run. He had better peripherals (and probably stuff too) than Mulder did and again was younger and cheaper. If the Braves had given up a 23 year old MLB ready first-baseman which similar stats and projections (Saltamaccwhatever doesn't count cuz he clearly wasn't ready or that valuable at 1B) to get Texeira and then thrown in a half their farm system no one would have thought that was a good deal either!

And that list is mostly a lot of nothing in both directions for the last couple of years (and I don't see any of his not-so-good free agents signings like Juan Encarnacion on their either) and that combined with the Cardinals mostly bankrupt farm system well to me it looks less than impressive.

If you look at ANY GM's trade resume, then chances are that 85% of it is a lot of nothing in both directions, with trades that nobody remembers (unless it's your home team), because most trades don't involve major stars and top prospects. As for the other 15%, I see a lot of big names that were acquired very cheaply, many of whom went on to make significant contributions to the team.

Anyway, the onus is still on you to enlighten us as to how a GM who consistently built 90-100 game winners and won multiple division titles and pennants is in fact an incompetent douche who doesn't have a clue what he's doing.

First of all, Barry I did state that I was limiting my critique to the LAST COUPLE OF YEARS so getting Will Clark back before you had pubic hair doesn't really apply.

The Cardinals have the most devoted fanbase in the world, a fair amount of money, a new stadium and the single most consistent and talented position player in the game and Jocketty has basically surrounded him with what amounts aging/infirmed veterans and mediocrities lately. That's not a recipe for success. That they managed to win the World Series strikes me more as a product of a weak division and fair bit of luck than any genius on Jocketty's part, but hey if you think he's doing a great job lately then good on ya.

yeah, that team is getting old fast (ie, Mulder and Rolen). The WS win was a Blessed Event, just as it would have been if the Mets had hung on by one game and gotten to the Series this year.

leti✧✧✧@mov✧✧✧.o✧✧

letitgo @ moveon.org

xpost to Alex

I said the firing was mostly for political reasons (as did bnw, as did nearly everyone who's followed the job security situation of LaRussa/Jocketty over the past couple of years), which was before you started with your usual huffing-and-puffing routine. So yeah, I recognize the issues at hand, whereas you're pretending that it's more of a performance issue. You're also the one who is calling the guy stupid based on one trade that was actually somewhat defensible at the time (Mulder's contract extension, OTOH, was probably not). If you want to form your argument by picking and choosing examples at will, then I can claim that Beane is a overall dumbass for trading Hudson.

xpost to Morbs, yeah, and isn't it generally acknowledged (even throughout the 2006 season) that LaRussa and Jocketty staved off the guillotine for a year thanks to that Series win? They've worn out their welcome with that club, for sure.

I have moved on, Shasta, it was the best example at hand.

"which was before you started with your usual huffing-and-puffing routine"

HI POT MEET KETTLE!

I don't even see where I was huffing and puffing actually.

Alex, I was just stating a few points, ones that happened to conflict with yours. You're the one who turns into a blowhard whenever challenged and resorts to personal attacks and insults. Grow up.

Whatever, Barry, your tone was far from "stating a few points" and you were insisting on insulting me and both mischaracterizing my argument and bringing in points which were totally irrelevant to it. If you don't realize what a dick you appear to be when getting into "friendly discussions" then maybe you need to grow up. Or at least engage in a bit of self-relflection.

And I don't even see where I insulted you! God what the fuck kind of persecution complex do you have??!?!

I did state that I was limiting my critique to the LAST COUPLE OF YEARS so getting Will Clark back before you had pubic hair doesn't really apply.

-- Alex in SF, Thursday, October 4, 2007 4:34 PM

These are your standard tactics. If you don't realize that, then it's time to engage in a bit of self-reflection yourself. You're always the first to let threads degenerate into shouting matches.

Barry I'm so sorry! I had no idea you didn't actually grow any pubic hair until five years ago. In the future I'll stop making jokes about it. I also didn't realize you are actually Walt Jocketty either since he's about the only person on this thread I actually insulted! So sure one Will Clark/pubic hair joke might in some deranged universe qualify as an personal back, but otherwise I was simply defending my original statement. I don't see anything personal or over-the-top about it and in fact I conceded rather early on that Jocketty was not dumb, just rather ineffective over the last couple of years and working off of a model I didn't think was likely to be very successful.

Haha as for me being the first to degenarate threads into shouting matches? Sure sometimes I am, but oh Barry in addition to being a big ol' whiner (ooh your standard tactics are mean waah waah) you also seem to have an extraordinary convenient memory. I can think quite a few threads (not even baseball threads) right off the top of my head where you behaved like a petulant self-righteous dickhead from the get go. So standard tactics, sure whatever.

gentlemen, i will not put up with this slander and malarkey. if you continue, i will turn both of you into milton bradley's ACL with my bud black impersonation.

This thread mirrors our season quite well now :/

Pointing out that you enjoy being an asshole isn't the same as whining about it, I'm just stating what everybody already knows. However you want to behave is your own business, I'm not crying about it. The only one being defensive here is you.

Nice to know that you SPEAK FOR EVERYBODY. Here I was thinking this was just one crybaby's opinion.

Anyway I'm done. The risk of hamstring injury is too great and my investment in Walt Jocketty's GM bonafides too low.

TLR live resigns for 2 years.

He was holding out for son of Jorel Pinero. Next year is a cakewalk now.

"To set the record straight, if I had to choose one, I'd take the young team," La Russa said. "I'd rather have a group of young guys with true talent than I would (older) guys who are on the (declining) side of their careers."

:O