Needs and Luxuries: St. Louis Cardinals

It's quite possible that Juan E is done.

Oh yeah...I completely forgot about that terrible injury.

I don't see The Cards trading for a SS. For better or worse TLR's weird man love for Aaron Miles will continue and they will run a 3 player platoon basically with Miles getting starts at SS and 2b.

And plh, Molina is going nowhere this offseason. The Cards have no one ready to replace him. This time next year, depending on how Bryan Anderson handles AAA it could possibly happen. But zero chance it happens now.

Barroid, no thanks, I wouldn't even trade Molina for Willis straight up. Willis is one of the most overrated players in all of baseball. He's a very charismatic role model for African American kids around the country, so the media wants to make him a superstar.

It makes no sense to create a hole to fill a hole plh. Anderson needs to prove he can catch at the MLB level first. Anderson is probably the more likely of the 2 to be moved this winter. Not that I think either will. I see them taking a flyer on someone like Matt Clement and also maybe going after a Livan Hernandez type to eat some innings in the middle of the rotation. I honestly can't see them changing the position players much at all. 1b and 3b are already set, Just need to get them healthy. the OF is set with Ankiel,Duncan, Edmonds and Ludwick. Edmonds is the worst of them right now, but it's still a good situation for STL. He's a clubhouse leader and is just keeping CF warm for Colby Rasmus in 2009. the MI could use an upgrade, but we are stuck with Kennedy, Ryan is deserving of a starting nod, but TLR doesn't like to just hand over starting nods to youngsters. But the 3rd man role with go to Miles unless Eck doesnt get any offers and comes back to STL on a one year deal. The bullpen is in fine shape unless they take a flyer on a LOOGy for a ST audition. The bench isn't going to change much either. They won't be forced into having to make a choice on their catchers until the winter of 2009.

Anderson's D is below average right now and only projects out to be at best serviceable. No way the Cards will spend 5mill on some one like Castro Tim. DeWitt has Jocketty on a strict budget at under 100 million. That's why none of these projected moves make any sense. They will only go after 1 solid to good free agent and the rest of the winter signings will be guys that they take a flyer on.

and if they are starting Miles anywhere, they are throwing in the towel.

Ozzie, I have a question for you or any other Cards fans...like PLH too.

I might have asked you this, so forgive me if I did.

Are you upset that they won with a 90 mil payroll, and sold out pretty much every game, and ownership just pocketed all that money they made from winning last year and didn't let Walt do much of anything in the offseason? I think I'd be mad that they were getting all this extra money and just keeping it for themselves, and not reinvesting in the team to ensure they compete for the next few years as well. Walt is one of the best GMs of our time...seems like they could bump it to 95 or 100 mil and give him some room to work....

The Cards need a whole lot of things to go right next year in order for them to be competitive. Starting with the Cubs and Brewers underperforming.

Aside from that their starting pitching is terrible and rests entirely on 2 pitchers coming back from major surgery. Their offense limps around on the shoulders of Pujols and Duncan. Rolen, Edmonds, and Juan E can't be expected to contribute in a significant manner. Ankeil is a wildcard.

I just don't get where this organization is going.

Anderson's defense is fine, and the kid can hit. But whatever, we might see him before you think he is ready now anyway. I have a feeling our differences on calling up Bryan are philosophical, but trading Yadi has nothing to do with Anderson in my mind.

Molina just shut it down to have knee surgery.

Walters is the closest out of him, Herron, and Ottavino I think. Garcia just took a step back with his injury. Even PJ started the year in State College. Hawksworth doesn't look like a prospect anymore.

I'd give it another shot with Reyes. I'd trade Duncan and Molina for a SS and a couple of arms, maybe a right-handed young outfielder. Clement might not be the worst idea in the world. Get Rasmus up by the ASB, and Anderson by September.

Walt needs to cut off Tony's addiction to Aaron Miles (and players like Cairo and So Taguchi) and on-tender him. Brendan Ryan can actually play defense, so that should be his job. Get Hoffpauir up with a shot at 2B.

Trade Duncan. Move Edmonds to a corner and platoon him. He can stop killing himself and work with his 2006 .947 OPS against right and his well over .800 OPS against righties this year since May 12th (when he finally was slightly healthy).

Rick's cannon in right has some value, even is he's a .320/.480 guy.

The pitching will probably look like: Wainwright, Mulder, Reyes, Pineiro, Looper and Clement or something. That will be awful, but getting the replacement level at-bats off of the 25-man will go a long way.

Hopefully Rolen comes back healthy like he did after the first time, and get his OPS back over .800. He's still not a bad playing considering he was on pace to save like 34 runs this year according to UZR.

Anyway, it could happen, but they should just do anything that makes them better in 2009 at this point.

Swisher in CF is this suppose to be a joke?

Adun,

Spend money where? The only thing they could have really done is overpay for a starter, but that pretty much would have meant getting rid of Reyes as well and there wasn’t anyone great to be had.

The expected chain of events in the rotation was:
Carpenter / Wells / Looper / Wainwright / Reyes until Mulder came back. That would have taken them to Carp / Mulder / Looper / Wainwright / Reyes in 08 or replacing any one of those who just couldn’t produce. Without foresight on the Carpenter injury though there seemed no real person to replace in the rotation who would be guaranteed to be there longer than a year, Wells was signed as it was only a 1YR stopgap till everyone was healthy…

Otherwise the roster was pretty much full. Bullpen has done well, and solid starters in place for each of the positions on the field.

Then breakdown the lineup going into 07:
~ C Molina ~ weak hitter but fields well. Has career year…
~ 1B Pujols ~ mainstay. Has off year…
~ 2B Kennedy ~ good signing for whats available. Track record shows he should hit about .275/.340-50/.380-90 with solid fielding and great team personality. Gets hurt and has horrible year…
~ SS Eckstein ~ should hit about .300/.350/.380-90 with great team personality and does while providing good range despite a couple hard-luck errors - but gets hurt…
~ 3B Rolen ~ mainstay. How do you replace a .296/.369/.518 hitter just because he might get hurt? Played 140+ last year afterall… Of course he had an off season but there is no foresight for it (well unless you just really hate the Cards and complain everyone will always be bad for them…)
~ LF Duncan ~ has to be there. Off .293/.363/.589 numbers. Has off-year hitting and slugging wise though and hurt…
~ CF Edmonds ~ mainstay. Again, how do you replace a guy just because he might get hurt? Goes on to an off year while yeah, missing a bit of time…
~ RF Encarnacion ~ has to be there. Off .287/.349/.447 & .278/.317/.443 seasons. Produces in that range but now hurt…

There just isn’t much you could have done different in the situation. Sure, maybe get creative with a trade but who knows they didn’t try. 6 out of 8 guys getting hurt though on top of your Ace + not getting a guy back you expected ~ its easy to see what happened…

The only thing I really don’t like about last year is not keeping Belliard as a utility guy. Ronnie could have played anywhere in the infield meaning he would be a great back-up incase of injury or just giving guys days off.

Like Tim said, in this divison…

Shouldn't have extended Carpenter or Edmonds for no reason.

DeRosa would've been a good idea, although it was hard to say whether he'd turned a corner or not. Obviously he has, but that's a lot of money to spend on a guy that's had a couple of bad years recently.

Lilly made sense. So did Meche, and Randy Wolf. Luckily, they lost the Schmidt sweepstakes.

The Cards will be better off in the next three years for not spending that kind of money on 100 ERA+ guys, and neither would've saved this season.

They really should've shored up the bench however possible. Jayson Werth, Ronnie Belly-ard ... some guys were out there for upgrades but instead Miles and Gooch got a bazillion at-bats. That's not the answer either, but it's a start.

The Mulder signing was a bad one as well. You take away the Mulder and Wells money, and you can sign a much better, more reliable starter.

"Do you really believe that you have to hate the Cards to predict that Rolen was going to get hurt? Thats hilarious..."

If by "predict" you mean "constantly insisting it as a certainty without wavering on it one bit" then yeah, it helps... Many people could have said that there is a chance he gets hurt (maybe even saying a good chance), but he was coming off 5/6 fairly injury free seasons (seasons with 140+G) so to “predict” in that manor would probably take some prejudice…

DeRosa wasn’t an overly smart guy to sign; it’s just turned out well so far for the Cubs…

Lilly at 4 years? The Cards weren’t desperate for starters ~ they figured they would have both of their best 2 guys by the all-star break. It wouldn’t have made sense for this specific club. Signing average to below average guys to longterm, high-dollar deals is why so many teams have players they want to dump off their rosters….

PLH, do you think Miles is the only reason they didn’t sign Ronnie?

and I'm kidding about the part that "kills you at the end of the day", so don't take it personally. But still, you have to admit, pretty funny that I was dead on about him. You think thats because I hate the Cards...thats actually really funny because I don't hate them. I just don't drink some of the koolaid that many around here do. For instance, I don't think Duncan is that great of a pitching coach, I'm not that impressed with Rolen offensively, and think its pretty obvious that the guy is going to get hurt, Edmonds getting hurt is easy to see...it takes him 10 minutes to stand up after a diving catch. I do respect the organization however, and have a TON of respect for Walt Jocketty. I have said it on here many times, I think he is one of the better GMs of our time. He did have a very bad, especially for him, offseason though, and I think its absolute crap that ownership couldn't open the checkbook a bit after winning it all.

You should see the beer prices in STL...I live here. You can't buy beer for less than like 8 bucks...and its brought all the way from...well, across the freakin street!

So there are good things and bad things...but don't tell me I hate the Cards...there is much more to it than you know. I have a lot of respect for the organization than you know...so don't label me and pretend I'm "prejudice."

Like others have said though, injuries can be planned for. I think it is a safe bet to assume that Edmonds will continue to fall apart. Good bet that Rolen doesn't play 162 games. Kennedy having knee problems is likely. Throw in Carp and Mulder and you have a good chunk of your core that is like an injury time bomb waiting to go off.

Ted Lilly would have been a great signing. Gil Meche would have been a great signing. The Cardinals made horrible moves this off-season. It's obvious, just admit it and move on. Are you actually trying to argue the Cardinals wouldn't have signed Ted Lilly in hindsight? I think just about every team in the NL would want one of the best SP's in the league for 10 mil per on only a 4 year deal.

Historically, Scott Rolen has been healthy, but that's not the same tune anymore. He has a badly hurt shoulder and is unlikely to provide above average production at a talent heavy position next season.

Don't re-sign Jim Edmonds or Adam Kennedy....bam, there's your money for Ted Lilly.

At the time Kennedy was considered to be a decent signing. None of the experts called his bad season. I have already stated the reasons for the Edmonds signing. But here goes again, He was brought back because had Carpenter not gotten hurt, the Cardinals would have been part of the NL Central race the entire season. So they couldn't afford a huge hole in CF and no one that they could have gotten that's worth a piss would have been looking to get a 2 year contract. The Cards have no desire to have money tied up in a CF past this next season. Rasmus goes up to AAA in the spring and if he does well, will be a September or late August callup and will be in a position to be the everyday starter in 2009. So would you rather be stuck with some wasted contract like Dave Roberts or GMJR on the roster with no place to start in 2009? Jimmy Edmonds was the smart choice for the team long term.

Oz,

I believe Renteria's salary is $6MM for '08 (the part the Sox aren't paying). Sounds like a deal to me.

Because of the financial situation Chris Duncan is basically as valuable to STL as Albert Pujols is. He gives them another great bat in the lineup for just over the league min. With the SP situation as muddled as it is, no way they can afford to go out and replace him with another big bat in LF.

Kennedy was an OK starter for the Angels. That's all the Cards were looking for

BJ,

The Rolen thing is interesting huh; we hear all the time how fragile he is yet his actual playing time doesn’t really reflect it much. With the pretty consistent .500-.530 SLG also saying he must not be hurting too much when he is playing.

And Yeah, that Bomb exploded this year setting off a chain reaction like one cant believe. Rolen, Edmonds, Eckstein, Duncan, Encarnacion, Kennedy, Carp, Mulder… What are the chances that each and every single possible-risk is hit; and even some non-risk guys! It’s mind-boggling… Possibly even more mind-boggling though is the fact that they experienced all this and are still only 10G back…

Only 1 Cardnials player will end the season with 500AB (Pujols with 538 right now). The next highest is Eckstein with 410! When is the last time that has happened? Shoot, for being such a “certain injury” like some will say, Rolen (392AB) is still 3rd on the team with 6 games left in the season…

Knowing that *at least* some of the players will have to stay a bit healthier and some of them will have to play *at least* near their normals plus *at least* minimizing the SP4+SP5 void in the rotation by being able to replace Carp with even a mere LgERA guy ~ well it just seems easy to see how this same team should be able to make a 10G swing in the right direction…

Infact, those who don’t think the Cards were smart to have this lineup and don’t think they could have make up that ground with a couple things going their way in 07…

PECOTA 07 projection vs Actual for the lineup:
81.4 ~ vs ~ 66.6 Pujols
15.3 ~ vs ~ (-)13.2 Kennedy
14.5 ~ vs ~ 18.8 Eckstein
40.9 ~ vs ~ 3.8 Rolen
22.5 ~ vs ~ 17.3 Duncan
22.3 ~ vs ~ 3.8 Edmonds
11.3 ~ vs ~ 5.4 Encarnacion
2.2 ~ vs ~ 9.5 Molina
_______________
210.4 vs 112
Difference of 98.4
(And remember, PECOTA does factor in probabilities of injuries)

Since every 10 Rs are equal to about 1 win one would conclude the starting offense alone should have produced about 10 wins over their current if producing as expected ~ which happens to put them even with the Cubs. This of course doesn’t take into effect fielding or the SPs (which are a mess), but it’s a start... While not exact, it gives an idea of how off their production has been and good range for where they probably should have been had a few things started going their way…

If they could afford Schill and He wanted to come to STL, then I would absolutely love that idea. Sign him to a 2-year deal and let him be the emergency ace until hopefully Carp comes back in August at some point. Then Schill becomes an excellent 2 for the rest of that season and the next. Wainwright would easily be one of the best 3's around. Pineiro and Looper make a good 4-5. Then if Mulder ever gets healthy and productive you figure out what to do with him at that point.

ADun,

Wanna talk about Rotations for a sec so you can see how badly the Cards set theirs up? The Cards were expected to & actually got the following out of their 6Man rotation (Carp/Wells/Wainwright/Looper/Reyes+Mulder when healthy)

Cards Pro: 826 IP, 4.00 ERA, 128.4 VORP (Approx 13W)
Cards Act: 644 IP, 5.09 ERA, 27.8 VORP (Approx 3W)

That’s an extreme difference! Hard to tell just how good the projected is without a comparison though so let’s use your Cubs: (Zambrano/Lilly/Hill/Marques/Marshall)

Cubs Pro: 792 IP, 4.46 ERA, 102.1 VORP (Approx 10W)
Cubs Act: 885IP, 4.06 ERA, 157.7 VORP (Approx 16W)

As you can see the Cards were projected to have the better rotation. 2 things happened though; the Cards got extremely unlucky and the Cubs got very lucky…

But do you realize that nearly every Cubs player is playing right around or well above their PECOTAs? And that even includes Zambrano! They predicted a 3.85ERA and 39.1 VORP where he has produced a 4.08 and 38.6 VORP… At the same time nothing has gone right for the Cards; Molina and Looper are the only two that are really above their projections…

Ironically we now know the Rotation was projected to be about +10W over their actual just like the Lineup ~ wonder what would of happened if anything had actually gone their way…

“Kennedy was bad too... …there were better options... …(DeRosa) …that they flat out missed”
DeRosa PECOTA .282/.347/.448 -3D ~ 2.7 WARP 13.3 VORP
Kennedy PECOTA .270/.334/.394 +2D ~ 3.5 WARP 15.3 VORP
…what were you saying?

Like almost every other thing they did in the off-season, it was smart but they got unlucky…

Darkstar,

Funny how you use WARP whenever it looks to be in your benefit. However, not too long ago you threw WARP out the window when talking about how Chris Carpenter would have put the Cardinals above the Cubs in the '07 division.

"and the Cubs got very lucky…"

What do you mean by this? Because they stayed healthy? Hill was bound and is bound to be better than PECOTA ever thought....they say he is bad and is only getting worse. However, ask any scout or person around the game, and they would LOVE to have Rich Hill on their staff. And that includes the Cardinals. He would be the Cards #2 by a long shot....and he is going to get better. You need to stop falling in love with PECOTA. GMs need to be smarter than to only rely on that, and so do you. Its a good but not great system, and has its flaws. You can talk all you want about the Cubs getting "lucky" and the cards being "unlucky", but that rotation royally sucked from day one, Wells should have NEVER been signed (which you still haven't admitted), Carp isn't new to the DL, everyone knew Mulder was going to give you absolutely nothing this year, and the Cards didn't plan accordingly to any of this. It's their own fault...and that is the bottom line.

Adun,

First off, please find someone else to rally behind other than Teetz. I mean look at his posts the last week or so alone; not a single one of them has been true or made sense… You know that and you should know better than to try to argue some of the points he is totally missing on…

Secondly, why are you changing the subject? The subject isn’t “should Wells have been pitching in the SP2 spot until Mulder got back” it was “Projected Rotation Production vs Actual Rotation Production”.

Third:
“And you can give me those projections all you want...but the fact of the matter is DeRosa is simply the better player. The Cubs saw it, PECOTA and the Cardinals, and you for that matter, flat out missed it. When Kennedy is back, DeRosa will STILL be a better player. Its just that simple.”

…really? On what do you base this opinion? Is it based on the fact that since 1999 there has been *zero* seasons where DeRosa has been worth more to his team than Kennedy?

Forth:
~"and the Cubs got very lucky…"~
“What do you mean by this? Because they stayed healthy?”

…Uh, because there have been no real unexpected injuries and nearly the entire team has produced atleast equal to well above their projections…

“Wells should have NEVER been signed (which you still haven't admitted)”

…well, it was a 1YR stopgap signing for very little money on a pitcher who has had bad luck (see the .325 BAbip) and a D behind him that was no where near where it should have been (Kennedy/Eck/Rolen all being hurt). Even if he had produced a 4.8-5.0ish ERA the results would have been dramatically better…

“Carp isn't new to the DL”
…He’s missed maybe 2 games since joining the Cards…

“You need to stop falling in love with PECOTA. GMs need to be smarter than to only rely on that, and so do you”

…GMs need to be smarter than to rely on stats, track records and historical trends?

“and the Cards didn't plan accordingly to any of this. It's their own fault...and that is the bottom line”

…Yet they are only 10G away from a team playing well above their projections despite everything that could go wrong going wrong…

By the way, the Cards were projected to finish the season in 3rd place WITH CARP HEALTHY!!! Not to mention with Rolen, Molina, Eck, Jimmy, and the rest of them healthy. Hate to break it to you, but if you want to use projections, they still lose.

“By the way, the Cards were projected to finish the season in 3rd place WITH CARP HEALTHY!!! Not to mention with Rolen, Molina, Eck, Jimmy, and the rest of them healthy. Hate to break it to you, but if you want to use projections, they still lose”

Where did you get that from? Heres what I see:
PECOTA:
Kevin Goldstein: Mil, Chi, Hou, Stl
Joe Sheehan: Chi, Stl, Mil, Hou
Dan Fox: Chi, Stl, Mil, Cin
Marc Normandin: Mil, Stl, Chi, Cin
Jay Jaffe: Stl, Mil, Chi, Cin
John Perrotto: Hou, Stl, Pitt, Chi
Nate Silver: Chi, Mil, Stl, Hou
Ben Murphy: Mil, Chi, Hou, Stl
Will Carroll: Mil, Chi, Stl, Cin
Alex Carnevale: Chi, Stl, Mil, Hou
Brad Wochomurka: Mil, Chi, Stl, Cin
Keith Woolner: Stl, Mil, Hou, Chi
Derek Jacques: Stl, Chi, Mil, Hou
So, we have:
Chi 4 First, 5 Second, 2 Third, 2 Forth
StL 3 First, 5 Second, 3 Third, 2 Forth
Mil 5 First, 3 Second, 4 Third, 0 Forth
Seems pretty close to me.

They also gave standings odds based on these for the teams:
Team Average
Chicago Cubs 2.15
Milwaukee Brewers 2.2
St. Louis Cardinals 2.3
Houston Astros 4.0
Cincinnati Reds 4.8
Pittsburgh Pirates 5.4
Yep, 3 teams within .15 of eachother says its pretty much a draw on the predictions with the combined being that each of the three teams should realistically finish Second by the ever so slightest of margins… So where technically you are kind of correct, its like saying “I can beat you in a 4 mile race” and winning it by like 2 seconds ~ although you do actually win the race its so close that the outcome would flip-flop constantly when it was run over and over again. The only thing that matters is that PECOTA actually predicted that the Cards, Cubs and Brewers would finish 1-3 in no real particular order in 07. This was their comment on the Central “BP likes the Mets to take the NL East again, and sees a three-team horse race in the Central.”

But who cares, I realize deep down you knew that was a Homer statement when you said it, you realistically couldn’t have really believed it…

But that’s also kind of the point I guess too. See I don’t understand how you can insist that the Cards had no shot this year and how they are just such a bad team when there is nothing that points to it other than being 10G behind in a season where everything that could possibly go wrong, did. It’s like you arguing “Red is a better color than Blue” because you like Red and trying to prove it by saying something like “well Red was chosen as the color for stop-signs”. We know that Red isn’t better than Blue, they would have to be considered equal (if such things could be argued) ~ but when the Cards are considered at least equal using stat after stat after stat you still reply with something comparable to “no Reds obviously better, it was picked for the color of stop-signs”

I’m not even getting into the other stuff though because it’s all argued in that manor. Everything you have said pretty much boils down to your saying “I don’t like Wells”, “I don’t like Mulder”, “I don’t like Rolen” or whatever; but like I’ve said in countless other posts with you previously, you haven’t really given a single stat or fact to back up these claims which are blatantly made off your feelings or prejudice. I asked if your biased because, well you pretty are ~ or atleast something is going on there for you to try and discredit or just ignore every stat youre being presented. Even the statements you make like “Hate to break it to you, but if you want to use projections, they still lose” are just blatantly wrong or extremely debatable, yet you still insist it’s like this absolute truth or something. How about you just give up the inferiority mind-set, biases, or whatever and just admit this team is just as good as your Cubs if they have anything resembling normal production/luck…

oh, and funny that you asked where I saw it....I actually saw the predictions posted on Viva El Birdos....the Cards site! Nice, huh?

No, thats where I saw it posted...I can't remember who did it...but it wasn't the fans projecting it. I'll see if I can find it when I have a chance.

Wow...thats funny! Baseball Prospectus did it based off of PECOTA projections....wow.

Looks like with Carp healthy they still were projected to lose. How is that for proof??? That has to suck...

Hummm… There seems to be a couple major flaws in the pages where they come up with those numbers ~ they don’t match at all… Wonder why they bothered to do a team depth chart with RS/RAs if the runs are just random numbers not supported by the sites projections. Anyway, I’ll explain a couple then you can read the page you linked for a couple others (like the RS problems they discovered)…

The VORP for they have there for hitters breaks down like this:
Cards 224.8
Cubs 251.0
Difference of 26.2 in favor of Cubs. 26.2 Does not come close to the 42 RS difference they claim though

The VORP for pitchers there breaks down like this:
Cards 211.0
Cubs 192.4
Difference of 18.6 in favor of Cards. 18.6. Same prob though, 18.6 isnt close to the 55 RA difference

The Total VORP is:
Cards 435.8
Cubs 443.4
Difference of 7.6

Based off their explanation of VORP, the rundowns they provide us on that page shows the Cards and Cubs to be separated by less than 1W ~ not the 5 or whatever they somehow came up with.

But looking at it though, this page is blatantly pulled from the “R” of each hitter they projected which is what created the problem VivaElBirdos experienced off this page. But we all know the individual counting stats in their player projection section are usually just an idea of what you might expect instead of a real projection and the stat-lines, VORP, WARP etc are where the attention should be paid. I’m curious why they would have such a detailed site then randomly ruin it by using such an unsophisticated method of pulling up possibilities from the team depth charts, why wouldn’t they take the stat lines and project them over 162G schedule to get this, or atleast pull it off the VORP they are known. It’s kind of like having this amazingly sophisticated car you’ve designed then trying to sell it by talking up the tires. I mean everything on their site contradicts this page yet this is one of those things that people will reference ~ cant believe they would do it. Strange… It also kind of tells people to completely disregard everything on their player pages and instead look at the “projected playing time” alone ~ just weird…

Shoot, looking at it they don’t even have a logical amount of PA for the lineup spots. They say the Cards #1 & 2 Hitters should put up 763 & 745 PA next to 760 & 741 for the Cubs despite the fact that they say the Cubs #1 hitter will have a higher OBP. How do they get fewer PA for a guy following a guy with a higher OBP? Something that horribly illogical is so disappointing to see from them…

But whatever, we know they themselves didn’t agree with the results they have on those rather strange pages since they actually picked the teams to finish in a virtual tie just like the VORP suggests… We already saw the 16 or so peoples projections which ended in that tie. You can also go here for a couple more projections:
http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/fun-and-games-in-the-nl-central/
The four major projection sites take on the NL-C there. They break down like this:
CHONE Stl 84-78 / Chi 84-78 / Mil 81-81 / Hou 82-80
Diamond Mind Stl 84-78 / Chi 83-79 / Hou 82-80 / Mil 80-82
ZiPS Stl 90-72 / Chi 86-76 / Mil 79-83 / Hou 76-86
PECOTA Chi 85-77 / Mil 84-78 / Stl 80-82 / Hou 81-81

So, we know that PECOTAs actual projections show a virtual tie, and Diamond Mind and CHONE agree with it. ZiPS is a little more spread out with their projections, mainly because they felt the bottom teams would be worse and apparently they felt the upper teams would reap the most benefits from it. Stl though is projected to atleast tie for 1st in 3/4 of those though and the only which they don’t is the illogical page PECOTA gave us. Considering PECOTAs actual numbers show a tie as well though we can conclude that all four systems show the Cards to be atleast tied for 1st…

Yeah, that page is just strangely inconsistent with everything else on their site, I am blown away they would do such a hap-hazard job of it and then make it one of their prominent reports.

But maybe you now understand why I made the “well red was chosen for the color of stop-signs so it’s obviously better than blue” parable to your argument though. Your statement that the Cards were picked for 3rd was sketchy at best yet you have pretty consistently insisted similar for months. Well, we now if we break PECOTAs predictions into three things (their picks, their VORP & those pages) we have them picking STL to even 2/3 times. Add to it the other three sites picking STL we end up with 5/6 projections saying STL should be tied to ahead. That’s why I question your ability to just admit that this team should have been right there had they experienced anything resembling good luck and have to assume its bias that holds you back from doing so. You can say “well I don’t think Wells should be…” or whatever, but you cant dispute the fact that all the people who project for a living disagree with you and insisting your feelings are correct in the face of that, while pointing mainly to hindsight, shows it must be a bias of some kind. Get it?

1999-2004 he varied from Average to Excellent. 2005 he had an off year, but even his 5ish ERA that year wouldn’t have been horrible production out of him for the Cards. Last year he was hurt so cant really take that into account much (and theres actually a strong probability he was playing hurt in 05 and didn’t tell anyone, he pitched fine in the first half but fell apart towards the end of the season ~ but either way that doesn’t matter too much…). So, if he produces anywhere between his career year of 3.28 (2003) and his off year of 5.09 (2005) though, the Cards would have had a fine deal for a measly 4M/1Yr.

So where you say “He sucks” or whatever, that doesn’t mean much unless you compare what you consider to be “sucking” to what the Cards would have been happy with. If a 4.6ish ERA would have been expectable to them for that 4M, but you feel that ERA “sucks” ~ well who cares? They would have gotten within the range they may have felt comfortable with… Remember, its not like we are talking about a 4/40 contract here, it’s a 1YR stop-gap to add some veteran starting experience to a rotation that would have only had Carp ~ you act like its somehow comparable to the Hampton contract describing it as such a horrible signing…

Oh, and I am saying “get it” because it doesn’t seem you do. You cant say things like “everyone said this” if they didn’t, and when I show that they didn’t I say “get it” as in “see, what youre arguing everyone felt just isn’t the case and it makes it look as though you are just bias”. Sure you claim to not be but still bash them because you hold their expectations to higher levels then they did ~ as if youre trying to insist their signing a stop-gap was somehow them signing someone they expected to be an ace…