In what must be the greatest ending to one of the greatest baseball stories of this decade… It’s indescribable. See for yourself. I stand in bewildered awe of this awesome awesomeness. Words cannot describe the warmth I’m feeling right now.

Background here, for those of you who missed out on the biggest baseball story of the decade.

After reading this story, I really want to go out and by myself a Wii. Not a weeeeeeeee. A Wii.

The new Zelda game sounds awesome, too.

Think I’d better wait until I get some momentum going with the research, first.

InsideSTL’s interview with Darryl Strawberry, who currently resides in St. Chuck, is making the rounds. I’ll only add that his son is an athletic combo-guard at the University of Maryland. The Illini did a good job of defending him in last night’s losing effort.

At Baseball Almanac, there’s a free eBook called Coaching Adult Pitchers that I’m reading. It was written by Michael Grant Marshall PhD (from MSU).

The Cardinals picked up some free agents today. Walt Jocketty brought back Gary Bennett on a $850k contract with a $900k option for 2008. I’d been thinking Todd Greene would have been cheaper and slightly better both offensively and defensively, but that’s the last I’ll mention of him. Bennett knows pitching and makes solid contributions from the bench, if not off it.

The Cardinals also signed Kip Wells to a one-year $4m contract. Wells had serious medical problems last year, requiring surgery to remove a blood clot from his shoulder and another to repair a ligament in his foot. In between those maladies, he pitched only 44 and a third very poor innings for the Pirates and the Rangers. He’s a groundball pitcher with a pretty good career strikeout rate (6.55 K/9). He’s had trouble handling lefties throughout his career, though, and he’ll need to reduce his walk rate to pre-2005 levels. It’s a good Dave Duncan project and Bernie reports that Duncan is excited to work with him. While the ante is more expensive, it’s a better gamble than the Ponson experiment and definitely an improvement over Jason Marquis.

Adam Kennedy reportedly took less money than offered by other teams to return to the Cardinals on a 3 year, $10m contract. In this market, that’s an absolute steal. Unless his bet comes out smokin’ hot, he’ll likely be platooned with Miles, starting against right-handed pitching.

Finally, we brought Eli Marrero back to the organization on a minor-league contract with an invitation to spring training. He played every position with the Mets last season except pitcher, short, and second—although is an outfielder primarily these days. He gives the organization good depth.

These are all good moves. The rotation now has two spots to fill and the lineup is set, barring a trade.

The terms of Soriano’s contract are out. Their penchant for offering signing bonuses to veteran players continues:

07: $8m + $9m bonus 08: $13m 09: $16m 10: $18m 11: $18m 12: $18m 13: $18m 14: $18m

The Cubs offered Schmidt a 3 year deal. I’m thinking they don’t have the payroll flexibility to sign him to a contract into the years Soriano’s salary escalates to $18m, so Schmidt may not be getting a fourth year from the North Siders.

Some of the folks at VeB are stoked that today’s dealing allows the Cards enough payroll flexibility to offer Jason Schmidt a solid contract. Schmidt doesn’t excite me enough that I’d advocate my beloved Cardinals committing the resources it would take to pry him from the West coast. His strikeout rate is outstanding and I like his track record of innings eaten, but he’s a 33 year old flyball pitcher. His top five closest comps were out of baseball or rendered ineffective by age 33 (or are still active and not older than Schmidt) for what that’s worth. It’s a much riskier contract than A.J. Burnett’s would have been. The only pitcher out there that really interests me as a potential #2 and who could conceivably be traded for is Jake Westbrook. He doesn’t sound very available at all, going by this article in the Cleveland Plain-Dealer:

The Indians have been working the trade angle hard. Shapiro has received a lot of inquiries about his starting pitchers C.C. Sabathia, Cliff Lee, Jake Westbrook, Jeremy Sowers and Paul Byrd but it seems unlikely hed deal one of them. Tribe starters ranked third in the American League with a 4.31 ERA behind Detroit and the Angels.

Still, it has to be tempting because the Indians have depth in Fausto Carmona, Adam Miller, Brian Slocum and Jeremy Guthrie.

“I’d never say never,” said Shapiro, “but the question is why would I do it? I’d be creating a hole by doing it… I’d have to fill at least two holes on the big-league club to do it.”

If we can bring back Jeff Weaver, we’ll have only one spot in the rotation to fill. I’d be happy seeing Chris Narveson start the year in the rotation and be replaced in the rotation at some point via trade. I’m sure Walt will see something out there that I’m not seeing, though.

Dan Szymborski posted the 2007 ZiPS projections for the Brewers Tuesday night. He included Callix Crabbe, who would figure to have a lousy 2007 at the MLB level, putting up a .232/.320/.307 batting line in his system. I still think he’s an interesting player and still young enough to put together a decent career.

Mark Tupper was less than impressed with Illinois’ disappointing loss to 19th ranked Maryland. It was an exciting game, and would have been a great game with less sloppy play. The Illini have until Saturday to prepare for the 16th ranked Arizona Wildcats who should have revenge on their mind. A win in Phoenix would be extremely helpful in getting some team confidence back after the ugly play tonight.

Happy birthday to me. Unfortunately, I picked up some kind of chest bug on yesterday and am in a world of hurt today. It really sucks. Coughing all day long is exhausting.

Something I hadn’t noticed: via Derrick Goold, the Cardinals signed Edgar V. Gonzalez to a minor-league contract. He bounced around from organization to organization and from position to position until last year when the Marlins assigned him to advanced A-ball as a second baseman. He worked his way up to AAA, where he tore up the PCL with a .392/.473/.580 batting line. Next year will be his age 29 season and he’s put up decent numbers for a second baseman throughout his career.

The same day that we signed Gonzalez, a story about him appeared at the Marlins’ website. He’s got a much better chance to make the Cardinals than the Marlins as a second baseman.

Derrick Goold posts today about second base. His top two candidates are Ron Belliard and Marcus Giles. I’m in complete agreement, as noted in the post below.

Offer Belliard arbitration. If he accepts, he’s our man. If not, we’ll know by the end of winter meetings and we can pull the trigger on whatever deal is worked out with Atlanta for Giles. He also points out that we have a logjam of lefthanded relievers—I’ve gone at great lengths to point that out, I think. He considers Cavazos to be possibly “the next Kinney.”

Great post. There’s also discussion of why Belliard positions himself at 2B where I play right center for my softball team when weak batters are up—a few steps off the grass.

Those winter meetings can’t get here soon enough, I tell ya. The hot stove season is high times for bloggers of baseball, since it’s all BS and speculation—taking half-truths and attempting to put them together into a sensible whole.

Then the winter meeting come along and shock waves are made that tear down our sandcastles. In this post, I’ll make my sandcastle. Then I’ll sit on the shoreline with my toes in the wet sand and see how real it was when the tide rolls in.

First though, read this FJM’ing of Stephen A. Smith’s recent column. It takes good comedy to get me to laugh out loud at a computer screen and this is good comedy.

The big news recently is that the Cubs signed Alfonso Soriano to an EIGHT year, one hundred thirty six million dollar contract. He’ll be 31 at the start of next season, so will be 39 in the final year of the contract. He’s put up a career OPS of .835, peaking at .911 last season—a walk-year in which he put together a phenomenal 40-40 season with the bat while committing 11 errors while learning to play left field. In his favor, he led all outfielders with 22 assists, but you can credit that with baserunners underestimating his ability to field his position—I wouldn’t expect him to be anywhere near the league leaders in that category next season. All that being said, he figures to hit a ton of home runs at Wrigley over the next few years.

In any case, I’m glad he’s off the market and it’ll be fun to see him play often over the next 8 years. I’m happy the Cards didn’t sign him—it’s much better to see the Cards take gambles on players who look to have big seasons than overpay for players who already had their big season. You won’t read a better indictment of the deal than in this column.

————-

Let’s have some fun with roster matrices, eh? (Concept stolen from VeB.) Let’s start off with the roster filled with guaranteed contracts for 2007, with all deferred salary subtracted, to see where there are holes. I’m making a prognostication that Juan Encarnacion will have wrist surgery in the next two weeks and that he’ll miss the first two months of the season. This assumption means that he’d be very difficult to trade for those of you Juan-haters. I’m also assuming that Wainwright starts the season in the bullpen at least until Izzy returns from hip surgery.

Base Roster

LINEUP	BENCH	ROTATION	PEN
Molina C(R) $600K	Spiezio UT(B) $2.25m	Carpenter RHP $7.8m	Wainwright RHP $380K
Pujols 1B(R) $12m	— OF —	Reyes RHP $380k	Looper RHP $4.5m
— 2B —	— OF —	— P —	Kinney RHP $380k
Rolen 3B(R) $10m	Miles IF(B) $380K	— P —	Rincon LHP $1.45m
Eckstein SS(R) $4.5m	— C —	— P —	Johnson LHP $380K
Duncan LF(L) $380K	— IF Memphis	— P Memphis	Hancock RHP $380k
Edmonds CF(L) $8m	— UT Memphis	— P Memphis	Flores LHP $380k
— RF —	— OF Memphis	— P Memphis	— P Memphis
Encarnacion RF(DL) $5m	— C Memphis	— P Memphis	Izzy RHP(DL) $8.75m
TOTAL $40.48m	TOTAL $2.63m	TOTAL $8.18m	TOTAL $16.60m
OVERALL PAYROLL:		$67.89m

So to fill the 25-man roster, we’ll need three outfielders, at least one of them with minor-league options remaining; a second baseman; a utility middle infielder; a backup catcher; and three starting pitchers. Using the $100-105 range that Micklasz claims DeWitt’s comfortable with, there’s about 32 to 37 million bucks available to fille those holes. To start, here are the players under our control, not including a whole slew of minor league players who don’t have a realistic shot at making the team. I’ve also tried to give whether they have option years remaining or not and their arbitration eligibility status as accurately as I could.

Aaron Miles IF (B) – Arb.
Skip Schumaker OF (L) – 1 Op
John Rodriguez OF (L) – 1 Op
Rick Ankiel OF (L)
Amaury Marti OF (R) – 3 Op
Michel Hernandez C (R)
Brian Esposito C (R)
Brendan Ryan SS (R) – 2 Op
Chris Narveson LHSP
Brian Falkenborg RHRP
Randy Keisler LHRP
Jorge Sosa RHP – Arb.
Brad Thompson RHRP – 1 Op
Andy Cavazos RHRP

Larry Bigbie and Carmen Cali were cut from the 40-man roster yesterday and so probably won’t stick in the organization. I had high hopes for Bigbie going into last season—if he doesn’t get any guaranteed offers, I’d be pleased to see him get a AAA offer with an NRI from the Cardinals. Undoubtedly, John Rodriguez and Brad Thompson will be re-signed to the new league minimum of $380,000 or a little bit more. So Taguchi and Jorge Sosa should be non-tendered and offered low-paying contracts—probably a significant paycut to around a half million for Sosa. He shouldn’t attract much interest, seeing as we were the only takers after he was DFA’d and he didn’t pitch much better once arriving with the Cards. It wouldn’t surprise me much if So Taguchi ended up signing with the Marlins to be an everyday center fielder. They need one and So put up better numbers than Willy Taveras last year. He also had a higher OBP than four regular CF’s including Eric Byrnes and the noodle-armed Juan Pierre, who just signed a 5-year, $45,000,000 contract with the Dodgers. Plus, So’d get to see plenty of Billy Wagner! I’ve been a fan of Skip Schumaker’s defense since his call-up in 2005 and think he could be a decent 4th outfielder bat. He didn’t have the 2006 in Memphis that I was hoping for, but he was trying to do the right things by taking pitches and attempting to draw walks as the lead-off man. Unfortunately, a lot of those pitches he took were third strikes.

An offensive upgrade at backup catcher would be nice. I’ve been suggesting Todd Greene, who’d be an improvement with the stick and in managing the running game (35.5% vs. Bennett’s 10.3% of stealers thrown out). The Cubs kind of screwed up the market with their $5.4m/2 deal with Blanco but Greene should stay on the market long enough for prices to drop to around $800,000 or so. If not, going with Michel Hernandez, who spent a portion of 2006 on the DL, instead of exposing him to waiver claims shouldn’t be too terrible. I heard reports last Spring Training that his defense is good and that he calls a good game.

I still like Callix Crabbe quite a bit but don’t think he’d work out being claimed in the major-league Rule 5 draft. If the Brewers have soured on him a bit, though, and make him available at the AAA-level Rule 5 draft, it would be a worthwhile investment to pick him up, I’d think. The Astros wisely added power/switch-hitting AAAA 2B Brooks Conrad to 40-man roster after his phenomenal, abbreviated AFL season in which he showed some versatility playing some centerfield. Second base won’t be solved via that route, in any case.

Given the current state of the baseball market—and influx of cash from the sale of the gNats and internet subscriptions and so forth, coupled with a weak free-agent class—the Cardinals should wait out this year’s free agents to as much an extent as they can manage. The strategy we should take is to offer arbitration to our three Type A free agents (Jeff Suppan, Jeff Weaver, and Jabba) and try to sign one of them. The worst case scenario here is that all three accept arbitration and we’re stuck paying around 20 million for those three players—given the market conditions, it’s unlikely any of them would accept arbitration and take multiple-year deals with other teams. It’s my guess that Weaver will come back on a two or three year deal at a figure that his 2006 (regular season) performance won’t at all justify. My feeling is that he’ll be underwhelmed with the offers he gets elsewhere and re-sign with the Cardinals for a multiple-year deal before the Winter Meetings are over instead of taking a shaky resume to arbitration for a one-year contract. Depending on which teams the other two of those players go to, we’ll have either an incredible or a very good 2007 draft with Luhnow pulling the levers.

I’d like to see a strategy by which we trade for some walk-year players who’ll likely be Type-A FA’s next year and do our best to develop talent to fill holes through the farm system. Specifically, I’d like to see us trade from what I perceive to be our glut of bullpen talent for a starting pitcher and a second baseman.

The second baseman is Marcus Giles, who’d slot in perfectly at the 2-hole and provide solid defense. Giles had a lousy year at the plate and is entering his final arbitration year in which he’s expected to earn in the ballpark of $6 million. The Braves need bullpen arms and also need to avoid paying that kind of salary, so such a trade shouldn’t be impossible to swing. I’m told by my friends who are Braves fans that his batting struggles were caused by his discomfort batting leadoff. His 2006 splits bear that out: .251/.334/.361 batting leadoff vs. .312/.379/.494 hitting second. In 2005, he hit .300/.369/.481 out of the 2-hole. It’ll be an uncharacteristically expensive year at second but worth it in the long-run with draft compensation to keep the pipeline fed. And you’d have to love all that offense, should it come back as I’m guessing it will. I’m not sure what package it would take to outbid the Padres for Giles, who are supposedly trying to get him straight-up for Scott Linebrink, but it’s safe to say that they wouldn’t be interested in Braden Looper, who struggled quite a bit in the NL East over the past few years. Ottavino is untouchable, no matter what. Ideally, we can wait until the Padres sign a Mark Loretta or whoever the Mets don’t sign, at which time Giles’ trade value figures to drop considerably. Walt Jocketty and John Shuerholz are said to have a good relationship—a mutually beneficial arrangement is in order. For roster matrix purposes, I’ll say Flores, Thompson and a low prospect whose name doesn’t rhyme with got-a-bean-oh. They need a lefty, Flores is a damned good one, in spite of his unexpectedly high walk rate in 2006.

The starting pitcher I’d love to see us trade for is Jake Westbrook, who is, inexplicably, possibly available by trade for veteran bullpen help, among other things. The Cubs, as that linked Q&A mentions, are hot in his pursuit. Westbrook would be an ideal pitcher for the Cardinals and could put up excellent numbers with a stout infield behind him. He’s an extreme groundball pitcher (3.01 in 2006), defends his position at a Gold Glove level, eats innings, has a good K:BB, and on top of that, had an OPS of 1.250 OPS in 2006. (That last one wasn’t meant seriously, of course). For Westbrook, I’d be happy to part with TJ, Rincon, Looper, and a prospect, then start the season with Narveson, repented ‘roider Troy Cate, Matt Perisho, and Randy Keisler competing for the two lefty bullpen spots. If the Tribe is seriously considering Danys Baez as closer material, surely Looper, who’s due for a bounce-back year and has 103 career saves and 73 holds, must be a reasonable option. I honestly have no idea what it would take to convince the Indians to part with Westbrook. I’ve never seen Fausto Carmona pitch, maybe he’s the next Big Thing for whom the way must be cleared at any cost. It sure would be unpleasant to see him pitching for the Cubs, though. Since this is my own sandcastle, I’ll have us trading Tyler Johnson, Braden Looper, and $1.5 million for Westbrook, so his salary will go into the matrix as $7.6 million.

To fill out the bench, I’d like to see Marshall McDougall signed to a split contract. He’d be just a big righty off the bench and ideally learn to play the outfield. We’d need another right handed reliever. I’m sure there’ll be plenty of them lying around after the signing flurry ends. I’d like to see Chad Bradford signed, but am sure someone will pay through the nose for him. I’m penciling in Champaign-native Matt Herges, who has GB tendencies, can get a strikeout, and doesn’t give up many HR’s. Behold:

LINEUP	BENCH	ROTATION	PEN
Molina C(R) $600K	Spiezio UT(B) $2.25m	Carpenter RHP $7.8m	Wainwright RHP $380K
Pujols 1B(R) $12m	Schumaker OF(L) $380k	Reyes RHP $380k	Kinney RHP $380k
Giles 2B(R) $6m	McDougall UT(R) $380k	Weaver RHP $7.5m	Herges RHP $800k
Rolen 3B(R) $10m	Miles IF(B) $380K	Westbrook RHP $7600000	Hancock RHP $380
Eckstein SS(R) $4.5m	Greene C(R) $800k	Wright RHP $800k	Sosa RHP $500K
Rodriguez LF(L) $380K	— Memphis	— Memphis	Rincon LHP $1.45m
Edmonds CF(L) $8m	— Memphis	— Memphis	Narveson LHP $380k
Duncan RF(L) $380k	— Memphis	— Memphis	Cates P Memphis
Encarnacion RF(DL) $5m	— Memphis	— Memphis	Izzy RHP(DL) $8.75m
TOTAL $46.86m	TOTAL $4.19m	TOTAL $24.08m	TOTAL $12.02m
OVERALL PAYROLL:		$88.15m

Plenty of room to sign Carp to an extension or overpay for Giles, bullpen help. Plenty of room to sign Vicente Padilla instead of my perennial favorite 5th starter option Jamey Wright or an established right-handed OF instead of gambling that McDougall recovers well from wrist surgery.

You couldn’t have hoped to hear anything better than this four games into a season where you lost your top three players before the first game had ended:

[Point Guard Rich] McBride will have to beat out one of the guards to get back in the starting lineup and they [sic] way they are playing, that won?t be easy.

Calvin Brock has been a truly exciting player these past three games. Only one game was televised, but I listened to the others on WDWS. (Aside: It would be nice if they’d delay the televised away games to sync up with the tube like they did for the Cardinals games this year.) Trent Meacham has been shooting as well as you could have hoped Jamar would’ve. Chester Frazier would have been starting anyways, but he had a great game yesterday evening, with a 10:1 assist-to-turnover ratio. These young fellas have really assumed the mantle, made lemonade from lemons, and made the most of their playing time. Which has been ample—over these three games without Smith, Randle, and McBride Chester Frazier has averaged 36:20 minutes per game, Calvin Brock 37 minutes, and 38:20 for Meacham. Warren Carter’s been in there 24:20 on average. Going through this trying time early and these young players emerging like they have gives you a lot of optimism for team depth and conditioning down the stretch.

The level of competition picks up starting tomorrow, when the team faces undefeated Savannah State. This weekend things will get a little tougher before we face two ranked teams next week. Here’s hoping McBride is able to make significant contributions over the next three games before then.

Changing gears, you’ve got to love this article by Derrick Goold containing this lovely quotation:

“I have to keep up with the Cardinals,” [Cubs GM Jim Hendry] said. “At least as far as spending money.”

Nevermind that the Cubs had about a $5 million higher payroll than the Cards in 2006 and are expected to spend more than $15 million more in 2007. They’re already well on their way to a $120,000,000 payroll, having overspent for their backup catcher, utilityman, and now centerfielder, where Soriano is expected to end up. It should be fun watching him man the spacious centerfield in Houston. In other words, the Cubs have crapped all over the hot stove and are blaming the Cardinals for the stink.

Finally, with the managerial promotions in the Cardinals farm system, do you think an elderly gent like Amaury Marti would be cool calling his 36-year-old manager “Pop“?

The following is a comment I left at VeB in response to Erik’s excellent post, Narvs of Steel, discussing the viability of Chris Narveson as a starter in 2007, something Bernie Micklasz hints may be a possibility in noting, “Dude knows how to pitch (smart guy) and he has stones.” You may want to read Erik’s post first.

I made a little spreadsheet using Chris Narveson’s league- and park- weighted numbers from Szymborski’s final 2006 MLEs:

• Explanation here
• 2006 Data from here

I took Dan’s figures for Narveson and added a line for Narvie’s actual MLB performance. Summing up the weighted MLEs and the unweighted MLB stats, I get these adjusted rates:

     Adjusted   UnadjustedK/9  6.13       6.59BB/9 4.40       3.15K:BB 1.39       2.08HR/9 1.82       1.02

I used [Erik's] figures in the post for the Unadjusted column, to show how much of an effect there is.

Removing the Palm Beach numbers improves his K/9 and HR/9 rates but the walk rate goes up to over 5 per nine, since he didn’t walk many batters in his brief A+ stint.

That being said, I’m glad to hear that the Cardinals plan to give him a serious look in ST. I liked what he had in his call-up, although the curveball needs work. I was a bit irritated when short-rested Reyes got that last start of the season over Narveson (although the explanation that they wanted to see how Reyes would deal with bullpen-style usage lessened that irritation some.)

A serious issue for Narveson is that 2006 was his final option year (see 3/20/04) so he’ll have to make the team out of Spring Training or we may lose him to all the other teams out there that desperately need bullpen lefties.

The Cardinals thus have a glut of lefthanders: three relievers in Flores, Rincon, and TJ; and two potential starters in Randy Keisler and Narvie. Walt’s going to have to trade at least one of them away.

I’ve been constructing my roster matrices forgetting that Narveson can’t shuttle back and forth between Memphis and the Lou next year—a serious flaw. I’d rank those five left-handers thusly:

[TJ, Flores, Narveson, Rincon, Keisler]

I’d suspect that the top two would have the most trade value—TJ’s side-arm slider really developed into a fantastic pitch this season and he’s got an option year remaining. Flores has been an excellent strikeout pitcher for two years (although his walk rate clomb to a career high last season.) He also gave up five home runs in 16 2/3 IP after the all-star break after allowing none in the first half. I’m a fan of Flores, but he’s the one I’d feature in trade proposals.

Scott Spiezio has re-signed for two years. I guess I’m happy with that. There’s nothing really out there to replace him. The only two FA’s that would be remotely worthwhile in his role were DeRosa, who’s been overpaid, and Wes Helms, who’ll be the everyday 3B in Phillie—taking over for the man Speeze replaced, Abe Nunez. Here’s hoping Speeze continues to play well after his career year.

I’m happy with the move, unless the salary is stupid. And I might grumble a bit if Dallas McPherson is traded out of LA-Anaheim for a less than a lefty reliever.

Update: The salary isn’t stupid. He’ll be paid $4.5 million over two years, probably 2 mil next season. That’s not insane—less than DeRosa’s making for the Cubs. Even considering that Speeze will regress from last season, he’ll still have a better year than DeRosa, I’ll wager. The Cards also signed LHRP Randy Keisler to a split contract. I see that Mike Rose signed a minor league contract with the Indians with a ST invitation. Here’s hoping he makes the team. Switch hitting catchers don’t grow on trees.

According to MLB Trade Rumors, the Braves are finalizing a mega-trade, sending 2B Marcus Giles, LHSP Horacio Ramirez, and C-prospect Jarrod Saltalamacchia to the Padres for top-shelf RHSP Jake Peavy. If the Braves do indeed pull off that trade, it would be a massive coup. The Braves’ extremely astute beat writer, Mark Bowman, answered a mailbag question about what trades he’d like to see happen and his response was that Ramirez and Giles should be traded away to clear payroll to make a run at Julio Lugo to bat leadoff and play second, noting that doing so would cause problems for starting pitching depth. Not so with this deal, baby! They’d replace an exceptionally lucky pitcher who’s due for a massive dropoff with a Cy Young candidate. (Read this excellent HBT article to see exactly how bewilderingly lucky Ramirez’s been.) As for Jarrod Saltalamacchia, I was disappointed in his performance in the Olympic Qualifying tournament, where our very own beloved Skip Schumaker was the unofficial MVP. Then yesterday John Sickels posts his top twenty Braves prospects for 2007 and, while raising Jarrod’s grade from a C+ to a B, notes:

I am more worried about reports of excess weight gain and defensive problems in the Arizona Fall League more[sic] than his erratic regular season.

That would be an absolutely fantastic trade for the Braves, who are set at catcher with McCann for a long time to come. If it happens, of course. I was coming around to the idea of a Giles to STL trade, too. He’d be a great second hitter, for sure. And apparently, we’ve got cash to burn. He’d have kept the draft-pick pipeline going, too, as 2007 is his last year of arbitration eligibility.

Update: I just checked Cot’s Contracts for Jake Peavy. The Padres would be foolish if they made this deal:

• 05:$0.75M, 06:$2.5M, 07:$4.75M, 08:$6M, 09:$8M club option ($0.5M buyout)
• escalators (IP & Cy Young votes) may increase 2008 salary to $6.5M & 2009 option to $11M

The BS detector is smoking and throwing sparks.

Update II: So I lied, my butt can’t chew gum…

Bad news for the Illini—via Mark Tupper—Jamar Smith is out 4-6 weeks and Brian Randle is week-to-week. We’ll get plenty of time to see the youngsters play. Hopefully that’ll translate into a deep and well conditioned team down the stretch.

In response to a thread about which of the 2B free agents we’d most like to see the Cardinals sign among {Aurilia, Belliard, Lugo, Loretta, Graffanino, Counsell, Durham,
Kennedy} I posted this comment:

I don’t like any of them. Aurilia would make a passable replacement for Spiezio [though].

I’d like to see a 3-man competition in spring between Aaron Miles, Brendan Ryan, and a Rule 5 draftee for the 2B & middle infield utility player roster spots.

These are my favorites of those who may be available, based on stats and stats alone:

His K-Rate is hideous but Brooks Conrad is Houston’s blocked AAAA 2B and will probably go unprotected in the next few weeks. Gotta like the 45 HR in the past two seasons. Nice article about him here.

At the AA level, I like walk-machine/base-stealer Callix Crabbe from the Milwaukee organization. He was third among all minor league second basemen in walks (72 BBs to 62 Ks) and stole 32 bases.

The first name I floated a few weeks ago was Eric Rodland, who’s got balanced offensive numbers and is old for his level, having played 4 years of college ball.

Brooks and Crabbe hit switch and Rodland bats left-handed, so any of them could platoon against RHP with Miles if necessary. Crabbe’s my favorite candidate right now because of his youth and speed. Conrad would be exciting for some power out of second base. But I’d be much happier watching any of those three struggle through growing pains next year with the possibility of a solid, cheap Cardinal second baseman for years to come than I’d be watching one of these available FAs struggle while sucking up payroll.

I may be wrong in guessing that Conrad will remain unprotected on the Astros 40-man roster when the Winter meetings roll around in early December. I’d predicted that based on the fact that Biggio has been re-signed and the Astros have Eric Bruntlett and Chris Burke already producing at the MLB level as utility infielders. The Astros recently sent Conrad to Mesa in the Arizona Fall League to learn to play some outfield. He’s played a few games at left and in center while absolutely tearing it up with the bat to the tune of a .478/.625/.870 line with a 9:5 BB:K ratio, with two stolen bases in three tries, 4 2B, 1 3B, and a home run. The Astros wisely appear to plan on bringing him up as a super-sub. He hasn’t played third since his NYPL days, but he should get some games there in the spring. Here’s hoping he makes the team out of Spring. I’ll be looking forward to seeing how he adjusts to the big leagues.

Boston’s $51,100,000 posting fee for Matsuzaka is ludicrous. The Red Sox must have an incredibly ambitious marketing/licensing plan for Japan. That’s a lot of money to recoup.

The roster proposal from last night is already broken as the Cubs signed DeRosa for 3/$13 and supposedly have inquired about Westbrook in exchange for relief pitching. Who would you rather have, Looper-Flores or Howry-Eyre? (Eyre has a 10-team no-trade clause, FWIW.) I wouldn’t like seeing Westbrook pitch for the Cubs. The rumor also mentions the Cubs inquiring about Cliff Lee, but there’s no way that the Tribe would part with him. He’s on an extremely cheap long-term contract for a quality inning-eating lefthanded starter. Westbrook’s in his walk year. Walt! Pick up the phone! Although this might be an even better deal for the Indians.

As for DeRosa, I wasn’t all that high on him anyways. The only really interesting option (that I see from my armchair) for replacing Speeze as the 1B/3B bench player is Dallas McPherson, whose 2007 ZiPS projection is a .263/.323/.503 line with 21 HR. I’m sure he’d be available for a solid lefty reliever and a mid-prospect since the Angels appear to have given up on him ever putting together a healthy season. I don’t think Anaheim’d go for Rincon as that reliever, though, and TJ should be a valuable component of our bullpen for a long time to come.

Here’s an unrealistic 2007 Cardinals roster, using the matrix concept stolen from lboros. The trades I propose here are about at the limit of possibility, given the needs other teams have. If this roster were put together, it’d be a great team. Swap out Jamey wright for a Gil Meche and it’d be a very good bet to return to the postseason.

STARTING 8	BENCH	ROTATION	PEN
Molina C(R) $600K	Schumaker OF(L) $380K	Carpenter RHP $7.8m	Izzy RHP(DL) $8.75m
Pujols 1B(R) $15m	Bigbie OF(L) $900k	Reyes RHP $380k	Wainwright RHP $380K
Crabbe 2B(B) $380K	DeRosa IF/OF(B) $2m	Wolf LHP $7.5m	Bradford RHP $3m
Rolen 3B(R) $12m	Miles IF(B) $850K	Westbrook RHP $6.1m	Kinney RHP $380k
Eckstein SS(R) $4.5m	Greene C(L) $800K	Wright RHP $800K	Rincon LHP $1.45m
Gomes RF(R) $380K	— —	— —	Johnson LHP $380K
Edmonds CF(L) $8m	— —	Narveson LHP Memphis	Hancock RHP $380k
Gonzalez LF(L) $6m	Ryan IF Memphis	Tankersley Memphis	Falkenborg RHP Memphis
TOTAL $46.86m	TOTAL $4.88m	TOTAL $22.58m	TOTAL $15.52m
OVERALL PAYROLL:		$89.84m

In this dream-world scenario, the Indians agree to trade Jake Westbrook for Braden Looper, Randy Flores, and cash. The Devil Rays part ways with 2005 ROY candidate Jonny Gomes for 2006 ROY candidate Chris Duncan, lefty OF John Rodriguez, and relief pitcher Brad Thompson. The Cardinals pick up free-agent submariner RHRP Chad Bradford for three million clams to round out the bullpen. Also via free agency, Randy Wolf and Jamey Wright sign to start for the Cardinals.

My latest 2B Rule 5 prospect is Callix Crabbe, a 2B in the Brewers organization who’ll be eligible for the Rule 5 draft this season under the new CBA. He’s something of a walk machine, third in walks among all minor-league second basemen in 2006 with 71 (to 62 Ks) and also quite a base-stealer, having swiped 32 in 45 attempts this year. He could be a nice 8th hitter in a Cardinals lineup. I figured that Taguchi would be signed by the Rockies after the Cardinals non-tender him in a few weeks and so Skip Schumaker will take his place as the defensive-replacement 4th outfielder. Larry Bigbie signs with the Cardinals again and plays semi-regularly in all three fields. Mark DeRosa inexplicably signs with the Cardinals after having said that he wanted to land with a team where he’ll be able to settle into one position. He’s the big right handed bat on the bench and backs up every position except short, catcher, and centerfield. Todd Greene signs as Yadier’s backup with Hernandez playing for Memphis again. In this scenario, Walt Jocketty did the fans’ bidding by trading away Juan Encarnacion for some longshot prospects, let’s say to the Giants, who’ll probably need to fill two OF spots with Bonds and Alou heading elsewhere.

While sorting various databases, I noticed that the stolen bases leader at second base for all of the minors was Eric Young, Jr., who stole—no kidding—eight-seven bases in ’06!

I expect this’ll be the last baseball post until the winter meetings get closer and arbitration offers are made. First of all, I’m getting a little sick of hearing the same crap over and over again. Second, the college basketball season is now underway and the Illini have home games every other day for the next week and a half, including tonight’s 80-35 drubbing of Austin Peay. Unexpectedly, Freshman big man Brian Carlwell played in the game, putting to rest speculation that he’d red-shirt this year. The bad news is that Jamar Smith sprained his ankle and should be out for a week or two (during these busy two weeks). Also, our second best defender, Brian Randle, “tweaked” his groin injury. Mark Tupper’s always excellent post-game notes are here.

If you haven’t been keeping up, Big Ten Wonk has been previewing the Big Ten teams. The write-up for the Fighting Illini is here.

Today’s final home game of the Illini football season was a huge disappointment. After the way they’d played against some of the best teams in the country the past few weeks, I though they had a great shot to win out in their last two games against Purdue and Northwestern to finish the season a respectable 4-8. (Respectable compared to the last several seasons.) But the Illini couldn’t keep their offense on the field due to turnovers in the third quarter and lost 42-31. They turned the ball over four times in five consecutive plays. Infuriating. Disgusting. Eric Loy was saying on the radio afterwards that this is the first time in a while that he’s be disappointed with an Illinois loss. That’s an improvement, at least.

Some big news today was that the number 1 prospect at wide receiver, Arrelious Benn, announced that he’d be attending Illinois. At Mark Tupper’s suggestion, I went out and found checked out Benn’s highlight reel. That’s just freaking amazing. One of his kick returns in that reel reminded me of the famous Bo Jackson Tecmo Bowl run. It’s going to be very fun watching Juice connect with him for some huge gains next year. Congratulations to Ron Zook for recruiting him and Benn for choosing a great school where he can contribute immediately. Almost makes me want to stick around here for another four years.

Excellent!

Jimmy Ballgame signed to a two-year extension. Hopefully it’s in the 2-yr $16 million range we’ve been hoping for. No financial terms disclosed as of yet.

The story’s been updated: under $10 per year with significant deferred salary.

Here are a pair of Chris Duncan pictures. In the first, he conjures up Adam Sandler in Happy Gilmore. The second conjures up some vomit in the back of my throat.

There was also a video I wanted to post here, a Budweiser commercial airing in the StL market celebrating the Cardinals WS victory that was pretty awesome. The high quality versions have been blocked, but this lower quality video is online at least for now.

BenC73 paraphrases Joe Strauss’ comments on a talk-radio show in the Lou thusly:

100 million dollar payroll next year

Thinks Cards could push for Schmidt

Woody Williams wants to sign with the Cards

Some in the organization want to dump Encarnacion

Reyes could be trade bait

Cards trying to work a two year deal & option with Edmonds.

2b is last priority, Loretta probably too expensive

Before anyone gets too excited about the Cardinals increasing payroll to $100 million, realize that the Cubs plan to go to about $115 million and I’ve read that they’re “pushing the panic button” and planning to spend $120 million.

I’ll focus on the last point Strauss is reported to have reported, that second base is the lowest priority. Since I’ve thought 2B was the most difficult hole for the Cardinals to fill this offseason, it may come as some surprise that I’m very pleased to hear that the Cardinals consider addressing that need a low-priority issue and that Loretta is considered too expensive. I’m not a fan of the free-agent crop of second baseman this offseason—Belliard, Loretta, and Kennedy are fine ballplayers but not worth 3 or 4 million bucks each year for the next three. Alfonso Soriano, just to get this out of the way, would be a disastrously bad second baseman for the Cardinals. His bat would be fantastic in the lineup, sure, but he’s not an option at 2nd base—and a ~7 million dollar increase in payroll wouldn’t cover his salary, much less the raises due to the core of the returning team.

The Cardinals tried to go cheap last season, signing Junior Spivey to a $1.4 million deal in the season he was to return from serious injury. His bat didn’t get going in the Spring and Aaron Miles won the job. Spivey deteriorated in Memphis to a sickening degree, drawing walks but failing to hit worth a damn while committing errors galore. By the end of the season, he was suspended for a few days by the manager for temper tantrums. I liked the deal at the time, but it obviously failed to work out.

This season, I’ve been advocating the Cardinals make a good faith attempt to solve their 2nd base problem long-term and dealing with the consequences—Aaron Miles as your everyday 2nd baseman—if it doesn’t work out. The idea is to pick up Eric Rodland in the Rule 5 draft, (which will be this weekend, I think! they’ll be held December 4th-7th.) if he’s available, and have a three-way competition for the 2nd base and utility middle infield jobs in Spring Training between Miles, Rodland, and Cardinals AA-AAA affiliate SS Brendan Ryan. Rodland will be 27 before the 2007 season begins, so he’s fairly old for a AA player. He spent 4 years in college (Gonzaga), improving his plate discipline each season and putting up good contact numbers in all but his senior year. He was drafted by the Tigers and progressed steadily, a level per year until he was taken by the Angels in the 2006 AA-level Rule 5 Draft. Something seems to have clicked this past offseason: Rodland put up some fairly spectacular numbers that indicate to me solid contact skills, plate discipline, and the hint of power. His AA line was .300/.394/.426 with 58 walks to 54 strikeouts and 22 doubles, 2 triples, and 8 home runs. His AA line translates to .246/.323/.327, 37:63 BB:K with 16 doubles, a triple, and 4 home runs using Dan Szymborski’s updated 2006 MLE’s. His L/R splits are .265/.374/.373 vs. .309/.400/.439, so I could see him succeeding in a platoon with Aaron Miles, who batted .291/.378/.360 against left-handed pitching in 2006. Offensively, Rodland looks like a better candidate to stick than Hector Luna did when we took him in the Rule 5 draft after the 2003 season. Another potential Rule 5 draftee that I’ve mentioned here would be Brooks Conrad after his second season with Houston’s AAA team. He’s great mad power for a two-sacker, but very batting skills after that—judging solely on the numbers. (He does sound like our kind of player though, judging by this article that I’d linked to the last time I wrote about this topic.)

My guess is that both players will go unprotected, since both LAA and Houston have their middle infields well-patrolled for years to come and neither of these guys are young enough to be considered hot-prospects. To wit: John Sickels has never mentioned Rodland on his blog and has this entry for Conrad at the end of the season after ranking him the 16th best pre-season prospect in the ‘Stros organization:

16) Brooks Conrad, 2B, C+
Hitting .250/.304/.486 for Round Rock, 29 doubles, 11 triples, 12 homers. Good pop for a middle infielder. Might help someone on a bench somewhere.

I’d prefer Rodland. I see Miles and him to be similar sorts of players that would be ideal batting 8th in front of the pitcher. It would be worth it to me to at least attempt to develop a player like Rodland who could man the position for a few years on the cheap. I’d be excited to watch that happen and I think he could make the jump. If you asked me to look at Dan Uggla‘s 2005 numbers and Eric Rodland’s 2006 numbers and asked who I thought would be able to make the jump to the majors, I’d pick Rodland.

Update: There’s the first Hot Stove article at the official site today. Jocketty says he’s looking for a top-notch pitcher and a top-notch hitter. Discusses who’s available via free-agency. The best pitcher who I’d say has a strong chance of being available by trade is Jake Westbrook, who could be had for a package of relievers including a potential closer. I’d love to have him pitching for the Cardinals. If they’re considering Joe Borowski or Mike Stanton to close for them in 2007 as this article suggests, perhaps Braden Looper in such a package isn’t so far off the deep end. Looper should be solid in 2007, a full year removed from shoulder surgery.

Another update: I downloaded Dan Szymborksi’s 2005 MLEs to get Dan Uggla’s 2005 figures, aince I wrote above that Rodland’s 2006 numbers looked so impressive. Uggla put up these major league equivalent numbers in 2005: .269/.323/.444 with 30 doubles, 2 triples, and 17 home runs. Wow! There aren’t any second basemen in 2006 that jump out like that, but I’m still impressed with Rodland’s K:BB figure.

I haven’t written anything political on here for a long time, ever since I realized how much I hate talking about politics. There are maybe four or five people that I’ve met in the entirety of Champaign County with whom I don’t mind talking about government. I’m a libertarian-conservative, see, and University towns are full of socialists or worse.

As for the national results, I agree with everything former Soxblogger Dean Barnett writes in this essay. The Republicans in congress have done a piss-poor job the past few years. By “few years,” I mean around 8 of ‘em. I hope that Tom Coburn assumes a position of power in the minority senate. The link goes to an excellent press release in which he conjures up Ronald Reagan:

“This election does not show that voters have abandoned their belief in limited government; it shows that the Republican Party has abandoned them. In fact, these results represent the total failure of big government Republicanism.”

I’d like to see someone like John Shadegg elected to house minority leader, and he plans to run.

As for the local elections, I voted for one democrat and voted against all the moonbat referenda. The democrat I voted for was Sec. of State Jesse White on the reasoning that it would cost the state a small fortune just to remove his picture from everything the state produces. Seriously, the guy’s mug seems to be everywhere you look in the state of Illinois. He was supposedly a professional baseball player, even though it was with the Cubs, and in spite of the fact that he’s got no entry in the baseball cube or any other database I know of. (And I recall that he was being interviewed by Mike Shannon in that interview as well…)

The rest of my precinct didn’t vote the way I did. The vote was 224-69 for impeaching Bush and Cheney and 5,171 to 3,614 for the rest of the township, although the measure was defeatd 7,877 to 9,140 in the city of Champaign (county-wide results. You have to hand it to the moonbats, they got a lot of people out to the polls—having three useless, yet energizing referenda was a good strategy for turning out Green/Dem voters, although I haven’t actually compared with 2004 returns. Since we’re not talking sports or business, it’s OK to spout bullshit.