Last night I was really excited that I was able to watch the Cardinals game, live on ESPN. You see, since I moved my cable provider no longer airs the Cardinals games since I no longer have the local channels. As of late, I have been watching play-by-play of the games on mlb.com. It's not visual action, but at least I know what is going... and it is live. I have threatened with the idea of buying the mlb.tv package to see all the games on the Internet via the local provider, but I can't justify buying it now when the season is more than half over... maybe next year. So I watched the game last night and was impresses with the play and happy to see the production, both offensively and defensively, out of the "new guys". And that is the main subject of this post.
Unless you live under a large rock (or are not a Cardinals fan), you are aware that the Cardinals acquired Mark DeRosa (a former Cub) from the Indians about a month ago. He went almost immediately on the DL, but he is off now and playing seemingly every day at 3rd base. Last week, they traded the coaches' golden boy, Chris Duncan, to Boston for Julio Lugo - both players were headed to the minor league affiliates of their respective teams. Since then, Lugo has been a spot starter at 2nd base. Lastly, and probably the biggest splash of all, the Cardinals traded 3 minor league prospects (one an up-and-coming 3rd basemen) for starting left fielder Matt Holliday (not to be confused with the ace pitcher Roy Halladay, who is on the trading block with the Toronto Blue Jays). I will discuss each move individually, in an effort to generate some discussion on this little blog site.
Mark DeRosa - since coming off the DL he has been lights out at the plate. I'm not going to throw around numbers and statistics, because that's not what I do - I will just stick to the cold hard facts. He is on a tear with the homeruns and I am loving every minute of it. I initially liked this trade because we needed that infielder with some pop in our lineup, with the injuries to Khalil Greene and Troy Glaus, mental and physical respectively. I think he is a solid started at the hot corner and I look forward to seeing him there next year, should they opt to sign him. The only issue I have is that we are still carrying contracts for Glaus and K.Greene, so I have no idea what Mo and LaRussa's intentions are for those guys if and when they return. On a side note, DeRosa is also, as I mentioned, an ex-Cub - so it feels good to watch him tattoo the ball for us while Aaron Miles and Milton Bradley are embarrassing themselves int hose stupid Cubbie uniforms.
Julio Lugo - he isn't much to write home about at the plate except that he can run fast so it makes him a good sac bunt and leadoff guy. He doesn't have a lot of pop, but what he lacks there he makes up for in consistency, which is an area where Duncan was quite deficient - considering he was 1-for-33 at the dish before he got dealt. Plus we replaced the pop that Duncan sometimes provided with the guy I'm about to talk about and seemingly the guy I just got finished talking about, so we're good there. I don't think we need to even broach the subject of defense in this comparison. Duncan flat out sucked as an outfielder and is more suited for the American League where he can slip into ambiguity as a designated hitter somewhere. Lugo is a good middle infielder and I will take him on a double play turn any day. I'm not over ecstatic about this deal, but I like it.
Matt Holliday - When I heard about this deal I thought it was quite stupid. It's not because I think Holliday is a bad ball player and calling his 11 homeruns this season low production is the understatement of the century. It's not that. I thought that we had something going with our farm system - good young players being bred in this organization for future stardom. We gave up our 2008 and 2009 draft picks to Oakland to - one of which (Brett Wallace) is now their everyday 3rd basemen. Wallace is young and would have provided a much needed filler in that hole we had looming over there. I think DeRosa is a good enough stop-gap and this Cardinals team has a reputation of not holding on to younger players anyway (i.e. Dan Haren). I also think we could have saved some of that enthusiasm for trading for picking up Roy Halladay (the pitcher) or maybe even some bullpen help (or Mark Buerhle???)- although I'd rather have the big man. Lastly, I don't believe the Cardinals will pick up Holliday's huge contract next year, as he is a free agent after this year - and make no mistake, he will command a huge contract, especially if he keeps up this hot bat. In my opinion, it was just a lot to give up for a guy who probably will only be here less than half of a season. If they do make room for him, they're going to have to give up a lot around him and Pujols to keep salaries down - whereas they could have paid a few rookies less dollars and signed for longer contract. My opinion on this particular deal is almost strictly business. All that being said, I was happy to see Matt go 4-for-5 with 2 RBIs in his first game in a Cardinal uniform, and then have an RBI double in his first home game last night. What happens next remains to be seen.
That is my assessment - I look forward to some rebuttal and/or friendly discussion. Go Cards!!
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OK skip, you wanted some talk, I am back from the honeymoon and would love to comment on this.
ReplyDeleteFirst off we have LOADS of dough coming off the books next year.
THat being said Dero would be rather cheap to keep at 3rd at about 6 mil and he can play anywhere if need be.
Chris Duncan gone....all i can say is thank god.
Now, Matt Holliday. As i said lots of money coming off next year. You can't tell me we are renting him for 2 months and we gave up Brett Wallace, they will resign him, probably 18 mill a year. If they don't, might as well say goodbye to ALbert because lets face it, if cards management does not show some sort of committment to protect him and put together a World Series Caliber team he will leave. Also, Matt Holliday will not go to a AL team after his bad luck with the A's and he loves the Midwest, and if i recall we just worked a pretty easy deal with Lohse and Scott Boras. Something tells me Pujols will convince Matt to stick around.
All that being said, if we traded Brett Wallace for a rental, that's just stupid and so far Mo hasn't done anything to make me believe he is that dumb.
I recant my previous statement. Donuts were more interesting than baseball.
ReplyDeleteWhere are we getting all this money coming off the books??? If we resign Derosa and Holliday, that adds MILLIONS to the books. We're not going to be able to unload Greene or Glaus, so I think we are stuck with their contracts either way. I just don't see how we can afford all this unless management plans to open up the pocket book.
ReplyDeleteI like Mo and his willingness to make deals for big names where we need them AND to trump LaRussa/Duncan in their favortism, but I fear for this coming off-season, and if it does go bust in the off-season, I fear for the following off-season where Pujols is a free agent and ends up in pin stripes...
Sorry, Jackie - I had to write something that generated positive commentary and this was my only outlet. Notice I said "positive" commentary.. haha!
ReplyDeleteCome on skip, do some research before responding with ridiculous shit like that. Troy Glaus's option was picked up for this year to finish his 4 year 45 million dollar contract, that's 12 million roughly free, Green is finishing his 2 year 11 million dollar run, there is another 5.5 million, keeping up? Joel Pin contract is up as well, in which they may chose not to resign and give a rookie a chance his contract was 2 years 13 million, uh oh there is another 6.5 million a year. Todd Wellemeyer and his worthless one year 4.05 million contract is done. Rick Ankiel's 2.8 million is off the books. That brings my count so far to a grand total of wait for it................ 30 million dollars in contracts off the books. Now our budget at the begging of this year was a shade ove 88 million, 11 million short of last year, add that to the 30 million brings us to 41 million. Shall we do reverse math now???
ReplyDeleteHolliday--$18 million 40-18 -23 million
Deros--$6 million 23-6 = 17 million
say we bump pujol's contract up 8 million to 26 million a year, that would take us to 9 million in resignings or new aquisitions and that would be ust to bring us to last years budget which was acceptable last year.
Any more questions:)
Justin-
ReplyDeleteThank you for your analysis. Although we discussed it at length over the phone, I think that it is likely we can afford to resign Holliday and DeRosa. Pujols' contract, should Mo choose to extend it after next year - is the one where we disagree... My guess, he commands at least 30mil - and that's not even A-Rod type money!!! So that is a little more than you thought, but doesn't change the formula enough to break the bank (although it all but depletes our bench and shaky bullpen). If all this goes as plan, we are obviously building our team around those three guys - which eliminates some of our versatility (and what happens when someone gets hurt??).
I also think we need to resign Pineiro to a short term deal...