First, the Toronto Blue Jays claimed 2B Jarrett Hoffpauir off waivers yesterday.  The 26-year-old got a meager 16 PAs in just 8 games at the ML level in 2009, and didn’t figure to be a core asset going forward.  He did have a nice little season at AAA, hitting .291/.357/.486 in just over 400 PAs (.370 wOBA).  Unfortunately, he is a far below average defender by all accounts, and, while solid, his bat isn’t enough to overcome that deficiency in the big show.

Bigger news came today though, as it was announced that Matt Scherer and Joe Thurston were outrighted and Brad Thompson was given his release.  For a good rundown of what exactly this means from an operational standpoint, there is a good summary here.  Basically Scherer and Thurston were removed from the 40-man, whereas Thompson is now free to sign to with any team.

Scherer, if you recall, was a 16th round draft pick in 2004, and posted solid numbers in Memphis this year (73.2 IP, 3.54 ERA, 6.11 K/9, 2.78 K/BB).  The power righty probably got a little lucky though as his FIP was 4.02, and at 26 isn’t getting any younger.  I think the chances of anyone selecting him in the Rule 5 draft are small, as few teams are going to have a spot on their 25-man roster to take a flier on a relatively common commodity (average RH reliever).

Thurston and Thompson are guys we are more familiar with, but that doesn’t mean we will exactly miss their contributions.  Thursty Joe provided a whopping 0.2 Wins Above Replacement in 124 games, being as close to the definition of “freely available talent” as possible.  He is a multiple AAA all-star, and I think its safe to say that’s where he belongs.  The additions of DeRosa and Lugo made his contributions virtually irrelevant, and I think the fanbase can rest a little easier knowing his baserunning gaffes will be at bay, at least for the time being.

Brad Thompson’s release shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone.  He is eligible for arbitration this offseason for the first time in his career, and paying anything more than the minimum for his 4.89 FIP just isn’t good business given his role as mop-up long reliever (which can be filled by just about any pitcher in the system).  The only thing that we may miss is the look on our friends’ faces when they see him on the mound and ask why we have a 13-year-old in the game.  Don’t get me wrong – he is a friendly face in the bullpen, and is well-liked – but keeping him around is not in the best interests of the club.

That pretty much sums up the first wave of transactions, but rest assured that many more are on the way.  Bigger decisions involving Holliday and DeRosa are looming in the coming months, as is final word that Rick Ankiel is no longer a Cardinal.  It is really an interesting time to be a Cardinal fan, as decisions in the coming months are going to illustrate the ultimate direction ownership and management want to take in the next few seasons.

So, naturally, I got to surfing.  Actually came across something pretty cool, called tilt-shift photography.  It’s a way to make real life photos look like miniature models.  Nothing to do with baseball, or Game 5, or hot stove banter, but it is one way to make Busch Stadium look really cool (click on photo for full size):

My amateur hack-jobs have nothing on the ones I linked to above, but still pretty fun.  If you have photoshop you can make especially gnarly ones.  For the rest of us, there is a free tool here that doesn’t require a software download or anything (and is what I used to make these).

Hopefully this amuses you enough to get you to Game 5.  Then Chase Utley can do the rest.

all photos shamelessly stolen from the internet

Gary Matthews Jr. is disgruntled and delusional:

“I don’t expect to be back; it’s time to move on,” outfielder Gary Matthews Jr. said as he packed his belongings in the team’s Angel Stadium clubhouse today. “I’m ready to play for an organization that wants me to play every day. This organization has other plans, and that’s OK.”

Initial indications of interest show that Matthews is highly sought after.  I mean, the guy is just barely worse than your average minor leaguer!  I’m sure teams are going to be lining up to take on his $10/m a year contract and give him a starting job (as long as he promises to keep mashing to the tune of .250/.336/.381 while being 18 runs worse than the average major league outfielder on defense).   Seriously though, he is available just in time for the roster deadline for fall beer league softball teams everywhere.  What a pickup that would be.

Milton Bradley is disgruntled and delusional too, but Nick Steiner (aka vivaelpujols) shows that, unlike Matthew, Milton is actually really good at baseball.  Awesome visuals and as usual top-notch analysis.  The gist:

The fact that Bradley has such a bad year – and it wasn’t even that bad – can be placed solely on a huge drop in ISO from his previously established norms. His plate discipline and contact skills were just as good as they were in 08 and the year before that, and there is no evidence that the drop in ISO is anything “real”. Despite the personality problems, teams are apparently lining up to try and steal Bradley away from Jim Hendry because he is still a very good player.

Former Cardinals hitting instructor Hal McRae is ready to move on.  Word is Ax Men would like to give him a chance to really use his talents and teach how to hack.

"NICELY DONE SAMSON! Now that was an aggressive swing!"

Now this is fandom and dedication.  I’m pretty sure I was conceived this way back when Darrell Porter was the apple of my Mom’s eye.

Enough is enough – is it time yet??  Let’s go Yankees!

"HI MR. BASEBALL. I AM GOING TO TURN YOU INTO A DIAMOND FOR THIS NICE MAN."

Finally, Mark McGwire is a brand name associated with St. Louis Cardinal baseball again.  No longer a steroid-fueled pariah, he is undoubtedly anxious to not talk about the past and resume his life of contribution to the game.  His role as hitting coach hopefully will be viewed as an offering of an olive branch to fans and the media after his past transgressions.

But, honestly, who cares about any of that?  I mean, sure there is going to be some media attention and some standing ovations and some idiots yelling at Colin Cowherd, but that has nothing to do with Mac’s performance as a hitting instructor.  The guy did steroids like ten years ago.  He also hit 135 man shots in two seasons.  Steroid use or not, he was simply amazing.  The knowledge he can transfer from his 583 four-base hit experience will certainly improve the offensive woes of this Cardinal team.  Right?

Not exactly.  It is a mistake to assume that someone who was great in the battlefield will be great leading troops.  It is certainly not unusual for someone who experienced great success as a player to be utterly incompetent in every non-playing aspect of the game (see: Thomas, Isiah; Morgan, Joe).

For an example closer to home, Dave Duncan never threw a pitch in his career, yet he is widely regarded as one of the best pitching coaches of all time.  Dunc can identify problems and deconstruct hitters not because he sat at 95 with a plus yakker at age 25, but rather that he understands the simplicity of batter vs. pitcher. The most basic tenets of his pitching philosophy are to keep the ball in the yard and avoid the free pass.  By focusing on these goals and letting the defense do the rest, guys like Joel Pineiro have resurrected their careers under Duncan by keeping the ball down in the zone and forcing opponents to hit their way on.

So, if our hall of fame pitching coach is preaching the benefits of avoiding walks and making guys put the ball in play, why the hell is our future saying things like this:

Rasmus said he’s supposed to think swing, not walk. (…) “I don’t like walking,” Rasmus said. “I’m trying to hit.”

This is evidence of a serious disconnect in baseball comprehension in the Cardinal clubhouse.  It seems to me that if the two were ever to face each other, Colby Rasmus : Joel Pineiro :: lasagna : Garfield.  And it’s not just Rasmus.  Cardinals players are constantly quoted about “being aggressive” – if Hal McRae had twitter he’d make it a trending topic on his own.  The 2009 Cardinals walked in just 8.8% of their plate appearances, good for 20th in MLB and 12th in the NL (and this figure is largely supported by Albert’s 16.8% rate).  Five regulars had BB% lower than 8% – Ludwick, DeRosa, Rasmus, Ankiel, and Ryan.  This is simply unacceptable when the man who has it all figured out is literally sitting in the dugout giving this information away.  It was time for  McRae to go.

"Be vewwy, vewwy quiet. I'm hunting walkers!"

In essence, McGwire will be judged by his ability to convince his hitters to become Duncan’s worst nightmare.  He isn’t going to hold a clinic on the Monster Smash this Saturday and suddenly turn everyone into sluggers.  Pure talent and superhuman power can’t be transferred simply by osmosis.  But he does bring an outstanding approach, evidenced by his career 17.6% BB rate and .394 OBP despite just a .263 career batting average (I know what you are thinking, but just 4% of all balls he saw during his career were of the intentional variety).  Now, I have no idea if he will be able to effectively communicate his method to the hitters.  But he can’t do any more harm than Hal’s “aggressiveness” did.

Here’s to hoping for the anti-Duncan.

Pardon my freshness.

So, knowing that I am completely unproven, why should you be persuaded by my viewpoints and arguments forthwith?  The answer is simple:  you shouldn’t.  What you should do is read what I have to say, think about the entire scope of my arguments and views, and create your own opinion after objective and critical review.  Then bash my idiocy in the comments.  This sort of scientific method of criticism I expect from all of you is exactly what I am going to impart on baseball, starting with a sketch of an interesting candidate for LF in 2010.

In a perfect world, Matt Holliday would take a huge discount to patrol the port side of Busch III’s outfield due to his affinity for apple pie and Midwestern niceties.  But, much to the chagrin of thousands of Cards fans who rushed to purchase revised Edmonds jerseys, all indications point to Mr. Holliday auctioning his services to the highest bidder.  As a follow-up to Clark’s post,  MLB trade rumors has the latest, with Agent Smith Boras comparing Holliday to Teixeira.  Now, it is unlikely that Holliday will be able to land the 8 year/$180 million contract Teix commanded, but certainly a 5 or 6 year deal worth in excess of $100 million is plausible if not likely.  If the Cardinals have intentions of making a serious offer to re-sign Mr. Pujols while simultaneously filling out a passable 25-man roster, I don’t see any way that they can match Holliday’s other suitors.

This brings us to Golden McGood.  Now I know what you are thinking;  it is true that Golden had a down year in 2008.  His slash stats were quite pedestrian by his standards:  .257/.378/.397 in a hitter’s park vs. career averages of .277/.371/.450, and his wOBA (weighted on-base average) slipped to .345 after being above .400 for each of the previous two seasons.  He will turn 32 in April, and has only once played more than 140 games in a season.

However, despite his relatively lackluster performance in 2009, McGood’s .378 OBP would have qualified second among humans in the Cardinal lineup (first if you discard Holliday from the mix).  He demonstrated outstanding plate discipline, swinging at just 19.6% of pitches outside the zone (25.1% is league average) and walking in 14.4% of his plate appearances (vs. 9.1% average).

Plus, Golden fits right in with what the Redbirds need.  The Cardinals had just an 80 sOPS+ against LHP last season, meaning they were roughly 20% worse than the average team against lefties.  The former all-star is just what the doctor ordered.  His .306/.387/.497 career line against southpaws would seriously alleviate that impotence (in addition to making Tony LaRussa weak at the knees with match up versatility).

It gets better.  There is reason to believe that McGood was a victim of unfortunate luck at the plate in 2009 as well.  His HR to flyball ratio was just 12.2%, well off his rates of 21.2% and 18.3% in 2008 and 2007, respectively.  If just a few more of those flyballs find their way into the seats, his power numbers would fall in line with his career norms and his slugging would get a sizeable boost.  He should be a legitimate 20 HR candidate going forward.

With all do respect to the late Billy Mays – there’s more!  McGood has been an above average defender in the outfield over his career according to FanGraph’s Ultimate Zone Rating (which attempts to objectively rate fielders based on range, arm, and “hands”), adding 2.6 wins over his career via glove and arm alone.

As if the case for McGood could possibly get any better, his team is desperate to get rid of him.  He is due $10 million for each of the next two seasons, but his club has made it clear they are done with him and his potential to be a 3-win player by WAR (he was worth 4.5, 2.4, and 2.7 in 2008, 2007, and 2006, respectively).  If he could be had for, say, $4 -$5 million per season, there is little to no chance his performance wouldn’t warrant that salary.  In fact, if he performs merely at his career average, he would be worth an outstanding $12.6 million (using $4.5 million as the baseline value for one win…learn more about win values here), with significant potential to be worth $15 million or more.  That is some serious surplus value (almost as good of a bargain as when I somehow found Knute Rockne – All-American floating in the $4.88 bin at Wal-Mart).

The potential ~$10 million in savings per season in hiring McGood vs. Holliday could be used to bolster an offer to Albert or to fill out the back end of the rotation.  His acquisition would provide solid defense and plus offense, while providing flexibility should other opportunities (or heaven forbid, injury problems) arise.

Let’s face it:  payroll is not going to be in the position to absorb an incremental $100 million for one contract in the near future.  Instead, the Redbirds could get a decent approximation of Holliday’s production for a small fraction of the cost by taking a flyer on McGood.

Golden McGood, the artist formerly known as Milton Bradley, hired me to undertake his marketing campaign since his unfortunate run-ins with the media and Lou Piniella in 2009.  Well, not really, but he should pay me for how much I have been singing his praises.  He has every reason to quit the crazy and prove that he can be a team player as he has just one shot left at a big free agent contract after his current deal has expired.  His numbers are undoubtedly valuable, and St. Louis would provide an ideal environment for renaissance given the outstanding fan base and forgiving media, not to mention a clubhouse Albert and LaRussa rule with iron fists.

 Do I really think the Cardinals would sign Milton Bradley?  No.  Of course not.  But I wish they would.  He is almost certain to be a steal for whoever picks him up.  He is the definition of low-risk, high-reward (ala Smoltz and Lugo) if the Cubs pay a significant portion of his salary.

All statistics taken from FanGraphs and Baseball-Reference.