Help me out Cardinals fans

[dalgreen]

In all sports, I generally follow the teams I most hate almost as much as the teams I love. The Cardinals have had three hitting coaches, I think, over the past five year ---Easler, Paige, and now McRae. Their offense continues to be at or near the top of the league and the bench seems to play above expectations. Our bench sucks, as we predicted, and it actually sucks even more than we thought. So my question is, in your opinion is it that the Cardinals get a different kind of quality players/hitters than the Cubs or is it the coaching even though they've had three in the past five seasons?

[indifferent]

I think it's Tony. He has always had productive benches, mostly because he gets them a lot of work. I don't necessarily think Tony preaches patience to his hitters all the time. He definitely encourages pinch hitters to be aggressive and gets irritated when they get behind in the count taking too many pitches.

 

Walt, with Tony's influence, brings in a good mix of guys. You have Edmonds and Sanders being big power, K guys. You have Pujols and Eckstein being contact, non-K guys. I think Albert being so consistently good over the last four 1/2 years has really anchored/stabilized the lineup. He's quietly been the team leader for years and he has high standards, but not in a prima donna way.

 

No one on the team feels like they have to do too much and so everyone feels like they are playing a role in the offense. You hear a lot of players talk about their "role" with the offense. This is evidenced by the 4 AS position players (whether it's deserved or not).

 

Don't ask me to explain Womack...

 

JMO

[ManEatingTarp]

I think it's Pujols. He is at the center of the offense, and everything seems to feed off of that.

I liken it to Jordan and the Bulls. When you have that one dominant player, and a cast of other players that are able to fill in the roles that are a need you have a winning system. (Edmonds = Pippen / Rolen = H Grant). If you took Jordan off those teams, the Bulls were still good, but not great. I feel the same about Pujols.

My 2 pennys.

[dalgreen]

I think it's Pujols. He is at the center of the offense, and everything seems to feed off of that.

I liken it to Jordan and the Bulls. When you have that one dominant player, and a cast of other players that are able to fill in the roles that are a need you have a winning system. (Edmonds = Pippen / Rolen = H Grant). If you took Jordan off those teams, the Bulls were still good, but not great. I feel the same about Pujols.

My 2 pennys.

 

But what does he have to do with Taguchi, Mabry and Nunez being good this year? None of those guys should be this good off the bench, but they are. The only sorry bench players you've had has been Cedeno and Lankford.

[indifferent]

I think it's Pujols. He is at the center of the offense, and everything seems to feed off of that.

I liken it to Jordan and the Bulls. When you have that one dominant player, and a cast of other players that are able to fill in the roles that are a need you have a winning system. (Edmonds = Pippen / Rolen = H Grant). If you took Jordan off those teams, the Bulls were still good, but not great. I feel the same about Pujols.

My 2 pennys.

 

But what does he have to do with Taguchi, Mabry and Nunez being good this year? None of those guys should be this good off the bench, but they are. The only sorry bench players you've had has been Cedeno and Lankford.

 

Nunez is just a great surprise. I truly think Tony just gives these guys a ton of playing time to keep their swing sharp. Both Taguchi and Mabry have been in prolonged slumps this year, but Tony lets them play themselves out of it.

[dime]

I don't think it's LaRussa...his benches in Oakland were absolutely awful.

[ManEatingTarp]

I think it's Pujols. He is at the center of the offense, and everything seems to feed off of that.

I liken it to Jordan and the Bulls. When you have that one dominant player, and a cast of other players that are able to fill in the roles that are a need you have a winning system. (Edmonds = Pippen / Rolen = H Grant). If you took Jordan off those teams, the Bulls were still good, but not great. I feel the same about Pujols.

My 2 pennys.

 

But what does he have to do with Taguchi, Mabry and Nunez being good this year? None of those guys should be this good off the bench, but they are. The only sorry bench players you've had has been Cedeno and Lankford.

 

Nunez has been a surprise, but he also hasn't been overexposed like a lot of bench guys can get when filling in for injuries etc.

Mabry is just a clasic bench guy in my opinion. He has been put in the perfect spot for him to succeed. Once again, he's not an everyday guy, but he is a veteran player that knows how to go about his business.

Taguchi has finally become comfortable with the American game IMO. He tried to play outside his skill set the first 3 years he was here, and seems to have figured out his plate approach this year. He's always been a very good fielder.

Tony has shown a knack for putting all of his bench guys in the position to succeed, and unlike the Cubs, he has only had to fill in for one major injury.

[wolf stansson]

But what does he have to do with Taguchi, Mabry and Nunez being good this year? None of those guys should be this good off the bench, but they are.

Taguchi - When he first came here from Japan, he was really weak and could hardly get the ball out of the infield. In Japan he was a poor man's Ichiro, always trying to lob the ball the other way. The reason Ichiro had so much success is because he was strong enough to pull the ball. Since his foray in Memphis a couple years ago, So has really gotten stronger and is now a good mistake/pull hitter. Right Farnsy?

 

Nunez - I can't really explain this one.

 

Mabry - Don't sell Johnny Mabe's short. He could always hit on the ML level. He had some decent years as a starter in his first stint with the Cards (.307, .297, .284). He struggled a bit with other teams, but since coming back has really embraced the bench role.

[vaball]

I'm sure coaching helps a little, but I don't think it is the main factor. The first factor is that quality guys are acquired to begin with. Nunez was signed on the recommendation of Jim Leyland, who had watched him for years in Pittsburgh. He had been good there, but mired in that team's general losing ways. Mabry has had good major league seasons in the past so has proven capable of doing what he's doing. Taguchi is probably the most fundamentally sound player on the team. That combined with hard work at learning the American game has brought him success.

 

The second reason is Walt Jocketty. Over the past few years he seems to have shown a knack for picking guys that might have underperformed on other teams, or who's relationship with their team has soured, but who by all accounts is a great personality and a ballplayer with tools. He plugs them into our system and, ta da, they start producing.

 

That system is the biggest factor. TLR uses his bench very well. He gets them a lot of work to keep them sharp, and he is very good at putting them in matchups where they are more likely to have success. They are surrounded by so many good players that no one guy is trying to carry the team. The whole idea is to win games and all the players are very unselfish in that regard. Some of these bench guys come from losing teams to a team that expects to win every game. I think being surrounded by great hitters in an atmosphere of winning elevates their games.

[1908]

In Japan he was a poor man's Ichiro, always trying to lob the ball the other way.

Huh? Ichiro hit .353/.460/.522 over his career in Japan compared to .277/.333/.387 for Taguchi.

[treebird]

In Japan he was a poor man's Ichiro, always trying to lob the ball the other way.

Huh? Ichiro hit .353/.460/.522 over his career in Japan compared to .277/.333/.387 for Taguchi.

 

no stats plz theyre killing his argument

[wolf stansson]

In Japan he was a poor man's Ichiro, always trying to lob the ball the other way.

Huh? Ichiro hit .353/.460/.522 over his career in Japan compared to .277/.333/.387 for Taguchi.

Note I said POOR MAN's Ichiro. Maybe I should have said extremely poor, on welfare, declaring bankruptcy, lost it all in tech stocks, lives in a box and has all his earthly possessions in a shopping cart, and walks around mumbling that the cat threw all the dirt in the lake version of Ichiro.

 

They both won multiple GG's and I was mainly referring to their hitting style. Like how I said "always trying to lob the ball the other way." Much like Ichiro.

 

If you're looking for an argument here that So is near the player Ichiro is, you're looking in the wrong place.

[1908]

They both won multiple GG's and I was mainly referring to their hitting style. Like how I said "always trying to lob the ball the other way." Much like Ichiro.

But Ichiro didn't "always try to lob the ball the other way" in Japan. They did play on the same team over there. That's about the only thing they had in common -- certainly not a hitting style.

 

If you're looking for an argument here that So is near the player Ichiro is, you're looking in the wrong place.

Not looking for that argument. Just puzzled why anyone would make that analogy.

[genghiskhan]

I believe it's the result of a very good organization. Jocketty knows how to find good talent, the kind of players other GMs miss, and TLR and company know how to use them.

 

Look at Carpenter. The Blue Jays let him go. Cardinals sign him off the scrap heap. He gets hurt again, misses the entire 2003 season, and the Cardinals sign him AGAIN. That decision is paying off in spades.

 

Player after player has come to STL and done better than before. Tony Womack looked finished. He comes to the Cards and excels. Now he looks crappy again. David Eckstein is walking and getting on base considerably more than he usually did with the Angels. And for years they've been scraping up bench players like Nunez and getting more production than one might expect.