haltz

He was an incredible bargain, but the buyout wasn't a discount. I think at the time it was the largest contract ever for a third-year player and of course his choice to sign for a $100M or go through arbitration and hit FA earlier.

oh come on, he raised his average 51 pts in two days after she said 50 pts (which meant the end of the best player in baseball). That's pretty funny.

which is a staggering 8 pts below his career average. And now Rasmus, not Pujols, has been intentionally walked. It's the end of an era.

This is meaningless. He struck out 14 times in a month twice last year on his way to one of the best non-Bonds hitting seasons in recent memory. His walks and homers are comparable to the kid who's carrying a 191 OPS+ at the moment despite a .277 BA. What's the problem there? Records are fairly meaningless right now and the Cardinals didn't make the schedule. If you take out the games against the Cardinals, the Mets and Brewers are over .500. So half their series have been against .500+ teams and they've won two of those. And again, a team's record after 3 weeks isn't a good indicator of talent level. Again this is meaningless. It's four hits. 29 of his 49 PA are against RHP. Lopez made Lugo redundant, and the idea that Lugo would be the best hitter on the bench is laughable. He has a .671 OPS over his last 1,300 plate appearances. Chone projects him at -15 R150. That's lower than Mather, Craig, Stavinoha, Lopez and even Bryan Anderson. So until LaRue returns he'd in fact be the worst hitter on the bench. He screamed [expletive] when he got hit in the hand by one of the hardest throwers in the league. Said he knows he wasn't trying to hit him but that he shouldn't be coming inside like that against a horrible hitting pitcher like himself. I don't really agree with that, but whatever. What is wrong with you? Seriously, what is wrong with you. edit - now tied for the league lead in HR and slugging .644. Too bad his BA is .286 and this is the end.

that'll happen when 14 of your 31 hits are homers.

The pattern is that players who play in hitters' parks tend to have a higher sOPS+ at home than players who do not. This is not surprising. Rockies home sOPS+ in 2009: 120 (overall OPS+ of 98) Padres home sOPS+ in 2009: 72 (overall OPS+ of 96) You shouldn't confuse the two. It's not the same thing. Chone has him at .281/.345/.448 (4 RAA). That's probably your best guess.

The Sox don't have much room for error, while the Cards are working with a six-game cushion and no better alternatives to take those few fifth starter starts. My guess is he's destined for the bullpen, but there's really nothing to lose here. Personally I think the splits are probably meaningless - like most RHP he's going to be more effective against righties, but that kind of split probably won't last. RHH are hitting .230 and lefties are hitting .440? Small sample. Not to mention that a .390 BABIP is absurd, even if he is toast. If we really care about this then it should be noted that Todd Wellemeyer is turning LHH into Albert Pujols this year (.342/.421/.606) and doesn't have nearly the K/BB numbers Smoltz is putting up (or track record, or stuff). I don't think you're giving away those games with Smoltz any more than you are with Boggs or Wellemeyer, so what does it matter. Even if it's worse it's marginal (you aren't punting three games, or even one full game) and there's more upside. Is he going to refuse to pitch out of the pen in the playoffs? If Lohse doesn't get over this dead arm thing then what? This might not help, but it could and it almost surely won't hurt.

his splits, and all his stats for that matter, scream small sample size. I wouldn't be surprised if his 4.37 xFIP isn't more indicative of his performance going forward than his ridiculous ERA and some 40-inning split numbers. regardless, the Cardinals don't really need a fifth starter all that often down the stretch, and if he really sucks it's not a big deal. If he pitches well then you have either a hedge against Kyle Lohse and his forearm or a bullpen weapon for the postseason. Some decent upside without a lot of downside; it's a good gamble for $100k.

from grb:

The 4th ball is the one at the bottom of the zone, but the pitch off the plate was called a strike. Basically it was a wash of bad calls according to pitchf/x.

I'd also be shocked if they traded for someone like Holliday. At that point they'll probably be looking to move an outfielder or two and acquire pitching or middle infielders. There is an obvious parallel with Wallace and LaPorta though, unless they really think he'll play 3B in the majors. It seems like a very passive and analytical FO, so who knows what they'll be willing to do (in terms of a rental). A lot of that has to do with ticket sales supposedly, and being in contention can only help there.

Eh, Izzy's gone and he was the main culprit wrt the pen being pretty bad last year. You can say they were 16th in BS or 6th in saves. Both numbers are sort of stupid to look at and don't have anything to do with this year. I don't know how Franklin's doing what he's doing, but there are some decent arms there otherwise and Jess Todd's apparently now fasttracked for a relief role. I expected them to win 85-87 games, but wins in the bank and all that. They've got a real shot now. BP was one of the more pessimistic forecasts this year, and now the PECOTA odds report says over/under of 91 wins and a 50% shot at the playoffs. Sounds about right to me. Also, Schumaker is just brutal defensively. It'll probably take too long to pull the plug, but I'll be shocked if he's playing 2B in August.

Cora, Punto and Hairston are better defenders, Vazquez has a 0 UZR at SS. Chone has Lopez as a league average hitter this year. There might be other guys (Carlos Garcia was one fairly recently) that don't play good defense, have a career < 80 OPS+ and are limited to 2B, but I don't know of too many. Backup 2B basically means replacement level and that's what Miles amounts to.

Name them. Aside from last year and his fluke BA, it's fun to try and name any guys like Miles that stick around in the big leagues. 70something OPS+, can't play SS.. he owes Tony LaRussa quite a bit for putting him there when he clearly should never ever be playing the position.

I bought it yesterday, and I think that review was kind. After I gave up on it last night I tried to play it again today, and I think I'm done with it for good. It would take me an hour to list all of the terrible and frustrating aspects of this game.

In Dunn's favor. He has 50 more homeruns than Ibanez. RBI+R double-counts homers. Even if looking at RBIs was a good way to compare players, adding runs to it and leaving it at that is not. Anyway, we know how much all of these offensive events are worth, and you've neglected to mention that Ibanez has 76 more plate appearances when you say that he's been on base only 20 less times. I could just as easily say he's made 100 more outs. If you look at their adjusted batting runs on fangraphs, Dunn's about 17 runs better over the last three years. Ibanez makes more outs and hits for less total bases during his at-bats (BtRuns on BRef gets you pretty close FWIW). It's been sort of close but Ibanez is 100 years old. Neither can play defense.

Careful, that stat is skewed in Dunn's favor. I don't know what this is called, but counting Ibanez's singles as doubles doesn't seem fair either.

He's not that gritty. Gritty ballplayers don't pose and strut after game-winning grand slams. Or hit grand slams at all for that matter.

Those guys aren't below replacement, so yep.

Counting stats or rate? Since 2002, they've both amassed a little over 20 WAR. I'll be honest and admit I don't know what WAR is. Is it Wins Over Replacement perhaps? And I was wrong on the similar stats comment anyway. Bradley will be better, but are his stats so much better that he'll be worth Dunn even though he'll likely only play 85-90 games and the rest we'll be stuck with Gathright/Hoff/Reed? I tend to doubt that. Yeah, from fangraphs "Value Wins". Historically yes, that's exactly how valuable he's been. I think it's a stretch to say he'll still be a real plus defender after the last couple of years and general aging, but he was legitimately talented there and is going to be solidly better than Dunn regardless. That's more or less a scouting/medical call and I have no idea. I know I'd prefer Bradley just based on his upside.

LF of the future. I was wrong. The other UZR has him at +3/150.

Eh, if anything Pujols would hurt Kennedy by being so aggressive to his right. When the Cardinals got him, Miles was basically a trade throw-in that looked like he was headed to triple-A so I'm not sure how much his defensive projections really had to do with it. STATs UZR doesn't like him either IIRC.

Counting stats or rate? Since 2002, they've both amassed a little over 20 WAR.

I can explain that ... contract year. He was non-tendered.

His average was .283 coming into this season with a lot of at-bats in Coors. But you're right, it's not inexplicable, just unlikely and the only way he can actually provide any value since his underlying skills didn't change and he's not much of a defender.