Tag Archives: Cardinals

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Angel in the Outfield

I wrote about the logjam in the St. Louis Cardinals starting rotation last time. Now it’s time to turn our attention to the outfield situation heading into 2014.

By the end of the World Series a large slice of Cardinal Nation had become disenchanted with the productivity of both third baseman David Freese and centerfielder Jon Jay. By three weeks after the end of the Series, which the Cardinals lost, Cardinals GM John Mozeliak signaled the club’s own disaffection by packaging Freese with reliever Fernando Salas and sending him to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim for centerfielder Peter Bourjos and power-hitting prospect Randall Grichuk.

Many casual fans might have thought that Mozeliak had his wet finger in the wind, doing fans’ bidding in one fell swoop–disposing of the formerly universally beloved 2011 World Series MVP in Freese and relegating Jay to a peripheral role on the club. This would allow 2013 breakout star Matt Carpenter to shift from second base back to his preferred position at third base, (and open second base for Kolten Wong, their first-round pick in 2011). Bourjos would be ticketed to be the starting centerfielder.

But John Mozeliak is a leader–the leader of the organization, and his pragmatism, vision, and team circumstances will dictate just which group of players receives the bulk of playing time in the St. Louis Cardinals outfield next season. I assert in this post that the ideal lineup would not include Bourjos on a regular basis; that he will likely find himself in the situation he endured with the Angels as a part-time player. The devil may be in the details, but the (former) Angel will not be in the outfield very much if things work according to plan.

That’s mainly because the best hitting prospect in the organization since Albert Pujols is slated to arrive on the big club in 2014 in the form of outfielder Oscar Taveras. He has been compared to a left-handed hitting Vladimir Guerrero: able to square up a variety of offerings and drive them hard. His bat is deemed ready right now. He is the main reason the Cardinals essentially said goodbye to the productive rightfielder Carlos Beltran, who wanted a multi-year contract. The question is can Taveras handle centerfield. He isn’t considered an elite defender, so the thought is he’d look best in an outfield corner.

Those spots are taken by Matt Holliday and Allen Craig. Holliday is a fixture in left because of his contract and consistency. Matt has been a very good offensive producer his entire time on the Cardinals. He will be 34 in the coming season, with three years left on what is increasingly looking like a team-friendly contract. Craig is supposed to take over in right field next season. He has been injury-prone and will be coming back from a Lisfranc injury to his left foot. He’s been a very good #4 hitter the last two seasons, playing most of the time at first base.

The Cardinals have six outfielders on their roster. They won’t enter the season with Holliday, Craig, Bourjos, Jay, Taveras, and Shane Robinson.

By late in the postseason it appeared that the Cardinals liked the right-handed hitting Robinson over Jay, who bats and throws left, if you noticed the change in how assignments were being doled out. Robinson seemed more steady in the field and was putting the ball in play more often. Jay took a step back defensively in 2013; he went from being above average to a bottom-dweller, according to advanced statistics.

Bourjos and Robinson are similar players. Both bat right-handed. Bourjos may have a little more speed, pop, and baserunning ability. Taking into account their age difference (Bourjos is two years younger), and the fact they traded Freese for him, if it came down to Bourjos or Robinson the latter would find himself on the outside looking in.

They’d like to keep Jay since he reliably gets on base against right-handers. The problem–the irony really–is that neither Bourjos nor Robinson are especially good against left-handers, negating a potentially effective platoon rotation of outfielders. They’re trying to upgrade centerfield defense, and there are more right-handed pitchers than left-handed, so that mitigates against the idea anyway, as that would mean Jay still got most of the playing time.

This is predicated on a situation in which Craig is healthy and Taveras for some reason is not ready for regular duty. One could imagine an outfield of Holliday, Bourjos, and Craig from left to right. Bourjos is a premier defender who would upgrade the range in center, which would be needed with Holliday and Craig on his flanks.

But Bourjos has a worrying injury history. He has chronic wrist and hamstring problems. 2013 was pretty much a lost season for him. Taveras is coming off season-ending ankle surgery last July. His physical status is still uncertain.

One can see why with the loss of Beltran and the expected replacement of him by Taveras the Cardinals would still be looking for and stockpiling outfielders when they made the Freese trade. This is also why it would not be prudent for fans’ expectations to be too high for Peter Bourjos as a Cardinal.

Mozeliak did not fleece the Angels. This was a baseball trade–the two teams had different needs and they filled them with two guys who weren’t very good last season. They may both bounce back, but the Cardinals had a strategic plan to reconstruct their roster and believed they could become more athletic and better in the field without losing too much offense. It was clear to Mozeliak that the Cardinals had to upgrade athletically at several spots to get better defensively while bolstering the diversity of the attack. The Cardinals were mediocre defensively and were 13th in the league in home runs. One reason is they got 9 all season from their third baseman. That’s OK if the defense is great, and there’s speed and dynamism elsewhere. His defense was putrid, and there wasn’t.

Holliday. Taveras. Craig. Two established sluggers who get on base at a good clip coupled with a 22-year’old hitter with a very high ceiling on his ability. That’s my favorite outfield. Bourjos is #4, chiefly as the first option in center. Maybe Taveras moves around, working his way in by playing in right one day and in center two days later. Jay can be on the bench.

It’s strange that although Robinson may have temporarily moved ahead of Jay on the depth chart he may be the one expendable with the arrival of Bourjos. The Cardinals seek balance and they presently have it. They also have a lot of talent. To top it off, they get a high draft pick from the Yankees since they signed Carlos Beltran yesterday.

Must be good to be Mo. Chris Carpenter retired. Jake Westbrook is off the books. Their third baseman and rightfielder are gone. They just made it to Game 6 of the World Series, and there’s little reason to think they won’t be a better club next season. I’ll cover the good news on the infield in the next Cardinals post.

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Indifference Point

I was listening to “Radiolab” on the radio today and they discussed the concept of the “indifference point”. The indifference point as I understood it is the tempo most musicians and/or listeners prefer in a piece of music. Take Beethoven’s Third Symphony, “Eroica”, for instance. There’s some controversy over how fast Beethoven wanted the music to be played. What has been learned is that when something is perceived to be too slow the players wish to speed it up; or if it’s thought to be too fast they endeavor to slow it down. Eventually, most musicians guess at a point (tempo) that feels right. Clearly disparate groups can arrive at varying “indifference points” if you’ve listened to many recordings of the Third Symphony. Some are brisk and move along at a breakneck pace, while others are stately and almost ponderous. I submit the best interpretations lie between those two extremes, like von Karajan’s version with the Berlin in 1963. It’s majestic

and

propulsive.

The indifference point as it relates to the St. Louis Cardinals roster heading into the 2014 season pertains to my state of mind about who of a few candidates must go to make the club a functioning, cohesive and balanced group when the games start to count in April. They have too many starting pitchers, and someone must go. I don’t want any of them to go, but considering the 25-man roster and the way the club is constituted there simply isn’t room for all of them. The forthcoming is premised upon taking present rules for granted, assuming the health of all involved, (more on that later), and, the fact that I am not privy to all the options Cardinals management has regarding younger pitchers like Joe Kelly, Michael Wacha, Shelby Miller, Carlos Martinez, and even Lance Lynn. (By options I mean can they be sent down to the minors, for how long, and how many times this could be done in each case).

Right now the Cardinals have seven starting pitchers for a five-man rotation. I will put them into subgroups thusly:
Locks: Adam Wainwright, Shelby Miller, Michael Wacha.
Tentatively In: Lance Lynn, Joe Kelly.
Comeback Candidate: Jaime Garcia.
Outside Looking In: Carlos Martinez. Let’s pick those apart in reverse order.

The Cardinals, in their exit interview with Martinez told him to prepare to start when the season arrives. Martinez is a high-ceiling talent who started throughout his rise from the minors. Deriving maximum value from a good pitcher means giving him more, rather than fewer, innings. Martinez would have more value providing 180 innings of work than, say, 60 innings. You want your best pitchers to throw the most innings. Martinez, who hit 101 mph on his fastball out of the bullpen and flashed an outstanding slider, has as much upside as anyone on the staff. He is also 22 and under team control contractually for years. He would be very effective–but possibly wasted–in a bullpen role.

Joe Sheehan has done research on taking young starters, moving them to the bullpen, and then converting them back into starters. The results are not particularly salubrious. He found only two recent examples of players who succeeded on such a path: Chris Sale of the Chicago White Sox and Adam Wainwright of St. Louis. Most pitchers were ineffective as starters, got hurt, or were even ineffective as relievers. Examples recently are Wade Davis, Neftali Feliz, Alexi Ogando, and Joba Chamberlain. Sheehan’s conclusion is that clubs have one free shot: if you want to leverage a high-end starter as a reliever that’s fine, but to go from starter to reliever and back to starter is too risky, a bridge too far.

His point was that starting pitchers cannot be developed in the bullpen in today’s game, since relievers are mostly turned into one-inning pitchers. He believes the evidence says that unless and until MLB rediscovers the long-relief role– where young guys used to break in by pitching multiple innings per appearance, building arm strength– pitchers would be protected by defining expected workloads early on.

This is now where they are with Carlos Martinez. It’s believed that he is capable of ramping up his workload safely after performing one-to-two- inning stints for less than half a season. But the evidence suggests that to jerk him back again (to the bullpen) in order that he can be of some utility to the team might be inadvisable.

This is why Trevor Rosenthal of the Cardinals and Aroldis Chapman of the Cincinnati Reds are probably “doomed” to close games for their respective teams. They’re too good at what they do to change their roles, and it would be too risky to ask them to work a lot more since they have become so acclimated to their present regimen for so long. It’s too late for them.

Rosenthal would be crestfallen to learn this. He wants to start. Cardinals GM John Mozeliak essentially told him in November Sorry, we like you right where you are. You’re our closer. I think that’s the right decision for the Cardinals going forward.

Chapman likes closing. He prefers it. He apparently doesn’t want a heavy workload and likes to throw the ball as hard as he can. Max effort can’t take you through seven innings, and when you can touch 104 miles an hour with strikes and pair it with a devastating left-handed slider it literally is game over when he arrives on a scene. His new manager Bryan Price, the former pitching coach, was an early advocate for max value from Chapman, as a starter. The organization has concluded that it would be best for both parties for Chapman to finish games, or be available regularly for high-leverage situations, as the need arises.

This is a long way of making the point that I think Carlos Martinez is too valuable as a starting pitcher not to have him do it. This is why I think he will start, and it will be at AAA Memphis when the season begins. He will be insurance for:

The Comeback Candidate, Jaime Garcia: Garcia, the only left-hander among the seven, is coming off moderately invasive shoulder surgery. He missed most of 2013. Already having had Tommy John surgery in 2008 to replace the ulnar collateral ligament in his elbow, he will have a daunting task coming back from the shoulder procedure and the concomitant rehabilitation. Shoulders are much more dicey for pitchers as the joint is more unstable than an elbow; there’s much more range of motion involved. The history of pitchers coming back from shoulder surgery is not nearly as good as that of those who have had elbows repaired. Although they have a chunk of guaranteed cash invested in Garcia, at present the Cardinals cannot count on him being available in 2014.

It would be good to have Garcia back. He has value as a quality left-hander and the Cardinals are paying him like a starter. He has little trade value now since he has not proved himself durable and effective. Ideally, he would be a rotation fixture.

Which leads to those Tentatively In: Lance Lynn and Joe Kelly. Both are young, cost-controlled power pitchers, although Lynn is soon due for a bump in pay from arbitration. He’ll have a case from the traditional standpoint, as he has won 31 games in the past two seasons.

Since they are both young, have proved they can effectively eat innings and are cheap they would be valuable trade commodities. Both are exemplars of why the Cardinals system is envied: they are home-grown talents, years from free agency. This is how good teams are sustained in baseball today.

I am indifferent as to which one must go. If I had my druthers it would be Kelly, because although he throws very hard he misses surprisingly few bats for that velocity. I don’t think he has great secondary pitches or the upside of Lynn. Lynn, however, could bring back more in a package, as he’s had success at this level longer than Kelly and is still inexpensive.

Wainwright is the ace. Wacha and Miller are number one draft picks that the organization sees as rotation cornerstones for years to come. The Cardinals appear to be invested in their futures. Realistically, only one of Lynn or Kelly would have to go because of the status of Garcia, and the uncertainty surrounding the progress of Martinez. Having said that, I can see the Cardinals attempting to “pull a Kelly” with one of these guys when injuries or regression hit. (Kelly was stashed in the bullpen at the start of last season, where he languished due to disuse and inconsistency until Garcia was shut down and he took his place in the rotation–after a brief, failed flirtation with left-hander Tyler Lyons). It may be that they try to muddle through with one in the bullpen and one at Memphis, or on the disabled list.

The fact is that all seven have legitimate claims to be in a major league rotation, and they should be. The club, however, has a few more needs going into next season, like a utility infielder who bats right-handed and can get on base at a decent rate.

Hmm…I’ve written an equivocating, indifferent piece. Perhaps that’s as it should be. I hope it has conveyed a work-in-progress feel a general manager must inhabit as he crafts a roster while the air is cold, the stadium is dark, and spring training is still more than a hundred days away. Maybe John Mozeliak is at the indifference point, observing a tonic interlude between the release of tension provided by the trade of David Freese/ signing of Jhonny Peralta, and the buildup of tension engendered by the apprehension of unfinished business.

When I conceived this article I saw 26 names for 25 spots. I thought I could justify a two-for-one dump of a pitcher and a reserve outfielder for a Martin Prado type. (Not likely to begin with, as he wants to play every day and makes $10 million. I don’t know of any $10 million bench players. Vernon Wells?) That’s not necessary! I don’t believe “these things have a way of working themselves out”. Every team has imbalances every year…they should be minimized, shortened in duration of time; not allowed to reverberate throughout the organization.

Now that I’ve thought through the process, and noted the questions around two of the proposed starters, I’m more convinced they might take the latter path, trying to hang on to all seven, at least until some answers are provided by Memorial Day. Thanks for your patience. I’ll touch on other imbalances on the roster in a future post.

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Someone Has to Go; Maybe It Should Be Me, to KMOX

When it comes to talking baseball, I can come across as arrogant. I listen to or watch any game I can. I follow the season through the prism of my favorite team, the St. Louis Cardinals. I pore over baseball metrics. I listen to and follow some scouts who post and talk about prospects and major leaguers. The first thing I wanted to do in life was pitch for my home team.
I grew up listening to Jack Buck and Mike Shannon doing Cardinals games on KMOX Radio. I’m old enough to remember when not every game was televised and there was no commercial Internet. Many nights lying in bed, or riding in a car on a summer afternoon were spent taking in the two men’s voices outlining the contours of a Cardinals game.
As a child, I liked Mike Shannon. He was folksy, jocular, breezy in an awkward way, and I thought he knew what he was talking about because he had played the game at the highest level, and heck, he was an adult. He seemed to have good institutional memory about the sport. As I grew up I became more discerning and sophisticated about baseball, and I realized Mr. Shannon’s colloquialisms were often trite and not too factual. For instance, when an opposing team’s heart of the order is up and it happens to be the ninth inning in a close game he will tell his partner that “Ol’ Abner has done it again”, meaning that at the most crucial time of the game the toughest hitters need to be retired. The thing is, this is so about once a week, and so that is when we hear the comment. He endeavors to make it seem like this is an everyday occurrence. When one of the Cardinals’ hitters blasts a home run his call is “Get up, get up, get up…oh yeah, a home run for Carlos Beltran” or whomever. It’s not usually an accurate characterization of the drive, and inculcates a frustration in the listener, as one just can’t tell if a ball has been smashed, corked, blasted, driven, scorched, blistered, jacked, scalded, tomahawked, or any other more interesting, descriptive term for a ball going over the boards.
Jack Buck is gone. He was a local legend. That was somewhat mysterious to me. During pre-game interviews Mr. Buck never asked questions, he simply made statements, which the player or manager being interviewed might elaborate on or recapitulate in a stock manner. He evinced little curiosity about the subject at hand: he was a known authority and it was up to the interviewee to follow along Buck’s predetermined path. Shannon learned his lesson well from his broadcasting mentor, and it colors his outlook on today’s game negatively, from this fan’s point of view.

I pitched in college. I know how to throw a slider. I knew what type of hitter, count, and situation that I might use one. I worked for ten years as a radio broadcaster. I love the sport of baseball and marvel at its greatest practitioners.

I honestly hope this post is not received as a condemnation of KMOX’s production or of Mike Shannon personally. Near the end I will highlight what is good about the broadcasts, recommendations/suggestions about what should be done to make them better, and the reasons why I believe these matters are important for people with odd shifts who rely on radio broadcasts, and/or older people who may prefer to take in games over the radio as a habit or custom.

I’ll continue with examples of what I call sins of commission and omission, in that order. Mike Shannon’s partner in the booth is usually John Rooney, a veteran broadcaster who came over from White Sox broadcasts several years ago. Rooney indulges Shannon in his malapropisms. Shannon has a notorious problem pronouncing players’ names, especially those of Latino players. The Cardinals played six games against the Cubs in a ten-day period, and he could not get the name of Luis Valbuena right. He seemed to think his last name ended in an “o”. Most of the time he was “Val-bway-no”, and once it was “Val-bwah-nuh”. Then he’d revert to “Valbuena”. Thankfully, Yorvit Torrealba moved to the American League. When playing against the Cardinals he was always “Torree-bella”. He had trouble recently with Andre Ethier, referring to him as “Andrew” several times. Don’t get me started on the relief pitcher Enerio del Rosario!

A real topper occurred at the beginning of the 2011 season. The Cardinals were in San Francisco, where a man named Nate Schierholtz (since traded recently to Philadelphia as part of the Hunter Pence deadline deal), shared time in right field for the Giants. Schierholtz is a good right fielder. He’s a left-handed hitter, and not a very good one. On-the-fly Shannon concocted a story that he was the son of a former successful general manager who had worked for the Braves and Royals. That man is John Schuerholz. You could tell it hurt him to do it, but Rooney felt compelled to correct Shannon a few innings later.

He gets facts wrong. When the Dodgers came to town on July 23rd he referred throughout the game to Matt Kemp as the “MVP last year”. Rooney did so as well. Ironically, many believe Matt Kemp should have been the MVP in 2011, but the fact is that Ryan Braun of the Milwaukee Brewers received most of the BBWAA’s votes. They corrected it the next night.

Shannon has a lazy style of calling pitches. For instance, he often goes off on a tangent while pitches or plays are made. He may catch us up later; he may not. You’re left to wonder what is happening regularly while listening closely to the radio.

His patter instills cynicism, even to the level of revulsion in the listener. He laughs at the idea of “paternity leave”, a newish policy that allows a player to leave the team temporarily to be present at the birth of a child. This is “unnatural”; not the way things were done when he played. Shannon routinely offers that stadium radar guns are “5 to 6 mph fast, and would not hold up in court”. He said this most recently when lefthander Rex Brothers of the Colorado Rockies let fly with a four-seam fastball clocked at 96. Brothers is a huge man who is known to touch 98 mph on his fastball, and sits around 94-95. 96 for Rex Brothers would be well within the realm of his abilities.

Not to get too technical, but stadium radar guns are tied into the pitch/FX camera/radar/computer array installed at every MLB park by SportVision. This is a system of strategically-placed high-speed cameras tethered to proprietary software that computes the speed of the ball 50 feet from home plate. There is variance in velocity of pitches out of the hand and at the plate, and SportVision knows this, but the standard reading is provided from 50 feet from home plate. The system is quite accurate.

Mike Fast, a physicist who used to calibrate pitch/FX systems in stadiums for SportVision, and wrote for Baseball Prospectus, doing groundbreaking research on arcane matters like the angle of downward plane on pitches, and catcher “framing” of pitches and catchers’ effectiveness of the practice, (and who has been hired as an analyst by the Houston Astros), says stadium guns are averaged up, so if a fastball is clocked at 93.6 mph, the stadium gun reading would be 94. There was a problem in Kansas City last season where the gun was a “little hot”, (their jargon for too fast), in which the stadium gun was one-and-a-half to two miles per hour fast for two months. They discovered the problem and it was fixed. When Mike Shannon says guys aren’t throwing as hard as the gun says, he is flat wrong.

We all do this, and admittedly it is a very demanding job, but Mr. Shannon often questions the competency of home plate umpires. Look, I’m for #RobotUmpsNow, and there’s room for comment if both teams are complaining about the strike zone and it appears to be affecting the flow of play. But this is a man in his mid 70’s sitting 80 feet high and 70 feet behind home plate providing instantaneous pitch types and locations. He has a TV monitor next to him, but protocol, tradition, and actual time constraints mitigate against him peeking at that in any practical sense to determine where a pitch is in the strike zone or what kind of pitch it is.

I use MLB At Bat 12 to track pitch type, location, and velocity while listening to Shannon classify pitches. Last season I consulted with MLB one weekend because I had written them an email saying that everything looked good except for where pitches were located on the application screen. Still, it is not perfect, but their type and velocity are taken straight from the pitch/FX system, and appear to be very accurate. Shannon has called a pitch traveling 80 mph a fastball. I hope not. Any fast pitch thrown by a righthanded pitcher that is away to a righthanded hitter is a slider or cutter. (Not taking into account that a pitcher has to “throw back” somewhat in order to throw strikes; every arm slot is outside the strike zone “envelope”.) Many of these pitches are simply fastballs of the 2-or-4-seam variety, a typical offering meant to get the hitter to beat the ball into the ground on the right side. He’s inaccurate and it evinces an incuriousness about a particular pitcher’s approach.

Sins of omission: The broadcast is firmly lodged in the 1970’s. Shannon scoffs at the new statistics; he doesn’t acknowledge ongoing, important research. When goaded recently by sometime partner Ricky Horton, a former pitcher who is somewhat sabermetrically inclined, Shannon offered that “It depends on who’s entering the numbers into the equation”, rather cryptically.

One doesn’t hear the the terms BABIP, (batting average on balls in play), OBP, (on-base percentage), or OPS, (on-base plus slugging percentage). BABIP is computed for both hitters and pitchers and tends to normalize around .300. Outliers–up or down–can lead to more research or point to reasons why a certain player is having unusual success or bad luck. If the BABIP is low for a hitter it might mean he’s hitting a lot of balls right at people, or he is slow and cannot beat out slow rollers on the infield, and other reasons. Another example: say a pitcher’s BABIP is very high–it could be that he’s giving up a lot of line drives and homers, the fielding behind him may be poor, etc. The data can be misleading and confounding using traditional metrics.

Two quick examples: Joe Sheehan compared Hanley Ramirez’s outstanding 2007 season to this season’s disappointing numbers. His fly ball/ground ball rate is almost identical, he is walking at about the same rate…his numbers are eerily similar, yet he’s getting less results. His BABIP is way down, as is his power. We just don’t know if he’s had bad luck, or peaked early, and is not the same player he was just a few years ago when he won a batting title in 2009. He’s Dodgers property now, and it’s likely the next year and a half will tell whether he can be an elite major leaguer again.

Fernando Salas is a Cardinals relief pitcher. He has not been as effective as he was last season. If you look at Baseball Reference one learns that his BABIP is a full 100 points higher this season than last. He is allowing more line drives than he did before…last season he gave up several balls that left the park but had a high groundball rate–these cannot leave the yard, are more likely to be hits, but he had the fortune of having fielders making plays behind him in 2011. BABIP is volatile, and has important implications, especially for players trying to get more playing time, or avoid getting less. Baseball isn’t as simple as it’s made out to be, and this is why there is so much studying going on. None of this can be gleaned from a Cardinals radio broadcast.

It’s all ignored or blithely waved away. Shannon provides the batting average, home runs, and RBI’s for every hitter. “This guy has a seven-game hitting streak in which he’s hitting a cool .364”. He’ll provide hitter/pitcher matchup stats based on as few as two at bats! “This guy is 1 for 2 off Lowe with a double”. Huh?

Interruptions/promos/in-game interviews: American commercial radio is already close to unlistenable because of all the advertising but it is taken to a further extreme during baseball broadcasts. They have a captive audience and take advantage of it. The clutter is mind pollution and detracts from enjoyment of the proceedings. Exactly WHO is paying attention when there are two outs and two on in a one-run game in the ninth inning, an impending pitch, and John Rooney starts in with “Check out the Chevy Cruze, it gets 40 miles per gallon highway…”.

There has to be a better way, and I’ve heard it on other stations. The Toronto Blue Jays set aside an entire ad break for an interview with a player or manager. It startles you if you’re not used to it; a conversation about the game or an injury could be almost over before you realize that they’re not selling/promoting something.

Bumper music: these are the musical snatches and interludes that lead in and out of the broadcast proper. KMOX’s selection is very stale compared to what is being done around the leagues. They could use a producer who knows about music after the 1970’s. I’ve heard 50 Cent banging behind Vin Scully on a Monday night in Los Angeles for crying out loud! If Vin can handle ten seconds of hip-hop Mike Shannon can abide it too.

Then there’s the unremitting homerism. The other night part-time player Matt Carpenter started in right field. Mr. Rooney stated that “Carpenter is looking a lot more comfortable in right field these days”. (He had looked bad on several fly balls earlier in the season). This was code for “He doesn’t look completely lost anymore.” Shannon: “David Freese is a great third baseman”. That’s debatable: one old-fashioned metric, fielding percentage, has his at .969. The league average for third basemen is .994. More advanced metrics from Fangraphs note that Freese’s range is average to slightly above average. See www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=9549&position=3B for a deeper look. Freese has a history of ankle injuries and does not appear to have great range if you watch him on a regular basis.

Strategy is rarely questioned, in fact, Shannon often assumes and suggests that “small ball” tactics are the obvious, proper course of action. New manager Mike Matheny tends to agree. Recently, he has called for sacrifice bunts several times with men on first and second and nobody out. He went 0-4 in a one-week stretch. Three of these occasions involved relief pitchers who had just come into the game and promptly surrendered consecutive hits. The first two resulted in 1-5-4 double plays and no subsequent runs, while the third resulted in a successful sacrifice, moving the runners up, (one out in this case), but then Lance Berkman struck out and Rafael Furcal popped out.

Daniel Descalso is a good-fielding, lefthanded-swinging utility infielder who is not a very good hitter. As expected, he has a platoon split and has even more trouble against lefthanded pitchers. Against the Dodgers on July 23rd he got two hits off ace Clayton Kershaw, the reigning Cy Young Award winner. He was on first base, while there was a man on second. Matheny ordered Cardinals pitcher Adam Wainwright to bunt. He sacrificed successfully. The next batter bounced to the third baseman, who caught the runner off third in a rundown. After that, a ground ball was hit to short. Inning over.

Guess what? Later in the game, with a runner on first Wainwright was allowed to swing away. He doubled, driving in Daniel Descalso. Crucially, even later, Wainwright worked a walk with the bases loaded, driving in a run and forcing Kershaw from the game. Three plate appearances, and the pitcher reached base both times he wasn’t ordered to make an out! Whatya know?

Oh, they were so happy. Wainwright “was really getting a good look at the pitches”. Well, if Descalso can hit Kershaw, why can’t Wainwright, a good athlete who bats righthanded? I’m not naive; the rightsholders have their prerogatives and do things they think will make an inning flow on-air. But couldn’t they question the manager’s moves in real time occasionally?

As a regular listener who knows about other players and teams I believe the broadcast would be more interesting if it were more objective. At the very least it would help those who can’t see what is going on to make better sense of the proceedings.

A good example of what I’m talking about is the team of Jon Sciambi and Chris Singleton, who are the ESPN Radio voices for Sunday Night Baseball. They are conversant with newer statistics, and seem to know more about a greater number of players than the local crew. They’re quirky, funny, but they don’t sugarcoat things. They produce a picture of what those outside of a particular market think about the hometown team.

Last postseason this crew got to cover the Cardinals in the playoffs until the World Series, when ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball TV crew took over those duties. (Fox television had the TV rights). I chose the ESPN crew throughout the Cardinals’ championship run. I maintain that Dan Shulman’s call of David Freese’s extra-inning home run to win Game 6 of the World Series is one of the most exciting calls in baseball history. First, you have to conjure Mr. Shulman’s voice: it is stentorian and rich in timbre. “Full count to Freese. The pitch–fly ball–deep center field—IT  IS  GONE!” Shivers, for all fans of baseball.

Does the production team conduct meetings? Is Mike Shannon coached on pronunciations? What kind of feedback do they get? Are they just left alone, knowing their role is to root for the home team and not get too silly? These are important things to know and do if a business is concerned about broadening its audience.

The feeling here is that they don’t really care about higher radio ratings so long as Shannon has cachet with Cardinal Nation and John Rooney can get along with him. But baseball is considered slow by young people today. Even if they were interested in the Cardinals they would or have migrated to other platforms to consume the action: TV, MLB.TV on the Internet, or simply time-shift and watch it later.

There’s nothing here to attract them. KMOX is simply not capturing the under-40, casual fans. I don’t have evidence; this is only anecdotal. What about the effect on a typical Cardinals baseball fan, say, a 73-year-old woman who lives in Fairfield, IA? What does she learn from a Cardinals radio broadcast on KMOX? I would think it instills cynicism, as we’re told repeatedly that “the game is played differently now”, (meaning it was better in the old days). Shannon abhors pitch counts and can’t begin to elaborate on possible rationales for the practice, like protecting an investment, reconfiguring roles, compensating for overuse in amateur ball, etc. I should think the typical radio listener would be mystified as to why the Cardinals ever lose, because they’re all so great, you see?

What is the experience like for baseball junkies who rely on this service to understand what they can’t see? Frustration, promo overload, the realization that you have to look elsewhere simultaneously to find out what you’re not getting from the team covering the game. (Not that I mind that part! I love the  MLB At Bat app!) But you’re truly on a rutted-out off road trail instead of an information superhighway. (Haven’t heard that in a while). You’re acutely aware of what you are missing, and what could be if more progressive, significant changes were instituted. To intrigue listeners, to enlighten them, that is the thing. With Mike Shannon on KMOX, we are in the deep, dark Middle Ages indeed, and until local radio reimagines–in its own fashion–a forward-thinking broadcast, hardcore baseball fans who wish to have stories told about this great sport on hot summer nights will be struggling in the desert toward the caravanserai they know is there, the refuge where they can gather the information they need, and be entertained, as well. It’s supposed to be fun!

Mr. Shannon has stopped learning and he conveys it volubly and readily. It follows that the audience is not learning much, either. My recommendations for Cardinals broadcasts are these: Sample other crews to look for best practices, like updated bumper music, and perhaps forego one ad break for real news and information. Limit promos during action if at all possible. Conduct meetings about how things are going. Exile Mr. Shannon to his “Live at Shannon’s” weekend post-game show.

The best course right now would provide continuity with the listeners and possibly broaden audience reach: Keep John Rooney, who is an excellent play-by-play man and has a good sense of humor, and team him with part-timer Ricky Horton, a former Cardinals pitcher who is articulate and easy to listen to. Long-time fans would still be able to enjoy Rooney. Horton is amiable and knows how to work new information into the broadcast. I believe this would be a better quality broadcast with audience growth potential. I fear–heck, the St. Louis Cardinals fear–the loss of Shannon would drive away folks they already know they can count on.

This is not a job for life, however, Most people today change jobs and even career lines several times in their adult lives in order to make a living. I don’t think Mr. Shannon should be immune from this reality.

I understand the following coda will not pre-empt a torrent of retorts like “Who is this guy?” and “What an asshole.” (If only I had a readership that could create a torrent of questions!) I do hope that I have provoked a larger discussion about baseball on the radio in St. Louis, or at least encouraged some reflection on the matter. I have supported my objections and suggestions with facts and examples. And yes, I do want that job. It would be great!

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A Young Manager Has Old Considerations

New Cardinals manager Mike Matheny, the youngest manager in MLB, will have at his disposal a somewhat old, versatile, established but oft-injured group at the top of the projected lineup in 2012. Rafael Furcal, 34, who hasn’t played more than 100 games at shortstop since 2007, is expected to lead off. He has not been an elite leadoff hitter since then, as he has never walked a lot and injuries have almost completely taken away from his base-stealing productivity.He performed better after arriving in St. Louis, but his OBP prior to that was .300, which is giving away outs at the top of the lineup. He is a switch-hitter without dramatic platoon splits, and it’s where he’s comfortable batting, so it appears that they will start the season with Furcal at the top.

Matheny can, however, follow Furcal with three players who carry high career OBP’s and can slug pretty well, too. Carlos Beltran, Matt Holliday, and Lance Berkman all were in the top 10 in OPS in 2011 in the National League. Word is that Beltran, who will be 35 in April, will be slotted in second in the order. Another switch-hitter, he is coming off a fine rebound season. But he wears a large knee brace; his running game has been deeply curtailed by an injury which required modified microfracture surgery in 2010.

Once a sterling center fielder, he assented to a move to right field last season on the Mets. Beltran claims he can–and wants to–play center field, but most believe it’s not feasible for anything more than spot duty. The plan is a rotation in which he could play center against opposition left-handers, (while Jon Jay would sit), and Allen Craig could go to right that day. They envision Beltran getting 25 to 30 starts in center this season.

The 32-year-old Matt Holliday suffered an injury-riddled 2011. He had to have an appendectomy on Opening Day. He suffered a moderate quad tear, and probably came back too soon. He apparently wrenched his back in the weight room. And before a hand injury which kept him out of Game 7 of the World Series, a large moth got lodged in his ear in a late-summer night game at home that caused him to have to leave the game. (The offender had to be plucked out with tweezers by a trainer in the clubhouse. Of course, a photo of the “Holliday Moth” was tweeted the next day). These were niggling, non-chronic injuries that he should be able to avoid this season.

Then there’s Comeback Player of the Year Lance Berkman. He resurrected his reputation as an offensive force with a season that in several respects was better than the one of Albert Pujols. For instance, he got on base more than 40% of the time. (Pujols was at .366). Berkman inherits first base, Pujols’s haunt for the last 11 years.

These top four hitters present formidable problems for managers and teams in games that are tight, late. Three are switch-hitters, two of them historically good, (Beltran and Berkman), with real pop. A manager would have to think hard about what he was willing to give up to find a matchup he likes with the game on the line. About the only platoon weakness through that first four would be Berkman batting right-handed, so it would behoove opponents to have a lefty ready for him.

Whither Allen Craig? At 27, he has had trouble staying on the field. He had elective knee surgery in November, and no one knows when he will be able to contribute on the field. He is optimistic he’ll be ready by April 1, but it could be as much as two months later.

This was part of the impetus for getting Carlos Beltran. One can’t conclude that adding him makes your team worse, but it will cut into the playing time of a younger, cost-controlled slugger who has been very productive in limited duty. The Cardinals plan a rotation in which Berkman, Beltran, Craig, and Jay will all see consistent playing time and appropriate rest. One day Beltran could play center, and Craig would go to right. Or Berkman could need rest, so Craig takes over at first base that day.

All of this is predicated on the health of all of the above, and that all are producing. What if Jay struggles badly? What if Berkman gets hurt? Furcal goes down? These are possibilities of course, and the kinds of things teams must deal with every year. As constituted, the club has impressive depth, when you can bring a guy like Allen Craig off the bench. With 500 plate appearances, he is probably a four-and-a-half win player right now.

But if this goes badly Matheny, and by extension GM John Mozeliak, will have to respond nimbly to problems built into the structure of the club in the aftermath of the departure of the lineup anchor, Albert Pujols. The Cardinals were generally lauded for recruiting Beltran to provide oomph and length to the lineup. It represents a calculated gamble, with significant upside.

It is a formula based in hope–hope that the guys over-or at the top-of the hill can hang on for another year of productivity before reinforcements might arrive through other signings, trades, or from within the organization. But if the 30-somethings can’t stay on the field, a vigorous title defense will be short-lived, even allowing for five wins added by the return of Adam Wainwright.