Cryptic The Office thoughts: Jim, you fool; Karen is obviously the poor man’s Pam. Andy and Dwight is a clash of the titans, though, if Jon Stewart didn’t exude so much raw pomposity at all times I think I would have enjoyed watching Ed Helms.

Spiezer’s back, as per Miklasz. My original thought was to hate this deal; Spiezio had a good year, and as far as World Series tokens go he’s not a bad one to keep around, but I’m loathe to endorse a two-year deal to a 35-year-old infielder who looked done for two solid years before his renaissance. But now that the money’s come out–$4.5 million total–I can live with it. In this cartoonish market, that’s not a bad deal at all for a guy who can put up an average OPS and stand at second base.

The rest of the Mik’s STLToday Forum comments, line by line:

also, making traction with Jeff Weaver…

I’m all for bringing Weaves back, so long as he’s cheaper than Suppan. Higher risk, in that he’s only been average for two years out of three as opposed to Suppan’s stunning eight consecutive average-plus seasons, but I think it can be agreed that he’s got better stuff and a somewhat higher upside. And, because I fear nothing more than a lapse into 2003 Angels-style complacency, I’d like to see them take a few of those chances.

had a meeting with Adam Eaton’s agent…

boros has already had a look at his park-influenced numbers; with his reputation as an ex-Top Prospect, a decent season in Texas could have landed him some Chan Ho Park-style oblivious-to-park-effects megabucks. Instead, he got outshone by Chris Young. He reminds me a lot of Jeff Weaver–he’s supposed to have great stuff, but he rarely seems to show it. The difference-maker is Weaver’s durability, a major factor to consider with the multi-year deals flowing like wine at a hipster’s birthday party.

definitely interested in Kip Wells, and he wants to come here…

Hey, it’s the rich man’s Sidney Ponson! Wells made the Pirates look shrewd–no mean feat–when he put together two straight all-star-ish years after being flipped for Todd Ritchie. But since then his ERAs have been 4.55, 5.09, and 6.50, and he’s reached 30 years old as a non-factor, rather than a rotation building block. He’s not a bad flier to take, especially if some team offers a ridiculous deal to Mark Mulder, but the Cardinals would have to be as fast with the hook as they were with Ponson.

trying to talk to Padilla’s agent…

Maybe they should send him a note with “Does your client like me–check yes or no!!” on it.

Luis Gonzalez … leaning to LA…

And… exhale. Luis Gonzalez is John Rodriguez with a shuffleboard habit.

Cardinals had interest in Lugo; he wants to play SS and make SS money… nothing going to happen there…

God forbid the Cardinals move the World Series MVP from shortstop to a position where he could contend for Gold Gloves. Lugo’s not a great player, but he’s a pretty good one–and unless they spring for Ray Durham, they can’t expect any better. If they’re worried about the attitude problems and the spousal abuse–valid concerns–so be it, but if it’s a matter of shortstop already being covered they’re ignoring some options that they shouldn’t.

Jocketty exploring trades for starting pitchers who might be a short-term fill, like Mulder was — a pitcher who has a year or two left before free agency.

Hey, that worked so well last time!

I don’t know how long it lasts, but as of 2 AM on Wednesday the headline at The Mothership is currently “Swarming ‘Birds Go Hitchcock on Brewers.” This entry is dedicated, in perpetuity, to whoever brought that headline into being.

Can a game go better than that? I mean, I suppose Jose Vizcaino not being involved would be pretty good, and it would be great to see Sept. call-up John Nelson get his first hit, or first at-bat without a strikeout–with a swing as long and scattershot as his, I can’t see him getting a lot of chances in the major leagues in the future. (Of course, I said the same thing about Chris Duncan this time last year.) But those niggling issues aside, the Cardinals:

• Put the hurt on a great starting pitcher. Ben Sheets struck out eight and walked just one, but the Cardinals still scored runs on him.
• Got production from their deadline deals. Ronnie Belliard–who’s hit all of .228/.290/.295 since coming to the Cardinals, as Hector Luna hits .278/.314/.400 for Cleveland–clubbed a pitch into the seats; Jeff Weaver, who at best can be complimented as more consistent than Jason Marquis, put up a vintage 2005 Weaver start, showing great control and a propensity for the home run ball. Preston Wilson–well, he still hasn’t done much, but let’s take what we can get.
• Recovered from an unimpressive loss. The “lack of heart” meme has lost a lot of steam lately, but this is one more nail in the coffin. The team has all but clinched a playoff spot, and they’re playing a team that’s out of the race before a crowd that would be big for a basketball game. But instead of laying down, the Cardinals rallied behind the one guy in the game who had something to benefit from playing well and got Jeff Weaver a win. Speaking of which:
• Watched in awe as Jeff Weaver retired seven of eight left-handed batters: Really, there’s nothing I can add to that. And the one who reached did so on a single! He had a nice tailing action on his fastball, maybe that had something to do with it. Or maybe he just made a pact with Satan. I’m open to either option.

And really, when you’re watching the 2006 Cardinals, our very own near-and-dear ragtag band of misfits and unwise contracts, you can’t ask for much more than all that.

and he tormented Brad Lidge with such startling frequency, the Astros would have come away with a restraining order at this point. As it stands, they need only make sure Phat Albert stays more than 60′6″ away from the man at all time. I think a judge would uphold that.

A similar injunction could probably be granted for Jeff Weaver, keeping away left-handers, switch-hitters, righties with open stances, and people with left hands. Today lefties went 5-12 against him with two doubles and a homer, while righties were… well, 2-8 with a homer. But his continued susceptibility against left-handers is just crazy; perhaps an arm angle change is in order?

They’ve always hit him hard; during his time in Detroit they’d typically hit around .270/.330/.470 while he did his usual job of handcuffing righties. But ever since his second average year in Los Angeles, where he traded in his preternatural ability to keep the ball in the park for a Suppan/Old Maddux-memorial control pitcher with gopherball issues statline, they’ve reamed him. Anybody know somebody who saw a lot of Weaver prior to 2005? Because his approach has to look completely different now.

If you’re keeping score, that makes it two Cardinals starters whose repertoires are better suited for the bullpen; Weaver seems like Braden Looper, more or less, while Marquis continues to feature one pitch and a lot of terrible breaking stuff.

In the Maybe-Disheartening, Maybe-Not department, Mark Mulder’s surgery was a success. What’s strange? How the piece is worded. Basically, though Mulder won’t pitch for another four months, and his contract is up–well, a while before that, he plans on rejoining the team soon, in the Frank Thomas Will-he-or-won’t-he role.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m still firmly in the hopefully he-will camp. It’s a good gamble, especially if the Cardinals don’t bet their World Series hopes on it. Were they to open the pursestrings for a big name pitcher, there’s an outside chance the Cardinals would end up with three top-notch pitchers by the end of 2007. And that would be pretty cool. But it’s going to be a weird few weeks in the dugout for Swamp Gas. At this point, he was supposed to be drawing big, multi-year interest in the off-season; cameramen would tilt toward him on the bench, revealing his pensive face–will he end up in New York? Boston? Toronto? But no–out of his mind for now–he must carry the Cardinals through the playoffs first.

Now… he’s the forgotten man of the free agent season. But I bet he could still look pensive, if he wanted.

Incidentally, final confirmation for the “He’s pitching hurt” crowd; rather than being a fraying of the rotator cuff, the doctors discovered upon opening him up that it was half torn. All together, and in the general direction of the Cardinals dugout: We told you so. Often.

The headline on the mothership, at this very moment: Carpenter’s latest shutout pushes Astros down. I try not to take for granted having a starter about whom statements like that can be made. Latest shutout? Ho hum. Watching Chris Carpenter is like watching a Powerball winner’s Jeff Suppan; there’s nothing overwhelming about his profile except he has no weaknesses. His fastball moves and his curveball’s electric, he’s got command and he strikes people out, he throws hard without relying on velocity. With three fifths of our rotation–Marquis and the sinker, Weaver and the slider, Reyes and the changeup–relying on one particularly brilliant pitch or plan of attack, Carpenter provides stability in more ways than one.

Not a great offensive performance by the Cardinals, but certainly one they had to have. It says a lot about the Cardinals’s futility against the most random of marginal pitching that lboros could comment, even jokingly: “now watch bucholz throw a shutout.” Without their glamorous MV3 designation they’re this week’s St. Louis Rams: sans Greatest Show on Turf nomenclature it’s a matter of getting more field goals than the other guy. The Cardinals drew walks, waited patiently, and beat up on a mediocre pitcher. That’s more than can be said for showings against numerous other minor league chaff types this year.

Having taken advantage of that opportunity, the Cardinals promptly lose it again: Petitte’s on for tomorrow’s game against Jeff Weaver. Jeff Weaver Lefty Watch: .385/.459/.726. For all intents and purposes, he turns every lefty batter into Hack Wilson 1930, who hit .356/.454/.723; I get the feeling that if he faced an exclusively lefty lineup for any length of time they would probably drive in 191 runs, too. The Astros can and probably will trot out Lance Berkman, Mike Lamb, Aubrey Huff, and Luke Scott. Orlando Palmiero, too, if they want to get cute about it. It’s a good test for Weaver, who–divorced of his splits–seems like he would make the best fourth starter candidate. If he can hold lefties to numbers that don’t bring to mind members of the All Century Team, the Cardinals might be able to keep Jason Marquis’s one pitch in the bullpen, where it belongs.

Admittedly, the vast majority of people who did not think it wise to spend $5 to see a Weird Al vehicle (UHF) have no idea why the constant Weava/Red Snappah jokes are at all amusing, but I really have to hand it to whoever made the connection in the VEB comments way back when: this post is dedicated to you, and whoever tracks the initial post down and corrects me about it.

It’s also dedicated to Jeff Weaver, who finally justified my faith in him as somebody who isn’t better suited as a target or an extra in Deliverance than a major league pitcher. This is the Weaver I wanted to see–the one who was occasionally outstanding in Detroit, as opposed to average in Los Angeles. In 2005, Weaver’s peripherals shifted completely. (I talked about it in a little more depth back when he was acquired.) He shaved a walk off of his nine inning rate, becoming–believe it or not–a control artist, but his preternaturally low home run rate, which was once his calling card, suffered as a result.

Yes, he did allow a home run, but it was more the approach that I liked to see: he went right after hitters, and when he had them deep into a count he was aware he had one thing most Cardinals starters lack: an out pitch. He ran his tailing fastball–which was clocked as high as 93, significantly higher than I saw in his last start–up at hitters’ eyes, or away from left-handers, and he kept his slider in and around the dirt. Obviously there are some control issues to be worked out, but it was an extremely encouraging sign for a Cardinals rotation that’s still lacking in game-changing starters.

In minor league news, Junior Spivey went 3-6 with a double in Memphis’s heartbreaking 17-16 loss, improving his batting average… to .187. Sure, he’s become a running joke instead of the starting second baseman, but recently his bat has shown signs of life; in August he’s hitting a bizarre .241/.313/.621, with two doubles, three home runs… and seven hits altogether. If he continues to hit at all, and the Cardinals have a more-than-razor-thin edge heading into September, would it be a terrible idea to call him up to the bigs when the rosters expand and see what he could do in a reserve role? I remain convinced that players don’t lose that much ability over the course of one season, and if he was hiding an injury the five extra-base-hits in as many days would seem to suggest that it’s healed.

And finally, it’s not as if we’re lacking in fringe low-level pitching prospects to follow, but add another to the list: 2005 high school pick Tyler Herron finally appears to be delivering on a little of his promise, after a year and a half of ugly performances. In his debut last season, Herron struck out a batter an inning but provided nothing else: he walked nearly five batters per nine, and he allowed eleven home runs in fifty innings. It was a disaster mitigated only by his age: 18, by baseball standards.

Baseball America still ranked him among the top Cardinals prospects, largely on future projectability, but even those prospect mavens figured he’d make it to low-A this year. Instead he spent the first half of the year in extended spring training, and was reassigned to Johnson City when the short season rolled around. And things looked… the same. In his first outing he was bombed for seven earned runs in three innings. But since then, he’s been about what you’d expect out of a first rounder in rookie ball: on the back of his three game winning streak, he’s lowered his ERA to 3.96. He’s a long way off, but he’s definitely one of the most intriguing players to watch in 2007.

• When Albert Pujols doubled, the release of tension in my house was palpable; imagine the dugout.
• Hrabosky’s doing his nightly crotchety-old-man routine re: Wainwright staying in the bullpen, but at least McLaughlin got a reason out of him today: he doesn’t think the curveball in the dirt will fool people three times through the order. That’s certainly a defensible school of thought, but if that’s the case I have an idea: Weaver in the bullpen. I’ve seen, on countless occasions in his first few starts, hitters disregard his circus slider because they know it’s coming with two strikes; if he’s coming out of the bullpen, facing three batters, they might be more likely to swing. Just a thought.

is that I’ve got legroom like you wouldn’t believe.

The Best Fans in Baseball™ once again chose to boo mercilessly a player who will inevitably begin performing better–see Encarnacion, Juan–and also did some laying into Ronnnie Belliard, who so far has managed to illustrate three things to the faithful:

1. He swings exactly like Hector Luna, only slower.
2. He plays on the outfield grass because he has frustratingly bad reflexes.
3. Seriously, how do you play baseball for a living–the middle infield–and look like you ate Carlos Baerga?

He’s going to be all right, just like Weaver, but like Juancar before him Belliard is just not a very inspiring player to watch, regardless of his effectiveness.

Not much else to say about this one; the losing streak certainly sneaked up on us here, didn’t it? If Wednesday’s game had occurred first in the streak we’d be suffering the same apocalyptic delusions floated after Mark Mulder’s fastball disappeared that day late in June.

At the very least, those of you who’re worried that La Russa’s been a bit too lobotomized about the Cardinals’ streaky nature can take heart. What follows is the unabridged transcript of Tony’s usual press conference:

“This won’t take long,” the manager said. “No part of our club was good enough, including the manager. I don’t have anything more to say.”

Surly!

But he’s right: there isn’t much to say. The offense performed, but Blooper, Hancock and Weaver all had circus terrible outings on the same night. Scott Rolen seems to be mired in all manners of slump, offensive and defensive, and Albert Pujols is having a momentarily un-Pujolsian streak. These things happen; you just hope they don’t all happen at once.

• difficulty getting back to work after a layoff.

Maybe that’s why I still trust the guy, or maybe it’s the fact that all his pitches move; he looks like an ace, except, you know, when he allows all those hits. In one way, he’s the rich man’s Jason Marquis, endlessly frustrating in his tendency to ride a fantastic pitch (in this case a slider straight out of the South Korea table tennis championships) to mediocre results.

It would be different if he struck out a batter an inning but walked them with a similar frequency; that’s the kind of struggling averageness we expect out of highly touted pitchers with great stuff. Instead, he’s gone through a hundred different statistical profiles, most of them more befitting a guy with an 85 mph fastball and a retired number in AAA Altoona. But a bad pitcher? He’s been that exactly once in his career, when he bounced in and out of the rotation and became the Yankees’ whipping boy of choice in 2003. He might not be a difference maker, but let’s not write him off as a contributor so soon.

Jason Marquis, on the other hand–at this point I’ve written him off as a member of the Cardinals. It’s for health purposes, you see; every fifth day a Mysterious Stranger gets the start for the Cardinals. If he pitches well, great! If he doesn’t… well, it serves Jock and La Russa right, sending out a Mysterious Stranger to face major league pitching like that. After his last few starts, I’m thinking about starting the Mysterious Stranger cycle anew after every inning.

How can a guy with that slider put up Jeff Suppan numbers year after year?

A number three starter will look good in Cardinals red.

The flowing Thor locks? Maybe not. But this trade, on the surface, appears to be vintage Jocketty. He bought low–as I posted yesterday, the Angels wanted Lastings Milledge a week and a half ago–and sold high, trading a guy with an uncertain future and exactly half a season of decent play to his credit. Walt Jocketty’s legendary mind-control power has showed itself once more; as Valatan commented on yesterday’s post shortly after the deal was consumated: “God, if I were the Mets’ GM I would never talk to Stoneman again.”

So about this guy. Jeffy W. was the Detroit Tigers’ first round pick in 1998, a highly polished college type with great-looking stuff. It was an extremely deep draft; Weaver went behind Pat Burrell, JD Drew, Austin Kearns, and Felipe Lopez (as well as… Corey Patterson), and was picked in front of Brad Lidge, CC Sabathia, Brad Wilkerson and Aaron Rowand, among others. He made five A ball starts that year, striking out 33, walking 1 and allowing 14 hits in 25 innings. He made his major league debut in April the next year. Before we continue, some of the relevant numbers:

AGE   ERA    IP   K/9  BB/9  HR/9  K:BB
 22  5.55 163.6  6.27  3.08  1.48  2.03
 23  4.32 200.0  6.12  2.34  1.17  2.61
 24  4.08 229.3  5.97  2.67  0.75  2.24
 25  3.18 121.6  5.55  2.44  0.30  2.28
 25  4.04  78.0  6.58  1.73  1.38  3.80
 26  5.99 159.3  5.25  2.65  0.90  1.98
 27  4.01 220.0  6.26  2.74  0.78  2.28
 28  4.22 224.0  6.31  1.73  1.41  3.65
 29  6.29  88.6  6.29  2.13  1.83  2.95 

The big changing point–both in baseball’s perception of him and his numbers–is when he was traded to the Yankees. Up to that point, he was considered a rising star, a future 20-game winner. Everything he threw crackled with movement, darted out of the strike zone. Baseball Prospectus–rarely fans of young pitchers–threw around “superstar” and “absolutely electric stuff” in consecutive years when discussing him. His latest breakout–the 3.18 ERA he had for Detroit that year–was built on an unsustainably low home run rate, but it was the kind of pitching expected of him all along.

And then, at 26, he collapsed. His status in the rotation was uncertain leading into the season, and he did nothing to solidify it; his strikeout rate continued to fall, and his home run rate hit an all-time high. Nobody in the Bronx was heartbroken when he headlined the package the Yankees sent to the Dodgers for Kevin Brown.

And now? Who knows. He spent his two years in LA as an innings-eater–basically the last thing people expected of him, back in 1999. Not only that, but he did it two different ways; in 2004 he walked as many people as he had in New York but brought his home runs back to his usual low levels, while in 2005 he became a control pitcher who allowed a ton of home runs. In 2006, as has been repeated ad infinitum, he’s allowed home runs on a startling number of his fly balls: 16.8%, which continues his disturbing trend from 2005. He’s gotten fewer groundballs, too; I’m sure Duncan is salivating at the prospect of working with a guy who once was considered an ace on the basis of not allowing any home runs.

Great, great trade for the Cardinals; Weaver has an outside shot at being very good, and a good chance of being solid.