Just in time for the boring part of Spring Training–most of the prospects are gone, most of the roster spots decided–Tony helps His Public by making things interesting.

Not to condone drunk driving, but this story’s a non-starter. The guy blew something that wasn’t even a DUI pre-MADD and the subsequent federal extortion fun, but the main story here is that a sixty-two year-old man fell asleep at an inopportune moment late at night. Which isn’t quite as stunning as, say, his predilection for Scrappy White Hustlers, be they the baseball players or the hypothetical mixed drink. (You can’t see it, but I’m pointing to the guy behind the drums and–ah, there’s the rimshot.)

People make mistakes, and in the grand scheme of things having what is literally one too many is not a colossal one. Let’s just be glad nothing bad happened.

A bigger potential mistake detailed here.

Marrero, trying to make the Cardinals as a third catcher and utilityman, made his first start behind the plate this spring on Thursday. He threw out two runners trying to steal and guided four Cards pitchers to a six-hit, two-run performance.

He knows he’s a long shot on a team that already has more bench players than spots for them.

Hmm. If only there were some way they could make room for him! And the next segment in the story is…

Bennett banged up: Gary Bennett was a late addition to the travel roster for Friday after initially being left off. He was bothered by something of a headache on Wednesday afternoon and Thursday. Bennett believes the condition resulted from taking a foul tip off his helmet on Wednesday.

Shortly before Bennett left Roger Dean Stadium on Thursday, he was added to the travel roster for St. Lucie.

Oh, yeah–it’s the gamer they committed to too early! Eli Marrero solves two problems for the Cardinals, but the problem is that they’re only aware of one. First, he’s an outfielder who can hit lefties–on a team that could at one point start Chris Duncan, Jim Edmonds, and John Rodriguez or nominal switch-hitter Scott Spiezio in one outfield, that’s a big deal. And he’s also a backup catcher that can hit. When was the last time the Cardinals had a backup catcher with an OPS+ over 60? One who was better than forty percent below an average hitter? That would be 2002, with noted Nice Guy Mike Difelice.

There is absolutely no reason to carry Gary Bennett, especially on a team with a durable catcher like Yadier appears to be. Absolute worst case scenario? Yadi gets hurt, and the Cardinals have to call up a guy who’s going to play exactly like Gary Bennett. Catchers like Gary Bennett are utterly fungible, which is why the Cardinals have typically just picked up a new one for free instead of signing the old one. Since they’re so interchangeable it would be fine that they decided to hold on to the one they had for a year, because of the World Series warm fuzzies, but something better came along. There should be no doubt about Eli Marrero making the team, and instead he’s a “longshot.”

Suddenly I’m angrier about La Russa getting a DUI… and I’m just not sure why.

On a site-related note–consider the meta tag your pro tip re: skipping the first or last paragraph of an entry that has it–I’ll be mostly internet-free for the next week. If the Cardinals do something awesome–Walt, the Devil Rays are undervaluing BJ Upton–or not awesome–hey, Walt, stop considering what the Red Sox just considered–I’ll find a way to peddle my unique brand of non-analysis, but in any case I’ll be back right in time to get into regular season mode.

The regular season! Awesome.

Fawning Emilio Estevez biopic, unfortunately, sold separately.

If, for some reason, I’m your first stop today: Several low-to-mid-range signings for the Cardinals.

• 2B Adam Kennedy, three years, $10 million. Hey, it’s the David Eckstein deal. Almost exactly the David Eckstein deal. Like Eckstein, Kennedy is a middle infielder from Anaheim coming off of an off season both offensively and defensively whom the Cardinals signed to a reasonable deal, in lieu of several much more expensive options.

  He actually comes into this deal better than Eckstein did. He can get on base; from 2002-2005 his lowest OBP was .344. (Eckstein had had .325 and .339 seasons.) He’s also less punchless than Eckstein, with a career isolated power of .108. Prior to this season, Kennedy was consistently among the two or three best defensive second basemen in the league, but much has been made of his status as a liability last year. That said, Torii Hunter sucked, too, and even Scott Rolen had an out-of-character year in 2003. It’s difficult to make a judgment on a great defensive player based on one season; it’s possible that he lost all his range at once, but I wouldn’t count on it. He had knee problems that hindered him on defense, and BABIP issues (it declined despite his heightened line drive rate) that hindered him on offense; I would be stunned if he didn’t improve significantly at both ends in 2007.

  Great deal; the Cardinals needed to make sure they wouldn’t come into the 2007 season like they did in 2006, with two backup infielders splitting time there. This is also a rare recent example of the vaunted Best Fans in Baseball discount working; he said he turned down money to come back to St. Louis, and it’s rumored that there were contracts in the four year, $18 million range on the table.

• Kip Wells, one year, $4 million. More money than I hoped; I figured a guy who was as terrible as he was would end up with a Ponson-esque contract. He’s better than Heavy P, at least; Wells was, similarly, a momentary ace on a bad team, but his numbers were much better. He had a higher strikeout rate and better control at his best, while Ponson mainly just traded on an abnormally low home run rate over his two good years.

  It’s a good chance to take, much better than trying to sign two of the mid-range Lilly/Meche types. With Blake Hawksworth and Chris Narveson pretty close to the majors, the Cardinals can afford to have a quick hook on their fifth starter, so an injury-prone guy with a possibility, however slim, of having a big year is the perfect risk. It’s also been mentioned that this leaves the Cardinals with money to sign a big free agent pitcher, if they want; they’re positioned about as well as they can be to make a run at Jason Schmidt or Barry Zito.

• Eli Marrero, minor league deal. Seriously? Just a minor league deal? Marrero can play all three outfield positions and can put together a .270/.320/.400 season with a juicy, useable platoon split; that alone qualifies him to be a passable fourth outfielder. But he can also catch; I know he doesn’t enjoy doing it, but minor league signees can’t really afford to be choosers, can they? No risk, all reward; it’s Scott Spiezio all over again.
• Gary Bennett, Gary Bennett-sized deal. I’d have felt just as good about going into the season with Marrero as the backup catcher, because it means they would finally have one who can hit. But Bennett’s momentary clutch-God status with a Series winner means he has a free season. So I’ll have to forego my yearly “you’re wasting a lot of easy runs!” post and bite my tongue.

Welcome, new Cardinals. Enjoy the random curtain calls.

Anybody who’s asked me about it, or asked someone else about it around me, or asked me about FDR’s New Deal agencies and gotten an angry response about David Ortiz, knows that I’m not much a fan of this year’s stat du jour, Win Probability Added. For those of you who don’t check FanGraphs obsessively–and you’re missing out–WPA is the Clutch statistic to end all clutch statistics, weighting every hitting and pitching situation for the added “win probability” it gives a team.

Whatever my dislike for it, however, it does have its uses; for one thing, it’s another indicator of Albert Pujols’s dominance. And for another, it’s a good analogue for Cardinals fans’ suddenly fluctuating opinion of Gary Bennett.

In January, I wrote: “Gary Bennett is a putz who couldn’t hit a wiffleball.” In May, when Bennett was called in to pinch hit instead of Ken Phelps all-star John Gall, I wrote:

Gary Bennett!? Did John Gall do a line of coke off a puppy or something? Somebody is going to take this whole incident and make it into a far-reaching allegory about how Albert Pujols can’t save the team all the time because he was left on deck there, but I’ve voluntarily revoked my own “Making A Larger Point from An Isolated Event” license, so it won’t be me.

Heck, as recently as August 23 I conflated him with Jose Vizcaino as an example of the Cardinals’ utter inability to make easy improvements on the club. Coming into the final series of the year with the Cubs, Bennett’s WPA for the year was -.481, among the worst on the team.

Jeff Suppan did almost all the heavy lifting in game one, posting a .454 WPA (WPA evens out to .500 for the winner, and -.500 for the loser.) Bennett’s 3-4 performance left him the most valuable hitter on the team, good for a .076 mark. In Game two, Bennett put up .478, proving more valuable, according to WPA, than Chris Carpenter. And in game three, the walkoff grand slam led Bennett to a narrow WPA victory over Juan Encarnacion, .327 to .278.

So, regardless of its utility as an MVP stat, there is one good thing WPA can be used for: a barometer of fan opinion. Because now, instead of being one of the many bland, subpar bench players on an underachieving Cardinals team, Bennett is a capital-H Hero–and his WPA is positive, too.

Sometimes, when I lie awake at night, I think to myself: is there a God? Is there someone out there who understands me, who cares about my well-being, who wants me to be happy?

And then I think:

We are all witnesses.

but sometimes it must suck to be Matthew Leach, the official Cards site beat writer. For example, when he has to write this about new Waste Of Flesh candidate Gary Bennett:

The greatest issue with Cardinals catching in 2005 was the backup job. Einar Diaz never earned the full trust of the team’s coaching staff or pitchers, which meant that Molina had to carry a heavy workload until he landed on the disabled list with a broken bone in his hand. […] Enter Gary Bennett, known as a fierce competitor and a fine handler of pitchers. Bennett, a lifetime .243/.308/.326 hitter, may not outhit Diaz, but he should at least be trusted enough to get the occasional start and rest Molina.

Leach is a smart guy; he’s been sneaking a lot of OPS and stuff like that into his articles, particularly the mailbags, but on the Official Site you don’t exactly have a lot of latitude to say things like “Gary Bennett is a putz who can’t hit a wiffleball, and his defensive reputation isn’t even as good as Diaz’s was going into 2005.”

First off, if Gary Bennett doesn’t outhit 2005 Einar Diaz he’ll have no choice but to commit seppuku. The All-Seeing-Einar hit an astonishingly bad .208/.248/.277. It’s not a bad thing to be outhit by Jason Marquis; he outhit most starting catchers. But to be outhit by Matt Morris (.207/.246/.293)… well, let’s just say that Gary Bennett’s going to outhit him and call it a day. But outhitting Einar Diaz is akin to being more popular than Terrell Owens in Philadelphia; it’s nothing to be proud of, it’s just that fewer people have a price on your head. Diaz’s performance was the worst by a backup catcher since… well, last year’s Cardinals, where Cody McKay managed an OPS one point higher. Even noted cipher Alberto Castillo has a career average of .222/.295/.296. A guy like Robert Fick or Kelly Stinnett… that’s a backup catcher that will actually make a difference. Even Michel Hernandez, former catch-and-throw prospect in the Yankees system and this year’s Mike Mahoney, almost certainly will outhit that iteration of Einar.

On that note… I actually wouldn’t mind making a few dimes here and there. Anybody want to shoot me a BlogAds referral thing?

Relatively, I mean. Jason Phillips signed a minor league deal with the Blue Jays. First Burnett and now this! If only some team in the AL East would stop their monetary tyranny before it’s too late…

What does this matter? Phillips is a mediocrity in cool goggles. He struggled to a sub-.300 OBP, but he did manage a .125 isolated power mark and he’s probably good for another .700 OPS somewhere down the line.

Bennett is a mediocrity without cool goggles. He’s struggled to sub-.300 OBPs in every year he’s grabbed more than 100 at-bats, and his career slugging percentage is .326. He’s also now signed to a guaranteed contract worth $800,000.

A while ago, I was thinking it wasn’t important enough for me to really get indignant over; I mean, unless the Cardinals are so anal about their salary cap that they wouldn’t go $800,000 over if, say, Felix Rodriguez wants more than they’ve budgeted it’s not going to make a financial difference. But, keeping in mind that I’m horrible with math, extrapolated runs says that the Cardinals would have gained a win by swapping out the 214 plate appearances of Eike Mahiaz with Jason Phillips, awful OBP and all. Not bad for a minor league deal.

When we run all the numbers for new starters and worry about the wins the Cardinals lose in the deal, we sometimes forget how players who seem unimportant can cause a slow drain on the team’s effectiveness. If the Cardinals had signed an above-average backup catcher, like Kelly Stinnett, instead of a stiff, they could have quietly improved the team for less than a million bucks.

Of course, take heart: it’s very difficult to put up a .525 OPS when you’re not a pitcher. If any full-time backup catcher–even Einar himself–manages to do that again, I’ll be surprised.