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!

That was almost cool. Watching Aaron Miles step up to the plate for a pinch-hit appearance late in a close game with one of the league’s hardest throwing closers is about as disheartening as TV gets, this side of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, and if he had ended the at-bat in a nobody-really-wins shootout with Hard-Nosed-Yet-Sensitive™ Elliot I would have been completely in the moment. But up to that point.

The 26th Man notes that the Cardinals are still in Lidge’s head; he got the save, but it was more nite-lite than Lights Out, and in most other parks Johnny Rocket (what’s the current John Rodriguez nickname preference, besides Starting Left Fielder?) would be trotting around the bases after that first at-bat. We also got to see a Crazy Edmonds moment, turning a Lidge offering around for an RBI and running with his usual reckless abandon in the ninth inning of a close ballgame.

If only Marquis hadn’t sucked. I don’t get it; his stuff looked good, he got a hit off Oswalt, he was calm for most of the game, but I think we just have to accept at this point that there’s no corner for him to turn because the one thing in the way is an innate inability to keep it together over an entire start. He’s just an inconsistent pitcher, and now it would appear that the Cardinals are in possession of three number five starters in the rotation, Ponson’s current ERA notwithstanding. I’m aware that people–Bernie Miklasz for one, if I remember correctly–have begun to doubt Reyes’s ability to stay conditioned over an entire season of starting, but wouldn’t it be nice to have at least one starter besides Carp and Mulder whose upside exceeds a Quality Start?

Speaking of pitchers from Memphis, Falkenborg looked pretty impressive for all the fallout following his ugly Cards debut. He didn’t have much besides the fastball, but he had it up in the mid 90s and he got Craig Biggio–far from an impatient hitter–to chase it in the dirt for strike three. Most impressive of all was his knockout pitch to Lance Berkman, a high-90s fastball up around the letters that the Killer B du jour just waved at. He reminds me of Jimmy Journell with an idea of where the fastball is going, but the same tendency to hang the breaking ball on the rare occasions he dusts it off. (Hint: don’t dust it off.)

Carpenter and Petitte tomorrow. Petitte’s game log for this year is vaguely interesting; he’s got four starts in which he’s the normal Andy Petitte–not last year’s ace but a well-above-average type–and they’re bookended by two starts, including one against the Marlins, in which he got absolutely pounded. Now, the Cardinals don’t have any hitters as powerful as, say, Reggie Abercrombie, but it would appear that he’s somewhat vulnerable, especially with Scott Rolen recovered enough from Mystery Bronchitis to join the lineup. Most of Petitte’s trouble has been with the home run ball, having given up seven in his first 36 innings. Judging by his MLB.com picture, he’s also struggled with running face-first into panes of glass.

On a related note, I’m perfectly willing to admit that El Spiez has done an admirable job since joining the lineup, but please shave that sucker off. My roommate–not a particularly big fan of baseball–walked in during his last at-bat. Despite the TV being of the postage stamp variety, his Troll-tee was so glaringly awful that said roommate instantly started laughing. Was there ever a time period where that thing was cool, or even socially acceptable? Somewhere, in a mall circa 1999, some Limp Bizkit fan is being ostracized by all the other Limp Bizkit fans for that exact same look.

I’m not saying I wouldn’t rather have Reyes out there, but I’m ready to admit I was wrong about Ponson. He looked good out there, and he’s been pretty good in the past, so maybe it’ll stick. Until it doesn’t, he’s now got full nickname privileges. Congrats, Heavy P. I’m also pleased with Luna showing a little pop from second base, but that’s pretty much a given given my strained relationship with the incumbent.

Spiezio… I have no idea. Whenever I watch him hit I cringe; his bat looks painfully slow, and I’m still not convinced that he’s better than the 28-year-old minor league infielder the Cardinals picked up in the offseason, Rico Washington, who’s presently hitting .375/.429/.938(!!!) with 5 home runs in AA Springfield. (He put up an .887 OPS with a 63:63 K:BB ratio last year, so his inability to stick at AAA is a bit mystifying.) But then He of the Goatee has to go and hit a home run. Can The Spiez still play second? Without the pitchers crying? If he can, he’s still useful, but otherwise I can’t see him doing much.

“[The tattoo] wasn’t for everybody else. It was for me. There were rumors it was naked. But it’s nothing like that,”

Excuse me a minute, while I bring up “nothinglikethat.jpg.”

Man, how could people have made a mistake like that? Obviously the nakedness here is future-tense, which I’m told is much classier. On a side note, this is what that woman’s… upper torso immediately reminded me of:

I hope he’s just lost muscle tone or something.

In the mail: Yes, I actually do get mail! Thanks to lboros for passing my blog’s name along, because I just received a review copy of Alex Belth’s Stepping Up, a biography of Curt Flood. My two favorite Cardinals–Lankford and Edmonds–both compete with Flood for the title of best Cards centerfielder, so I haven’t paid his story a lot of attention in the past, but just the same I’m stunned that there hasn’t already been a biography on such an influential player.

I’ve pushed my suicidal attempt to read War and Peace back in preparation, so as soon as I finish it I’ll write it up. If you too are a published author looking to send your book to someone without any influence at all, just e-mail me and I’ll give you my address. It’s that easy to waste advance copies!

As for the Cardinals today, Chris Duncan continues to hit, and apparently even PECOTA has taken a swig of the Kool-Aid; VEB has the details, including his MLEs and his three most similar players, as per PECOTA: George Scott, Derrek Lee, and Nick Johnson. I’m guessing it comes from his considerable prowess at popping extra base hits, but the thing is that all three players were already in the majors at his age. In 2003, 24 years old, Nick Johnson hit .284/.422/.472 in the big leagues. Duncan hit .265/.358/.469 last year in Memphis. I’m guessing that Duncan is on the low end of each similar player pair.

The odd thing is that, similar players aside, PECOTA has about the same idea as I do: he’ll peak as a marginal first baseman, with a slight chance of becoming a good one. (His best 50th percentile line in PECOTA’s long range projections is this: .261/.342/.471, which is forecasted for his age-29 season. That’s not bad–it’s basically Tino Martinez’s career rates, because of his late-career decline–but it’s not much as far as “prospects” go.)

With raw power like he seems to have, it’s certainly possible that he’ll come out of nowhere and slug .500, but at this point I like the idea of throwing him in AAA for another season. If he really has made a sudden improvement he’ll show it, and in the meantime he can learn to be a little less Kingman-esque in the outfield.

thanks to a badly-placed literature class, but one thing I have seen: if Scott Spiezio doesn’t shave that highlighted soul patch thing off of his face, I will boo him every time he steps up to the plate. That is just awful.

Walked in to find Anthony Reyes pitching; lboros noted him not hitting above 91 in the early going, but he was throwing 93-94 against Shelly Duncan and company later on. Facial hair aside, Spiezio’s bat looked a little on the slow side.

The latest son to make a splash in St. Louis is Ed Spiezio’s kid, but let us first turn our attention first to the Cardinals’ Junior Senior, 2B Ernest Lee Spivey. Response to the move has been… well, oddly indifferent. Most of it centers around his injury history; Ray Mileur of the Birdhouse compares his at-bat total to JD Drew’s, which is apparently an insult although I’d certainly take 300 at-bats of all-star caliber hitting and defense, provided the Cardinals fill the space with Hector Luna instead of, say, anybody else.

File photo: Anybody Else dodges a baserunner to turn a double play.

But let’s keep in mind who the Cardinals have used to fill this space for the last three years. Coming into 2005, the Cardinals picked up Mark Grudzielanek; in hindsight, I panned the deal unfairly, because I was basing his defensive reputation on his spotty work at shortstop and I think subconsciously expressing my fear of spelling his name every day for a full season. In 2004, the odds-on favorite going in was Marlon Anderson until TONY WOMACK swooped in. And in 2003, the Cardinals trotted out incumbent Fernando Viña (recently sighted by U.S.S. Mariner) for one last campaign. Let’s see how Spivey compares to the other… workmanlike players brought in by management in the past. Starting with our good friend, Fernando.

It’s funny to think about, now, but because of the big part he played in the Cardinals turn-of-the-century post-McGwire resurgence, Viña was often thought of as part of the team “nucleus”, right up there with that Pujols kid and Jim Edmonds. (Although, even then, those brave pioneer Cardsbloggers were not pleased. Mike of The Daily Redbird(!) opined, coming up on three years ago, that he was no longer suited for the leadoff spot.) In any case, coming up on 2003 he had no reason at all to worry about job security; he was pretty well entrenched, and he even had sweet, sweet free agency on the horizon. His last three years had seen the second baseman, going on 34, in a marked decline that accelerated in 2002 (games and BA/OBP/SLG):

123 .300  .380  .398
154 .303  .357  .418
150 .270  .333  .338

By 2002, his once-sterling OBP had become league average, and his total lack of power suddenly became noticeable. Nevertheless, he had played 304 games over the two seasons leading up to ‘03, and there was no reason, save a Tatis-forged pessimism, to assume that he was going to do what he did: get hurt, suck it up over 61 games and get Wally Pipp’d by a career minor leaguer with cool hair. Depending on how legit his defense was, his decline and age concerns are offset by his perceived durability, and he’s pretty much as safe a bet as Spivey ‘06.

So, fast forward through 2003: Nando takes a ridiculous contract from Detroit, Miggy Cairo leaves out the back way, and the devil finds a loophole in Bo Hart’s contract. Walt Jocketty deals with it by first signing Marlon Anderson, a decent hitter with defensive issues. Deciding that wasn’t enough, he and La Russa get hopped up on life and hard liquor and, amidst a hard-fought game of Triple Play 97, perhaps, decide that the thing that ill-fated 2003 club was lacking, the one missing piece–was Tony Womack. (This led to quite possibly my favorite Cardsblog moment ever, in which Josh, now of the Birdwatch, guessed at their conversation:)

Jocketty is quoted as saying they’ve been talking about Womack all summer, and when I read that I imagined Tony and Walt in a room with a giant hookah blazed out of their skulls:

Tony: Wouldn’t it be cool to watch him run around? He’s so fast? Zip Zip Zip!
Walt: Like a water bug.
Tony: Waterbugs are cool, you know what would be cool? Fill the stadium with water get water bugs to play all your positions. The other team would have to swim, we’d win all 162 games.
Walt: Yeah, we should totally sign him.
Tony: Is there a rule against filling your stadium with water?
Walt: We’ll be invincible. Is Aquaman a free agent?

So we can thank Womack for that, and for his eventual inexplicable career year, but going into Spring Training this is what the Cardinals brought around to challenge Bo Hart:

147 .293  .337  .421  |  125 .266  .307  .345
145 .258  .315  .380  |  153 .271  .325  .353
145 .270  .328  .376  |  103 .226  .251  .307

… wow. Keep in mind, also, that both players dealt with defense on a strictly hypothetical basis, and it’s pretty obvious that the Cardinals have dealt with the keystone much better than they did in 2004. Even if Spivey misses most of the year, Hector Luna is almost certain to outplay both of these guys. Combined.

Ah, but 2005–here’s the rub. Grudzielanek, the name to end all names. He struggled mightily when with Los Angeles in 2001 and 2002, but his stint with the Cubs was solid and he, surprisingly enough, lived up to those numbers. So we have this:

150 .271  .301  .364
121 .314  .366  .416
 81 .307  .347  .432

Solid play, solid defense. Except… he was a 34-year-old second baseman who had missed two months of the last season with leg problems, not generally a good sign for middle infielders. But, if I remember, the cries of fragility or ineptitude weren’t nearly as shrill as they are for Spivey. And part of it’s justified; the guy’s played 120 games total over the last two years. But keep in mind that his major injury last year was both flukish and unlikely to linger, and as far as middle infielders go he’s a spring chicken by comparison.

The point of all this? Well, first off–what the heck were they thinking in 2004? My goodness. But, more importantly, the Cardinals haven’t had a non-question-mark at second base since the end of 2001… and even then the second sacker in question regressed significantly the next year. As far as gambles go, Spivey may be slightly more risky than Grudzielanek was, but the stakes aren’t as raised as people think.