(For those who have noticed the steady decline of my headline wittiness: I apologize.)

In my 16 years of soul searching and analysis regarding the world around me, I have come to realize that February invariably means two things:

1. It is no longer January.
2. People will write happy pieces about every bit player looking to make good or team looking to win. Every team will fight for the pennant down to the wire, except the Devil Rays, who are busy “putting all the pieces together.” This is simply how it is going into Spring Training. Sportswriters have to write something.

The Cardinals’ February Fodder has centered mostly around Kerry Robinson, looking to start in left field and lead off, Bo Hart, looking to lead the team in scrappiness and go-get-em spirit, and Chris Carpenter, looking to avoid another arm-explosion.

Kerry Robinson has to be kidding me a lot going for him. He fits the leadoff-hitter mold most Whiteyball afficianados look for–fast, skinny–and is from St. Louis. His problem is that eventually the leadoff player comes to the plate. Think of it this way:

In 2003, Mike Matheny led K-Rob in OBP to the tune of 39 points. Woody Williams got on 18 points more often, and slugged 49 points higher. He is likely also a better left fielder. Kerry has to deal with Steve Cox, John Mabry, Ray Lankford, Mighty Mark Quinn and Greg Vaughn if he’s going to get into the starting lineup, but has the buzz on his side. He’s said, in this article that his loooow OBP is the result of him following Tony LaRussa’s pinch hitting strategy–swing early and make contact, to move the runner over. His OBP WAS only .265 as a PH, but the .287 it was as an outfielder isn’t good either. Pore over the splits any way you like, his OBP is still lower than Gray Davis’ approval rating.

Bo “Insert Pun Here” Hart set the world afire and then returned to the dust of the earth last year, and the signings of Brent Butler and Marlon Anderson prove that the Cardinals don’t see him as starting material, and the .599 OPS he had post-all-star break would appear to validate that view. Hart wants to start, but will likely earn his Joe McEwing “Super Scrub” degree and hang around the team for several years playing out of position instead.

Finally we come to Chris Carpenter, who delivered on his expectations of being the Cards’ midseason savior by posting an ERA of 0.00 after the all-star break. He’s throwing already, and hopefully did not get jinxed upon completion of Thi s article, which proclaims his stuff as “electric.” He’ll have to compete for a starting job with ALEN BENES. I hate myself and the Cardinals for having to write any sentence that implies the Cardinals have something riding on Alan Benes, which should only happen if I’m replaying 1996 in Baseball Mogul.

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In other news, Tony “My Kingdom for Three Lefties” LaRussa has indicated that he could start the year with 11 pitchers to leave room for another bench player. Hopefully this means a spot for Lankford, and not So So Def Taguchi.

Holy cow, I just noticed how many nicknames I was using there. Call me Schwami. Actually, don’t.

Josh Schultz at Go Cardinals has an interview going with Jeff Luhnow, the Cards’ VP of Baseball Development, and a lot of interesting stuff is being talked about. Apparently there’s still time to ask Mr. Luhnow any burning questions you may have… regarding baseball, that is.

Phil Rogers is the latest to join the Cardinals don’t do anything in offseason all-star team. He talks about how the Cardinals failed to add sufficient pitching, which is really gloatspeak for “ha ha we have Greg Maddux… again.” Here’s a particular gem:

“The future Hall–of–Famer would have brought an essential presence to the Cardinals, whose top five starters (Matt Morris, Woody Williams, Jeff Suppan, Jason Marquis and Chris Carpenter) averaged only 127 innings last season.”

That’s a joke because he’s counting Chris Carpenter, who of course pitched 0 innings last season. Among those who started the whole year last season (Morris, Suppan, Williams) they averaged nearly 200, and counting Marquis’ 40 they averaged 159 innings.

And the veteran presence Maddux adds had better be great, because here are his stats and the stats of MYSTERY PITCHER, who was 9 years younger and struck out about the same number per 9 innings. (4.9 to 4.7.)

GS      IP   ERA 36   218.3  3.9631   204.0  4.19

Wouldn’t you know it, MYSTERY PITCHER will earn 3 million this year, while Maddux will get 7.5 million, as 4 mil. is the going rate for veteran presence this year. Good thing we got Suppan.

In other, non-expletive news… Wait, maybe this is expletive news. The Cardinals’ barren farm system, thinner than Lara Flynn Boyle after four hours of Pilates, didn’t make much of an appearance in Baseball Prospectus recently-released roundtable chat made during the selection process of their Top 50 Prospects list. The good news is, the Cubs don’t show up much either. The bad news is, it’s because all of their prospects are too busy striking out Adam Dunn to make prospect lists.

In any case, Adam Wainwright made much of the noise, placing in the upper-middle tier of pitching prospects. Apparently most of the people their were disappointed with the fact that his velocity didn’t go up from its current 87-91 mph stage as planned. His curveball is described as knockout. Now, I don’t know any tall pitchers who’ve subsided on their knockout curveballs and low 90’s fastballs, so I suppose we’ll have to wait and see.

No mention of the artist formerly known as “Our Only Prospect”, Blake Hawksworth, or the two former holders of that title, Danny Haren and Jimmy Journell.

PS Layfield’s no prospect, of course, but his name fit the song.

@RIYRP@GRPUGDPDGPIDUV(*!@T^_($^_!(*T)*&F)!E*&FE*)&R)*&EFWOODY WILLIAMS)(@&_R*RY@(_*RY_*($^_*$@_(*YIDH08GH_*GF*-

!

“Williams Bothered by Shoulder Discomfort.”

Talk about a kick in the head. I guess you have to expect stuff like this, though, when your one unquestionably decent starter is a pitcher who hurt himself *swinging a bat*. I’m hoping there’s nothing to this, because I don’t want to see Josh Pearce starting for anyone but the Memphis Redbirds if Carpenter goes down.

All of a sudden, that 6.23 ERA in September is looking prophetic. Woody claims in the article that he didn’t feel the “discomfort” (press-release speak for “blinding pain”) until the offseason, but is it possible that a guy renowned for his “grit” (did I say that?) tried to play through the pain and hurt himself? Somewhere, Joe Magrane is nodding knowingly.

So all 0 people who read this can tell me how full of it I am!

The big news for Cardinals fans recently has, surprisingly enough, not been the triumphant returns of both John “The Mon” Mabry AND Doug “E. Fresh” Creek in one fell swoop. Earth shattering as those both were, it was the signing of Albert Pujols to a 7 year, 100 million dollar contract that attracted the most attention.

Gee, I had a whole big article ready about how Creek was the left handed Eric Gagne and that John Mabry could easily hit 75 home runs, but I guess this news piece has forced my hand.

Much has been made about the Cardinals not signing Greg Maddux, instead losing him to the Cubs. Whether or not he would be worth the money is up for debate (ha ha Cubs got ripped off!) but it was the principle of the thing that got to most Cards fans. There simply wasn’t enough in the Cardinals’ coffers to sign this 38 year old, declining pitcher to an 8 million dollar a year deal that carries him to 41. Well, darn it! Whose contracts are eating up all this cash?

After much research searching for a site that had the kind of contract info I wanted, I gave up and searched for articles detailing the signings of all of the players on the Cards’ probable 25 man roster. Payroll details for this year aren’t really important until July, when cries of “TRADE FOR A SECOND BASEMAN” are heard from on high and/or the stlcardinals.com messageboard. But then I decided that that was too much work, and no one’s reading this anyway, so I decided to just focus in on one of the players whose status with the Cards is up in the air after this year.

Edgar Renteria’s contract is up after ‘04. The most valuable SS in the National League’s contract originally had two option years on it, but one was declined after he hit like Rich Renteria in 2001. The big deals still set to be paid in ‘05 (Pujols, Rolen, Edmonds) would appear to make it about a 50/50 chance at best that he returns to the Cardinals following ‘04. Depending on whether you believe the Marlins, who may have signed Renteria a year early and lied about his age in a strange reversal of typical Agegate scandals, he’s either 27 or 28; as a speed player, old sabermetric principles would tell you he’ll age better than most. His Isolated Power and walk rate in 2003 were no different than his typical totals, but his .330 batting average certainly was. To the projections!

2002 .305  .364  .439 OPS: .803PCTA .302  .363  .455 OPS: .818 ZiPS .316  .382  .457 OPS: .8392003 .330  .394  .480 OPS: .874

ZiPS and PECOTA both agree that Renteria hit his peak in ‘03, which makes sense since they use his Marlins age of 27, the typical peak year. Although that drop in OPS, particularly through PECOTA’s eyes, is far from nothing to sneeze at, only two other regular NL shortstops (as judged by Baseball Reference) had an OPS over .800: Alex Cintron(!) and Orlando Cabrera(!!). Neither one seems particularly likely to do it again.

Edgar’s more comparable to the holy triumvirate of AL shortstops: Nomah, Tejada, and Jeter. Jeter’s huge contract is a product of a bygone era, those good old days when men were men and Furbies were Furbies, so there’s no chance Renteria gets $15 million a year. Tejada, whom Renteria outhit in ‘03, won the Baltimore Orioles’ “Joe Carter Overpriced Free Agent Scholarship”, getting $12 million a year for six of them. Renteria doesn’t have Tejada’s reputation or MVP, so he would likely stand to earn something moderately shorter and cheaper; $9 million over five? When free time permits, I’ll write the same sort of meandering, redundant article about Matt Morris, whose contract also expires following ‘04. Like a steel cage match, two men will enter, but only one man will leave. Only without the chairshots and spitting; Alomar signed with the Diamondbacks, after all.