After a month or two with only a cryptic teaser ad, the Birdwatch has launched. I enjoyed my time as a high-tenured active Cardblogger while it lasted, but any successor to Go Cardinals is definitely a good thing. And plus, this collective thing shortens my blogroll, giving you the reader less scrolling time to reach the “Ray King has a posse” badge. Good things all around.

RSS feed officially works I think kind of. It’s RSS 1.0, and I don’t know if that’s particularly bad or not, but good luck getting anything else when you’re running a four year old blogging system. Best of all, I only broke the main page once in doing this. Many thanks to Josh–whose new site, by the way, is only a day away–who has e-mailed to remind me about RSS once every month or so for the last six months. I finally summoned the work ethic for once this time. (And yes, I know that it’s displaying the whole entries at the moment. I’m working on that.

Voila. I’ll do the sidebar thing later, the work ethic is gone again.

“You try to cross over there on a chicken and you’ll find out why a duck.”

blah blah taguchi blah blah lankford etc.

Testing the RSS Feed…

Newsday among others is reporting that Roberto Alomar is about to sign with the Cardinals for a non-guaranteed $500,000 plus incentives.

Roberto Alomar’s post-2001 Tony Womack impression is probably the most bizarre decline in recent memory, especially now that we know what did Jason Giambi in. Remember that 2001? He was, along with the aforementioned Giambi, a shoulda-been MVP (it was Ichiro! Worship Year), mashing the ball to the tune of .336/.415/.541 and stealing 30 bases for good measure. Now, he was 33, and as Chuck Knoblauch demonstrated second basemen in their mid 30’s can decline pretty fast. But that .956 OPS looked pretty nice for a middle infielder.

And it wasn’t like this was some big fluke or something; Alomar was a near-mortal lock to reach 3,000 hits, had won the Gold Glove for a tenth time that year, and had been among the best second basemen in baseball for twelve straight years. But then something horrible happened: he was involved with the 2002 Mets.

Those 2002 Mets, in an effort to leap back into World Series contention, brought in a bunch of big name players in a Yankee-like spree of spending and trades. Alomar, Mo Vaughn, Roger Cedeno, Jeromy Burnitz, and Pedro Astacio were all brought in, and it seemed like the Mets had come back to life after a subpar followup to their pennant-winning 2000. Thus began The Curse of the 2002 Mets. Take a look at the afore-mentioned players’ rate stats, before and after:

               2001            2002
Burnitz  .251/.347/.504  .215/.311/.365
Vaughn   .272/.365/.498  .259/.349/.456
Alomar   .336/.415/.541  .266/.331/.376
Cedeno   .293/.337/.396  .260/.318/.346

That’s just ugly. Of course, people could have seen the signs for the other three. Burnitz was an aging outfielder who relied on old player’s skills, an archetype that tends to drop precipitously (see Alvin Davis.) Mo Vaughn had missed all of 2001 (those are his 2000 stats) and players of his… erm, body type generally don’t age well anyway. And Roger Cedeno had been hit-or-miss his entire career, and had grown stunningly less patient.

No, Alomar was the one that confused people. Unlike the other three, he had shown no signs of decline prior to collapsing in 2002. In 2001 his speed indicators were all there, with 12 triples and 30 stolen bases; he had hit for the highest average of his career; and his defense, while overrated, was still somewhat intact. But in 2002 he had seemingly aged overnight, something Hall of Fame caliber players aren’t supposed to do.

The plot thickened in 2003, when he didn’t make the bounce back that people expected of him and instead declined further. By this time people realized that his defense was deteriorating rapidly as well, and the midseason trade to Chicago brought the White Sox the same player. (It was assumed by some that he would play well away from the Shea Stadium boos.)

After an injury-riddled 2004 in which he actually hit well while a member of the Diamondbacks but collapsed entirely after his second straight midseason trade to the White Sox, little was heard from or about Alomar until the Cardinals contacted him. David Pinto’s blog, Baseball Musings, reported that he was still suffering from the back injuries that had cost him most of 2004, and had been unable to play winter ball.

Alomar’s last few seasons have been so strange, and his decline so sudden and unceasing, that it’s impossible to predict exactly what he’ll do. In all likelihood it’s all downhill from here, but even in this sapped state he’s still a useful bench player. (And, as articles have been loud in proclaiming, that’s all he’s likely to be; the Cardinals are still in hot pursuit for Alex Cora.) He’s a better hitter than Marlon Anderson, for one, and he has had a massive platoon split since 2002, which LaRussa is exactly the kind of manager to exploit. Since his Mets debut he’s hit .283/.355/.390 against righties, which is in fact an improvement on Tony Womack’s 2004. Against left handers, however, he’s hit a mortifying, Neifi-esque .207/.263/.307. He’s nominally still a switch-hitter, but you wonder why he hasn’t just stopped batting right-handed, with results that ugly.

So, if he’s kept firmly planted on the bench, this looks like an upgrade, and a cheap one at that. If he isn’t… well, Bo Hart had better be in against lefties, and they’d better have a Rey Sanchez or Pokey Reese on the bench for defense.

[Note: my David Eckstein comments, posted on the 23rd but lost in some bizarre hosting anomaly, are back up; just click the “More…” to read them.]
(more…)

Not a lot to report on recently; the only free agent deal of note since the Cardinals signed Eckstein is the Reds’ signing of LHP/General Manager Landmine Eric Milton.

The southpaw from State College was, for some reason, considered one of the jewels of 2004’s free agent crop, even though he’s thus far proven to be little more than an overpriced innings-eater. Nevertheless, it gave me the idea to go over the offseason moves that the Cardinals’ Central division rivals have made. Starting with our good friends…

Chicago Cubs
Last Year: 89-73, 3rd in division.

Key losses:
OF Moises Alou, .293/.361/.557, 39 HR: Moises was both the most valuable Cub and their scapegoat, earning 26 Win Shares and the unceasing hatred of Cubs fans everywhere, who considered him something of a choke artist. Regardless, his departure to the San Francisco chapter of AARP leaves them with the recently-resigned Todd Hollandsworth, whose abilities are stretched as a full time outfielder, to join Corey Patterson and an aging Sammy Sosa in the outfield. He’s not likely to slug .557 again any time soon, but the Cubs still need to find someone else to drive in those runs.
IF Mark Grudzielanek, .307/.347/.432: Grudzielanek looked like little more than a contractual albatross when he came to the Cubs with Eric Karros for the Todd Hundley salary. His output is entirely dependant on batting average, and the Cubs retained a younger, superior version of “Grudz” when they resigned Todd Walker for $2.5 million. The only downside the Cubs face in the wake of this move is the increased playing time it will give Neifi Perez behind Walker and Garciaparra.
SP Matt Clement, 30 GS, 9.45 K/9, 3.68 ERA: The Cubs would have been in a bad way without Clement managing to start 30 games; with Kerry Wood and Mark Prior managing only 259 innings between them “the best fifth starter in baseball” became a third starter. Without Clement the Cubs are relying on Glendon Rusch–who posted only one better-than-average ERA in his career before 2004–to fill out their rotation. Like Alou and Grudzielanek, this non-signing is understandable considering Clement’s overvaluing by the Red Sox, but Chicago’s inability to find adequate replacements is just bizarre.
RP Kent Mercker, 53 IP, 2.55 ERA: The former Cardinal was supposed to be the Cubs’ LOOGY, but he turned out to be one of their bullpen anchors; his platoon split was reversed, holding righties to a measly .170 average. I hate to repeat myself, but the same thing applies; it was a good idea for the Cubs not to sign him, particularly for the multiyear money the Reds offered him, but they’ll still have to find somebody else to give them those 53 innings.

Key Gains and Neifi Perez:
SS Nomar Garciaparra, .308/.365/.477: Perhaps the most enigmatic of all the free agents available in 2004, Nomaaah’s offense is obviously not the same as it was in 1999 and 2000, when he would have been an MVP caliber first baseman. It’s still well above average, particularly for a shortstop, but the question is whether or not he’s a shortstop anymore. His defense took such an extreme hit in 2004 that the Red Sox were willing to replace his OPS (.867 at the time) with Orlando Cabrera, a defensive whiz who was carrying a .298 on-base percentage at the time, 23 points lower than Garciaparra’s batting average. He’ll help to replace some of the offensive contribution lost in the Alou/Hollandsworth switch, but if his defense remains locked safely in 2004 Gold Glover Derek Jeter’s locker he’ll make life difficult for Cubs pitchers. (And no, I haven’t heard anything about the Cubs signing Ruben Rivera to solve that problem.)
RP? Ryan Dempster, 3.92 ERA, 7.84 K/9: Dempster wasn’t expected to return in 2004 after his years of overuse at the hands of the Marlins finally culminated in Tommy John surgery. The Cubs took the Matt Morris approach to rehab after he returned, keeping him in the bullpen, and liked what they saw. They liked it enough, in fact, that he’s the apparent closer after the meltdowns of Joe Borowski and LaTroy Hawkins. It was only 20 innings, but it’s a low-risk, high-reward gamble.

But this is ridiculous:

In honor of my recent one year blog anniversary (it would be another two months before I posted again, but let’s not talk about that.) I’ve added a new section to the site. Presenting: CardsWiki.

For those of you who aren’t obsessed with Wikipedia like I am (The Jim Creighton article there is my doing), a Wiki is a collaborative knowledge base, an encyclopedia of sorts. CardsWiki’s more informal; feel free to add your opinion and joke around, or whatever.

So read the tutorial, create yourself an account, and get cracking on the new pages, or just browse around the few pages I’ve made so far.

I’ve got other stuff planned for the site in the future; hopefully it won’t take me another year to implement.

(This was posted yesterday, but it looks like 1&1 had some issues or something, my last two entries are kaput.)

Twas the night before Christmas and through Cardinals land
Not a lefty was reaching, (Give Ray King a hand.)
The cash it was hung from the arches with care
In hopes a second baseman soon would be there

The fans were nestled all snug in their beds,
while visions of leadoff men danced in their heads;
And Supp’ in his ballglove, and Matt in his cap,
Had lobbied and yelled for a defender like Nap

Then over at Busch there arose such a clatter,
Mileur worked the phones to see what was the matter.
Away to the net I flew up like a flash,
Looked through the Nations, in quite a mad dash.
The forums were abuzz, and whaddya know?
Jocketty’s genius was about to show!

Why, what to my wandering eyes did appear
But a press conference today, a keystoner here?
With a wink of the eye, that Jocketty so slick,
I knew in a moment that this one would stick!

More rapid than Rickey the writers they came,
As he snickered and smiled and told them so by name:
“Why, Bernie! Why Gordon! Why, Hummel! And Nelson!
And Gammons! And Neyer! And Josh and Jeff, listen!
You thought I was crazy! To wait through the fall,
With no Second bagger! I’d not drop that ball!”

A hush went over them, would Jocketty lie?
And make all the deprived Bo Hart fans cry?
So up to the stage, questions they threw–
“How did you get this guy, and Mark Mulder too?”

He smiled one last time, as upward he rose,
“This meeting, don’t worry, will come to a close.”
To the keystone he walked, and then gave a whistle,
And Rolen had fired, his fastball a missile.

The player leapt up and the baseball he caught.
Jocketty never’d dare leave us with naught!
“Soon, now, I promise, you’ll see I’m no hack–
remember how mad you guys were after Womack?”
But ‘fore Stark could confirm it, he was out of sight!
“Off to Florida, I go, don’t worry; good night!”