So it looks like the Sammy Sosa era is coming to an end in the NL Central. I have something of a love/hate relationship with Sosa, because I can’t totally hate the other half of the 1998 home run race. The Orioles come out of this slightly better for this year, but the result will mostly be in ticket sales; they’re not going to catch the Yankees and Sox unless Sosa comes alive, pre-cork style.

The Cubs, though, are a more interesting case. It’s bizarre that they waited until this particular package, so late into the free agent season, to trade him; if they had flipped him to the Mets earlier, as was rumored, they could have gone after one of the prize free agents, like J.D. Drew or Carlos Beltran. As it stands now, the package they received–two marginal prospects and 2B Jerry Hairston–doesn’t help to solve the sudden sucking hole in the outfield they’ve made, and the free agent options at this point start and end with Jeromy “Burnitz Happens” Burnitz–who can be totally sure how much of his resurgence was thanks to Coors Field?–and Magglio Ordoñez–who can be totally sure he can walk?

But either would still be an upgrade, because right now here’s their outfield: Todd Hollandsworth, Corey Patterson, and Jason Dubois. Dubois mashed the ball in AAA–316/.389/.630–but going on 26 next year he’s not one to expect massive improvements from. Todd “The other mid-90’s Dodger Rookie of the Year” Hollandsworth hasn’t been starting material in years, either.

The Cubs are expected to make some sort of deal to remedy this sudden dearth. An often bandied about deal involves Aubrey Huff going to the Cubs in exchange for some of Chicago’s vaunted prospects. (Angel Guzman is often mentioned.) Huff is the Devil Rays’ only proven hitter, though, and it would probably take quite a haul to move him. He’s also a horrifyingly bad outfielder, something I don’t think Dusty Baker would enjoy watching. Brad Wilkerson of the Nats is another possibility, although I think the time to make that move would have been when they could have traded Sosa to DC for him; Bowden and the Nationals seem to be trying very hard to fill seats at this point.

The move just seems a little too desperate for a team that hopes to compete in 2005. This late in the game, where the $7 million the Cubs freed up (they’re on the hook for $10 million) can’t be used for much of anything, it seems like it would have been better to take another .260/.330/.500 season from late-model Sosa than to get a player at a position you have filled and downgrade an already-weak outfield. If they do manage to swing a deal for Huff or Wilkerson then its murkier, but at the moment it seems like Cubs only hurt themselves.

For a while it looked like it might not happen, but according to the Post-Dispatch Walt Jocketty is going to return.

I haven’t always agreed with Walt–I think that the Cardinals would have been unstoppable with that year J.D. Drew had, and tapping Womack as a starting 2B was either the gutsiest move anyone’s ever made or the craziest–but he’s had a sterling record as a General Manager. While the other candidates for best non-sabermetric GM–the usual Sabeans and Schuerholzes–have shown a laundry list of bizarre eccentricities in the past few years, Jocketty continues to make impressive moves, and has to be considered for the title of best GM, “enlightened” or not, in all of baseball. If it’s true that the Cardinals are lowballing him (they deny it) they’re stupid, because execs like this don’t grow on trees.

SEE ALSO: This article from my blogspot days, about Jocketty’s trade record. With the Walker deal there’s now somebody to bump Mark Sweeney or Craig Paquette to the “All Traded-For” bench. It really is obscene, his record. And that layout… what was I thinking?

Matthew Leach of the Cardinals’ official website has a timely article up about the Cardinals’ aging outfield legs. Jim Edmonds, Reggie Sanders, and Larry Walker are 35, 37, and 38 and all have somewhat checkered injury histories, so it’s definitely an issue.

It’s a timely issue because Baseball Prospectus recently released its PECOTA projections for 2005. (PECOTA stands for, theoretically, “Pitcher Empirical Comparison and Optimization Test Algorithm.” As the 2003 edition says, ‘It is our hope that, like TCBY and N*Sync, the acronym will become sufficiently popular that nobody can remember what it actually denotes.’)

In left field, PECOTA has a line that is much closer to my guess–.275/.335/.490–than the James or ZiPS projections, predicting a .262/.330/.484 line. The problem is that he’s projected for 336 at bats. In my article on the subject I noted that he didn’t show many of the signs of decline in ability, but it’s certainly true that 37-year-old outfielders tend to be playing on borrowed time.

In center we have Jim Edmonds, who it seems has been teetering on the edge of major injury ever since he came to St. Louis with a reputation as a sort of AL J.D. Drew. He’s also projected to continue to mash the ball–.287/.395/.592–in 398 at bats. If Edmonds only gets 398 at bats, there’s gonna be some trouble in center field. Not only that, but it will also screw up my prediction of him as a dark horse hall of famer, and that wouldn’t be cool.

And to complete the 300 at-bat triangle we have Larry Walker. He, actually, only manages 277 at bats according to PECOTA, producing at a .270/.378/.478 clip. This is not good news, though it’s not like you’d need a complex formula to realize that an outfield with an average age of 36.7 isn’t a good bet to survive unscathed. And when your depth chart features So Taguchi and Roger Cedeño, that’s not something you want to see. Let’s just say a John Gall sighting would probably be in order at that point.

Incidentally, they predict Daric Barton at .257/.370/.418. Depending on your inclination, that’s either a condemnation of Baseball Prospectus or Walt Jocketty. I’m hoping for the first, because although I really want to like Jocketty a .788 OPS from a 19-year-old catcher is not something to be traded for anybody not named Babe Ruth. (And yes, I’m aware of the Athletics plan to move him to first, which is surprisingly dumb for them; Piazza upside is definitely worth taking a chance on.)

One of the major differences between the 2003 and 2004 iterations of the Redbirds, besides Scott Rolen becoming Mike Schmidt and Tony Womack becoming… uh… late model Chuck Knoblauch(?) was readily apparent in one to three innings just about every game–the guys who pitched between the starters and Jason Isringhausen. (Incidentally, if you throw 96 and are from a city that starts with B-, you should definitely have a nickname, but “The Brighton Bullet” just hasn’t caught on… yet.)

If you lived under a rock in 2003, or have just done a fantastic job of blocking those “Esteban Yan should be a steadying bullpen figure” memories out, it isn’t even that hard to verify. Take a look at the Cardinals’ bullpen composites in 2003 and 2004, sans Izzy:

 W   L  SV   ERA   IP    H    R   ER   BB   SO   K/9  BB/9
24  24  19  4.97  442  485  260  244  207  300  6.11  4.21
27  14  10  3.01  382  318  142  129  121  283  6.67  2.85    

Talk about catching lightning in a bottle. The Cardinals went from having one of the three or four worst bullpens in baseball to having one of the best. That was great in 2004, but it’s also a little worrying for 2005, as it shows how volatile the guys between the starters and the closer can be.

For the first time in a while, the Cardinals didn’t have to perform major reconstructive surgery on the pen. Here are your usual suspects:

Cal Eldred wasn’t a sure shot to make the team in 2004, even after he played the part of NRI Savior in 2003. Things weren’t exactly looking up for the former Brewers ace after he made the team, either. In his 17 April and May appearances he managed a 7.71 ERA. But after that bumpy start he was as good a middle reliever as anybody in baseball; he allowed 14 runs over those first 16 2/3 innings, and then only 14 more over his next 50. Maybe he needs to get to Spring Training a little earlier this year; over the last two years he’s got a 4.54 pre All-Star ERA compared to 2.91 after the break.

Regardless of his continued success, he’s not exactly a sure thing going forward; this is the same Cal Eldred who got his arm slagged to the tune of 374 innings over his first season and a half, and now at 37 he’s been feeling it ever since. And although the results have been the same over the last two years, he arrived at them two entirely different ways:

YEAR  G    IP    H    R   ER  HR   BB    K   ERA  WHIP   K/9  BB/9  
2003 62  67.3   62   32   28   9   31   67  3.74  1.38  8.95  4.14
2004 52  67.0   71   31   28  11   17   54  3.76  1.33  7.25  2.28

His 2004 numbers are probably better, but I just find it a little disconcerting that those look like the lines of two different pitchers. If the walks come back and the strikeouts don’t, Caldred’s gonna be doing some struggling. Of course, there really isn’t anything more than age to suggest that happens.

Mike Lincoln got leaned on a lot with Eldred struggling early, and aside from two bad outings he was lights out. (His component ERA, which estimates what ERA a pitcher should have based on his peripherals, was all of 1.89.) I’m not quite sure what the Cardinals were thinking, running an injury prone reliever out at a rate that projects to around 100 innings, but it ended predictably with a season-ending injury. (SLIDER MENTION HERE.)

Man, what a slider.

Er, anyway, Mike Myers fills the second lefty spot vacated by Ray King. The submariner is a departure from King in that he is as much a pure LOOGY as a player can possibly be. Over the last three years he’s turned lefties into Tony Womack (.236/.328/.357) and righties into Wade Boggs (.316/.425/.461.) Notice the walks, too; even if he turns out to be effective–which is if he doesn’t face any right handed hitters with more punch than, say, Jason Isringhausen–it’s not going to be fun to watch. If there’s one manager who will know to use him to his fullest, it’s Tony LaRussa, but I would have much preferred keeping Tyler Johnson on the roster instead. If there’s one advantage to burying Rick Ankiel in the bullpen when Matt Morris comes back it’s that I won’t have to cringe when LaRussa inadvertantly leaves Myers in against Sammy Sosa.

Al Reyes might get his first significant role since 1999 as the last righty in the pen. Though, really, it’s not all that certain why he’s had to ride the complimentary AAA shuttle so much since then. At his worst he’s been an average reliever, and when he’s gotten a chance this past three years he’s been well above average. He’s struck out nearly a batter an inning over his career, shown solid control, and allowing an average amount of home runs. If he performs as he typically has over his career, he could be quite a bargain.

Ray King ascended into “bullpen job for life” status with a great season as the Cardinals’ second lefty. The cult hero–if you replaced Lance Painter and Jeff Fassero you would be one, too–was one of the better lefty neutralizers in baseball with the Brewers and the Braves and improved further still in 2004. King’s improvement over his career stems from allowing fewer and fewer long fly balls, and he shut down power hitters entirely in 2004; his isolated power against has fallen from .159 in 2001 to .105 in 2002 to .087 in 2003 to .060 in 2004, while his groundball-fly ball ratio has gone up to 1.90 from 1.74 in his rookie year.

LaRussa’s use of King last year also has something to do with his improvement, which makes me at least somewhat hopeful that he’ll get the most out of Mike Myers. King faced more lefties (113) than righties (105) for the first time in his career.

      %LHB  ERA
2004  51.8  2.61
2003  43.9  3.51
2002  40.1  3.05

He responded by holding lefties to a ridiculous .405 OPS. He’ll have to face more righties, because Mike Myers has a much larger platoon split, but King is in fact perfectly solid against righties, so that’s not a bad thing.

The other big bullpen acquisition was Julian Tavarez. He was a bit of a whipping boy early, signed to a multi-million dollar contract and struggling through April.However, by the end of 2004 he had had his best year ever, despite a groundball-flyball ratio that was his lowest since 1996. The key was a strikeout rate that was his highest since his rookie year, 6.72 per 9 innings. Like King, he also benefitted from LaRussa’s usage patterns; he faced a higher ratio of righties to lefties than he had in some time and held them to a .231/.288/.288 line, a .132 OPS platoon split. He’s historically been a solid reliever; most of his struggles have been in a starting role. As a result, even if he regresses signficantly he should be valuable.

And then there’s the man, Jason Isringhausen. He seemed to be injured all year, hardly ever breaking 91 mph on his fastball–the Cardinals called it a cutter–after hovering around 96 for the previous two years. His knuckle curveball, one of the most cartoony in baseball, seemed to barely ever make it over the plate. And yet he continued to be one of the better closers in baseball, pitching 75 sterling innings and saving 47 games; maybe it really was a cutter after all. Nevertheless, his November hip surgery would seem to confirm that something was wrong. If he manages to throw the fastball and the cutter at the same time, he could enjoy an even better 2005. He’s still overpriced at $9 million, but if you’re going to overpay you might as well do it for someone of this caliber.

The best laid bullpen plans never seem to work out as you expect them to, but the Cardinals seem to have enough depth to be able to counteract any 2003-like problems. It’d be nice if the Athletics returned Tyler Johnson, too.

As Roberto Alomar’s long-rumored move to St. Louis turns out to be a false positive. He would have been a decent bench player, doing the Miguel Cairo/Marlon Anderson pinch-hitting/infielding/pinch hitting role, but it was pretty obvious that, as he still has an outside shot at 3,000 hits, he would take a starting role if he could get it.

Of course, the annoying thing if you’re a fan of baseball is that he signed with Tampa Bay, one of the teams that most definitely shouldn’t be starting an aging middle infielder. Tampa has perhaps the best young shortstop in baseball, B.J. Upton. At nineteen he hit .258/.324/.409 in a 140+ at bat stint in the major leagues, after dropping the minor league hammer in both AA (.327/.407/.471) and AAA (.311/.411/.519.) Yes, he hit pretty much like Edgar Renteria ‘04. Yet, currently, the left side of their infield looks something like this: Alex “The Cubs One” Gonzalez at third base (Seriously.), Julio Lugo at short, Alomar at second. (With another good prospect, Jorge Cantu, languishing as the utility man.)

And the worst part is that they could have this infield instead: Aubrey Huff at third base, B.J. Upton at short, Jorge Cantu at second. That infield would outhit the new-look Devil Rays version starting this year, not to mention the experience their kids would get for the future. But it seems like the Rays are back to their old ways, picking up players that might spike attendance in the short term rather than working to build a winner. Hey, maybe they can get the Crime Dog again!

After Chuck LaMar totally fleeced the Mets and came away with Scott Kazmir in the Victor Zambrano deal, it seemed like maybe their was hope for them yet. But the insane wheelings and dealings they’ve made have somehow made it possible to feel sorry for the team that holds the rights to B.J. Upton, Rocco Baldelli, Carl Crawford, Jorge Cantu, Aubrey Huff, and Scott Kazmir. Unbelievable. If one of Lugo, Gonzalez, or Alomar aren’t traded by July 31, expect rioting around Tropicana Field from the Devil Rays fans who will get to miss their most exciting player in action. If, of course, there are still any left.
(more…)

As Spring Training draws ever closer teams are beginning to dig through the proverbial bargain bin of remaining players, desperate to fill holes whose solutions haven’t materialized as they originally envisioned. Much like what happens to me when I go searching through the $5.88 DVD bin at Wal-Mart, things are a little… shall we say, hit or miss.

The Braves are the most recent example, signing Raul Mondesi to fill the hole vacated in the outfield after Chipper Jones’ move back to third and J.D. Drew’s move to Los Angeles. The Braves had previously been planning to start one of their many advanced hitting prospects in left, even toying with the idea of moving 3B of the future Andy Marte there, Miguel Cabrera style. But GM John Schuerholz, apparently not convinced that anyone was ready to take over full time, decided to go for a proven quantity. Of course, it’s not a bad move, necessarily; the maximum Mondesi can make in 2005 is $2 million, with something in the million dollar range a much better shot at happening.

Raul’s a similar player in value to 2004 Reggie Sanders–moderate average, no walks, good power, speed–which is the tenuous link to the Cardinals that brought about this article. (And in a nice little “Lincoln had a secretary named Kennedy” twist, Mondesi’s known for his outstanding arm but is lacking otherwise, while Sanders is a good fielder with a noodle arm.) And if you’ll notice, he’s going to make about a third as much as Reggie. (Of course, the Buffalo brought a lot of it on himself; skipping out on a team for “family issues” and then skipping out on them when a contender makes an offer kind of hurts your “clubhouse chemistry” ratings.) I don’t think anyone would argue that the streaky Sanders had a great 2004; he was about average for his position, going .260/.315/.482. The question is this: what’s he going to do this year?

At first glance, a bounceback doesn’t seem all that likely; he’s going to be 37 this year, with a history of injury problems and inconsistent performance. When you take a look at his statistics, though, the plot thickens. First, look at his walk rate (On-base percentage minus batting average.) since he turned thirty, with his OPS in parentheses:

30-1998 .078 (.764)
31-1999 .091 (.904) 
32-2000 .070 (.705)
33-2001 .074 (.886)
34-2002 .074 (.779)
35-2003 .060 (.913)
36-2004 .055 (.797)

Look at that–as he has aged, his walk rate has gone down! What does that mean? In 1986, with Toby Harrah coming off of a renaissance season of sorts in which his walk rate surged to a Ted Williams-esque .162, Bill James made a note of something he had long suspected: “I have a theory that when an older player’s walks total suddenly shoots upward, his batting average will decline the next year by at least 20 points—as, for example… Willie Mays in 1971. One of the reasons that walk totals explode like this is that it is a case of a veteran hitter compensating for slowing reflexes by trying to work the count in his favor. That only works for so long; then the pitchers will start making the hitter hit good pitches. We’ll see what happens.” And what happened seemed to validate James; Harrah’s average declined from .270 to .218, and then he was out of baseball.

Sanders, on the other hand, has had no such spike. One of the common guesses as to Sanders’ slump is that his (as Hrabosky often noted) “slider” bat speed was slowing even further. On the contrary, he remains successful in spite of swinging at progressively worse pitches.

Another common indicator of decline is a loss of speed. You can usually eyeball this; a guy misses a grounder he would have been all over three years ago, isn’t able to go from first to third any more, things like that. But there are also statistical methods for doing such things. Speed Scores, another Bill James creation, uses all available statistics that can be considered a measure of speed and uses a complex equation to tie them together. On a scale from 1-10, Reggie Sanders 2003-2004 (two years of data are required, so that a flukey triple number or something like that doesn’t mess up the data) rates a 6. In his career, Reggie Sanders rates… 6.5. Hardly a dramatic decline.

So what does it mean? Well, I, at least, am a good deal more optimistic about the Cardinals getting a good year from Reggie Sanders than I otherwise would have been. (Of course, the projections don’t share my enthusiasm; Bill James’ and Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS both have him treading water next season at his current level. I’ll put in my utterly unscientific projection here: .275/.335/.490. And I would definitely take that.

“Ain’t nothing but 10 grand!”

This ranks right up there with Allen Iverson’s “We’re talking about PRACTICE!” oration on the Image Suicide-ometer, but when has this stopped Randy Moss before? (I’ll forgive him; he almost single-handedly saved my fantasy team from utter devestation after I lost something like six running backs to injury and/or being Michael Bennett.)

But back to baseball, although throwing around thousands of dollars like vending machine money still applies. The Moneyball-esque way of managing your money involves paying the minimum possible to non-stars, like bench players and middle relievers. The Cardinals certainly haven’t been perfect in this regard, but it seems on the surface that our second-line players have been notably millstone-free. I decided to take a closer look.

A cursory going-over of the roster brings up something of a gray area case in Jason Isringhausen. As an ace reliever, and an extremely effective (when healthy) one at that, he doesn’t fit the basic definition of easily-replacable. However, it’s very difficult for any closer to be worth $27 million. Nevertheless, I think 2003 made Cardinals fans everywhere painfully aware of what happens when a team has no go-to reliever. (Or when your go-to reliever is a guy like Cal Eldred, who can be effective but has got to be the Cher of arm surgeries.)

First, a look at the 2003 Cardinals. Here are some of their more prominent non-starters, and their pay:

Miguel Cairo                  $850,000
Joe Girardi                   $750,000
Orlando Palmeiro              $700,000
Eduardo Perez                 $500,000
Kerry Robinson                $320,000

You’ve got to go with the bad news first: the Cardinals doubled the minimum salary to acquire Joe Girardi, not only a former Cub but a former Cub who hit .226 the year before. At least the Cardinals didn’t make the same mistake twice after Girardi couldn’t stay on the field, signing Chris Widger for meal money and a bus pass. Think of it this way: how important is Mike Matheny’s backup? (As Cody McKay proved by not sinking the Cardinals, one would have to be stunningly bad to really harm a team.)

The other moves don’t seem to be out of line; Cairo is an above-average utility infielder, Palmeiro was competent in the outfield, and Eduardo Perez hammered lefties and stood at third base–John Mabry’s mystical platoon mate, perhaps. And if you have to pay Kerry Robinson, $320,000 is as acceptable as it gets. So, I guess that’s good, no real wastes of money the–

So Taguchi                    $1,200,000

I knew I was forgetting somebody! The Cardinals paid another 100 million yen for 59 plate appearances of the Hyogo Prefecture Prodigy. He’s better than Kerry Robinson if you absolutely need a light-hitting sixth outfielder, but that $3,000,000 deal (which came off the books after 2004) has to be chalked up as a rare Jocketty miss.

And then there was the bullpen. I try to avoid talking about the 2003 Cardinals bullpen, as it inevitably brings to mind Pedro Borbon, Jr.’s lurching, awkward delivery and smooth turnaround to watch the ball break the tinted batter’s eye glass in center field. But it has to be done.

Steve Kline                   $1,700,000
Esteban Yan                   $1,500,000 deal signed with Texas 
Jeff Fassero                  $1,250,000
Lance Painter                   $575,000
Cal Eldred                      $500,000
Russ Springer                   $450,000
Jason Simontacchi               $315,000
Kiko Calero                     $300,000
Pedro Borbon                    Minor League Deal, thankfully.

I’m sorry to bring those memories up. Starting with the guys paid substantial money (by the Cardinals), Steve Kline was overpriced, but overpaying a little for quality is a good thing. And without him, Jeff Fassero would have been the First Lefty. And speaking of Fassero, he was way overpriced but few could have expected him to explode as he did. I was in favor of keeping him in the rotation, where he was striking a lot of guys out after being inserted in one of the more desperate times in that dark year.

The rest of this rabble sort of illustrates what happens when you play with unproven guys: you win some, you lose some. Cal Eldred and Kiko Calero, an NRI and a six-year minor league free agent, saved the bullpen from utter meltdown when it was without Izzy, both pitching much better than anybody expected. Russ Springer, Pedro Borbon, et al., on the other hand, were reclamation projects that blew up in the Cardinals’ proverbial face.

So coming into 2004 the Cardinals had two goals for their low budget areas: keep the bench effective after losing most of it, and find a happy medium between unproven and proven-but-expensive relievers. The bench was the result of an extensive series of tryouts among outfielders as varied as Mark Quinn and Greg Vaughn, and middle infielders like Brent Butler, some Rule 5 refugee, and a certain Tony Womack.

Roger Cedeno                  $5,375,000, most of it paid by the Mets.
So Taguchi                    $1,200,000
Ray Lankford                    $650,000
Marlon Anderson                 $600,000
Hector Luna                     $300,000
Tony Womack                     $300,000
Cody McKay                      $300,000
John Mabry                      Minor League Deal

The Cardinals actually got a pretty decent year out of So Taguchi, which would have been bizarre had it not come during Tony Womack’s massive fluke season. Roger Cedeño, on the other hand, wasn’t, no matter how much salary the Mets paid. He also stole playing time from The Ray Lankford, who came back and would have been an outstanding fourth outfielder had the Cardinals not decided he was done out of nowhere midway through the season. John Mabry was another great prodigal son story, returing for (as Rob corrected me) his third stint with the Cardinals and providing a great .867 OPS at the infield and outfield corners.

It’s always nice when a Rule 5 guy plays well enough that the team can stick with him on the 25-man the entire year, and Luna wasn’t just good for a Rule 5′er; other teams paid more for similar production from its last infielder.

The Cardinals managed to accomplish a rare feat, fashioning two successful benches in two years despite having almost no continuity between years. The bullpen was perhaps the bigger surprise, though. Coming into the year it seemed like the Cardinals had overreacted to their cheap players imploding in 2003 by signing overvalued “name” players. When the Julian Taverez signing was announced it was roundly ridiculed. Of course, in hindsight, we know how that turned out.

Steve Kline                   $1,700,000
Julian Tavarez                $1,600,000
Ray King                        $900,000
Cal Eldred                      $900,000
Mike Lincoln                    $450,000

The Cardinals spent a little more per player, but they made up for it in value. The Cardinals still made their share of gambles (and some, like Mike Lincoln until he was hurt, paid off.) What was the difference? Well, these relievers at least had proven in the past that they could play an entire year in relief. They also had some recognized value; Lincoln, for example, was once a well-regarded Twins prospect. One also can’t underestimate the value of two effective lefties in the hands of a bullpen manager like LaRussa.

So, what does 2005 look like? The bullpen is once again stocked with a mixture of proven talent, new veteran faces like Mike Myers, and wildcards like Rick Ankiel. It seems, at the least, to be better off than in 2003, although Myers will be hard pressed to replace Steve Kline. The bench will miss Lankford, and hope that John Mabry will be able to replicate his 2004 performance. It seems like their bullpen success with known talent has rubbed off somewhat on the bench: vet Einar Diaz replaces Cody McKay on the end of the bench.

Not just a horrifying second sequel to the great Major League any more. The Cardinals have now formalized several spring training invites. The roster seems pretty well set, so I’d be surprised if any of these guys crack the 25 man unless there’s an injury. Of course, that’s what I thought about the Second Coming of John Mabry, too. Because there’s nothing else going on in Cardinals land at the moment, I’ll run them down anyway.

RHP Toby Borland: I don’t know how possible it is, but he seems like a poor man’s Al Reyes to me. The sidearmer, who will be 36 next year, has made exactly 64 appearances in the last nine years, after throwing in 69 games for the Phillies all the way back in 1996. You have to admire his perseverance, and league-average relievers are always cool to have laying around. (Bad luck for him: He’d have been the freaking bullpen Savior in 2003.)

Next up is RHP Bob File. He had a great 2001 as a 24-year-old with the Blue Jays, posting a 3.27 ERA in 74 innings. Unfortunately, he had no peripheral skill that made that seem like anything more than a fluke, barely striking out more than he walked. He was out of the majors for most of 2002 and 2003 after he regressed, and managed 24 league-average appearances in 2004. Another low-risk medium-reward pickup; he’s only 27, and he does have a pretty good groundball to flyball ratio, so it’s not all bad news for him.

The last pitcher is former Cubs farmhand Chris Gissell. He joined the Colorado farm system after getting shelled in Iowa in 2002 and has performed exceptionally as a swingman in Colorado Springs, the Rockies’ AAA affiliate, where the park effects can be even more dramatic than at Coors. He’s got great control and a decent walk rate, and will be 27 next year. Not quite sure why the Rockies didn’t want him, actually…

IF Abraham Nunez is probably familiar to most Cardinals fans; he’s the longtime Pirate utility infielder (as opposed to the ex-Marlins prospect of the same name.) He’s a good defensive shortstop with a fantastic arm, a poor man’s Pokey Reese. Unfortunately, he’s also a poor-man’s Pokey Reese with the bat, and will probably be backing up Hector Luna and John Nelson in Memphis.

Hey, it’s Vlad Guerrero! (…’s brother.) IF Wilton Guerrero is best known for that, and for good reason. He’s a decent hitter as far as both utility infielders and star siblings go. Of course, there’s always a catch: the nicest thing you can say about his defense is that he probably is the best defensive second baseman in his family, unless his mom is on the church softball team.

And another sibling; IF Mike Bell, David’s brother. He’s something like this era’s Shane Andrews, with good home run power and a decent batting eye but no batting average whatsoever. He’s also got a cool small sample size major league career line of .222/.323/.444. Maybe the Nationals could have used him; they’ll be extraordinarily lucky if they get a line like that out of Vinny Castilla.

On to the outfielders; I’ll take this time to note that none of them are better than Ray Lankford, and then smirk and back off of the issue. For now. Anyway, up first is Raul Gonzalez. One of several hundred punchless outfielders that the Mets were hoarding in the minor leagues for no apparent reason, he’s a Roger Cedeno injury away from earning a pension as a fifth outfielder. As it stands now, the 30 year old is only one year removed from a gaudy 2003 AAA line (.358/.431/.475) but doesn’t have a great shot at making the roster.

Brandon Berger is anti-Gonzalez. Like Gonzalez, he doesn’t get many major league at bats, is 30, and has hit well in the minors. Unlike Gonzalez, his one discernable skill is raw power. In 2001 he clubbed 40 home runs for the Royals’ AA affiliate, and last year he put up a .909 AAA OPS with a McGwire-esque isolated power (slugging percentage minus batting average) of .349. As cool as it would be to see him go .208/.266/.511 in the majors (and I’m dead serious, that would rock), He’s got little chance of making the roster and instead will look to go Crash Davis on AAA and march towards his 200th minor league homer. (He’s at 158 now.)

So, it isn’t likely that we’ll be seeing any of these guys in St. Louis in April, unless one of them decides to visit the arch or something. But the relievers, in particular, have a good shot to appear at least once or twice next year, and now it won’t be a total shock when Mike Shannon struggles to say “Gissell.” (I still remember wondering what the heck was going on when the Cardinals had some guy named Kiki Calero on the team in 2003.)

The Cardinals have reportedly signed Tony LaRussa to a three year extension.

He’s about as maligned as a guy with 2,114 career victories can get; that’s the penalty one suffers when they’re the first good manager after someone as beloved as Whitey Herzog was. The fact is, though, when LaRussa’s been given a decent team, they’ve performed. (I mean, look at that 1996 team with Ace Donovan Osborne and starting 1B John Mabry, and tell me they should have done as well as they did.)

The article goes on to mention that Robbie Alomar may still be a part of the Cardinals’ plans. If he is he’d be decent for the price as a bench player, but somebody’s going to have to be able to play shortstop behind Eckstein, so it may mean Hector Luna won’t start the year in Memphis after all.

The Cardinals went out and signed a second baseman, just after their New Years deadline. Of course, it had to be my least favorite guy on the list. I basically covered Grudzielanek in the post below this one, but let me summarize: he can’t play defense, he doesn’t hit well out of Wrigley Field, and he basically has no particular redeeming values. The Cardinals spent $1.5 million on a guy who’s pretty much Bo Hart without the sticktoitiveness or whatever it is people loved about Bo Hart.

What bugs me is that they could have gone out another million or whatever, dumped Einar Diaz and Mike Myers for their non-union equivalents, and then had enough money to sign someone like Alex Cora that would actually make this an upgrade. Also, A.J. Pierzynski, whose name is easier to spell and who would be a bigger upgrade over Yadier Molina than Mark G. is over Hart, signed for a whole $750,000 more than Grudzielanek, who really needs a nickname. It just seems like the Cardinals are treading water where they could make some obvious upgrades.

But if he improves as much as Womack did last year, we’re all set.