I really, really want to like Jason Marquis. I don’t think I’ve made this clear enough. The New Yawk accent, the hitting ability, the intensity on the mound–heck, the guy wears high socks now. High socks! Unfortunately, he’s got one pitch, and it’s a 91 mph fastball that may or may not be in the strikezone on any given pitch, so liking him is akin to trying to like Rob Schneider for his personality while you watch Deuce Bigalow.

But he drove in a run, he kept going for five innings, and compared to Mark Mulder he’s got AJ Burnett stuff. Or Joe Nathan stuff, if you don’t mind me continuing to drive the throw-him-in-the-bullpen bandwagon around. And for once this season, the Cardinals kept in the game and beat the crap out of an inferior team. Good to see.

Now, to see the Cardinals beat the crap out of one of the best pitchers in baseball. That would be better to see.

For those of you who doubted my pull on the world stage, this popped up in the comments–it appears to have been sent from the e-mail account of a certain recently-retired blogger cum VEB correspondent, but I’m sure he just let Mark use it as a convenience.

Dear Dan,

I’m sorry. I sucked. But my arm felt great, and I felt like I made some progress. I can’t wait to get on the mound again. I know you miss Danny Haren, Barton Fink and Klingon Clerico but I just wanted you to know I want to go out there and do my best. Really, I feel great. Did you know I like golf? I also get lots of chicks and drive a nice car.

Sincerely,
Mark

So that about wraps it up for Mulder, right? I have no idea how people got up the ire to boo the guy as he left the field; watching him pitch with absolutely no stuff has been some of the most undeniably depressing baseball I’ve ever seen. Watching Mulder pitch since his fastball disappeared has been the baseball equivalent of a snuff film, every five days.

Theoretically Swamp Gas could be effective as a LOOGY or do some mop up work for the rest of the year, but there’s absolutely no denying something is still very wrong with the guy’s shoulder. And, in a change of pace that should please Anthony Reyes fans everywhere, Mulder and the Cardinals aren’t denying it. I never liked the trade, but I was a fan, generally, of Mulder the player. I’m still a proponent of resigning him to an incentive laden deal, a la Matt Morris in 2005; the difference between a free agent fifth starter and Chris Narveson isn’t that big a deal if Mulder crashes and burns, and if he doesn’t the Cardinals have a number two starter at a bargain price.

In any case, no more Mulder this year: get it out of your head. Okay, I’ll get it out of my head first. It’ll be nice, right? To not worry every week about whether or not you’ll get a briliant start or a mess that’s harder to watch than all eight hours of Andy Warhol’s Empire? I feel more relaxed already.

Wait–who’s pitching today?

I don’t even care about Haren and Barton and Calero anymore.

Okay, I do. A lot. I mean, there’s a #2 starter and a potential impact bat and a top reliev–Sorry. Sorry.

All I want right now is for you to not throw 85 mph fastballs today. Jamie Moyer’s only allowed to do it because he’s seventy years old, and even then he got pasted yesterday. What you’re going to want to do, I think, is throw the ball hard. And if you can’t–well, bon voyage, enjoy the incentive laden deal from the Cardinals or get Bowden drunk and hit the free agent jackpot or whatever.

But what it comes down to is this: if you’re not healthy enough to throw a major league fastball, you’re not helping the Cardinals at all by coming back this year. Because a guy who can is currently blowing AAA hitters away. And you’re not helping yourself out, either; when the highest praise someone can give an outing is that your shoulder didn’t appear to be bothering you when you were swinging the bat, your value goes down. “He threw batting practice fastballs because he got hurt” is more enticing than “He’s throwing batting practice fastballs because he’s hurt.”

Get well soon. Stop sucking.

Regards,
Dan

Whatever happens happens; if he’s suddenly throwing free and easy and he puts the hurt on the Marlins, great. If he doesn’t, well, I hope he comes cheap enough next year that the Cardinals can roll the dice on him. But at least, one would imagine, there’ll be some measure of closure to the Mark Mulder Mystery Tour of 2006.

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.

After a few weeks of the Cardinals inventing new and painful ways to kill themselves with a novelty that Agatha Christie would admire, it was good to see a twist turn out their way; not only was it a pitcher’s duel, after a period in which the order of the day was to hit the ball hard and pray for long, loud outs, but there were two on the same day that helped the Cardinals.

And one came from Dear Old Matty Mo.

I mean, seriously, that’s gotta be an omen, right? Matt Morris spins a three-hitter to put the Cardinals back on top–but not as a Cardinal? Nice.

Pretty much as expected: Marquis was just below adequate, the Mets won, the Reds won, we’re all tied up. Who’s excited! about! a! pennant! race!? Really, I was told these were supposed to be fun, but so far I’m not seeing it; much better to watch your team cruise to a division title.

That said, maybe struggling mightily in August and coming down to the wire with your young, scrappy competition as a vital cog watches, injured, from the bench is just what the Cardinals need. Certainly being similar to a team that lucked into winning the World Series isn’t resumé-worthy, but I’m still not ready to bury this team–I think it’s pretty obvious at this point that I won’t be until they’re eliminated, mathematically or virtually, from contention. Why?

Because I’m a pollyanna Because this team has

heart. Seriously. So far:

• They’ve played through numerous gigantic, heart-stopping losing streaks.
• Their #3, #4, and #5 pitchers have had worse seasons than could possibly be anticipated.
• Their #2 starter has gone from looking like the pitcher who was a Cy Young contender in the first half of 2004 to throwing what are literally high-school level fastballs, over the span of about a month.
• Top hitters have either slumped (Eckstein), been hampered by injuries (Edmonds), or missed significant time (Pujols.)

And still they play on. It’s not, of course, any consolation for blowing what should’ve been an easy run through the division, but I don’t think they’ve given up, or lost their resilience at all; after watching Mulder suck like that, I expected the team to lie down, but they put the hurt on the Mets instead. (Perhaps, after watching the M & M boys do that all year, they’ve grown used to double-digit deficits.)

I guess it all depends on what all these terms–heart, resilience, stick-to-itiveness, whatever–mean. Heart, as far as I know, doesn’t make up for bad DIPS luck or a missing fastball, or wearing down over the course of the season. If it means a loose clubhouse and lots of comradery, maybe they don’t have it. If it means playing over their heads, it’s a strictly Chris Duncan phenomenon. But if it means, on a game-by-game basis, absorbing beatings and coming back with their best stuff, such as it is, they’ve got it. And the assumption I’m going on, the one I’ve gone on all year, and the one I’ll go on until we have the final standings in hand, is that the Cardinals’ best stuff will eventually be better than that of the rest of the NL Central.

So, one more month and we should know. I can deal with it; with football season coming up, I won’t invest myself emotionally into a team again until… well, next April. Oh, baseball.

On an unrelated note, MILB.com, the official minor league website, has completely overhauled its player pages. Where once there was a no-frills line of statistics there is now a full-sized player card, complete with tons of splits and other useful information. Check it out. They’re so great they’ve moved me to refresh (finally) Coming Attractions, which should hopefully be done in time for tomorrow’s update. And oh yeah, buy shirts.

Since it seems they’re finally starting to sell, I thought I’d pass this along from GUB Merch partner Spreadshirt: until the 28th, you can get your very own Jason Simontacchi t-shirt at 15% off the regular price. Just type “SUMMERSALE06″ into the coupon field at checkout. Click on this banner, or the one on the sidebar, to go to the store and make me gamblin’ money.

Unqualifiably bad outing; this was the same pitcher that got reamed in Chicago, only he threw a few miles an hour harder. Shut him down.

Here’s a list of things related to baseball that Jose Vizcaino is good at:

That about covers it. He’s a terrible offensive player, and he’s a terrible defensive player; in that most classic of baseball catch-22s, he’s only allowed to play shortstop at this point in his career because his offense is so bad that he has to be a solid defender still, right? Brad Ausmus theory at its finest.

These are the moves that make me mad, moreso than Izzy blowing saves or La Russa pulling Duncan for Encarnacion. This is a team that needs every run it can get, but it’s avoided John Gall, signed Gary Bennett, and brought up Timo Perez; the bench is where you should be able to improve a little on the cheap, but the Cardinals have never bothered doing it. At this point in his career Vizcaino is probably a worse shortstop than Junior Spivey, who hasn’t played there in several years, and he’s so useless at the plate that Jorge Sosa will probably have to come in and pinch hit.

In any case, it’s time for Mulder to prove everybody on earth wrong. I don’t know if I do, but I want to believe.