“[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.