Him?

I’m not saying the Cardinals made the wrong choice. Randy Keisler is a proven… well, something. He’s empirically proven to have played in the majors, at some point. For the third time on this blog, he resembles fine character actor Steve Buscemi. He’s maintained a relatively solid strikeout rate in AAA.

But he’s so boring. When the newly-contracted ace goes down for an unspecified period of time I don’t want boring. I want a prospect, even though the prospect in question–diabolical supervillain and purveyor of fine changeups Blake Hawksworth–isn’t ready. Keisler is a soft-tossing lefty, and as we all know soft-tossing lefties are only effective against the Cardinals.

But hey, why not. Braden Looper just threw seven scoreless, and Kip Wells is the ace. Let’s throw in Philip Seymour Hoffman while we’re at it.

Speaking of Looper, so far Dave Duncan is doing a pretty good job convincing people he is some sort of demigod. Looper’s throwing high-80s fastballs and the occasional splitter, and he’s doing it to lefties and righties alike. That can’t possibly work forever, right? This is what Trey Hearne’s doing, and we’re not even convinced the pinpoint control voodoo will work in AA.

Where does this fit on the Dave Duncan continuum of amazing? This brings me to what will be a recurring feature, so long as it doesn’t depress me: The Dave Duncan Geniusometer. Kent Bottenfield’s first starting experience since 1993 came in midseason 1998, and his career peripherals as a reliever looked like this:

         G     IP   K/9  BB/9  HR/9
BOTT   154  202.1   6.6   3.3  0.93
BLOOP  315  607.1   5.5   3.2  0.68

Man, Looper never struck people out, but that home run rate is certainly nice. Through their first two starts, they look like this:

       IP   H  ER  K  BB  HR   ERA
BOTT    8   5   3  6   5   0  3.38
BLOOP  13  10   3  6   4   1  2.08

Bottenfield’s first start was a three inning, three run test drive, and his second start was similar to Loop’s start yesterday–little good or bad in the way of peripherals, but he blanked the Chisox over five innings anyway. This is the sort of thing you can do when you keep the ball in the park. In any case, Looper has the clear edge so far. On the geniusometer, this currently ranks a:

10: Glorious, Leonine Mullet

I can’t wait for Surely you’re joking, Mr. Duncan.