Kennedy to Cardinals: Play me or trade me.

Well, alright. Look, I–let me pull it up. Yeah, I was on the record as stating that the Adam Kennedy signing was a great deal (additional pullquote: “… with Blake Hawksworth and Chris Narveson pretty close to the majors…”), but from every port but the Kennedy Compound that ship has sailed. Since he’s joined the Cardinals he’s played about a full slate’s worth of at-bats, and here’s what he’s done with them:

          AB  R   H  2B 3B HR RBI  BB  SO    BA   OBP   SLG   OPS  ISO
         ---+---+---+--+--+--+---+---+---+-----+-----+-----+-----+----+
TOTAL    594  59 144 24  2  4  48  41  74  .242  .293  .310  .603 .068

Speaking as one of the biggest Adam Kennedy fans in Cardinals fandom… that’s just not a line you want to argue from. Here are the worst team batting lines at second base of 2008:

          AB  R   H  2B 3B HR RBI  BB  SO    BA   OBP   SLG   OPS  ISO
         ---+---+---+--+--+--+---+---+---+-----+-----+-----+-----+----+
KENNEDY  594  59 144 24  2  4  48  41  74  .242  .293  .310  .603 .068
INDIANS  545  70 133 21  4  5  55  62 106  .244  .330  .325  .654 .081 
ATHLTCS  575  68 130 24  3 12  48  65 102  .226  .310  .341  .651 .115  
PADRES   621  71 154 29  1  8  51  52 142  .248  .310  .337  .646 .089  

(The starters in question, there, are youngster Asdrubal Cabrera, Mark Ellis [in limited PT], and seriously off-year Tad Iguchi.)

AK47, I love your defense, your triples-power with the Angels, your loopy swing, and your place in the Jim Edmonds trade, but that is not a starter’s line. It’s not even a major league backup’s line.

Playing with the Cardinals–where there is no hotshot rookie 2B, where the manager loves manipulating platoons and managing marginal veterans, where you might end up in right field–is washed-up middle infielder Valhalla, and given that AK is a guy with a .600 OPS and a guaranteed contract he should focus on not messing that good thing up.