St.louis

I'm watching Edward Mujica in the 9th inning. He's recorded two outs and allowed a single that should have been an out had Allen Craig not been so concerned that fist base was going to walk off of its own accord. I was not particularly enamored of Mujica when the Cardinals acquired him from the Marlins. A control artist with solid strikeout rates, he seemed a good solution for the problem of the 7th inning that had been particularly plaguing in 2012. But a solution to the particularly plaguing 9th inning for the Cardinals in 2013? That seems to be a bit more of a stretch. And yet, here we are. I'm inclined to quote poet-philosopher Ryan Theriot when he said, "It is what it is." But it isn't what it was. More specifically, Edward Mujica is having a different season then he's had previously and there appears to be a measurable change in approach. Take a look at pitch selection from 2012 compared to 2013: 2012 2013 Fastball 45.3% 35.4% Slider 9.5% 0.5% Split Finger 45.2% 64.2% Mujica has ditched the slider entirely and scaled back. For all intents and purposes, he's doubled down on the split finger and it has paid off. Mujica has seen his strikeout rate tick up and is also benefiting from even better than usual control. To wit: 2012 2013 Strikeout% 18.2% 26.7% Walk% 4.7% 1.7% There's good reason to wonder if these are sustainable rates. It would be the best strikeout rate of his career (equaled in 2010 with the Padres) and the lowest walk rate since he broke into the majors in 2006. Mujica's stuff, especially given the fireballers currently in the pen like Trevor Rosenthal and Carlos Martinez, is unlikely to become known as a "stuff" guy. His fastball sits in the low nineties (averaging around 92mph) and, despite the impressive results of his split finger, he lacks the eyeball popping breaking ball like an Adam Wainwright curve or a Mitchell Boggs slider. But it would be a mistake to conflate Mujica with the most recent Cardinals closer by default, Ryan Franklin. In a similar way, Franklin earned the role after others failed their way out of it. He was reliable in the sense that you knew what you were getting from Franklin even if what you were getting wasn't very good. Franklin was like a microwaved salmon patty from the store: arguably nutritious, hinting at flavor and suffering from a systemic case of freezer burn. And yet, still filling. Franklin never eclipsed a 20% strikeout rate. His best walk rate was twice what Edward Mujica's current walk rate is. The question of sustainability is a prudent one to keep asking when a reliever overperforms expectations in a small sample size but Mujica's process looks different than in past and his results look better. This isn't smoke and mirrors. There's legitimate fire in the Edward Mujica as closer role. * * * You twist your ankle doing your typical day job activities one day. Your options are to take some time off and try to rest it or to have surgery. Tests indicate that there appears to be a significant problem to your foot but doctors reasonably caution you that tests of this nature (e.g. MRIs) are not full proof. Rather than undergo surgery, which has a host of inherent risks unrelated to your specific injury, you opt for rest and rehab. Things go reasonably well until they ... well, stop going reasonably well. There's going to be a lot of second guessing of bot Jaime Garcia and the St. Louis Cardinals in the wake of his trip to the DL and what sounds an awful lot like portents of season ending surgery. The Cardinals earned some of this with past incidents involving Mark Mulder and Scott Rolen. The reality is more nuanced than any one event and a conservative approach to injuries is warranted in general. It's worth noting that Jaime Garcia was really fucking good over the last few weeks. He had a 3.69 FIP with a 63% groundball rate. Perhaps a more interesting question about Jaime Garcia is

The system goes 2-2 W-L overall. A rarity that you'll find southpaws starting in each game on each level on one night the system had just that. Two of the southpaws Nick Addition from Memphis and Tim Cooney from Springfield had impressive starts and racking up the strikeouts. Memphis 3, Tacoma 4 Memphis is still without Kolten Wong and Oscar Taveras. Brock Peterson only hit was a double. Jamie Romak was 1-2 with 2 walks. Justin Christian the minor league vet was 1-2 with an RBI double and also had base on base. Vance Albitz made up most of Memphis's offense by going 2-4 with 2 RBI's and a double. Nick Addition pitched 6 solid innings allowing 4 hits on 3 earned runs, walked 1, and struck out 9 batters. Marc Rzepczynski pitched a scoreless inning but struggled finding his control as he walked 3 batters. Sam Freeman gave up 3 hits on 1 earned run in an inning of work. Springfield 7, Arkansas 0 *Mike O'Neill has two major abilities getting on base at a superior rate and consistently putting the ball in play using the entire field as did by going 4-5 with a triple, double, and 2 singles. Using the entire field is one of O'Neill biggest assets. *James Ramsey was hitless but walked twice. *Ruben Gotay had a 3-hit game walked once. *Chris Swauger was 3-5 with an RBI. *Xavier Scruggs continues to mash at Springfield just begging to get promotion to Memphis. He went 2-4 with a home run and 5 RBI's. Scruggs now has a slash line of .283/.414/.655 and has slugged 12 home runs with 33 RBI's in only 36 games. *Tim Cooney had the most impressive night as he pitched 6 shutout innings giving up 5 hits only walking 1 and striking out 7 batters. Nice to see Cooney having immediate success at Springfield. Palm Beach 2, Jupiter 5 *Switch hitter Collin Walsh was 1-2 with 2 walks with a stolen base his 4th of the season. Walsh's power may have died in the FSL but at least he's still showing patience at the plate. As he's kept an excellent walk rate of 12.2% but his strikeouts are up by nearly 5 points from last year which suggest he's having a tough time adjusting to facing more advanced pitching. *Stephen Piscotty singled his only knock. *Danny Stienstra continues to be productive for Palm Beach as he hit an RBI single. *Tyler Melling pitched 5 scoreless innings giving up 3 hits, walked 1, and struck out 5 Peoria 7, Clinton 10 Peoria's bullpen imploded in the top of the 9th giving up 5 runs. *Breyvic Valera was a perfect 4-4 with an RBI and single. Nice to see Valera starting to hit again. People got to remember he led the NY-Penn-League in total hits last year. *Ildemaro Vargas was 3-5 with a double. *Patrick Wisdom was 1-5 with an RBI triple. *Carson Kelly continues to hold his own by singling twice. *Kyle Helisiek gave up 11 hits on 5 unearned, 3 earned in 6 innings pitched. *Sam Tuivailala was shelled allowing only 1 hit but gave up 5 unearned runs 4 of them were earned.

With the bases loaded following two walks Image from Brooksbaseball.net

David Freese hit a grand slam on Friday night as the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Milwaukee Brewers 7-6. (more…)

LOS ANGELES - Uh oh. This can't be good. There is already a very serious division between two of the St. Louis Rams newest players, and it's over a very important issue, one central to the identity of the franchise. Tavon Austin and Stedman Bailey were in the team's old stomping grounds this week for the NFLPA Rookie Premiere. They haven't spent too much time with the team yet, but enough that the two nearly inseparable teammates at college and pro teammates have different opinions of who has the most iconic hair feature at Rams Park: Les Snead's hair versus Jeff FIsher's mustache. "Snead's is better," Bailey said. "He looks like a mafia type." His teammate disagreed. "Definitely coach Fisher's mustache," Austin said, taking his stand. Both players spoke highly of the head coach and general manager. There was even some suggestion that each man derived some additional power from their main assets.

As it turns out, intense, unceasing skepticism about Jaime Garcia's shoulder turned out to be the right move. Garcia's back on the disabled list with a shoulder strain, which is bad, but this part is worse: He's worried about it. Surgery-worried. Jenifer Langosch: Garcia said shoulder pain is worse this year than last. He's legitimately concerned about needing a procedure to address the issue. — Jenifer Langosch (@LangoschMLB) May 18, 2013 The amazing thing about Garcia is that his last two starts were exactly as bad as they needed to be to make sure that he continued to be Jaime Garcia. Take a look at his numbers to date, which is how they'll look on the baseball card if he needs surgery: Year Age W L Win-Loss PercentageW / (W + L)For players, leaders need one decision for every ten team games.For managers, minimum to qualify for leading is 320 games." class="tooltip hide_non_quals" align="center" data-stat="win_loss_perc">W-L% 9 * ER / IPFor recent years, leaders need 1 IPper team game played.Bold indicates lowest ERA using current statsGold means awarded ERA title at end of year." class="tooltip sort_default_asc hide_non_quals" align="center" data-stat="earned_run_avg">ERA GS IP H R ER HR BB SO ERA+100*[lgERA/ERA]Adjusted to the player’s ballpark(s)." class="tooltip hide_non_quals" align="center" data-stat="earned_run_avg_plus">ERA+ 9 x H / IPFor recent years, leaders need 1 IPper team game played" class="tooltip sort_default_asc hide_non_quals" align="center" data-stat="hits_per_nine">H/9 9 x HR / IPFor recent years, leaders need 1 IPper team game played" class="tooltip sort_default_asc hide_non_quals" align="center" data-stat="home_runs_per_nine">HR/9 9 x BB / IPFor recent years, leaders need 1 IPper team game played" class="tooltip sort_default_asc hide_non_quals" align="center" data-stat="bases_on_balls_per_nine">BB/9 9 x SO / IPFor recent years, leaders need 1 IPper team game played" class="tooltip hide_non_quals" align="center" data-stat="strikeouts_per_nine">SO/9 SO/BBFor recent years, leaders need 1 IPper team game played" class="tooltip hide_non_quals" align="center" data-stat="strikeouts_per_base_on_balls">SO/BB 2010 23 13 8 .619 2.70 28 163.1 151 64 49 9 64 132 143 8.3 0.5 3.5 7.3 2.06 2011 24 13 7 .650 3.56 32 194.2 207 100 77 15 50 156 104 9.6 0.7 2.3 7.2 3.12 2012 25 7 7 .500 3.92 20 121.2 136 58 53 7 30 98 98 10.1 0.5 2.2 7.2 3.27 2013 26 5 2 .714 3.58 9 55.1 57 26 22 6 15 43 105 9.3 1.0 2.4 7.0 2.87 5 Yrs 39 25 .609 3.45 90 551.0 565 258 211 41 167 437 111 9.2 0.7 2.7 7.1 2.62 Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table Injured or healthy, ball-in-play lucky or unlucky, it's seven strikeouts per nine innings, a solid K:BB ratio, and (not pictured) a high ground ball rate. (In fact, higher in his nine 2013 starts [1.75 per fly ball] than ever before.) Which is why, I guess, I've always been (unjustifiably) optimistic about Garcia's health. His shoulder problems haven't yet pushed him out of the statistical profile that makes him an effective pitcher. Now he's hurt again and Scott Kazmir is throwing mid-90s fastballs, so what do I know? His replacement on the roster is Mitchell Boggs, probably because Ryan Jackson did something truly despicable a few years ago and he knows what it is. Boggs walked five and struck out four in his six AAA appearances, but/and most of the trouble was in his last appearance, when he walked three and allowed two hits in the course of retiring one batter. Six relief appearances—well, that's for the scouts to figure out. His replacement in the rotation might be Michael Wacha, but I'm at least as interested to see what the Cardinals plan on doing, in the medium term, with the three starters (Trevor Rosenthal, Seth Maness, Carlos Mar

The TST commander in chief is in California for the NFLPA Rookie Premiere event. These are the pictures and videos he has taken. He tried to capture the spirit of the thing. Tavon Austin in a Rams uniform for the first time. Stedman Bailey, Keenan Allen and Robert Woods posing in their new uniforms. The new Jaguars helmet up close Many hate on this new helmet, but I find it to be of good quality. Knile Davis is taking a snack break Geno Smith Warming up The WVU Crew Jonathan Franklin doing work Jaguars Offensive Weapon: Denard Robinson (Shockingly, his shoes are tied) Stedman Bailey Dancing Cordarrelle Patterson rocking the Ray Bands Denard Robinson; Investigative Reporter ROLL. DAMN. TIDE. The Future of Da Raiders? Tavon Austin gives the fans in St. Louis a shout out. He's a wee lad isn't he? All kidding aside, Rams nation can't wait to see you take the field. Follow Ryan on Twitter for more pictures and videos.

Ryan Jackson is nothing if not persistent. Earlier this month he was hitting a BAbip-heavy .341 and I suggested he simply didn't have enough gravity, as a Cardinals prospect, to Wally Pipp Pete Kozma so long as Kozma was doing his replacement level thing. In the week-and-a-half since I said that, of course, Kozma has hit for even less power (.233/.314/.267) and Ryan Jackson has hit .486 with six doubles and two home runs. Now he's hitting .385/.453/.525. It's easy to discount Jackson's season so far, and necessary, even though his breakout is now 50 at-bats longer than Kozma's was last year. But the problem, as Bernie Miklasz discussed earlier this week, isn't whether Jackson should replace Kozma, but whether Jackson is good enough to be on the 25-man roster, taking at-bats from him. Toward a Unified Theory of Ty Wigginton The St. Louis Cardinals signed Ty Wigginton because the slower he gets, the more like Ty Wigginton he becomes. That answer is almost certainly yes. But the Cardinals' weird bench construction on the infield has forced them into a situation in which their replacement level is lower in the major leagues than it is in Memphis. Yes: This is another thing that is Ty Wigginton's fault. Ty Wigginton has taken seven more plate appearances than Adam Wainwright. He's played 40 innings on defense. There's a cost to having a Ty Wigginton on your team—one roster spot—that used to be much simpler for teams to absorb. Before bullpens got huge and hyper-specialized you could afford to stash a third catcher or a backup-backup-pinch-hitter who was really just a good clubhouse guy on the 25-man roster, because what were you going to do with 25 men, anyway? In the last 20 years teams have mostly gone with lefty specialists instead of clubhouse specialists. The cost of trying to do both isn't just Wigginton's at-bats—it's the way it makes the positions he's supposed to be backing up worse, the inefficiencies it creates. And the weird thing is that the 2013 Cardinals seem desperate to prove how inefficient he can make them. Every player he touches on the depth chart is locked in a slump—David Freese, Daniel Descalso, Pete Kozma—and every player he's blocking (Ryan Jackson, even Matt Adams) is off to an unexpectedly strong one. Getting regular playing time has been good news for Jackson, who wasn't even assured of a regular job in Memphis after last season. But he's done everything the Cardinals could have hoped he would with those at-bats, and the big league team's absurd bench construction has forced us to think of the Cardinals' infield in terms of Jackson or Kozma when that shouldn't be the question at all. This is the question Ryan Jackson, a 25-year-old prospect with diminished defensive scouting reports and a limited history as a hitter, should be answering: Wouldn't it be nice to have another genuine middle infielder with a little offensive upside to turn to when Descalso, Freese, and Kozma are all struggling?

The one thing I don't like about creating threads using the fanpost option, is the 75-word minimum. Maybe I should be using the fanshot option, but what do I know? Y'all can use this thread to discuss any old thing, but haiku and puns should run rampant. Also, I like gifs, especially funny ones, so anyone wanting to put some of those in should do so. Only five more words to go, now I can publish. The one thing I don't like about creating threads using the fanpost option, is the 75-word minimum. Maybe I should be using the fanshot option, but what do I know? Y'all can use this thread to discuss any old thing, but haiku and puns should run rampant. Also, I like gifs, especially funny ones, so anyone wanting to put some of those in should do so. Only five more words to go, now I can publish.

I've been batting this article around in my head since literally the night playoffs ended for the Blues. Do I write it here, do I write it at my site? Do I write it at all? Am I the only one who has noticed a huge cultural difference between the Blues and Cardinals and how they handle disappointment? Of course, while thinking on this, Bernie Miklasz kind beat me to the punch a little bit. That'll learn me to worry about if bringing the Cards up on Game Time is a good idea or not. In today's post, he wonders why the Blues are so satisfied - they didn't play as well this year as last, they didn't win a single playoff series, and yet Ken Hitchcock and Doug Armstrong put a positive spin on things. In his post, Miklasz writes: Hitchcock seemed offended by the post-series criticism of the Blues. I don’t know why. They blew a 2-0 series lead and lost four consecutive games. The Blues were up by two goals in Game 4 but squandered the lead, the game and the opportunity to go ahead 3-1 in the series. But Hitchcock emphasized that the Blues – after being swept by LA last season – were more competitive this time around. Do you get a trophy for that? "To write off the playoffs and just say it was not good is really not fair to this team," Hitchcock said. I’ll write it: It was not good. Your team had a 2-0 series lead and didn’t win again. And I’m not sure why Armstrong thinks it’s so terrible for fans and media to link the present-day Blues to the franchise’s history of postseason futility. "That’s somebody else’s issue," Armstrong said. "To live in the past and try to exorcise ghosts is irrelevant." Irrelevant? Simply preposterous. Simply correct. The Blues seem to be caught up in this culture of participation. "We did well!" Yes, you did. Making the playoffs should never be a team's goal - winning the Stanley Cup should be. Sometimes you need to be realistic about expectations, sure, but doing so means not building up expectations during the year and then justifying when they fail. Your fans expect you to compete for the Stanley Cup every season. Of course, being Blues fans, we're a realistic bunch. We know what the front office is doing, and for the most part we just accept it. The team's just kind of "happy to be here," and so are we. Believe me, that attitude isn't the best to have, but it's next to impossible to shake. During game five of the NLCS last year, when Lance Lynn beaned the hell out of second base on a botched throw to God-knows-where, I turned to my friend that I was watching the game with and I said this: "Well, that's it. They're done, but they never should have made it this far, so I'm happy." During game six of the 2011 World Series, I kept thinking "well, the Cards tried. This was a really great series, win or lose." In one of those situations, I was spot on. In the other I wound up being pleasantly surprised. In neither was I thinking like the Cardinals organization - I was thinking like the Blues. Later on in his article Bernie, who must be a mind-reader, because I was thinking this same thing writes: The Cardinals have won 11 World Series championships, including two since 2006. And after the Cardinals blew a 3-1 lead to San Francisco in the 2012 NL championship series, manager Mike Matheny and his players were furious and inconsolable. That hasn’t changed. Mention the NLCS to Matheny, and a cold, hard look of disgust appears on his face. Adam Wainwright frequently discusses the anger that remains from losing the NLCS, and how the players use it for motivation. They want to make amends. There’s a profound difference in the standards that the Cardinals and Blues set for themselves. The Blues always promise to do better next year. The Cardinals, even after a situation that in any other season before last year would have been impossible for the team (the second wild card helped), want to make things better. So far th