Cardinals' First Quarter Review

After 40 games, the St. Louis Cardinals stand at 16-24. That projects to a 64-96 record for the season, not counting the two games they may have to make up later. They're 15th in the NL in runs scored per game, and runs allowed. They simply can't get their shit together. When their starting pitching was good, the offense was dead. Now that the offense seems to be waking up, the rotation is getting clubbed like the proverbial baby seal. But this isn't going to just be about the bad; I'm going to try and look at the good for the Cardinals so far. I'll probably focus more on the good, to be honest, because I am all about the optimism. Whenever I'm not all about cynicism or pessimism that is. I'm not going to say much about the coaching, because I don't really know what they're advising the players to do, so it's hard to critique it too much. I do think TLR needs to stop telling his guys to try and steal so much. I love stolen bases, but this team is freaking terrible at it. Anyway, come along for the ride won't you? Man, that sounds lame.

Rotation:

Positives - Braden Looper. I would never have predicted an ERA below 3.30 after 9 starts for Looper. He's also the only guy in the rotation averaging more than six innings a start. What else? Thompson's had two pretty good starts so far, and four of Wainwright's starts have been quality starts. The Cardinals could have easily won any of Reyes' first seven starts, if they weren't so goddamn incompetent offensively (8 total runs scored in his first 7 starts? WHAT THE FUCK!?). Any other positives? Oh, if they keep playing at this pace, we won't have to worry about LaRussa and Duncan rushing Mulder and Carp back from their surgeries before they're totally ready (you know, in some scenario where the Cards are 3 out of the Wild Card, TLR brings them back to try and make a playoff push, screws up their arms again). Should say something nice about Wells. Hmm, he has lots of movement on his pitches!

Negatives - Wells has great movement, but no control of it. I watched Yady set up low and inside against the Dodgers, only to go leaping across the zone as Wells threw it in the dirt, outside the outside corner. Maybe he has bad eyes, like Rick Vaughn? I'm worried Reyes is going to get frustrated by the Cards not scoring runs when he does pitch well (this isn't a new trend, by the way). Wainwright says his arm hurts; Tony says they hadn't heard anything about this. Whether Wagonmaker's hiding things, or TLR's just trying to make the kid shut up and play by implying he's not really hurting, I don't like it either way. Looper's gonna hit the wall sooner or later. He's 32, never thrown more than 86 innings in a season. What happens when he hits 110 (and the # of pitches thrown that comes with it)? Can Thompson continue to succeed as a starter?

Bullpen:

Positives - Ah, the only part of the game St. Louis has actually been good at this year. Izzy's surprised the hell out of me; I'm not a big fan of his (but I was of Dave Veres; go figure), but he seems to be avoiding those "bring the winning run to the plate" situations he was constantly in last year, and seemingly most of his time with StL. Helps the Cardinals don't have 9th inning leads often enough to overwork him, I suppose. Russ Springer and Ryan Franklin have been much better than I'd figured, though Franklin may be headed to the rotation if Wells doesn't get his shit together (Kip Wells: this year's Sid Ponson?). Flores has been pretty good, and that bases loaded walk against Colorado aside, Tyler Johnson's been pretty much lights out.

Negatives - All the minor league call-ups. Falkenborg, Jimenez, and Dove have combined for 17 and two-thirds innings pitched, but they've given up 19 runs. Ugh. I'm also worried about the relievers getting overworked, which could be a real problem if the starters don't start going at least six innings more often.

Infield Starters:

Positives - Yady's got a .714 OPS, which doesn't sound too special until you remember the .595 he put up last season. Plus, it's an OPS+ of 95, which means he's almost league average! The last time the Cards' catchers was hitting that well was Pagnozzi in 1996 (.734!). For once he avoided an early season slump. Albert's gotten his batting average back up again, he's taking some walks and he's going opposite field with the ball, which is always a good sign, because it means he's taking what the pitcher gives him, instead of trying to pull everything he sees out of the park. Kennedy got his average above .200, and Eck's above .260. Rolen. . . well, at least he's still playing good defense, right?

Negatives - Albert's power still hasn't totally come back, but that may be a result of not getting as many pitches to hit. Nobody to protect him these days. Kennedy's on-base is below .300 (career OBP - .331), and so is Eckstein's slugging (career SLG - .357). And Rolen? Well, I know it's early, but he looks done. Whatever he was doing to hit well in the World Series last year - guessing on pitches and swinging early? - isn't working this year.

Outfield Starters:

Positives - Chris Duncan continues to hit, he's the only starter other than Albert with an OPS+ above 100 (100 being league average). He's also the only person other than Albert demonstrating any power in his swing. Edmonds is starting to hit a little, though he can't pull anything, but that's still better than nothing. "Nothing", in this case, meaning Rolen. Aw, that's mean. Baseball-Reference lists Preston Wilson as starting right fielder this season (most at-bats at the position). The nicest thing I can say about Preston is he did a good job impersonating Juan Encarnacion while Juan was recovering.

Negatives - Like I said, Jim still can't pull the ball. Duncan's starting to see more breaking pitches, especially as LaRussa moves him down in the lineup to protect other guys. We're at a point where we're hoping Encarnacion can turn things around for us. I'm less than convinced. Right field has been a revolving door of mediocrity, at best. I think that about sums it up.

Bench:

Positives - Scott Spezio is hitting a little, making himself the third Cardinal with an above-average OPS. Hooray! So Taguchi was hitting there for a little while (then he stopped). Ludwick, while not terribly effective, was at least a sign Tony was willing to shake things up a little. Aaron Miles basically duplicates Eck and Kennedy's skills, so there hasn't been much drop-off there. Gary Bennett, ummm, has nice facial hair?

Negatives - None of these guys (with the possible exception of Spezio) are very good. Miles is essentially the same player as Eck and Kennedy, just an inferior version, much like So and Skip are the same player. And Preston and JuanEnc. There just seems to be a lot of unnecessary duplication amongst roster spots, guys who all do basically the same thing, but bring little that's unique to the table. I know, then who should they have signed instead? I don't know, I'm just saying it's something I've noticed alright?

So looking ahead, I'm going to predict the offense continues to get more consistently average, and that the starting pitching will turn around (Reyes and Wainer will get things working again. Somehow), hopefully before the bullpen collapses. The Cards aren't going to contend for a playoff spot, but they could at least win 70 games. For whatever that's worth.