SB Nation St. Louis: All Posts by Nathan Grimm

What The St. Louis Cardinals Should Make Of Kyle Lohse's Stellar Contract Year

2012-07-28T14:00:10Z

We've seen this act before, but this year's performance is surprising even for Kyle Lohse.

After missing out on the big bucks during free agency back in 2008, Lohse signed a one-year, $4.25 million deal with the St. Louis Cardinals in the middle of Spring Training. He proceeded to outperform his contract and everybody's expectations in a big way, leading Cardinals general manager John Mozeliak to sign him to a four-year, $41 million extension at the end of the '08 season.

The results of that contract have been a mixed bag of not-so-good and fairly impressive seasons, but when his contract expires it's all-but-certain that Lohse, in terms of wins above replacement (WAR), will have underperformed given his salary. But, as I said, we've seen this storyline before: in this, his walk year, Lohse is pitching like a guy who deserves to be paid.

I don't want to even begin to speculate what Lohse would command on the open market. Some very high-profile pitchers have been paid a ton of money in the past few months (more below.) He's not on that level, but the market they've set will certainly raise his asking price this winter. If nothing else, Lohse will be receiving a raise from the $11.875 million he's making this season. The number of years will be an interesting negotiation as well.

The reasons the Cardinals should let Lohse walk aren't limited to the idea that those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Lohse may actually be pitching so well that he's sealing his fate in St. Louis.

The Cardinals have spent years and many draft picks building up a farm system that was left barren by poor drafts and expensive (prospect-wise) trades for major league talent. A decade's worth of contending teams suggest the system was decimated for a worthy cause, and fans of good baseball would be hard-pressed to disagree. But mid-market teams, like the Cardinals believe themselves to be, can't live like that forever.

Continuously successful mid-market teams rely on acquiring and developing young talent with the select expenditure added when possible. It's the formula the Tampa Bay Rays used to build a winning franchise. The New York Yankees paid $2,134,515 per win last season; the economical Rays paid just $463,421 for each of theirs. Inexpensive talent is absolutely critical to the success of mid-market teams.

With that in mind, Mozeliak & Co. made it a point to begin accruing young talent, power arms in particular. A few years later, those efforts are beginning to pay off in the form of Lance Lynn, Joe Kelly and Trevor Rosenthal. Minor leaguers Shelby Miller, Carlos Martinez and Tyrell Jenkins are close behind. The Cardinals suddenly have one of the most impressive stables of young arms in baseball.

If the Cardinals are to continue to field a winning team, those young arms will play a vital role. History has shown us that it's unrealistic to expect all those arms to develop into major league contributors, but the odds of at least one of them becoming a passable member of a major league rotation are considerably better. Lynn is Exhibit A. In 2008, his best year as a Cardinal to date, Lohse posted a fWAR of 3.1. So far this year, Lynn has already posted a fWAR of 2.3 and, assuming he continues to pitch close to the level he has thus far, will probably provide another win before the season is over. For $11 million less, Lynn has been just as productive as Lohse this year.

Lohse's age is also an issue, albeit not as large an issue as it may seem. Because he relies more on weak contact than strikeouts, the loss of velocity that comes with pitcher aging is less of a concern for a pitcher like Lohse. In fact, by the end of the season Lohse will have actually posted two of the highest fWARs of his career in the last two seasons. But Lohse isn't a freak of nature. The fact is that pitchers get worse, not better, the further they get from 30.

Even if it's expected that Lohse won't drop off a cliff, any regression in coming years would greatly impact his value. As said, his ceiling is about a 3-win pitcher; his floor is a replacement-level starter. To justify a contract that averages eight figures per year, Lohse would have to be at or near his 2012 level for the duration of the deal. And the harsh reality is that over the course of his career he's proven to be closer to replacement level than his contract year performances suggest.

Adam Wainwright has proven quite the opposite. Wainwright is in the discussion of the game's true aces, and in short order he will want to be paid like one as well. In early April, Matt Cain was given a six-year, $127.5 million deal, averaging just over $21 million per year. Just this week the Phillies signed Cole Hamels to a six-year, $144 million deal, or approximately $24 million per year. Wainwright will be in that ballpark. He's making $9 million this year and $12 million next, so a conservative guess would be that Wainwright would receive a $10 million raise in 2014.

The Cardinals aren't in a terrible spot here. Lance Berkman's $12 million will be coming off the books after this year, and both Carlos Beltran and Chris Carpenter will likely be gone after next year. The Cardinals will have the funds to pay Wainwright. But Matt Holliday will still be making $17 million annually, and Yadier Molina will make no less than $14 million each year until 2017.

There's also no telling how much guys like Allen Craig, David Freese, Jon Jay, etc., will command in the coming years. Like cheap pitching will help in coming years, cheap hitting has allowed the Cardinals to contend the past few years. Soon, that cheap hitting will be less cheap. The more the team can save on marginal upgrades to the back end of the starting rotation, the more it can afford to keep around elite-level pitchers at the front end.

There's no doubt that Kyle Lohse is having a spectacular season. Even though he'll turn 34 in October, Lohse is a nice pitcher who will almost certainly get paid by someone. But the Cardinals are in a position where they don't need to be, nor do they have the luxury of being, one of his suitors.

Poll

Should the Cardinals resign Kyle Lohse after the 2012 season?

Yes—pay the man!

35 votes

No—pay somebody else!

100 votes

135 votes | Poll has closed

Luckily For The St. Louis Cardinals, Adam Wainwright Is Still Good At Pitching

2012-07-21T18:34:25Z

If the playoffs began today, the St. Louis Cardinals would have a whole slew of problems, starting with the fact that they would be watching from the outside.

But it's about this time that people start using sentences beginning with, "If the playoffs started today..." to discuss where a certain team would finish or which teams would play each other in the first round of the playoffs. A recent discussion on a local sports talk radio show centered on that idea, asking which Cardinals starter would start the first game of a playoff series if said series began in July.

I think the question is as asinine today as I did when I first heard it. This isn't multiple choice. It's barely even a discussion. The answer is Adam Wainwright.

It hasn't always been. Wainwright had an undeniably rough first month-and-a-half that opened him up to questions about his arm, both strength and control, following Tommy John surgery. After his May 17 start at San Francisco, Wainwright had given up seven home runs in eight games while compiling a 5.77 ERA and 1.55 WHIP.

His May 22 start against the Padres was memorable for a few reasons. The complete-game shutout was certainly notable. But after the game, Wainwright got visibly emotional talking about the feat, his first shutout since Aug. 6, 2010. It had been a long road back from elbow surgery, and Wainwright once again felt like the pitcher he used to be. If only for a night, Wainwright was an ace.

But instead of being an outlier, Wainwright's start became a jumping-off point. Since that start, Wainwright has a 3.61 ERA and 1.15 WHIP while recording a quality start in seven of his 11 starts. Arbitrary endpoints? Maybe. But it's possible that something seemed to click in that complete game dominance, Padres or not.

The advanced statistics help bring everything full circle. In his 20-win season in 2010, Wainwright's fielding-independent pitching (FIP) mark was 2.86, thanks in part to an above-average HR/FB rate of 7.9 and a LOB% of 79.1 percent. With that home run rate adjusted for the league average, Wainwright had an expected FIP (xFIP) of 3.02, still fantastic as pitchers go.

Through Wednesday's game, Wainwright's FIP was 3.26, but he had an adjusted xFIP of 3.05 -- which would be the second-best of his career if it held. Due to an unusually high HR/FB (I wrote about that earlier this year) and an unusually low LOB% his other numbers don't match up with where he was before Tommy John, but the fact remains: Wainwright is basically back to being his former self.

There are still signs he's not entirely the Wainwright of old. Wainwright still struggles to go as deep into games as we grew accustomed to in those dominant 2009 and 2010 seasons, and his velocity is still a tick or two below where it used to be. These things are to be expected when building up arm strength; given time, Wainwright should at least come close to his former velocity. None of his pitches are as dominant as they had been, either, but his fastball and curveball both being positive-value pitches is cause for optimism.

In asking which pitcher would start a Game 1, one need not even disparage Kyle Lohse or Lance Lynn to make the point. Lohse and Lynn have been fantastic, and either would certainly be the best pitcher in a number of rotations this year. But there's no question that the 2010 version of Adam Wainwright would take the mound for almost any team in the first game of the playoffs. And if we're to believe what we see and what the numbers tell us, that Wainwright and this year's model are quite similar. After a year and a few months of wondering what a post-surgery Wainwright would look like, we've got our answer.

Adam Wainwright is back.

The St. Louis Cardinals' Hunt For A Competent Second Baseman

2012-07-12T14:00:21Z

No position on the St. Louis Cardinals, maybe no position in all of baseball, has been as big a revolving door as second base at Busch Stadium in recent years. Since Fernando Vina left after the 2003 season, the position has been a turnstile for one-year stopgaps and replacement-level fill-ins. The fact that Vina is referred to as the model of position stability explains all anyone needs to know about the team's inability to find a long-term solution. Four straight years might as well be a lifetime.

This year's crop of second basemen has proven to be more of the same, with each of the three candidates possessing notable flaws. Daniel Descalso doesn't hit much. Tyler Greene doesn't catch or hit much. And, unless there's been a recent development, Skip Schumaker woke up this morning and was still Skip Schumaker. Even though Kolten Wong is on the horizon, he won't be here soon enough to contribute in 2012.

The popular sentiment among Cardinal Nation is that Schumaker is the best option at the position. A lot of the eye tests would back up that claim. A guy who posts a batting average constantly around .300 and rarely has egregious errors charged to his name is, on the surface, a good player. Defensive shortcomings aside - and, with apologies to your eyes, by pretty much any defensive metric he's well below average - it's his offense that actually presents a problem as a major league starter.

Batting .300 has pretty much always been the litmus test for a major league ballplayer; hit at or above it and you're a great hitter, hit below it and you're not. Skip's .290 lifetime batting average has ensured him a permanent spot in some old school baseball guys' lineups, but fortunately for fans of good baseball everywhere the emergence of new statistics have allowed us to look at baseball players' numbers from a variety of angles.

One of the more interesting new ideas is the empty batting average. As I've learned more about baseball and which players supply the most value, I've found that empty batting averages often make boring players seem a lot less boring. If Daniel Murphy is the poster boy for empty batting averages, Skip is his body double.

Empty batting averages is the idea that all batting averages aren't created equal. The formula is simple: take a player's isolated power (slugging percentage minus batting average) and add it to his isolated discipline (on-base percentage minus batting average). The resulting number gives a good idea of what kind of hitter a player is beyond his ability to hit singles; like batting average itself, the higher the number the better. Whereas a real second baseman and professional hitter like Dustin Pedroia has posted a career IsoD + IsoP of .224, Skip's is .145. For reference, major league second basemen are posting a .187 as a whole in 2012.

Many players with empty batting averages have another redeeming quality, though - speed. Major league teams tolerate empty batting averages from guys like Juan Pierre because they contribute in other ways, mainly by stealing bases and scoring runs. And even then, those guys steal a lot of bases. And they score a lot of runs.

Skip does neither. For his career, Schumaker has stolen 19 bases in 748 games. More importantly, Schumaker, even in the years he spent leading off, has never scored more than 87 runs in one season. In 2008, his 87-run season, Schumaker started and hit leadoff in 143 of his 153 games played. He was still only 57th in the league in runs scored. And he wasn't hitting leadoff for a team devoid of offense, either - that 2008 club had the third-highest wRC+, 107, in the league that year. Schumaker didn't struggle to score runs because of his teammates; rather, he struggled in spite of them.

If Schumaker is successfully ruled out as an everyday option at second base, Descalso becomes the clear if unattractive choice at the position. But the imminent return of Lance Berkman offers another, riskier option: sliding Allen Craig over to second base. It's a position he's played previously. While he missed time recently with a hamstring injury, the knee injury he suffered in 2011 is over a year old. And although he's no Miguel Cabrera, his bat has the ability to offset any negative value he carries on defense.

Manager Mike Matheny was originally insistent that Craig would not be viewed as an option at second base, but the recent use of fellow reformed third baseman Matt Carpenter at the position suggests Matheny might be willing to reconsider his stance. The fact that he took ground balls at second while rehabbing from his hamstring injury is also cause for optimism. In the end, it will be tough for Matheny to keep Craig's bat out of the lineup, especially if the offense struggles or incurs more injuries.

Whichever way the position goes, it's clear that the team will have to wait another year to hopefully find a permanent solution to the problem. Get here soon, Kolten Wong.

The St. Louis Cardinals, Center Fielders And Former Center Fielders

2012-06-22T12:30:09Z

Like most things these days, the inspiration for this post came from Twitter. Following the St. Louis Cardinals' loss Tuesday, I saw a tweet positing that the recent struggles of the team paired with Colby Rasmus's surge would surely lead to a number of 'the Cardinals should have kept Rasmus' articles. While I've been keeping tabs on Rasmus in Toronto and have obviously seen firsthand the Cardinals' impotent offense, it got me to thinking: just how much might the 2012 Cardinals be missing the 2012 Rasmus?

Last week, I touched on the idea that sometimes a prospect or player is most valuable to a team as a trade chip. Such was the case with Rasmus in 2011. By moving Rasmus and some spare parts, the Cardinals were able to add a mid-level starting pitcher at a time when makeshift starter Kyle McClellan was faltering, a right-handed reliever to stabilize a bullpen that relied entirely too much on Miguel Batista and a lefty specialist who allowed Brian Tallet to return to his position as general in the Confederate Army. And, uh, Corey Patterson.

The trade was panned nationally at the time. Rasmus was the kind of collection of tools that prospect guys love; the Cardinals' return was an underwhelming collection of names and past performances that nobody loves. But winning a championship is the ultimate example of the adage, "the end justifies the means." No matter how much or little impact you think the trade had on the Cardinals - and honestly, if you think it was negligible then you weren't paying attention - you can't separate the trade from the championship.

What the trade did going forward, though, is considerably weaken the team's depth in center field. The team made the trade because they were dealing from a position of strength - Jon Jay was outperforming Rasmus before the trade, and the deal served the dual purpose of acquiring help and freeing up an everyday role for Jay. And Jay has continued to perform in a way that suggests the organization's faith is justified.

He's performed well when healthy, that is. After playing in 159 games in 2011, Jay has only been a part of 27 of the Cardinals' 69 games in 2012. His return seems imminent; he's currently hitting and running and catching on a rehab assignment at AAA Memphis, and he might even be back with the Cardinals before the end of the road trip.

In his stead, five different Cardinals (including a few Memphis Redbirds) have filled in. Shane Robinson, one of those Redbirds, has logged the most plate appearances as the Cardinals center fielder, making 88 plate appearances over 24 games. Skip Schumaker, Adron Chambers, Carlos Beltran and the fleeting Erik Komatsu have also made cameos in center in Jay's absence.

Perhaps not surprisingly, center field hasn't been a source of much offense in 2012. Even with Jay's gaudy early-season numbers, Cardinals center fielders have posted a .317 wOBA this year. (I had to do this number by hand using the computations for wOBA from the 2011 season, so allow for some variance. Still, it's specific enough to make the point.) The league average for center fielders in 2012 is .329. (Hat tip to my internet best friend Rui Xu.) The Cardinals' number represents the second-lowest wOBA of any position on the team besides pitcher, ahead of only the chronically bad production received from second base.

Rasmus, on the other hand, has excelled in his first full season above the border. He started slow but has rebounded in recent weeks, as evidenced by his .348 wOBA. (Again, to be fair to the integrity of the post I did this math by hand using the same parameters as with the Cardinals center fielders - if the numbers are off, at least they're off by the same amount.) By FanGraphs' count, Rasmus has also played above average defense in centre (in Canada they spell things wrong) and has been a positive on the basepaths. If there was concern about giving up on a talent like Rasmus so relatively soon, he's showing why.

The good news is that relief is on the way. According to those in the know, Jay could be back with the Cardinals by the time you read this. As previously stated, Jay was hitting everything pre-injury, so while he can't be expected to continue putting up those numbers it's fair to assume the Cardinals will receive more production from center field in the coming months. The impact Jay's return will have to the top of the order, where Rafael Furcal has been struggling mightily of late, can't be understated either.

Teams make trades because you have a need and, often, are dealing from a surplus. The Cardinals identified that they had multiple needs and two above average center fielders and acted accordingly. On July 27, 2011, the Cardinals had no way of knowing Jay would run into a wall 10 months later. Would the Cardinals have liked to have Rasmus back, especially while cycling random journeymen and minor leaguers in and out of center field? Sure. And if the team misses the playoffs in 2012 due at least in part to a bad stretch in early June, center field will be one of the areas that led to the team's demise.

But 2011 may not have happened, either. And you'd be hard-pressed to find many Cardinals fans willing to trade a 2011 championship, no matter how much a 2012 Rasmus might help.

The St. Louis Cardinals And The MLB Trade Deadline: An Appeal For Patience

2012-06-14T14:37:46Z

The 2011 St. Louis Cardinals may be the 2012 Cardinals' worst enemy.

That 2011 club rose from the dead in late August, exceeding everyone's expectations in the process and reinforcing the idea that, in sports, anything is possible. It's also given baseball fans a rallying cry come the July MLB trade deadline, urging their favorite team not to give up so easily on the season because—hey, look what might happen.

But dreams are just that. The 2011 Cardinals happened. So did the 2011 Tampa Bay Rays, a team that needed to reel off five straight wins to close the season just to clinch a playoff spot. A team that charged into said playoffs on the strength of a game-162, 12-inning walk-off victory. And, riding that momentum, they took Game 1 of the ALDS against the terrifying Texas Rangers behind the left arm of 22-year-old rookie Matt Moore. The team couldn't lose.

Until they did. In three consecutive games. A season's worth of hard work, not to mention two months' worth of momentum, washed away in the course of four days in early October.

Maybe the more important case study from 2011 was the San Francisco Giants. Unlike the Cardinals and the Rays, the Giants did not make the playoffs last season. No inspired run. No September magic.

What the Giants did do, though, was take their best shot at a playoff berth. On July 27, the Giants agreed to send pitching prospect Zack Wheeler to the New York Mets in exchange for Carlos Beltran. And Beltran performed as advertised, posting a .920 OPS after the trade but also missing 13 games in mid-August due to injury. The Giants missed the playoffs by four games.

Wheeler, on the other hand, has established himself as a top prospect. The No. 52 prospect on Baseball Prospectus's Kevin Goldstein's list prior to 2011, Wheeler came in at No. 30 this year. He's putting up great numbers for the Mets' AA affiliate, and it seems only a matter of time before he's starting for the big club.

This is a cautionary tale. Not every prospect reaches his potential (and Wheeler still might not.) And when a team wins the World Series, like the Cardinals did in 2011, trading young talent like Colby Rasmus is justified as a necessary sacrifice. It may not be fair to judge a trade on results, but hey, it's a results-driven league. John Mozeliak is a genius and Brian Sabean is a goat.

The Cardinals are, on paper, talented enough to make a run at another World Championship. But inconsistency and injuries have found them in the middle of the pack in the NL Central. While there's certainly enough time left to break out and separate themselves from the pack, both the Cincinnati Reds and the Pittsburgh Pirates look to have enough offense and pitching, respectively, to stick around until the end.

As the trade deadline approaches, the Cardinals are in that very dangerous spot between contender and pretender. An underwhelming division and the advent of a second wild card will tempt the Cardinals to go for it; their fans will see no reason why they shouldn't. But part of being a good general manager - and I think John Mozeliak has proven that he's better than many - is knowing when to shove all the chips into the middle of the table and when to fold your hand.

This is an argument, not for the latter, but for a level-headed assessment of your 2012 St. Louis Cardinals.

The Cardinals are in a unique position, maybe the most enviable position of any team in the majors. They've got a roster capable of winning this year and a minor league system ready to help them win for many years to come. It's a far cry from the system in the early 2000s, when poor drafting and yearly attempts at contending left the system bare. The Cardinals, as an organization, are looking up.

Maybe fixing the Cardinals' 2012 problems is as easy as acquiring a LOOGY, a mid-level starting pitcher and a bullpen arm. The Texas Rangers thought Mike Adams might be the missing piece for their bullpen in 2011. In exchange for Adams, the Rangers sent two pitching prospects, Robbie Erlin and Joe Wieland, to San Diego. Adams couldn't help get the Rangers to the promised land. Erlin and Wieland were the No. 2 and 5 prospects, respectively, in Goldstein's ranking of the Padres' system before 2012. Even bullpen pitchers come with a cost.

The problem is that the Cardinals system seems to have a noticeable divide between untouchables and those whom other teams would prefer not to touch. In a lot of minds, Shelby Miller, Oscar Taveras, Carlos Martinez, Kolten Wong and Tyrell Jenkins profile as above average major league players. Matt Adams, Zack Cox, Trevor Rosenthal and Jordan Swagerty have a chance to be. Everything after is fairly pedestrian, players who may not be suitable as throw-ins in a trade, let alone centerpieces.

What would a trade package for a worthwhile return look like? Do you include Miller or Taveras and cross your fingers that they don't become superstars? Do you trade Wong and continue to search for a long-term answer at second base? Do you move Adams, Cox or Rosenthal and begin stripping what is widely considered one of the five best minor league systems in baseball?

Jeff Luhnow made the point that as a member of the front office responsible for drafting players, sometimes you recognize that the best way a prospect can help his club is as part of a trade that fills other needs. Baseball Prospectus' Jason Parks writes a feature entitled "Prospects Will Break Your Heart." There are endless examples of prospects dealt early in their careers who didn't pan out. If you're looking for reasons to wave off the notion that prospects are valuable entities, you don't have to look far.

But teams certainly remember the ones who got away. Jeff Bagwell was one. John Smoltz was, too. (The Smoltz trade, from Detroit to Atlanta in exchange for Doyle Alexander, may be the best example of when well-intentioned trades go wrong. Alexander was fantastic after the trade, going 9-0 with a 1.53 ERA in 88.1 innings down the stretch for the Tigers. He was better than anything the Tigers could have imagined they were getting in the deal. Unfortunately, they still lost to the Twins in the ALCS. Smoltz went on to become, well, Smoltz.)

It's an admittedly conservative approach, holding onto prospects when the opportunity to win is within reach. It's also probably an unpopular one. But those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it. The Cardinals do have a chance to reach the mountaintop again this year, but they've also got the possibility to fall apart, deal or no deal. Sometimes you've got to know when the odds are stacked against you. And as someone who would like to see the Cardinals have success that extends beyond this October, the right play this time might be no play at all.

MLB Draft 2012: The St. Louis Cardinals' Cape Cod League Fatal Attraction

2012-06-07T13:45:05Z

Sometime shortly after the St. Louis Cardinals selected Stanford third baseman Stephen Piscotty with the No. 36 pick in this year's MLB Draft, it became clear to anyone paying attention that the Cardinals had, for lack of a better term, shown their cards a bit. The scouting report given by the MLB Network included the fact that Piscotty led the Cape Cod League in hitting in 2011. James Ramsey, the Cardinals' No. 23 pick in the same draft, was also a standout performer in the Cape League last year. A trend was becoming clear.

Only after taking to Twitter with jokes about the Cardinals' Cape Cod preference did I realize that it wasn't an isolated occurrence. Both St. Louis Post-Dispatch beat writer Derrick Goold and former Cardinals.com beat writer Matthew Leach were quick to point out how often the Cardinals go to the well for Cape Cod League alumni. As the draft went on, so, too, did the Cape League graduates—Wake Forest pitcher Tim Cooney in the 3rd round, Arizona pitcher Kurt Heyer in the 6th, Boston College shortstop Anthony Melchionda in the 14th.

The point here isn't to denounce drafting players from the Cape Cod League. On the contrary, many of this year's high picks played there last year, including No. 3 pick Mike Zunino, No. 5 pick Kyle Zimmer, and No. 9 pick Andrew Heaney. The list of Cape Cod alums is vast and impressive. The league is a destination for many of college baseball's best players and the level of competition is unquestioned.

Instead, the point is to assess the job the Cardinals have done drafting players from the Cape League in recent years. What percent of early picks have been Cape Cod League alumni? And how successful have they been in the pros?

I had to set some parameters, so an arbitrary endpoint alert is in effect. I decided to go back to the 2005 draft, former Vice President of Player Procurement Jeff Luhnow's first running the draft in St. Louis. The Cape Cod League statistics go back to 2000, and while two first-round picks from 2001 to 2004 were Cape League alums (2001 pick Justin Pope and 2004 pick Chris Lambert) I think the change in philosophy is a good place to start. I also only went five rounds deep in each draft—still high enough that players could be expected to have a reasonable chance of reaching the big leagues (relatively, knowing that the majority of players realistically have a microscopic chance of making it.)

That cross-section left me with 56 players drafted in the first five rounds since 2005, including this year. Of those, 19 played in the Cape Cod League the previous summer. That's roughly one of every three picks in the first five rounds since 2005. Don't ask how that compares to the rest of the league. I'm a man, not a machine, and I'm a man who doesn't know how to make a machine run those numbers for me in a way that's easy to understand.

What's more important is the professional careers of those 19 players. In the interest of being fair, let's give those drafted from 2009 to present - players that can reasonably still be considered prospects - a free pass. We'll discuss them in a bit. Looking at the nine players drafted from 2005-2008, three have made their major league debut as of this writing.

Those three players—Tyler Greene, Adam Ottavino and Mark Hamilton—have a combined WAR of 0.1. Mark McCormick and Nick Webber are out of baseball. David Kopp reached AAA in 2011 but isn't a noteworthy member of the Cardinals organization. Kyle Russell, a 4th round pick in 2007, went unsigned and was drafted by the Dodgers in the 3rd round in 2008; he's still floating around their minor league system. Shane Peterson was traded to the Oakland A's in the Matt Holliday deal in 2009 and is with their AAA affiliate. Jermaine Curtis currently plays for AAA Memphis.

As stated, the issue isn't the number of players who have graduated to the majors from those drafts; it's the value that those players have provided that is a problem. I think Tyler Greene has the chance to be at least league-average, but the fact remains he'll turn 29 this August and hasn't produced much at the major league level. Adam Ottavino might stick as a decent bullpen option in Colorado, but bullpen arms rarely provide much WAR and shouldn't be first-round picks. Mark Hamilton is most likely a Quad-A player.

The outlook for the future is more optimistic. The Cape Cod alums drafted from 2009 on include Joe Kelly, Zack Cox, Jordan Swagerty and Kolten Wong, all four of whom appear on FanGraphs' most recent ranking of the organization's 15 best prospects. Others include catcher-turned-pitcher Robert Stock, supplementary pick Seth Blair, and recently unsuspended catcher Cody Stanley. Wong in particular has the looks of a player who will break the Cape Cod Curse, crushing AA pitching on the fast track to Busch Stadium. For whatever reason, the recent selections seem to have more potential for major league success than those in the early years.

It's often said that expectations of picks, even those in early rounds, should be tempered—that if Ramsey turns into Skip Schumaker (whom he was compared to by MLB Network on draft night) it wouldn't be a disaster. On the contrary, if Ramsey produces 2.9 WAR in his career it will be viewed as a victory for the Cape Cod contingent.

Derrick Goold did an excellent piece using eerily similar parameters to illustrate the organization's ability to draft players capable of reaching the majors during the Luhnow Years, as he labeled them. The takeaway from that article is that while quantity is nice, quality is just as important. The Cardinals have struggled to get either from their Cape Cod selections up to this point.

Scouting and drafting players from the Cape Cod League will be very important for the organization going forward. And whether it's scouting, developing or some combination of both that's plagued the Cardinals in recent years, it's a problematic trend. Whatever strategy they're using to evaluate the Cape Cod League, it may be time to rethink it.

When Guessing Meets Amateur Punditry: A Look At Some Scenarios For The St. Louis Cardinals In Tonight's MLB Draft

2012-06-04T16:13:18Z

Heading into the MLB Rule 4 Draft this evening, the possibilities for the Cardinals at picks No. 19 and 23 are virtually endless. The exercise here is to look at what I would deem to be the best, worst and most probable scenarios in tonight's first round. All three will deal in plausibilities - projecting Mark Appel and Byron Buxton to the Cardinals is, by definition, probably the best-case scenario, but wouldn't happen even if the other 29 GMs were replaced by...someone bad at drafting. I'm having trouble coming up with a witty cultural reference. Pick a Rams GM from the past decade. Moving on.

With that, lets start with the best-case scenario.

Due to signability concerns and some lingering uncertainty about the strained ulnar collateral ligament (UCL) he suffered in March, Lucas Giolito has the ability to experience a significant fall in the Draft. It's not a complete impossibility, either. Consider Baseball Prospectus' Kevin Goldstein's thoughts on where Giolito, whom he has ranked as his No. 2 overall prospect in the Draft, might go:

If he goes in the top five picks, I will not be shocked. If nobody touches him in the first round due to signability fears, I will not be surprised.

With added cushion in their cap due to five picks before the second round, the Cardinals are one of the teams best positioned to cash in on the opportunity to obtain arguably the best arm in the entire Draft pre-injury. If the team has had ~~their medical team~~ a qualified medical team check out Giolito's elbow and feels comfortable with the findings, Giolito makes a lot of sense for the Cardinals. If they're confident they'll be able to strike a deal, the Cardinals should pounce on the young righty at No. 19.

At No. 23, the team will have to take a safer route, probably a college senior willing to sign for at or below slot. Duke's Marcus Stroman, another right-handed pitcher, has a lot of attractive qualities: he's widely considered the most MLB-ready of any potential draftee, he's got a secondary pitch, a slider, that many feel is as good as any secondary pitch in the draft and his floor seems to be a passable middle reliever at the major league level. Middle reliever is not a very sexy destination for a first-round draft pick, but there's some value in a player you feel comfortable will at least reach the majors.

The knock on Stroman is singular: at 5'9", he doesn't project to be able to handle the workload of a starting pitcher in the majors. Even Tim Lincecum stands at 5'11", and you'd be hard-pressed to find many starting pitchers in MLB who come in under 6'0". In a recent podcast, ESPN's Keith Law said he would still like to see Stroman given the chance to start in the minors, with the back end of the bullpen as a fallback.

Stroman is attractive to the Cardinals because he should a.) come cheap, and b.) offer something the Cardinals don't necessarily have in spades in late-inning relief options. For all the talk about the system's right-handed pitching depth, the majority of that depth is in starting pitching. It's true that starting pitchers can easily be converted to relievers if necessary, but they're much more valuable if they are able to remain as starters. For the sake of this discussion, lets assume they all do. The bullpen injuries this year have exposed a weak crop of relievers at AAA, and there aren't many exciting options at the lower levels, either. Stroman would, at worst, immediately give the Cardinals a guy they can project to be a bullpen stalwart for the foreseeable future. Exciting? No. But there's utility in such a pick.

Most mocks I've seen don't have either player lasting long enough to get to the Cardinals at their respective draft positions here, but, as I said in the beginning, this is dealing in possibilities, not probabilities. Both pitchers have their upsides; both have their faults as well. As far as ideal situations go, this ranks pretty highly.

Next, the worst-case scenario.

Doing a worst-case scenario is tough because, as with a best-case scenario, we on the outside have very limited information with which to work. Panning a pick is usually uninformed speculation - I don't like this pick because of the write-ups and limited amount of video I've seen on a few websites. In actuality, even the most surefire prospects sometimes fail, and even the most underrated succeed. It's an inexact science, as they say, and very few of us are scientists.

That said, I think a worst-case scenario involves pitchers with limited upside and light-hitting position players. Something like Lucas Sims and Stephen Piscotty fits the bill. Sims is a high school pitcher with stuff but not much room to grow, according to Goldstein, and Piscotty is a college third baseman who hits but not for a whole lot of power. The obvious comparison for Piscotty is Zack Cox, but I'm not qualified enough to say he's Cox 2.0. I don't know about a comp for Sims, but the last low-ceiling pick the Cardinals made on the first day of the draft was Seth Blair, so while we're throwing around irresponsible comparisons I'll go ahead and draw that line.

With so many early picks, and with early picks wanting big money, the Cardinals will probably have to sneak in another Blair type at some point. But I'd hate to see it so early, with a lot of upside arms and talented high school bats still available. Piscotty doesn't offer much to get excited about, either; the Cardinals system is bereft of power bats, so taking a hitter with little projectable power is problematic from a diversity standpoint. Still, all these marks against the picks come with the disclaimer that the guys making the picks know a whole lot more than I do.

A more probable scenario includes a mix of the first two scenarios. Knowing what we know about Toronto Blue Jays' GM Alex Anthopoulos' fetish for raw upside, it'd be a surprise to see a talent like Giolito slip past him at No. 17. And understanding where the system stands in terms of right-handed pitching, a pick like Sims would raise some questions about his ceiling.

Addison Russell is a name I've seen in connection with the Cardinals often in the mock draft process, and it's one I could see easily being called at No. 19. Whether he's a shortstop or a third baseman in the pros, the organization doesn't have an athletic fielder with a good bat on the left side of the infield. Not one knocking on the door, at least. Sure, Ryan Jackson has a sweet glove and Cox has plenty of time to get himself straightened out at the plate, but it's not as though either is a worldbeater at his position. Adding an athlete like Russell couldn't possibly hurt.

A lot of mocks have the Cardinals going bats with both first-round picks, but I don't think it's a lock. Another name being attached to the Cardinals, mostly by Law, is Hunter Virant, a lefty HS pitcher from California. Viva El Birdos prospect guru the red baron did a glowing write-up of Virant in January. When one of the best prospect writers around and the prospect guy for the smartest Cardinals blog in existence both tout a guy highly, that's enough for me. If Virant has reasonable contract demands, he'd be a nice addition at No. 23.

That's just one opinion. And opinions, as with Cardinals draft possibilities, will be virtually endless tonight.

2012 MLB Draft: The Lost Transcript: Jeff Luhnow Talks St. Louis Cardinals, Draft Mentality Last June

2012-06-04T13:00:25Z

A year ago, Jeff Luhnow was preparing for another MLB Rule 4 Draft as a member of the St. Louis Cardinals organization, his seventh running the show. This year he's in the spotlight as the first-year general manager of the Houston Astros, the team with the first-overall pick in a draft that's widely considered to be lacking a consensus No. 1 player.

One of the perks when I played volunteer journalist last summer was the chance to gain access to not only the players but also front office types like Luhnow. I had scheduled an interview with Luhnow around the trade deadline last year to discuss Brett Wallace for a piece I wanted to write about the former Cardinals prospect's unusual journey to the big leagues.

But days before our meeting, the Cardinals and Blue Jays executed a trade that sent Colby Rasmus, Luhnow's first draft choice in his new role with the team, north and brought several key pieces to the Cardinals' World Series victory in return. The focus of my interview immediately changed; it would now be a discussion revolving around three of Luhnow's first-round picks - the aforementioned Wallace, the newly traded Rasmus and the Next Big Thing in the Cardinals' system, Shelby Miller.

I used the Wallace quotes for the original story, but much of the discussion regarding Rasmus and Miller went unused due to September and October's unlikely happenings. Luhnow didn't offer many thoughts on selecting first overall - I'm a writer, not a psychic - so the quotes will offer little insight as to whether he's leaning towards Mark Appel or Byron Buxton with his selection Monday night. But with much of Cardinal Nation's attention split between watching which direction Luhnow goes with his first pick and hoping the Cardinals make good use of their own multitude of early picks, it seemed as good a time as any to share some of Luhnow's thoughts (circa July 2011) on drafting, the St. Louis Cardinals' system and Miller's future going forward:

Luhnow on draft mentality in general:

"You don't go into the draft thinking 'I'm going to take somebody and then trade him' because you never know when those opportunities are going to become available. So what you do is, as a player development person or as a scout, you draft players that you think can get to the big leagues and ultimately beat someone ... for their job. Somewhere along the way, if we end up with too many at one spot and not enough at another spot it becomes likely that you're going to trade from your surplus than your deficit. And in the case of Colby we have a very adequate replacement for him here in Jon Jay.

"So the dropoff from Colby to Jon Jay ... some would argue it's not a dropoff. Some would argue you're replacing Colby with a better player. Wherever you stand on that issue, do (those trades) hurt our depth? Absolutely. Did we have someone ready to step in and produce at this level and help us win? Absolutely. So we were dealing from an area where we feel we have some surplus. And we've got more outfielders in the minor leagues - we've got Adron Chambers, we've got Alex Castellanos, we've got Oscar Taveras coming. So we feel like there's a pretty good stable of outfielders that can come up and eventually replace what we lost."

(Note: Castellanos was later traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers in return for Rafael Furcal. Trading from a surplus indeed.)

On whether the Cardinals would look elsewhere early in the draft given their perceived wealth of right-handed pitching prospects:

"Right-handed starting pitchers who have a chance to be a No. 1 or No. 2 in the big leagues, it's impossible to have a surplus of those guys. Do we have a surplus of guys who could be fours and fives? Probably. But ones and twos, no. So you can't lump all right-handed pitchers together and say we have a surplus. Because very few clubs believe they have a surplus of ones and twos."

On why the club drafted Shelby Miller, a talented high school pitcher who fell in the 2009 Draft due to concerns about his signability, while passing on Rick Porcello, another talented but tough to sign HS pitcher, in 2007:

"For us, there were differences in terms of how we saw the pitchers from strictly a talent evaluation (perspective). They were both clearly excellent pitchers that deserved to be drafted in the top half of the first round. Our feeling was that Shelby Miller was going to sign for an amount significantly south of what he and his camp had been saying, which probably dissuaded a few teams from taking him. But we really felt like the amount he was going to sign for was pretty close to what we thought his value was.

"In the case of Rick Porcello, there was more of a gap between what he was asking for and what we perceived his value to be - and given who his representation was, we felt like they were probably going to stick to their amount. They wanted a major league deal, and we weren't prepared to give that. So there were other factors in consideration."

On trading highly regarded prospects:

"They're all baseball and business decisions at the end of the day. And to me, there can't be an untouchable player because eventually someone is going to offer you enough that it's going to make it compelling - if that player is indeed valuable to other organizations as well. We talk about Carlos Martinez and Shelby Miller, they have the potential to be elite starters at the big league level within the next three-to-five years. There's tremendous value in that. So we can quantify more or less what that value is.

"For us to give that up, we would have to be pretty certain we're getting at least that amount of value back. And there's just not that much of it out there. So it would be very difficult for a club to offer us something that would equal what we have already. Now, you can fall in love with your own prospects and overvalue your own prospects, which is why you have to constantly think about it and talk to different people and make sure that you're not doing that.

"But the greatest value you capture in a player is in their zero-to-three years, before they're arbitration eligible. You're paying them the minimum, and if they're an above average player you're benefiting from a lot more than that. Once you get to free agency, the value versus the cost is a lot closer together, and sometimes inverted. So it's hard to trade an asset that you know has yet to create the value and in the first three years is going to create tremendous amount of value. So that's what we mean when we say we want to protect what we have in our system."

Perhaps this was more of an exercise in quote-dumping than actual storytelling, but I think there are some interesting things to be gleaned from Luhnow's answers that relate to the Cardinals in the upcoming draft. With two first-round picks and five in the first 59, there is speculation that the Cardinals could be a destination for a prospect who falls due to signability concerns a la Miller in '09.

Luhnow's answer hinted that, while the organization has no problem paying a young player a significant amount of money, they need to feel as though the player is worthy of such a payday. If the Cardinals do go in that direction Monday night, it will only be because they feel strongly about the type of talent they're drafting.

And with the Cardinals' success in drafting and developing right-handed pitchers - along with Miller and Martinez, the Cardinals' system also boasts highly regarded prospect Tyrell Jenkins, currently disabled Jordan Swagerty and the rising Trevor Rosenthal as well - there is a sentiment that the Cardinals should look elsewhere with their high picks, a sentiment Luhnow seemed to dispel given the opportunity to draft a difference-maker with your first pick. While another right-handed pitcher in the early rounds might not be a sexy selection, if it does happen, it will probably be used on a guy the organization views as a potential front-of-the-rotation starter down the road.

Whichever way the Cardinals go Monday night and early Tuesday, it should be fun to watch and discuss.