[Previous entry: "The Big One"] [Next entry: "Mueller Time Out"]
Got here without the frames? Click here.12/13/2005: "Say it ain't Mo"
(First, in uninteresting meta-news: does the comment page look a little better now? Coherent, at least? This is all deck chairs on the Titanic, you understand, but I figure the site might as well function while I work on the new one. I'm still trying to figure out why the page scrolls past the margin in IE, also. If anybody can figure it out before me, tell me about it, because I know I wouldn't bother with a web page if I had to scroll around horizontally every line.)
Matt Morris's decade of Cardinalry has come to its sad end, care of a $27M contract from the Giants and their GM--The Old Bones Collector, Brian Sabean. Back a few days ago, when Matt said something about eliminating the Cardinals from contention, I had something pithy all ready to run about it not being the first time he eliminated the Cardinals from contention--but I couldn't do it. I like the guy. He was a great pitcher, and even though he wasn't worth the $9M a year the Giants threw at him he deserved a better going-away present than the lowball offer the Cardinals pitched him. I'm glad he at least won his hundredth game with St. Louis.
When you take away the red-and-white-colored glasses he's a guy over 30 with a declining strikeout rate, a bum arm, and the occasional dalliance with bizarre facial hair. He'll probably be a little above average over the life of the deal, and that has value--just not this much. A better bet than Loaiza, though.
In Cardinals news--well, apparently Morris is as much a Cardinal as Rincon at this point. No confirmation of the deal so far from either side, a lot of qualifying adjectives and care to use future tense. It'll happen, though, because he's not A.J. Burnett; what, is Toronto going to swoop in and offer him five years?
The always-on-the-ball CardNilly reports on the rumors floating around about the Cardinals being interested in former Oriole Jason Johnson. Johnson, most famous as the player profiled in ESPN the Magazine for wearing an insulin pump while pitching, was pretty well regarded in his day. As well regarded as a guy with a career record of 52-86 can be, I mean. He's... well, you know how sometimes I complain that Jeff Suppan is bland? He's the wasabi to Jason Johnson's table salt. But if the Cardinals need to trade Suppan or Marquis for an outfielder, he's a fine, probably cheap guy to plug in for a bunch of league-average innings. He's not going to strike anybody out, he's not going to walk anybody, and he's going to induce some ground balls. The Dave Duncan special!
And finally, the Texas Rangers' new GM appears to be on the ball--his most recent acquisition is Phillies starter Vicente Padilla. Padilla was probably on the Cardinals' list, as a non-tendered player-to-be; unless the Rangers get generous and hand the Phillies something of worth for the privelege, it's a nice move for them to make. He would have been more effective with the Cardinals--Padilla was an up-and-comer before Citizen's Bank's Home Run Extravaganza drove him below the league average, and Texas is the most recent iteration of Coors Lite--but the Rangers need pitching like we need optimism.
On that note: Brandon H. mentioned in the comments that the Athletics misused Rincon, and that he'll be much more effective with the Cardinals, where Our Man La Russa loves platoons like Roger Ebert loved Platoon. I decided to check it out. Turns out Rincon faced a left-handed batter about 60% of the time last year. Ray King faced a lefty 53% of the time, while Flores actually faced righties more often. So... probably not. But take heart in this: Rincon may have turned righties into Old Frank Thomas--.240/.387/.520--but Ray turned them into Young Frank Thomas. .352/.432/.549. Wow. I remembered it being ugly sometimes, but... that ugly? Good luck in Colorado, Ray. If Jeff Fassero can do it, so can you.
