In the event of Rapture all other teams will be Left Behind: the 2015 St. Louis Cardinals

srsly take him back idk what the hell happened to him, he's healed now and is now having buchholz-esque confidence battles

is he totally healed? i haven't followed his health closely since the trade. it's baffling, though, he was so consistent before the injury, one of those guys who always seems to make solid contact day in and day out.

yea he had that oft-repeated .400-plus BA with runners in scoring position. and from what everyone's saying officially he is completely healthy

currently .135/.237/.192, -0.4 bWAR. in the 2nd half of last year, .128/.234/.191, -0.5

he needs to be sent to a tropical island for 6 months with no baseball anywhere. how ac gets his groove back.

Still, the path to at least a wild card is clear, barring a major disaster.

Will you shaddap? They will win the division by at least 6 games.

a major disaster is always just a pitch away, you never know!

yea morbs otm 2015 is not the year the red birds' pact with the devil expires.

after that, they are prob in a boat similar to the tigers where the party will still be sort of happening but winding down, conversations between remaining attendees are getting kind of dark - and then the hangovers and/or puking begin

i still think an injury to peralta, carpenter, or molina would accelerate the puking. they've already weathered the loss of wainwright, and if holliday went down they'd be alright (with Jay and Bourjos both playing full-time and grichuk as the 4th OF), but they have zero depth in the IF.

the first two yea, but molina missed 52 games last year and they did alright alternating a.j. pukezynski and tony cruz!

no way, that sucked! i don't know what the stats were for AJ and Cruz during that specific period, but i think they hovered around 0.0 WAR. molina's absence was definitely felt.

skinny yadi isn't having such a hot season this year, either. his contact is decent but his power is gone. and his defense is diminished. he's not a bad defender by any means, of course, but i've noticed more people running on him, and his throws are just off so far, off target, and a bit late.

yikes, AJP was -0.6 WAR on STL last year

i guess what i meant was, it didn't lead to any prolonged losing streaks as far as I can tell from the baseball ref 2014 game log - but yea there is virtually no situation of recent vintage in which AJ is a net positive as a defensive catcher, he either doesn't hurt you or he hurts you. although apparently in ATL he can hit things so far.

yeah, AJ was a nightmare last year. He was doing so badly, and yet everyone was bending over backward to talk about how great he was, and how his "personality" was just what the cardinals needed, someone to toughen everyone up and inject some life into the clubhouse, or something.

side note, but where are all the good young catchers? seems to be an outage across the board in baseball, even in the minor leagues. the cardinals have a bunch of guys who all project to hit wRC+ 75 (note that i'm making this up) with average defense. and even in the draft (which i know nothing about tbh) word on the street is that catching looks to be weak this year, again.

on of them is on the red sox and is recovering from TJ, one is also on the red sox and seemingly overmatched by major league pitching on the offensive and defensive end, ummmm, does sal perez on the royals count at only 25?

i dunno shit about draft prospects either lol

josmil pinto on the twins (26) was highly touted, currently in AAA

it's cool how MLB is trying to hype the draft a little more and make it exciting, but it's really tough to get interested in hundreds of players that no one knows and won't see the big leagues until 2020. unless you're a scout or work in the business or having an abnormal interest in college and high school baseball, it's just pointless. i skim through a dozen draft previews and can never remember a single name afterward.

padres called up austin hedges last week; apparently so good behind the plate that it barely matters if he hits at all (which he may not, much)

cubs have kyle schwarber, who's kind of the opposite; same with rangers' jorge alfaro (does have a cannon, tho)

it's tough -- if a guy can really hit, teams don't want to wear him out by making him catch, e.g. wil myers was a catcher at first. the cubs had schwarber working in the outfield some, but i guess they're so loaded that they'd rather stick him behind the plate

https://mlblogsbensbiz.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/0232.jpg

Haha, where'd you find that? Very useful reference imo

it's on the wall at the spring training complex in palm beach (i'm told)

during last night's broadcast mozeliak said that grichuk was on the plane back to STL, would be here for today's game. and langosch just tweeted that Jaime Garcia is at Busch Stadium as well.

you really needed a Mets fan w/ you at that torture tonight, KM

http://deadspin.com/your-racist-uncle-will-love-this-picture-of-the-cardina-1705776536

well, that sucked

lance lynn is listed as TBD for his start on wednesday. he had back pain during his last start and told reporters it was just normal day-to-day soreness but ugh.
garcia is a timebomb.
marco gonzalez is missing his next start in AAA with renewed pain.
wainwright already down
holliday and heyward have both sat with day-to-day injuries over the last few days (although they're both in the lineup today)
jay is eligible to come off the DL soon, but who knows

dudes are banged up

the underrated one

With almost 200 plate appearances in 2015, Holliday is more than a third of the way to a 10th consecutive season of qualifying for the batting title while delivering a park-adjusted offensive line at least 30 percent better than league average. Since World War II, only 13 other hitters have managed such a streak. Six of them are Hall of Famers: Stan Musial, Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Frank Robinson, and Reggie Jackson. Two more are on the verge of induction: Mike Piazza and Jeff Bagwell. Another two will be elected when eligible: Jim Thome and Albert Pujols. And the final three would be shoo-ins or strong candidates if not for their ties to PEDs: Manny Ramirez, Gary Sheffield, and Alex Rodriguez. That group of 13 hitters includes more than a third of the 500 Home Run Club, and its least prolific power hitter, Piazza, went deep 427 times.

http://grantland.com/the-triangle/2015-mlb-matt-holliday-st-louis-cardinals/

never touched the plate

he'll be going for pujols' franchise record of 42 straight games reaching base to start the season, tonight

never touched the plate

<3 thank you

good lord, this team and baserunning

i can picture the st louis cardinals team collectively getting lost in tthe halls of heir hotel
just totally confused, running around, weeeeee

where is my room, which room is yours, where is home
weeeeeeee /hardcut to jose oquendo, pissed

good lord, baserunning must really be costing this 30-16 team, which is also 17-5 at home

if only the pirates had been in town; a walk-off would have been tres-exciting

if there were any justice in this world they would be 46-0 right now and the entire NL would just cancel the season

weeeeee

http://i.imgur.com/tp42i3T.png

rip Matt Adams

classic mathenaging going on right now, with holliday, jay, and grichuk starting today. unless heyward is injured (he's not), he's just getting straight-up benched in favor of grichuk.

looks like it's up to mozeliak to resolve the situation since matheny is incapable, again. shades of the allen craig situation last year.

granted, with jay back, it is a difficult situation as all 5 OFs have value. and grichuk has definitely been playing very well. way over his head, but very well.

grichuk is LEADING OFF TODAY

holliday playing, despite sitting for the flu the other day and being removed halfway through last night's game after feeling sick

both bourjos and jay on the bench

http://i.imgur.com/NxjHo7n.gif

i guess matheny had second (only?) thoughts and updated the lineup:

Peter Bourjos, CF
Matt Carpenter, 3B
Jhonny Peralta, SS
Randal Grichuk, LF
Yadier Molina, C
Mark Reynolds, 1B
Jason heyward, RF
Pete Kozma, 2B
Carlos Martinez, P

It's gotta be tough being a Cardinals fan.

It's agonizing, I tell you

holliday taking grounders at first!

really hoping that's just as an emergency backup kind of situation, or maybe for late game situations where one of the 4th or 5th outfielders pinch hits, takes over LF to improve the OF defense, and Holliday moves over to 1B to keep his bat in the game. but he has no business playing there for a full game. there's a perception that 1B is a relatively easy position, but i think playing him there for a full game on any sort of regular basis would give away quite a few runs.

i favor a trade for adam lind. he and mark reynolds would actually make for a pretty sweet platoon. and i think lind could be obtained without giving up one of the few standout prospects that the cardinals still have.

yeah. pedro alvarez is a minor disaster at first, even after having once been a serviceable third baseman. (i don't recall a team using a late-game defensive replacement on a first baseman, but he is regularly subbed out for sean rodriguez.)

mark reynolds does kinda look done tho? no power, no cred

yeah. i really hate watching him play. he has the slugger reputation because he somehow manages to hit 20 HRs, but his SLG was .393 in 2013, .392 in 2014, and now .393 again so far in 2015. he's consistent with that, at least!

Does Holliday always argue balls and strikes like that?

not like THAT. i was smdh at that, ugh. he does tend to do a lot of the whiny face whenever he strikes out (so do a majority of the cardinals. it's the worst thing about them imo). there was an article a week or two ago showing that holliday and matt carpenter really HAVE been getting completely screwed by umpires this year, so it's not like they're completely wrong. but although the pitch he struck out on last night wasn't a strike, it wasn't THAT bad, and he looked like a complete douche.

also though, i think whenever joe west is behind the plate the players on any team are more likely to notice shitty calls because that's joe west's thing

tbf, he was the victim of the worst-umpired single at-bat i've seen this season:

http://www.brooksbaseball.net/pfxVB/numlocation_io.php?pitchSel=434538&game=gid_2015_05_02_pitmlb_slnmlb_1/&batterX=50&innings=yyyyyyyyy&sp_type=1&s_type=3&league=mlb&pnf=&zlpo=