A lot of things happened back in 2009 here at this blog. That was the first spring that I did the Playing Pepper series, which will be returning in a couple of weeks. However, that was also the first time I did the Cardinal Approval Ratings. Apparently, I had a lot of time on my hands back then.
Now, if you are new to the blog, you might be wondering what the approval ratings are all about. It’s fairly simple, really. It’s my way of getting a feel for what Cardinal Nation thinks about certain players, media and other sorts of things. It’s a numerical scale from 0-100 and you fill out a nice form with the numbers relating to the folks (or ideas) listed.
This is a totally personal thing. For instance, I’d probably give Tyler Lyons (if he were on the form) a strong score because I’m a fan of his, he did the podcast, he wears #70. That factors into my equation. Others might want to look just at the numbers, what he does for the team. Their score might be a little lower than mine.
It’s all about how you feel about the person. When you see him in the lineup, what’s your reaction? When you see an interview, is it a positive experience? If you are listening to him do a broadcast, do you find yourself reaching for the remote?
I’ve typically felt that a 70 should be a decent baseline score for any Cardinal. If you wanted to look at it in relation to letter grades, that’s a C. If you have no opinion one way or the other, I’d think you’d put up a score around that mark. Then you factor in what influences you one way or the other.
It’s been pretty interesting to see the results over the past six years. We saw Albert Pujols go from 90.4% to 54.9% when he left St. Louis. Surprisingly, Mike Shannon has dropped every year we’ve done this, coming in a shade under 80% last year. It’s no big shock to see Joe Strauss bringing up the back end of the ratings most every year.
Last year we only had 67 responders, which was down from the past. My goal this year is to see 100 folks fill out the form. So share it on Twitter, put it on Facebook, wherever Cardinal fans congregate, I want them to get their chance to make their voice heard.
You can follow this link to the form or you can fill it out below, whichever you want. I’ll leave this open until February 22nd. I appreciate your time and you should see the results in early March. Have fun!
I am disappointed that they don’t improve their bench
several players with experience , especially multiple positions players
were available , but signed with other teams
seems they priority is to have a cheap bench