John Mozeliak is a pragmatist. For as pallid as pragmatism can be, it’s a highly coveted trait for a baseball executive. At least it should be. No team owner wants to wake up to find his GM made a franchise altering trade or signing based on a gut feeling or a moment of enlightenment found [...]
For the next four to seven games, and the agonizing hours of wait between them, everything I touch will be an omen. I’ll search for clues in sleep and speech and spend every conscious moment mentally bending the spoon in favor of the Cardinals. I mean, they beat Kershaw twice to get here. How hard [...]
On August 28th, the Cincinnati Reds torched Adam Wainwright for 9 runs spread over two gruesome innings. Despite striking out his last two batters faced, the damage was done and there was little incentive to keep him in any longer. Matheny went to the pen and called on Michael Wacha for mop up work. The [...]
Shane Robinson doesn’t look like much of a ballplayer. Listed at 5’9″ and weighing slightly more than a buck fifty, he’s not going to win any “good body” praise from scouts. If he were to walk past you on the street, he’d appear a perfectly averaged sized human male, but in professional baseball, he’s knee [...]
The UCB Project for the month of August is for the members of the group to interview each other. I had the pleasure of talking with Kevin Reynolds from stlcardsnstuff.com. Please enjoy the Q&A, check out his site, and make sure to follow him on Twitter. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself away [...]
One of the great truisms of professional sports is the importance for a team to have control over it’s own destiny. In the strictest interpretation, on opening day or kickoff weekend or first puck drop, every team competing controls their own fate that season. We know this isn’t fully true – some teams simply don’t [...]
As Summer melts away and the end of the regular season approaches at breakneck speed, we’re all awash in anticipation of the offseason and the announcement of baseball’s major award winners. If we had it our way, we’d call it all off this very moment, raffle off the Commissioner’s Trophy, and get straight to the [...]
Today, in a companion piece to his 2013 Trade Value series, Dave Cameron of Fangraphs provided his take on the five least trade-able assets in baseball. It comes with little surprise that it’s a list of high-priced position players locked into sweeping contracts that pay them bookoo bucks through their decline years. The other unifying theme is [...]
Matt Carpenter has been the most valuable second baseman in baseball this season. His batting average (.321) is good for 8th in the game, OBP (.394) 11th, and his 28 doubles lead the National League. At 4.4 fWAR, Carpenter ranks as one of the top 10 overall players in baseball this year. And while prominent [...]
Since we last spoke, things are on the up and up for the Cardinals. For as much as the six game stand in Oakland and Anaheim twisted my soul into knots, this weekend’s dusting of the Marlins and the anticipation of getting fat on the Astros and Cubs has me wide-eyed and chipper. It also helped [...]
Around 6:15 a.m. Wednesday morning, I was slapped awake by the crackle and flash of a lightning bolt. Split seconds later, a sonic boom of thunder hit that rattled the glass of my bedroom window and set off a car alarm in the distance. When the generators blew, they gave off three quick snaps of [...]
The UCB project for June requires us to dream up our ideal St. Louis Cardinal Hall of Fame exhibit. So, without jest, here are five Cardinal-related attractions I’d plan a vacation around: 1) Anything to do with Stan the Man. 2) An entire wing of Albert Pujols worship. 3) Freese’s home run ball. 4) A Curt Flood [...]
