1. Mark DeRosa is not a judy hitter: One can only laugh at the whining by the minority (but loud) minority of media and fan voices out there who pan the DeRosa trade because he isn’t an “impact bat.” You’d think that the guy was just barely a notch above, say, Brian Barden or Joe Thurston. Do these folks even bother to do any homework? Have they paid any attention to the 2009 season?
At the time of the trade that sent DeRosa from Cleveland to St. Louis, DeRosa was 18th in the majors in RBIs. He had more RBIs than Matt Holliday, Chipper Jones, Chase Utley, Jim Thome, Hanley Ramirez, Miguel Cabrera, Carlos Lee, Lance Berkman, Adrian Gonzalez, Paul Konerko, Ryan Zimmerman, David Wright, Kevin Youkilis, Mike Lowell, Nick Markakis, Miguel Tejada, Andre Ethier, Matt Kemp, Derrek Lee, Carlos Beltran, James Loney, Nate McLouth, Johnny Damon, Scott Rolen, Vernon Wells, Jermaine Dye, Bobby Abreu, Brandon Phillips, Alfonso Soriano, Dan Uggla and J.D. Drew.
De Rosa had as many RBIs as Adam Dunn and as many homers as Thome. DeRosa had more homers than a long list of guys including Holliday, C. Lee, D. Lee, C. Jones, Brad Hawpe, McLouth, Zimmerman, Wright.
DeRosa may not be, say, Ryan Howard in the slugging department. But he’s been one of the better run producers in baseball this season. I have no idea what the mewling is all about; what exactly did you expect GM John Mozeliak to do here, more than a month before the trade deadline? Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams were unavailable, and Stan Musial wasn’t prepared to come out of retirement. Do you see any other sluggers being offered or traded these days? Where are they? And what is an “impact” bat, exactly? If adding a guy who has more RBIs than Beltran, Berkman and Utley isn’t “impact” in your book, then please educate the rest of us. Thanks.
2. Enough already, for now, about Matt Holliday: Can we move on from this? The talks between the Cardinals and A’s for the overrated outfielder were contentious. Oakland’s demands were unreasonable, to put it mildly. The requested package included top hitting prospect Brett Wallace, Chris Perez or Jason Motte, plus at least one elite prospect. A Cardinals insider described it this way to me: Oakland GM Billy Beane’s goal here wasn’t to make a good trade; he wanted to destroy the trading partner. No one should blame Beane for asking for a preposterously big return on Holliday; if a team is stupid enough to cave into his demands, then Beane gets the props. But Beane has said that he’s happy to take the two No. 1 draft picks as compensation should Holliday walk as a free agent. Unless Beane comes off that, and drops his price dramatically, there is no deal to make. So can we hit the mute button on all of this nonsensical Holliday talk, at least until there is a legit reason to revisit this? By the way, have you noticed the way Holliday has hit once he lost the benefit of playing half of his games at Coors Field? Holliday has 8 homers and 40 RBIs this season. Less than DeRosa in both categories.
3. If anything, the Cardinals should be looking for a starting pitcher: Todd Wellemeyer has the third-worst ERA (5.53) among MLB starting pitchers and is allowing more base runners per nine innings than any big-league starting pitcher. After being plugged into the rotation as an injury replacement for Kyle Lohse, Brad Thompson was terrific for a while but has gotten bopped around in his last two starts, allowing two of the lesser offenses in the NL (Mets and Giants) to rack him for 9 ER in 11 IP. The Faberge Egg propagandists would have you believe that the Cardinals can install one of the Class AAA pitchers from Memphis, but they are not an upgrade at this point. When I spoke to manager Tony La Russa about possible needs that could be filled by trade, he mentioned the need to deepen the lineup (this was before the DeRosa deal) but quickly added that if there’s an opportunity to land a starting pitcher, the Cardinals should take a look at it.
4. Question for the minor-league experts: I wanted to say this up front — I’m being sincere when I ask this: is there anything down below that suggests the Cardinals are well on the way to developing a power-arm starting pitcher? The guys who keep coming up here – Mitchell Boggs, P.J. Walters, Clayton Mortensen — tend to nibble and throw a lot of pitches instead of going after hitters. Seems to me that this is a genuine void in the system; perhaps Lance Lynn (at AA Springfield) fits the profile. My friend Derrick Goold thinks Adam Ottavino qualifies. If there’s someone in the system who is a legit hard thrower (a starter, not a reliever) please let us know. This is another reason why the Cardinals must sign No. 1 draft pick Shelby Miller, who is a power arm.
5. DeRosa vs. the NL Central: I was curious as to how the new Cardinal did as a Cub against the rest of the NL Central in 2007-2008. The answer: very well. The Cardinals were the one team that shut him down (for the most part) as De Rosa batted .220 against them with 3 homers and 10 RBIs in 91 ABs. That’s why when DeRosa joined the Cardinals on Sunday, one of the first things he did was to go to teammates and ask about the Cardinals’ plan in attacking him so he could close the weak spots.
Anyway, this is what DeRosa did against the other NL Central clubs:
Houston: 112 ABs, 4 HR, 15 RBIs, 8 doubles, 12 runs, .277 BA, .325 OBP, .455 SLG.
Cincinnati: 93 ABs, 5 HR, 21 RBIs, 4 doubles, 18 runs, .387 BA, .482 OBP, .591 SLG
Milwaukee: 98 ABs, 1 HR, 20 RBIs, 5 doubles, 15 runs, .286 BA, .374 OBP, .388 SLG.
Overall in 2007-2008, DeRosa had 14 homers and 79 RBIs in 500 ABs against Central teams; only 13 players had more RBIs in intramural competition, and only seven had more doubles.
Thanks as always for reading …
-Bernie