Dear Diary,

Well at least baseball is trying to make progress regarding replay: MLB GM's vote for some replay

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Dear Diary,

I'm tired of talking about Walt leaving, I don't want to propose any crazy trade ideas to land us some stud pitcher/hitter, plus I saw this really cute boy the other day in the mall, we smiled at each other, wait, what?

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Inspired by todays main post, I was curious who the allstars were based on WPA.  The selection process is bogus but there is no need to argue about it.  I just took the player with the highest WPA as of today according to fangraphs.  Granted the choice could change with one player getting hot and the other ice cold, but oh well, thats what I did.

The first is the WPA allstar, the second is the actual starter with their WPA if they are not the leader.

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Wanted to get some predictions for the WS.  A good number of you predicted ALL THE WAY BABY!! on LB's poll, but I wanted to see what everyone thought now.

Also, give me us your predictions for series MVP.

Myself: Cards in 6 with Carp pitching 2 gems and winning the MVP.  I also expect Rolen to start producing and those DET pitchers to challenge Pujols and give him a change to do some damage.

I figured I could get a thread started for the game.  

Top 2nd, Mizzou just scored, lead 1-0 with more chances coming.

Scherzer is pitching, retired the side in order, got one strike out.

Trying to fill the required 300 characters.  Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah

 With the current status of the team, a lot of us have been talking about trading for impact players.  We have two "needs" - outfield bat and power pitcher.  I wanted to take and early season look at who was available and who could be counted on come October.  When eliminating players from the trade pool there were three factors - contending teams, division opponents, and arbitration eligible players. Walt may be able to pull of a trade within the division, but that seems unlikely.  Disclaimer - I know not all these players are available, I just wanted to look at what the Cards could do.

On one side of the coin - we "need" an outfield bat to shore up the lineup.  To find a big bat lets first look at the available leaders in OPS:  
Vernon Wells (.994)
Casey Blake (.963)
Bobby Abreu (.956)
Alfonzo Soriano (.950)
Pat Burrell (.946)
I stopped there since everyone else was below .900.  Also if teams like ARI (Green, Gonzalez, Byrnes) or TEX (Matthews, Jr., Mench, Wilkerson) would hit hard times some of their players could become available.  Looking through that list I would eliminate Abreu and Burrell for their contracts after this season, sorry but I don't want Soriano, which leaves Wells and Blake.  Wells could be a decent replacement of Edmonds in CF.  Another possibility would be to find a high OBP player for the #2 hole: Ichiro Suzuki (.387) is about the only person not mentioned earlier.  So this brings us to Wells, Blake and Suzuki as possible outfielder upgrades.  

On the other side of the coin - we "need" a power pitcher to give us that 1-2(-3?) punch for the postseason.  I know there is debate about the need for this power pitcher and what actually defines a power pitcher but I believe in the need.  The first stat I looked at was K/9 with 6.5 being the cutoff (since the Cards really lack there):
Johan Santana (9.56)
Jake Peavy (9.35)
?Cory Lidle? (8.14)
Gil Meche (7.38)
Ted Lilly (7.29)
John Lackey (7.22)
John Smoltz (6.93)
Kelvim Escobar (6.90)
Cliff Lee (6.89)
Jason Schmidt (6.86)
Dan Haren (6.81)
Barry Zito (6.72)
Before I kid myself eliminate Santana, Lidle & Meche (career years), Peavy (only $2.5MM, what a deal), Smoltz, Haren and Zito.  Comparing the remaining 5 and looking at other "power" stats:

           Lilly   Lackey  Escobar  Lee      Schmidt
K/9     7.29    7.22    6.90       6.89      6.86
H/9     9.31    7.09    10.42     11.06    6.41
BB/9   5.43    3.11    1.76       2.73      2.81
K/BB   1.34    2.34    3.92       2.53     2.44
WHIP  1.64    1.13    1.35       1.53      1.03
G/F     1.02    0.87    1.21       0.43     0.67

Looking at these numbers, Escobar really looks appealing since he is in the AL (minus that H/9 - his BABIP in `06 is .340 with a .313 career).  Lilly is the only other GB pitcher (barely) which Duncan likes.  I don't see Lilly or Lackey as power pitchers, but that may be just me.  Then again I have heard about some Reyes kid in the system who can't get a decent chance, but without getting into that debate to much, I'd go with Escobar or Schmidt.  

Well I think I have convinced myself into Vernon Wells and Kelvin Escobar as the best options for the Cards.  The only other question would be what does it take to get them?  I'll let you all decide that.  

Due to the lack of news, and to take a break from analyzing the Cards, I would like to pose a question:

If you were Red Sox GM (or whoever is calling the shots), what would you do about Manny Ramirez?  Keep him?  Trade him?  If you trade, who would you expect in return?  What to do about money problems (there always is with contracts this large)?

There are always rumors around about him since most everyone wants him (if they had the money to get him).  The new one:

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2005/12/new_manny_scena.html

A lot of teams have inquired about him:  LAA, LAD, SEA, NYM(always), BAL?, but no one can put together the package to get a deal done.  With his current contract of $20MM/yr (which I might offer is over half of the current Marlins payroll) can any team absorb that entire contract.  Do the Sox want to pick any of it up?  The have been asking for an impact player in return.  Do you think they could get a big name in return (like Zito, Ichiro, or Vlad just to stir the pot).  

I think any deal is going to have to involve 3 (or 4) teams.  Usually resembling the deal above, with Manny moving, and a couple established players and a few prospects changing addresses.  I personally would not want Manny on my team since he is usually lost in LF, which is why BOS works well for him.  

Manny's Career Stats:

34YR, .314BA, 435HR (~40/yr), 1414RBI (100+/yr), 1.008OPS (.409OBP & .599SLG), pretty impressive batting stats.  But then there are his feilding stats:  1.91RFg (4th worst in MLB), .729ZR (MLB worst LF).  Mabye he should move to DH, where his contract would look more expensive.  

Something I have thrown around in my head and discussed with friends is the contract with incentives.  I don't see why we don't see more of these contracts in MLB (in all Pro sports for that matter).  If players would sign for a lower salary (would still vary for quality of players) and then recieved higher payouts for more production it would entice the players to perform better.  There are numerous points opposing this stance (probably to many to list) but with this day and age of agents causing the biggest problems, this will never happen.  For example lets take Albert:  sign for 2 mil per season, with incentives for AB, HR, RBI, OBP%, SLG%, OPS% whatever the GM wants from that player will give the team the true value of their player.  He could still make 10+ mil a year after recieving 2 mil for 40+ HR, 2 mil for 100+ RBI, etc.  But looking at some of the recent signings like Burnett for example, if he doesn't change into a game winnig pitcher (don't look at just wins but other important stats as well) teams don't throw away millions on players that don't do squat.  Some of the bigger market team would still give higher starting salaries to better players which would still hurt smaller market teams.  One problem that could arise is when someone they expected to have an average year (say 8 mil total) plays out of his ass and doubles his salary from incentives, he could hurt the teams total payroll.  I also think that MLB could set standards for the incentives to make things more even for teams.

But all together this won't happen due to MLBPA and player agents wanting more and more money. Just a little idea in my head.