The 2009 St. Louis Cardinals won their division handily, but carried a final-month slump into a quick post-season exit.
Following the bold acquisition of outfielder Matt Holliday on July 24, the St. Louis Cardinals seemed virtually unstoppable. For the remainder of the regular season, the Cards would win 39 and lose 25 for a winning percentage of .609. They were the first to clinch and their final divisional cushion was a comfortable 7 ½ games. All seemed well.
Yet in reality, there were two very different periods within that timeframe. From Holliday’s signing through a July in which only one opponent had a winning record at the time, the Cardinals would reach their high-water mark of the season on September 9. At that point, the club was 84-57, 27 games over .500 and 11 ½ games ahead in the division, both season-bests. The Holliday-led Cardinals were 32-11 (.744).
From there through the end of the regular season, the Cardinals limped home with a 7-14 (.333) mark. The stretch included stinging losses such as the bullpen failure that cost Adam Wainwright his 20th win and likely the National League Cy Young Award. Closer Ryan Franklin, coming off being named the top NL reliever for August and celebrating the signing of a new contract, fell apart, picking up three blown saves and two losses during September.
As a team, the Cardinals continued a disturbing pattern in 2009, still having not posted a winning September/October finish to the regular season since 2004. In taking the 2006 World Series, they were able to overturn their 12-16 final month as injured players came back online.
The 2009 club had no such boost entering the National League Division Series against the 95-win Los Angeles Dodgers. Just a few more September victories would have enabled the 91-71 Cardinals to hold home-field advantage instead of the Dodgers.
Manager Tony La Russa and pitching coach Dave Duncan had re-worked their rotation such that their co-aces, Chris Carpenter and Wainwright, would work games 1 and 2 in Los Angeles with 15-game winner Joel Pineiro ready to start game 3 at home.
Dodgers manager Joe Torre neutralized the Cardinals offense by having his pitchers avoid confronting NL Most Valuable Player Albert Pujols. No one seemed able to pick up the slack. Matt Kemp’s two-run first-inning home run off Carpenter put the Cardinals in a game 1 hole from which they could never crawl out.
In game 2, a tremendous start by Wainwright and the lead were wiped out by Holliday’s crucial error with two outs in the ninth inning when he dropped a ball lost in the Dodger Stadium lights. A Franklin lapse that followed seemed to finish off the Cardinals’ LDS chances.
The offense continued its listless ways in game 3 at home against Vicente Padilla, a pitcher dumped by the Texas Rangers in August. The Cardinals tallied just one run in the final game of the Dodgers sweep, plating just six in total over the three losses.
Since the Cardinals clinched the NL Central, they went a total of 1-9, including the post-season. They were swept for the first time ever in NLDS or NLCS play and for only the third time overall in the postseason. The 2009 Cardinals joined the 1928 club that was swept by the Yankees in the World Series as the only teams in franchise history to fail to win a playoff game.
It was an extremely disappointing finish to what had appeared to be a most promising season.
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[...] 8. Franklin the Finisher 7. Penny for Pineiro 6. The successful odd couple – Mo and TLR 5. The failed finish 4. 3. 2. [...]
The Long Season qualifies 8 teams for short elimination series. Being great back in May may not translate into a great October.
The drop by Matt Holliday illustrates the role of luck or bad luck. A competent veteran LF who had played in LA many a time, he lost the ball against a distracting background, during the visually trecherous condition of twi-light. Bad things can happen, even to good people, at the most unlikely times.
The positive is that Mo kept things in perspective and realized Holliday is not jinxed or a klutz, but that fate conspired to make him look bad. As a result, Mo gave Matt a big contract, despite the Dodgers series. A smart decision.
Two other keys to the season. Chris Carpenter’s bad start in game 1. And Padilla threw smoke in Game 3. He may have personal failings that led to his release by the Rangers, but Padilla has long been a pitcher with stuff. He rejoined his old manager Larry Bowa with the Dodgers and he overpowered the Cards in Game 3.
What’s the positive for the future? The Cards let Joel Pineiro, their weak starter in Game 3, move to Anaheim and picked up an extra draft pick, two good things in one. And we signed Penny, one of the harder throwers in the Game to serve as his replacement. If Penny can stay healthy, then he could start a Game 3 in 2010 and provide a more favorable match-up than we had against Padilla in 09.
Certainly given last season’s stats, I personally am not willing to assume that Brad Penny will provide an upgrade over Pineiro.
Its good to bear in mind that given his 2008 stats, Joel Pineiro was expected to be awful in 2009, but he surprised favorably.
Penny is a big old hoss. I think he had an injury in 2008, so 2009 may have been like a physical therapy session for him. By 2010, working with Dunc, Penny is now physically primed for a great season, provided he stays healthy and pitches like he did for the Giants late in the year.
Joel’s ‘great’ 2009 consisted of going 6-9 through the end of June , Then he went 7-0 for July and August when the offense was pounding everyone and Franky was lights out, Then 2-3 for the rest of the season. Whoopy-doo. Lets see what the new hoss can do.
The Angels decided to pay for July and August (7-0), But maybe get May and June (2-9). Maybe they get 2008 (7-7) or maybe ’04-’07 (28-40). I’m not sorry the Cards took a pass.
” ‘Ammering Ank is going to Kansas City “. That was a good one in Bernie’s column today.
He thinks spring training is going to be a three ring circus. I’ll go along with that. Maybe its hindsight, but its hard to believe the Cards FO thought that Tony’s and Mac’s implausable positions would fly. They could possibly be telling the truth, but if so, it should have been understood that the truth wouldn’t fly in this case. I am thinking that the number of people sounding off is due to outrage over the percieved insult to their intelligence.
The common wisdom is that roids made the record performances possible. It is also the common wisdom that Tony, being right there every day and seeing it all from a ringside seat, could not posibly be so unobservant or so obtuse as to not know exactly what was going on. You can’t just say that what everyone has been believing is wrong and expect everyone to just say “Oh, OK”. And that will be the case no matter how many times you say it or how enthusiastically you say it. There has to be solid unassailable proof that the common wisdom is wrong, and since that could not be possible in this case, it is never going to work. For however long MM and TLR stick to their stories, thats how long the circus will last.
Padilla closed the season strong. He was trying to land a deal for 2010. It was not just the Cards were cold, but Padilla pumped 96mph gas and overpowered a mostly right swinging lineup.
Pineiro was throwing at 89 mph. The Dodgers did not seem to have much trouble. With Padillo feeling his oats, probably full of greenies, it was a pathetic no-contest matchup, even at home.
While nobody is a sure thing, I’d much rather have Penny than Pineiro. Happily, Mo feels the same way.
Bling, overall, the McGwire venting went well, imo.
The one drawback, that I hammered him for right off the bat, was saying steroids did not help him. Well, what was he taking them for?
He probably meant to say they only helped him a bit. The message got oversimplified to steroids did not help him at all, and that makes Mark sound like a dope.
It cannot be easy to go on TV and do loads of interviews and say everything just right. Hiring a political PR firm may have helped screwup the message. A more credible one would have been: steroids helped me recover from muscle injuries and helped me gain strength in conjunction with lifting weights. This helped Mac on the field too. Thats the only credible thing to say.
But overall, I thought McGwire did a great job. There will always be complainers. I really admire DeWitt, Mo, and Tony for helping Mark back to the game.
The Cards are like a hot band: Pujols, Holliday, McGwire, LaRussa. Mega celebrities. Look out Cubbies.
Bernie was funny about McGwire, because it is funny, all the worry worts popping off.
Carlton Fisk is big against McGwire, maybe to coverup his own body building misdeeds. At least McGwire finally confessed, unlike Fisk.
Bernie says, all kidding aside, the Cards should help educate student-athletes against the dangers of steroids. Like the huge danger kids might become pro-athletes, earn fame and fortune, and get elected governor of California??? Wow, no kids would like to wrestle with that kind of problem.
bb, your assessment of the McGwire situation seems realistic. Only one addition/suggestion. Perhaps they thought half-truths would be good enough to silence the questions.
Jumbo, I sense that your view that the “McGwire venting went well” and he did a “great job” overall is sincere like Big Mac’s belief that steroids did not help his results on the field. I believe you believe it as he does.
Pineiro learned a new pitch last season, so his previous years’ stats mean less. He was clearly an entirely different pitcher with his sinker in tow. Velocity was not particularly important as he was a contact pitcher.
Penny started putting a lot of balls in the air last season and his curveball ended up getting hammered left and right. Hopefully Duncan can help him do more than throw.
Don’t get me wrong: I have no problem with the signing of Brad Penny. I’m fairly sure that he won’t pitch better than Pineiro next season, though.
May the record show: JumboShrimp is proud of Bill DeWitt, John Mozeliak, and Tony LaRussa, for bringing Mark McGwire out of retirement and setting him to work. I applaud their faith in Big Red as a coach and teacher of men. If it were easy to bring McGwire back, they would not deserve any credit. Bravo Zulu, Semper Fideles, gentlemen. JS will remain the numero uno fan and happy lackey for those who run the Cards.
Nutlaw, please clarify. Do you think 2010 Pineiro will be better than 2010 Penny or 2009 Pineiro will be better than 2010 Penny? Or maybe you mean both?
Nutlaw, Pineiro will be pitching in the AL, with designated hitters to inflate his ERA, whereas Penny goes the other direction. Penny spent much of 09 in the unfriendly confines of Fenway. He may thrive in the NL central.
Penny is a complete unknown at this point. Deal with it. He is only here because he would except a 1yr deal………… Motivation was Tony/Dave’s intuition. He won’t throw 200 innings. His mechanics suggest his location is his strength………but also his vulnerability. Trying to keep the ball off the green monster made him loosen up. More curves..more mistakes………He went back to his location motion in the big park in SF and did fine……………you would be foolish to add up all his innings last year and say, “theres lots of wear on these here tires Earl”. Dave does not miss these points of interest. He must keep Penny’s pitch counts down. If he follows the Cardinal hero’s and tries to keep the bull pen out of games……….he won’t make the mid-point.
Piniero’s winning percentage in 2009 (.556) was about the same as the Cards winning percentage (.562). I expect his W% in 2010 to be no better than the team’s W% . Probably he will be around .500.
Brian, good point to specify half-truth, which by definition is insincere and a purposful attempt to decieve. Who decided to sign up for that?
DeWitt, Mo, TLR, McGwire, Jumbo. Tight as ticks, thick as thieves, one for all, all for one.
“. . Penny is a complete unknown . . .”.
Well, he has been like a rolling stone the last year or so, but he can throw the bums a lot of dimes now, wouldn’t you say Westy.
Bugzacktly…………BB……………..your too hard on yourself jumbo.
I’m on board the Red Bird crazy train with you Jumbo. Don’t let my efforts to analyze the behavior of the unenlightened fool you. My loyalty could not be swayed except by Schwartzeneger or the frozen head of Ted Williams.
Bling, there is plenty of room on the crazy train, for those of sound mind and stout heart, like yourself. (There is room for RCW too.)
Now I know there are a few fans out there troubled by all the fantastic claims about steroids. There are a lot of claims about a lot of things, in general.
In a turbulent, complicated world, it is great that there are still a few things left that we can rely on: like the St Louis Cards, under the inspired, wise leadership of Mr. Bill DeWitt and Mr. Mo.
Skip $2,750,000 (asked), $1,450,000 (offered)
Wonder whats the holdup
http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/3407767
A must read BB……. a quote below…………………. foreign investors? These are the Saud’s and other friends of Jumbo’s friends……………. they got allot of that money back in the first mysterious 350 billion give away by W, let alone the profits reported by GS. Chinese, Russians got 30+% Someone Jumbo loves made a bundle here. Whats not said is the stock manipulations in said company’s as they had prior knowledge to the reporting of said transactions. Does it affect the Cardinals……..probably. We need that beer and peanut cash flow. This was the biggest theft of all time. The purpose is not greed……..but security……for the Israeli’s and Gulf states…..Oh yeah, and greed.
McClatchy also has reported that Goldman peddled unregulated securities to foreign investors through the Cayman Islands , a Caribbean tax haven, in some cases exaggerating the soundness of the underlying home mortgages. In numerous deals, records indicate, the company required investors to pay Goldman massive sums if bundles of risky mortgages defaulted. Goldman has said its investors were fully informed of the risks.
Federal auditors found that Goldman placed $22 billion of its swap bets against subprime securities, including many it had issued, with the giant insurer American International Group . In late 2008, when the government bailed out AIG, Goldman reaped $13.9 billion — a gigantic return on the modest premiums it had paid under the contracts.
Westy, first, you left out the funny part:
“Goldman was the only major Wall Street firm to safely exit the subprime mortgage market . . . . . . .Goldman’s former chairman, Henry Paulson , served as Treasury secretary during the bailouts that benefitted the firm and while other Wall Street investment banks foundered because of their subprime market exposure, its profits have soared. ”
Second, this is the list of federal agencies looking into it, does anything seem oddly out place on this list?
Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations
Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission
Securities and Exchange Commission
Homeland Security
Absolutely…………..it the most important one………….these are the statutes that continue the use of the NSA apparatus for tracking all financial transactions. The first obstacles to these investigations will be requests for information contained there in, with the intension of shutting it down.
Skip $2,750,000 (asked), $1,450,000 (offered)
1.25 large is what…………………… He wants to be paid for the 300+ average……………. they want to pay for a platoon boy headed for outfield duty too. I would say they want Lopez. Thats not enough to hold up acquisitions me thinks He would take the median………..but they haven’t offer is my guess..
Westie, its ironic, but being crazy actually does not qualify for a seat on the Card crazy train. As I advised Bling, seats are limited to those of sound mind and stout heart.
Cards worriers and doubters, of whom there are a few, can ride on another train. They will enjoy themselves, being among the compatibly like-minded.
It would be nice to see the 535 from Congress sniff around Goldman and AIG. This seems of more public service than fretting about whether McGwire, Clemens, Bonds, Sammy, Ryan Franklin, Miguel Tejada, Carlton Fisk, and Jeff Bennett used muscle helpers while playing a game.
Schu contract issue = incentives. Nothing that wont be ovecome. Why are you sweating the small stuff?
I mean that 2010 Pineiro will pitch better than 2010 Penny. Certainly, 2009 Pineiro will have been better than 2010 Penny.
I don’t buy the argument that Pineiro will all of a sudden forget how to throw his sinker because he’s apart from Dave Duncan. I’ll certainly grant that pitching for the Angels or Red Sox is more difficult than pitching for the Cardinals, Jumbo.
Successful starting pitchers need to throw more than heat. Penny needs to fix his curve and start using his changeup again like he did in ’07 if he hopes to fool batters the second or third time through the order. I’ll grant you that he had a nice month in San Fran, but he never made it to seven innings in four months of play with the Red Sox. As WC says, they won’t get 200 innings out of Penny and certainly not the 214 IP that they got from Pineiro last season.
Winning percentage, bb? Really? Unless a pitcher throws complete games and bats all nine spots in the lineup, I’m not sure what winning percentage has to do with anything.
Penny wasn’t a bad signing this off-season. Pineiro was a better one.
Uh oh. I sense a flare-up of Wainwright’s “sabermetrics is hogwash” argument may be coming on…
Pineiro has a ho-hum 4 years (2005-08), with Mariners, Sox, and Cards. Cards fans and Duncan were unhappy with his job in 08. Pineiro was hurt to be denied a role on a team representing Puerto Rico in spring 09 managed by Jose Oquendo. The Cards sent him a wake up call and pressured him to adopt a sinker, because he did not have enough repertoire otherwise. The sinker turned into a huge pitch for Joel and revived a career that was about on the rocks.
Another asset for Joel is he takes the ball and has been durable. He has been and may continue to be an innings eater, a very useful contribution.
Duncan probably likes getting Brad Penny to work with. If Penny can remain healthy and hold up under the workload, he has higher ceiling and can be overpowering for a must-win game in October.
Pineiro is probably a better bet to throw more innings in a season and to NOT win a must-win game in October, as shown in 09.
I appreciate the value of clean hogs, so I approve of sabrmetrics even if Wainy is right. Notice I said ‘if’.
The difference between a starter’s W% and his teams W% is what to look at. Good starters have a W% that exceeds that of the team unless they are hurt. It was like that in Gibby’s day when guys had 20 complete games and it is the same now with guys who hardlly ever complete a game.
As to Penny. He will benefit from Yaddi calling the game as much as from side sessions with Dunc. If we see a lot of shake-offs, expect Dunc to visit the mound.
CC, I wouldn’t have thought it was normal to haggle over incentives in a one year arb compromise type of contract. Maybe I’m wrong.
One bad outing and Pineiro is no good in the post-season? That’s harsh.
Penny has higher upside, sure, and I hope that everything works out well. He was a Cardinals fan growing up, which makes him a very nice fit for the team. However, while I certainly won’t credit the Red Sox with knowing what they are doing, Penny did rather abruptly go from the waiver wire to a $7.5-9M contract in only a month of playing.
Good point Nut, but Joel also went from rags to riches rather abruptly, considering that he was sub-.500 until well into July. A factor that may apply is the traditional preference for physical bigness in RHP’s. Penny is 6’4″. Piniero is listed 6’1″ and is actually no more than 6′. The overall stature is no contest. That would matter to DD.
Jumbo: “It would be nice to see the 535 from Congress sniff around Goldman and AIG”.
The government put a high-power Wall Street investment banker in charge of a program to distribute many billions of tax dollars to wall street financial companies, and the company most closely linked to the banker in charge came out smelling best. Now Jumbo, we can spend a lot of money following that bear around in the woods and see for ourself what it does, and write a 2000 page report about it, but in the end we won’t really know anything that we didn’t already know.
Just to be clear, Joel Pineiro the best walk rate among starting pitchers in the National League last season by a wide margin. He only gave up 1.1 BB/9 IP. Dan Haren was the next closest with 1.5, and no one else did better than 1.8 (though Carpenter was at 1.8 as well). Pineiro was also tied for the fourth best home run rate among starters in the NL with 0.5 HR/9 IP. (Carpenter led with 0.3).
He had a very good season and the sinker is a clear cause for it. It didn’t just come out of nowhere.
Sorry to see Tejada go. We could have bought the division right there.
BB……… think, what puts Arabs in Jews in bed together. Chinese are simple, the paper against our debts isn’t worth anything anyway, may as well gamble. Russians are stupid…….. think, what do Cayman Island transactions offer? There are only a few people in the world that know where the first Tarp installment went in 2008. It was a three page document that released money to stop a “postured collapse”. The Arabs and Chinese threating a massive pullout because of the obvious fraud. The Chinese weren’t aware……….. the Arabs don’t make that gamble………unless they know they’re protected. Think of the implication………….who could benifit from a massive collapse. Watch, this was the Cheney energy plan. All risks taken were covered by profits from the manipulated energy markets from 2005 on. Except those taken as massive bonuses by SG and the like. Don’t you love American………….. and we have political chaos. It takes a mysterious “Sarah Palin ” type of move to guarantee an election outcome. Anyway, this is where you’re at folks, like it or not. That pretty much sums it up.
Its not that complicated Westy. A junky will do whatever it takes, and a supplier doesn’t care what that is. Political ideology, party politics, religious squabbles, that’s just the freak show out front.
Lopez is a good 2nd baseman, a switch-hitting top of the order guy. Can play 162, against righties and lefties, and hit around .300 against both with a good OBP against both. Cards need a left swinging bat and back-up outfielder. Maybe they are thinking they don’t have to look too far for that. Tony has his long coveted clean-up hitter. He wouldn’t give Mo too much trouble over it.
He’s a Boras guy, that means it takes time.
The Brewers are praying he falls in their lap. Boras hopes the Card will try to prevent this. We need to do it, if for no other reason as a defense move………..These are the types of scenarios that distress Albert/Tony.
Tony yes, Mo, I doubt it. Tony saw it coming, thus, the ‘rather see it go into a starter’ posturing. “I tried Skippy old boy”.
Albert wants runners on ahead of him, on first ahead of him, with MH on deck. Who doesn’t matter.
As an aside, I have thought it would be great to get Iwamura from the Pirates. He swings from the left but absolutely killed lefties last year. I’d just love to see what Tony would do with that? A low payroll team like the Pirates should want their highest paid player to either make a big impact or sell tickets. So Iwamura makes no sense at all. $4.25M is a lot though, especially this year.
Probably too late for that. Should have gotten Iwamura from Tampa Bay first if they wanted him.