From: kohout@cs.umd.edu (Robert Kohout)
Newsgroups: rec.sport.baseball
Subject: Re: Todd Zeile
Keywords: Please explain
Date: 12 Aug 92 21:22:27 GMT
Organization: U of Maryland, Dept. of Computer Science, Coll. Pk., MD 20742

In article <1992Aug12.184538.28222@m.cs.uiuc.edu> ksmith@m.cs.uiuc.edu (Ken Smith) writes:
>
>>It really is frustrating to see, he's messed with Zeile, messed
>>with Osborne, waited far too long to give Gilkey the LF job,messed
>>with Lankford(making him a leadoff hitter, and then finally
>>moving back to 3rd when he was actually doing pretty well at leadoff)
>>and basically screwed with the ballclub all year.
>
>I think the real problem is that the Cards lack a solid consistent power/RBI
>hitter.  The Cards lead the league in fielding, are second in hitting,
>and have a promising young pitching staff.  But nobody can get from 3rd to
>home.  All the switching around is Torre's effort to find *someone* who can
>get RBIs.  Lankford seems to do the best.  Trading for Gallaraga wasn't that
>dumb when you realize the Cards would just have the same problem with a better
>pitching staff if they hadn't traded.  It was a gamble that didn't pay off,
>but at least the problem was recognized.  Ziele isn't the power hitter they
>want.  But once he gets in a lineup with *someone* who will hit 30 hrs and get
>100 RBIs in front of him, I think he'll hit much better.  Its good Brian
>Jordan is in Louisville right now, or everyone would be pressuring him to be
>the big guy, and he's not ready yet.  Without a Jack Clark sort of hitter,
>the Cards will remain an also-ran.

Did Dal Maxvill pay you to write this?

I went to St.Louis for the first time this season a couple of weeks ago.
As I was driving along 270 in the first or second inning of a Friday
night game against the Reds, Galaragga came up, and Mike Shannon said 
something like

"This is the guy that has to do it for the Cardinals. You can put Gilkey at
first, you can put Jordan there, but if this guy can't put up the kind
of numbers he had in '88, the Cardinals aren't going anywhere."

So I say to Mike (I've got a bad habit of talking back at the radio
when it says stupid things): "If you believe that, why not just come right
out and admit the season's over!"

Of course, Mike responds by describing Galarraga's first ever Busch Stadium
homerun as a Cardinal, but that's not the point.

St.Louis won the Series in '82. Name their big power man. How many
HR's did they get out of Clark in '85 and '87? (Hint: it was less than
30). How many homers did Tom Herr hit in his 100+ RBI season?
Just take that as a clue - St.Louis doesn't need a 30 homer man
to win a pennant.

There's no doubt a big bopper would help, but even that fact belies
an important point that you seem to be missing: the team's offensive
numbers, _including slugging_ aren't that bad, but they aren't
scoring runs. When theystopped scoring in the Herzog years, the
whole machine broke down, but that's not the story this time.
The entire sporting world appears mystified at the Cardinal's inability
to score runs. The fact that they are 5th in OBA*SLG and 11th in runs
scored (not to mention 2nd in SB), strongly suggest a major deviation
from normal run producing behavior. Why?

Could it have anything to do with the fact that someone has insisted
on batting a guy fourth who's slugging rivals the team's shortstop?
Zeile got sent down for hitting .251, and slugging .353 with a
.344 OBA, while Galarraga still cleans up with .232, .358, .270
Batting the team's top slugger (who, unfortunately, is Lankford, 
in the leadoff spot for several weeks didn't help either.

No one needed to take the (stupid) Galarraga gamble, anymore than they
need to keep batting him fourth until he "comes out" of his career long
slump and "returns" to the form of his career year. Why take a 10 or 20
to 1 shot like that? I don't know. Maybe one of the hitting coaches
thought he saw a problem he could "fix". Odds are much better in the
free agent pool, and the Cards have avoided that like the plague.
The owners are cheap, and they've started to run a team like the Cal Griffin
Twins, trading away good young prospects for washed up hitters who
might sell a few tickets.

What absolutely amazes me is not only are the good people of St.Louis
happy with Torre (though ssomewhat less so with Maxvill), but the NL
managers actually voted him the #3 guy in the league in a Baseball
America poll. And this is a guy who's best two moves this year
were bring up rookies (Osborne and Jordan) who didn't make the team
in the Spring, to fill in for injured players, and then sit by
passively as the league caught up to them.

Sigh.

Bob Kohout


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