Cardinals Preview, Plus Good Reasons to Cheer for the Pirates and the Rockies This Week

Since a four-game series in St. Louis sounds pretty serious, I thought I'd scout the Cardinals in advance. So before dinner last night, I turned on their game against the Brewers. Here's what I came up with:

• They're not the Rockies.
• They have a record that is currently identical with the Giants: 59-49.
• Lance Lynn occupied what could have been Ryan Vogelsong's spot on the all-stars.
• These guys can hit.

I also wrote a preview for the two games in May that the Giants and Cardinals split. I mentioned two things of note:

First, I figured that Krukow and Kuiper wouldn't be able to resist talking about Carlos Beltran or possibly comparing him to Melky Cabrera. At the time, Beltran's slash line was .295/.407/.648 with 13 home runs (1.055 OPS), while Cabrera's was .333/.380/.487 with two homers (.867 OPS). And then Beltran didn't play much (one pinch hit appearance) and the point was moot. At this point in the season, the judgment that Melky would add more to the team bears out (and note the slugging percentages): Beltran is currently batting .286/.357/.537, while Cabrera is hitting .352/.397/.530. Melky's OPS is .927, Beltran's .894.

Second, I noted that Charlie Culberson's call-up probably indicated that the Giants wanted to know their infield depth with Freddy Sanchez out for the season. It turns out, with another injury to Pablo Sandoval, that they'd rather have Marco Scutaro, and I think that is a good decision. If you haven't noticed, he's put up some solid numbers as a Giant: .353/.410/.441. I don't expect him to continue such lofty production through the rest of the season, but he's been miscast as late-season bench-depth.

All this being said, I'm not sure what to expect from this series. While the Giants play the Cardinals, Jim Tracy is taking his extended spring training show on the road, and, of course, the Rockies are playing the Dodgers. We must ask of Colorado to do us a solid, and play the spoiler against the Dodgers, and then come to San Francisco to be swept over the weekend. That's not too much, right? Somebody's got to do it. 

Before Coors field, the Giants had scored 414 runs, and allowed 417, earning them a Pythagorean W-L ratio of 52-53. Going into St. Louis, they've scored 449 and allowed 430, tipping that ratio over to a winning record of 56-52. Now that I've typed it out, I've forgotten why I thought that was important.

Hey, look at that, the Diamondbacks play the Pirates. Go Pirates!

Beltran, Cabrera, and Related Matters

The Giants will be playing the St. Louis Cardinals for the next two days, which means we're going to be hearing a lot about Carlos Beltran. Remember him? The Giants acquired him for a highly touted prospect. He played a few few games, then sat out a few games with a hand injury, came back and killed the ball, and then curtailed his range in right field in proportion to the decline of the Giants' playoff chances.

Once the season was over, Giants fans argued over whether signing Beltran should be the front office's priority. I figured he'd dash off to the American League as a designated hitter. Instead, he signed with the Cardinals, which means for the next forty-eight hours, we're going to hear comparisons between Beltran and his ostensible replacement, Melky Cabrera. Beltran's slash line is .295/.407/.648 with 13 home runs, while Cabrera's posted a .333/.380/.487 line with two homers. I could add that Cabrera's hit nine doubles and four triples to Beltran's 2 doubles and 1 triple, but we're all looking at that one statistic, the home runs, because the Giants have had some trouble in that department. 

The intensity of these discussions will probably depend on whether Beltran plays (he's had some knee trouble recently), and whether or not he crushes at the plate. If not, so to speak, we can always talk about how these two teams are the last two World Series champions.

Two more things...

Gregor Blanco, the official underdog player championed by the Left Field Line is currently batting .293/.408/.414. He has also been pretty consistent in contributing to those moments in the game (stealing bases, scoring runs, not committing one of the Giants' league-leading 41 errors) that I tend to remember positively. Not to mention that his first home run of the year was no joke.

Finally, Charlie Culberson made his major league debut a few days ago. I figured that he's up because the Giants needed another right handed hitter. But since there's more talk about Freddy Sanchez's injury setbacks, could Culberson also be up because the team needs to know what their options are if Sanchez can't/doesn't return?

The Outfield

Not so long ago, if you asked a Giants fan who belonged in the outfield in 2012, you would get all sorts of answers. I figured that if one could accept the premise that Carlos Beltran would not be returning, the starting lineup would be Melky Cabrera in center, Nate Schierholtz in right, and Brandon Belt in left. I'd ponder a world where Huff--started at first by a stubborn Bruce Bochy and/or front office-- would come out in the 7th, Belt would move to first while Cabrera moved to left, and Andres Torres would patrol center field. I had even pondered Grant Brisbee's argument that we ought to consider another season with Cody Ross. Just because he really pisses off the Phillies.

Maybe I even pondered the situation too much. Then the winter meetings came, I joined Twitter, and Andres Torres and Ramon Ramirez were traded to the Mets for Angel Pagan. And it seems that since the Cardinals sunk the Phillies' chance at the World Series in 2011, and since the Giants will be fielding a team without Ross or Ramirez, well, the Phillies might not even remember why they used to get so wound up about playing against San Francisco, why Charlie Manuel would split hairs to prove to himself that Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain weren't great pitchers. And, while I am on the topic, as much as I'd hate to see it, I might feel a fleeting moment of joy if the Cardinals signed Ross. By the way, did I mention that I'm going to miss Torres?

Now, the outfield is set. Bochy and Sabean have hinted otherwise, but at the moment I can't imagine that they would trade for Pagan, after trading for Cabrera, without the intention of fielding him in center on opening day and beyond. The only person whose starting cred is actually endangered is Schierholtz, who was one of the few Giants who deservedly played his way into the lineup in 2011. Before I even start digging up stats, it's clear that last year was his best so far, with the exception of that season-ending broken foot. Stats or not, though, his job is in trouble due to that logjam at first base.

At least management is talking sensibly about sticking Huff in the outfield, and not Belt. Before the trades, I figured that Belt would get the most playing time in left, which made that seem like a good idea. With Melky and Pagan, Belt will probably fare better if Bochy figures he's got to pencil him in at first, and Huff in right or left field. With these kind of roster acrobatics, Schierholtz will probably fare better if he's a swell or magnanimous guy, because it could be long season of jogging out to right in the seventh inning. Either that or the crime-scene tape:

The real winner, I'd have to say, about this arrangement isn't who you would think. With two future free agents starting in that great expanse of AT&T park in 2012, I'd have to think it is  the up and coming--as in, dare I say it, the September call-up--Gary Brown, prospect extraordinaire.

The Cabrera/Sanchez Trade

At some point in the 2011 season, I started telling a joke about how a player's lackluster performance could land him a trade to Kansas City.

I don't exactly remember why I chose the Royals as the butt of the joke, but their team certainly qualifies over the last few years as a kind of baseball purgatory (not unlike the Pittsburgh Pirates or the Washington Nationals), although I do get the feeling that it had something to do with Jeremy Affeldt's cromulent month of May, which was reinforced by his season-ending incident with those frozen hamburgers.

The Melky Cabrera trade, then, surprised me because I hadn't quite imagined that Jonathan Sanchez would end up there. It always seemed like the destination for somebody else...aside from Affeldt, if you could put aside the payroll factors, the Aaron Rowands and Barry Zitos of the world. Somebody like Sanchez, I thought, could shape up. Sure, that walk ratio is horrendous, but his strikeout rate (9.355 per 9 innings since 2006) surely means something. But as I've mentioned before, who the Giants will put on offer to trade does not take place in a vacuum. They've got four solid starters, and two or three fifth starters, with one who has a contract that means he can't be traded and he can't be kept on the bench. 

That meant Sanchez was going to be moved to address the Giants' weaknesses on offense. Say whatever you want (especially about that 2010 season), but I think that Melky Cabrera's 2011 numbers show that he will be a good addition to the team: the 201 hits, the 18 home runs, the 44 doubles, the .305/.339/.809 AVG/OBP/OPS line, certainly outpace most of the 2011 Giants, and especially whoever happened to be the first guy standing in the batter's box--although his walk/strikeout ratio (35/94) leaves something to be desired.

If I had to forecast the 2012 season, I'd say that Cabrera is not quite Carlos Beltran, but he's not Coco Crisp either (and if you read the McCovey Chronicles, Grant Brisbee seemed to think that Crisp's acquisition was a fait accompli). The trade also makes me wonder how the Giants' perceive the free agent market. If I had to guess, maybe they think Beltran will find that his talents fit with an American League team as a designated hitter, and they weren't ready to make an expensive "lateral move" (in Brisbee's words) for Crisp. In this case, acquiring Cabrera makes a lot of sense--no matter how much I wanted to see, for different reasons, an improved Andres Torres or Cody Ross out in center field.

What about the so-called purgatory? I'd like to think that if the Royals turn things around and become contenders, that Sanchez would have an important part to play there. Then I would have to make jokes at another team's expense.