Cardinals will start season without naming closer

[IE]

The Cardinals plan to leave spring training without naming a closer, but that doesn't mean they'll go north without having one.

Actions always speak louder than anointments.

Manager Tony La Russa's hesitance to, as he likes to say, "anoint" a reliever as the team's ninth-inning answer will carry over from 2008 into 2009. The Cardinals plan to use the remaining 11 games of spring training to build and hone a bullpen nimble enough to offer options for closing.

Jason Motte's run of save opportunities has separated him from other closer candidates, but the Cardinals aren't telling even him if he has won the job.


"Even if we, in our minds, have that person designated, I don't think we're going to publicly say that, and I don't think we're going to tell the individual," pitching coach Dave Duncan said. "Let him establish himself. We'll create the situation for him to pitch, and if he establishes himself then he will (close). If he doesn't, then he won't."

The Cardinals reach the other side of their final off day this spring with 14 pitchers on their roster, including the five starters in their rotation. La Russa has said he plans to take 12 pitchers into the regular season, leaving nine to fit into seven reliever roles. Several are certain, like Ryan Franklin and the two lefties, Trever Miller and Dennys Reyes. Others, such as Josh Kinney and Motte, have pitched well enough to grab jobs. Brad Thompson is a fit for the long-relief role, and Kyle McClellan has been designated for a late-inning job.

Chris Perez's spot is less clear after he missed more than a week with shoulder discomfort. He and Motte entered the spring as candidates to leave as the closer, in deed if not in name.

Motte, a rookie, had earned a save in four of his past five appearances this spring. The righthander has allowed one run and one walk in 9 1/3 innings, while striking out 13 and collecting five saves total. Cleared to pitch after missing time with tendinitis in his shoulder, Perez could throw his first inning since March 11.

The injury has been "a detriment," Perez said. "I think it's really hurtful to my chances. I have to look at it like this ? if I wasn't healthy, I wouldn't close anyway. It's unfortunate timing."

Duncan said the Cardinals will do everything possible to get Perez "a fair opportunity" to earn a job in the major-league bullpen. The schedule limits his ability to state his case.

Motte has already made his.

The righthander has seized recent opportunities to show not only improved command of a second pitch, his slider, but also the poise to handle what La Russa calls the hardest three outs of the game. Motte, sporting a 98 mph fastball, worked a four-out save last week against Tampa Bay. On Saturday, he rifled through three members of Washington's major-league lineup in unfriendly conditions to clinch a 12-11 victory.

"He pitches every inning the same," Duncan said. "It doesn't matter if it's the fifth or the ninth, he pitches it the same. That's a really good asset."

But is it a hint?

"It is what it is," Duncan said. "I'm excited about the way he's throwing the ball. Does that mean I'm ready to say, 'Oh man, we've got a bona fide closer here'? No. Let's get the season going (first)."

Starting today, the Cardinals will use the bullpen as if it's the regular season, pitch counts and work permitting. That means Miller and Reyes will get lefties, Franklin will set up and so on. Motte will continue to see save-like situations. But the Cardinals recognize that no Grapefruit League save can simulate a National League save, and they want to have built-in alternatives. Franklin and Kinney are two. Perez still has a say.

"If Motte leaves here with the evaluation that he's good enough to pitch in the ninth inning of a game we have a chance to win, then he'll get factored into how we set up the game," La Russa said. "What you do in every case, you try to be flexible and adapt for what's best for your personnel."

La Russa's preference has always been to build a bullpen around a defined closer, but the lack of what he called an "established closer" in camp forces a different approach. Because his choices are "inexperienced," he would rather ease a young pitcher into the role and see a closer emerge in April or May than designate one in March, or at all.

The saves will tell, not the title.

"If somebody demonstrates they are ready for it, then you call them the closer," La Russa said. "When it's there, it's there, whenever that is."

 

[Nelson]

I'll offer some writeups on the Cardinals this season, as they are the team I follow and know best.

3/26/9

The Cards appear set for a solid year. Their ace is back. Carpenter has pitched extremely well in the preseason and shown no signs of the injuries that destroyed his last two years. When he was last healthy in 2006, the Cards won it all.

Carpenter when physically functional is impressive. He has a way of holding himself that diffuses a calm and stabilizing atmosphere thru his team. He has explained that what got him over the hump from middling to great pitcher was mental. Faith in his stuff, belief that he was in the right place and could get the job done. This faith manifests in a certain deliberateness in his physical movements. Just as importantly, Carpenter has communicated his way to Wainwright, the number two starter, who has become a pretty good copy of the master. Other pitchers have observed and benefited from these two as the understanding spreads thru the bullpen, which of course is run by Dave Duncan, whom most analysts agree is a very good pitching coach.

On the hitting side, the Cards have perennial MVP candidate Pujols. Pujols has perhaps been most notable for his combination of power and average, which spring directly from his refusal to swing at bad pitches. Like Carpenter, he has trained at least one teammate in his ways - the catcher Molina, who hit over .300 in 2008, altho he is one of the slowest runners in the game.

The Cardinals always do well because their manager pays attention to details, exhibits loyalty, and, together with management, keeps head cases out of the mix. There's enough competition among some very good players to keep everybody playing hard, and anybody who doesn't want to be there is removed, for example Adam Kennedy.

The Cardinals lost the invaluable Aaron Miles to the Cubs this year, which will hurt them. Glaus will be injured to start the season. But Schumaker is making an apparently successful transition from outfield to second base. He has a very strong arm, and while needs work on double plays and tagging out baserunners, continues to maintain his average and offensive productivity. His moving to second allows the Cards to bring up top prospect Colby Rasmus, which keeps a good competition for outfield spots along with the established Ankiel and Ludwick. Duncan, son of the pitching coach, has hit better this spring, coming back from last year's injuries. Khalil Greene at shortstop has hit well in the spring, so it seems the Cards biggest move in the offseason was a good one, as he seems to be rebounding from a terrible 2008 in San Diego. Greene is solid defensively and seems to have right personality to blend in with the rest of the team.

The Cardinals finished well above .500 last year, and could have won 95 games if their bullpen hadn't fallen apart with almost daily regularity. I have never seen a team lose so many games in which it had a lead going into the fifth or sixth inning - I believe the Cards' pen blew more games than any other, around 30. If they had won half of the those, the team would have won 90-100 games in 2008.

LaRussa and Duncan will not name a closer out of spring training, but the tip seems to be toward former catcher Motte, who has top-notch fastball. He's young and ought to be blazing full guns this year. The others will simply have to pitch better, and there is some reason to think they will.

If Carpenter and Wainwright stay healthy, the Cards should do even better than last year. I would guess that 3-5 starters Lohse, Wellmeyer and Pineiro will do slightly worse than last year while the bullpen will do considerably better. I expect hitting to be solid year long, and the Cardinals will win about 90 games.

Record: 22-13
Units: +1.14

 

[Nelson]

The total for Cardinals season wins is 82' at 5dimes. In my view it is a few games too low. I think the Cards are likelier to win 92 games than 82. I might be biased in that I like many of the Cardinals players, like Schumaker, and want to see them do well.

The Cards and, for example, the Mets are two teams that take very different approaches. The Mets go whole hog for internationalism (see Steve Sailer on this), lots of Latin players. The Cardinals, altho La Russa is a Bay-area liberal, stick to character solids in assembling their teams - white guys with their heads screwed on right. It's partly but not purely a racial thing, altho of course no one can discuss this stuff openly, political conditions being what they are. St. Louis will never have a T.O., and if one developed, they wouldn't wait years to get rid of him. For example, Adam Kennedy was unhappy with his status coming into this season. He has a perhaps exaggerated view of his abilities in light of his recent performance. So the Cards got rid of him. But even though he has been unhappy since last season, he never acted up. This kind of SELF-CONTROL is hugely important to a team, even tho it's not talked about very often. Baseball is a very grindy thing. You're playing almost every day. You're flying here and there and everywhere. To minimize the friction you simply have to assemble teams out of players who have their egos under control. The Cardinals are as good at this as any team in baseball. There's a good vibe, from their front office thru La Russa thru their excellent broadcasters. By keeping this fundamental emphasis on character and stability, the Cards ensure the preconditions for winning. From such a basis, in any given year, if things fall right, if people play well and the bullpen works and there aren't any major injuries, they can potentially win it all. And almost always they will win more than they lose.