The Cardinals as a team have been hitting poorly ever since the departure of Mark McGwire as their hitting coach. For the three years he was in charge, the Cards had the best OBP, the most runs scored, and the second most hits in the National League. His last year in St. Louis, Mac had six Cardinal players hitting right at or over .300 and five of them had twenty or more home runs. Mac had the sweetest swing I ever saw, and there was a period of time where the young guys on the team were looking just like him at the plate, but no more. They look lost up there. Is it Mabry's fault? It may well be. But Allen Craig is so good a hitter that he could be the hitting coach on any team. For him to be looking so bad at the plate, I can only believe that he was simply not trying. Mark my words, he wanted to get traded. So now he's got his wish and will be playing with the Bo-Sox next week. How much you wanna bet he suddenly starts knocking the cover off the ball?
John Mozeliak has been the force behind this mess, trading off one great player after another while bringing cheating scum into the clubhouse. He deserved to get fired for that Peralta move. Trading Freeze was a mistake as well. Trading Joe Kelly will come back to haunt him too. We might as well give up watching the Cards for a few years. There aren't a team anymore. The chemistry is gone. At least we've got Rizzo and Abreu slugging it out in not too far away Chicago, which is right now the best home run rivalry baseball has seen in quite a while.
So long Allen Craig. You were the best thing about this team after Albert left.
Yahoobuckaroo (a discouraged fan)
So...you're going to compare Jhonny Peralta's single season RISP of now (8/3) .183 to Kozma's career stat of .314 but you're not going to compare Peralta's career RISP of .272/.350/.427/.777 in 1,723 career plate appearances to Kozma's career RISP of .314/.400/.401/.801 in only 166 Plate Appearances. Now...why does Kozma only have 166 plate appearances? OH...I know...because he has a career split (BA/OBP/SLG/OPS) of .233/.293/.315/.608 OPS. Whereas Peralta's career splits are .267/.330/.426/.756.
ReplyDeleteYeah...let's bring up Kozma and send down Peralta to AAA because CLEARLY Kozma is the superior SS overall.
OH WAIT...Did I forget to mention Kozma has a split of .226/.316/.326/.642 in AAA? No? Oh...well yeah...let's bring up the no power hitting, no On Base Getting, low Average hitting Kozma and get rid of Jhonny Peralta who, against superior pitching, has a higher batting average this year (.253 to .226), has a better OBP (.330 to .316) and a higher SLG (.441 to .326).
As to David Freese he is finally heating up. In July .291/.367/.494/.860 but wait...Jhonny Peralta hit .289/.355/.446/.801 in July. Not a big difference there.
But...everyone KNOWS that Peralta is a bum at SS and Freese is the 2nd coming of Brooks Robinson right?
WRONG...
Peralta has a Defensive War of 2.0 (that's a positive 2.0 meaning he's doing well). How's Freese doing? Just a -0.5 dWar.
Yeah...I'm REALLY upset that Freese was traded away.
Now...Giving up Allen Craig, who was clearly not getting with program OR was injured and not telling the coaches, may or may not bite them in butt later but they also cleared up between $26.5-$38.5 Million over the next 3-4 years on a guy who wasn't improving. Yes, this may be a bad year for him. But...he just injured his ankle AGAIN. And I think we all know after seeing what happens to guys with gimpy ankles (yes, I'm talking to you David Freese). They are more easily hurt in the future. Also...for a person who claims to think so much of Allen Craig, offering the supposition that he "was playing poorly on purpose in an attempt to get traded." is an insult to the man and player that I think he is and was.
I am GRATEFUL for the years that Allen Craig and David Freese gave to the Cardinals. I am sorry to see a young Joe Kelly go. He might develop into a decent starter who could possibly eclipse the 6th inning every once in a while. It might happen, someday.
But...you have to give up something to get something in return. The Cards unloaded a pretty big contract (for their payroll at least), opened up a spot in the OF for their super-prospect Oscar Taveras who in his last 30 ABs has gone 9/30 (.300 AVG), with 1 HR, 6 RBIs, with 2 walks to only 1 strikeout.
Yeah...John Mozeliak is a TERRIBLE GM...let's get rid of him!
You apparently do not know how to gather or tally stats either one. First of all this: "Peralta's career RISP of .272/.350/.427/.777" is NOT an RISP stat. Here are Peralta's RISP stats for every year in the majors:
ReplyDeleteRISP:
2003 - .261
2004 - .222
2005 - .302
2006 - .240
2007 - .280
2008 - .281
2009 - 265
2010 - .276
2011 - .307
2012 - .236
2013 - .344
2014 - .183
Career RISP - .266
Here is Kozma's:
RISP:
2013 - .322
2012 - .313
2011 - .200
Career RISP - .278
Even with the 2011 stat where he only had a handful of at-bats, and thus no chance to bring up that stat, he STILL has a better career RISP than Peralta. And better yet, he did it without sticking a needle in his backside like PED-HEAD Peralta who should be banned permanently from Major League Baseball. Decent people don't want him paraded in front of their kids as an example of crime paying.
You say Kozma has "no On Base Getting" yet admit two seconds later that it's only slightly less than Peralta's "330 to .316" this year. You call Kozma "low Average hitting" and then again turn around and admit it's not much worse than Perata ".253 to .226" and by the way, Kozma's hitting .333 in the few Major League at-bats he's had this year. Peralta was hitting .225 until just a few weeks ago. Give him another month and he'll probably be back to .225.
Cheating Peralta should be out of baseball forever and Mo should be right out the door after him. Bringing a known cheater into the organization should have gotten him kicked to the curb plain and simple. Anybody with a measurable IQ and the scruples of a monkey would agree. And then there's you....
Don't bother posting again. It will only get deleted. I've no time for stupidity.