June 30: DeRosa is an Impact Bat
1. Mark DeRosa is not a judy hitter: One can only laugh at the whining by the minority (but loud) minority of media and fan voices out there who pan the DeRosa trade because he isn’t an “impact bat.” You’d think that the guy was just barely a notch above, say, Brian Barden or Joe Thurston. Do these folks even bother to do any homework? Have they paid any attention to the 2009 season?
At the time of the trade that sent DeRosa from Cleveland to St. Louis, DeRosa was 18th in the majors in RBIs. He had more RBIs than Matt Holliday, Chipper Jones, Chase Utley, Jim Thome, Hanley Ramirez, Miguel Cabrera, Carlos Lee, Lance Berkman, Adrian Gonzalez, Paul Konerko, Ryan Zimmerman, David Wright, Kevin Youkilis, Mike Lowell, Nick Markakis, Miguel Tejada, Andre Ethier, Matt Kemp, Derrek Lee, Carlos Beltran, James Loney, Nate McLouth, Johnny Damon, Scott Rolen, Vernon Wells, Jermaine Dye, Bobby Abreu, Brandon Phillips, Alfonso Soriano, Dan Uggla and J.D. Drew.
De Rosa had as many RBIs as Adam Dunn and as many homers as Thome. DeRosa had more homers than a long list of guys including Holliday, C. Lee, D. Lee, C. Jones, Brad Hawpe, McLouth, Zimmerman, Wright.
DeRosa may not be, say, Ryan Howard in the slugging department. But he’s been one of the better run producers in baseball this season. I have no idea what the mewling is all about; what exactly did you expect GM John Mozeliak to do here, more than a month before the trade deadline? Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams were unavailable, and Stan Musial wasn’t prepared to come out of retirement. Do you see any other sluggers being offered or traded these days? Where are they? And what is an “impact” bat, exactly? If adding a guy who has more RBIs than Beltran, Berkman and Utley isn’t “impact” in your book, then please educate the rest of us. Thanks.
2. Enough already, for now, about Matt Holliday: Can we move on from this? The talks between the Cardinals and A’s for the overrated outfielder were contentious. Oakland’s demands were unreasonable, to put it mildly. The requested package included top hitting prospect Brett Wallace, Chris Perez or Jason Motte, plus at least one elite prospect. A Cardinals insider described it this way to me: Oakland GM Billy Beane’s goal here wasn’t to make a good trade; he wanted to destroy the trading partner. No one should blame Beane for asking for a preposterously big return on Holliday; if a team is stupid enough to cave into his demands, then Beane gets the props. But Beane has said that he’s happy to take the two No. 1 draft picks as compensation should Holliday walk as a free agent. Unless Beane comes off that, and drops his price dramatically, there is no deal to make. So can we hit the mute button on all of this nonsensical Holliday talk, at least until there is a legit reason to revisit this? By the way, have you noticed the way Holliday has hit once he lost the benefit of playing half of his games at Coors Field? Holliday has 8 homers and 40 RBIs this season. Less than DeRosa in both categories.
3. If anything, the Cardinals should be looking for a starting pitcher: Todd Wellemeyer has the third-worst ERA (5.53) among MLB starting pitchers and is allowing more base runners per nine innings than any big-league starting pitcher. After being plugged into the rotation as an injury replacement for Kyle Lohse, Brad Thompson was terrific for a while but has gotten bopped around in his last two starts, allowing two of the lesser offenses in the NL (Mets and Giants) to rack him for 9 ER in 11 IP. The Faberge Egg propagandists would have you believe that the Cardinals can install one of the Class AAA pitchers from Memphis, but they are not an upgrade at this point. When I spoke to manager Tony La Russa about possible needs that could be filled by trade, he mentioned the need to deepen the lineup (this was before the DeRosa deal) but quickly added that if there’s an opportunity to land a starting pitcher, the Cardinals should take a look at it.
4. Question for the minor-league experts: I wanted to say this up front — I’m being sincere when I ask this: is there anything down below that suggests the Cardinals are well on the way to developing a power-arm starting pitcher? The guys who keep coming up here – Mitchell Boggs, P.J. Walters, Clayton Mortensen — tend to nibble and throw a lot of pitches instead of going after hitters. Seems to me that this is a genuine void in the system; perhaps Lance Lynn (at AA Springfield) fits the profile. My friend Derrick Goold thinks Adam Ottavino qualifies. If there’s someone in the system who is a legit hard thrower (a starter, not a reliever) please let us know. This is another reason why the Cardinals must sign No. 1 draft pick Shelby Miller, who is a power arm.
5. DeRosa vs. the NL Central: I was curious as to how the new Cardinal did as a Cub against the rest of the NL Central in 2007-2008. The answer: very well. The Cardinals were the one team that shut him down (for the most part) as De Rosa batted .220 against them with 3 homers and 10 RBIs in 91 ABs. That’s why when DeRosa joined the Cardinals on Sunday, one of the first things he did was to go to teammates and ask about the Cardinals’ plan in attacking him so he could close the weak spots.
Anyway, this is what DeRosa did against the other NL Central clubs:
Houston: 112 ABs, 4 HR, 15 RBIs, 8 doubles, 12 runs, .277 BA, .325 OBP, .455 SLG.
Cincinnati: 93 ABs, 5 HR, 21 RBIs, 4 doubles, 18 runs, .387 BA, .482 OBP, .591 SLG
Milwaukee: 98 ABs, 1 HR, 20 RBIs, 5 doubles, 15 runs, .286 BA, .374 OBP, .388 SLG.
Overall in 2007-2008, DeRosa had 14 homers and 79 RBIs in 500 ABs against Central teams; only 13 players had more RBIs in intramural competition, and only seven had more doubles.
Thanks as always for reading …
-Bernie
Did the same homework you did a few weeks ago when his name was mentioned in trade talks and thought the more interesting numbers were his .305 BA .392 OBP over the last 3 years with runners in scoring position. Draw back was the 90K’s in 417 AB’s, upside was 188 RBI, which made me wonder if that 188 was a misprint.
But if were looking for a Holliday lets not settle for Halloween, lets get a real Halladay like Christmas, Thanksgiving, or New Years, now wouldn’t that be sweet. Wishful thinking.
Nice job B-man.
“But Beane has said that he’s happy to take the two No. 1 draft picks as compensation should Holliday walk as a free agent.”
If Mr. Bean isn’t careful he may get as many #1 draft picks as Milwaukee got for C.C Sabithia!! That’s the danger in waiting for draft picks!!
Does Duncan/Staff even know what to do with a power arm? They’d just teach him to pitch to contact and nibble at the black, which of course is frustrating as heck to a live arm kid wanting to throw high hard gas.
Holy cow, this is the thing that drives me nuts about the undereducated people who tend to post on these blogs, it’s stupidity. DRELBOC said “DeRosa is not a judy hitter. He’s good for 20 plus homeruns and 30 to 40 doubles every year,” and nobody bothers to call him out on it.
DRELBOC, are you paying attention? Derosa hit 21HR last year. That is the ONLY time he has ever gotten to 20 in his entire career. In fact, before that, his previous high was 13. He has also only reached 30 doubles twice in his career, and averages significantly less that that.
So I guess you’re right, he’s good for those numbers every year, except for the majority of the years, when he doesn’t.
Just understand that when a guy has been around a few years, his stats will let you know what he is. He is a career .278 hitter who will get you 14-20HR and 70-80 RBI.
Hitting is contagious. Ludwick and Ankiel will get going. Maybe not silver slugger caliber, but I’ll take .270 average with solid run production. If, again with emphasis, if Glaus is ready to contribute, we have a strong right-handed bat in the 5 or 6 hole in the line up. We have two below average starters, Piniero and Wellemeyer. It is time to add a strong lefty to the mix. The Giants are weak at first base and Chris Duncan would drill homer after homer in their short right field. The Giants are deep with lefties and Jonathan Sanchez would be a nice addition. I assume we’d have to package Boggs, Walters, Mortensen, or Todd with Duncan to complete the deal. Okay, hitting is contagious, but defense isn’t. Thus, it is time to part ways with Duncan. We fixed third with DeRosa, Tyler and Brendan are above average at short, so left field needs an upgrade with Ankiel playing everyday.
Mozeliak pulled off a coup. DeRosa is a smart, clutch player and a class act. Other teams are jealous. We are lucky to have him. Thank you, Cardinal management — this is one of your finest moments since 2006 and many of us now have much more trust in you.
I used to enjoy Bernie’s columns about a decade ago prior to his constant forays into talking about Springsteen and giving players stupid nicknames presumably in an attempt to be funny or clever. Of course the idiots who write to you don’t do homework on players like you should be doing. It’s probably not their job to do so as you have to do to write accurate stories. Other media types who write inaccurate stories should probably be called out by their own readers. Stick to sports and lay off ridiculing your readers or calling them whiny. It’s simply not classy and you should be above that. Talk to Burwell or McClellan about how to be a respected journalist instead of trying to be popular with the “majority.” Joe Buck has the same problem: trying to be funny all the time instead of just calling the game - which he is very good at doing (much like you are a good sports writer when you stick to being a sports writer and not an entertainment section writer).
Reality4u, please put down the pipe and step away from the keyboard.
I have never seen anybody on this site who actually has something nice to say about that joke Burwell. He is an embarrassment to my chosen field. I mean, for crying out loud, he just did a column comparing Derosa to Shaq. Our college paper cranked out far superior daily columns compared to what he comes up with one a week. He should have been let go years ago, but we know that’s not going to happen. He and that BirdLand writer are neck in neck for worst waste of space on the web. Lazy, uncreative, reactionary journalism at its absolute worst.
Not saying Bernie nails it 100% of the time, it’s extremely difficult to when you post as much, as often as he does, but comparing him to Burwell is just wrong, and probably highly offensive. Like calling somebody a Nazi.
fsuga00 - I can assume by your post that it wasn’t Mizzou or any of the other nationally acclaimed journalism schools from which you must have attended. The Burwell article to which you refer is #1 on the most read stories list so he must be doing something right. I’m not saying that Bernie isn’t talented but it’s pretty obvious to me that he’s pandering to the lowest level of his readers. Perhaps you are familiar with some of these folks…
Reality4u, How is he “pandering to the lowest level of his readers?” I am not sure if you realized this, but It IS Bernie’s job to give his opinion. That is what the PD pays him to do. He is paid to write articles that are based on his opinion, not just short “theses are the facts and nothing else” articles. Also, you missed something else. This is HIS BLOG. This is not the article he is paid to write for the Post. I don’t know for sure if he gets paid to write this blog or not, but even if he does it is still a BLOG. It is a forum to express his opinion. It sounds to me like you are pandering. You are going into someone else’s Blog and trying to incite a cyber “riot” against the writer of said Blog. And while I don’t often agree with fsuga, he is right about the Burwell article (although I don;t always mind Burwell). You talk about “pandering to a lower level audience,” well to me “Is DeRosa the Cards Shaq” sounds like just that to me. It is just something to grab people who aren’t usually following sports attention. You put a big name in the headline and ask a ridiculous question.