Second Glances (Alomar: Re-Sign Belliard)
TOWER GROVE — Watched the “World Series 2006: The Movie” with the little man yesterday and was reminded just how far Ronnie Belliard had to go to get that bases-loaded, skipping grounder by LSU’s own Todd Walker. We all know all the things that play led to: the win, the game ball, and onward.
But I did not have the chance to write much about what led to that play.
As he bounced groundballs to the New York Mets’ infielders during the NL Championship Series, Sandy Alomar Sr. talked about when Belliard approached him years ago about playing in the grass. While both were with the Colorado Rockies, Belliard asked Alomar about why second basemen play in shallow right and when to do it.
Belliard wanted to try.
“He basically was doing that because my son Robbie did that,” Alomar Sr. said. “Ronnie knows his range and he knows where he can get to, but he asked me about it and I told him if he feels comfortable doing it then it will allow him to go deeper, to go to a deeper part of the field.”
Alomar stepped away from chopping grounders and approached me. He asked if the Cardinals were going to bring Belliard back.
Alomar stepped away from chopping grounders and approached me. He asked if the Cardinals were going to bring Belliard back.I said it wasn’t clear. They speak highly of him.
“You’re going to have a good player,” Alomar said. “I hope that those guys can keep him because I’m pretty he can help this club.”
If it’s winter, second base is open on the Cardinals’ roster. Every December since the Age of Vina, the Cardinals have been looking for a starting second baseman at this time of year. Belliard is a free agent, and with Cleveland out of the mix now the Cardinals appear a favorable destination for him. But the Cardinals plan to address other vacancies first.
Second base, as usual, can wait.
Belliard is represented by the same group as Albert Pujols, and its expected that the Cardinals will discuss another client of theirs as well, Tony Graffanino. A report in The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel had the Brewers interested in bringing Graffanino back, but not as an everyday player. Graffanino’s agent said one team was talking to Graffanino about being its everyday second baseman.
(It’s not believed that was the Cardinals.)
Before the nontenders hit the market in late December, the other two second basemen of intrigue are Adam Kennedy and Mark Loretta. Loretta looks the best fit for the Cardinals on the field, but all four of the above second basemen may not be the best fit financially.
Blame Mark DeRosa.
Having never started more than 30 games at second base in his career, the former Texas Rangers utility fielder signed a three-year deal worth $13 million to be the Cubs starting second baseman. In the fall, there was talk that Belliard could command $4 million a year, and with DeRosa setting the market all of the above second basemen could command good coin and multiple years.
A question is this: Is the position worth the kind of cash it could take to sign one of the available free agents in the post-DeRosa world? Easy answer: Not at the expense of other positions, namely pitching. Not when Aaron Miles is on the roster and the search can wait until he plays his way into the starting job in spring or doesn’t.
One second baseman may be worth the money and end this annual search: Marcus Giles.
Atlanta Journal-Constitution Braves beat writer David O’Brien wrote in his blog – the one I am jealous of, remember – that he expects Giles to be traded before the end of the winter meetings. Giles is at the end of a one-year, $3.85-million he signed to avoid arbitration. The Braves are seeking relief pitching, and the Cardinals do have a logjam of lefties. The recent moves they made to add relievers Dennis Dove and Troy Cate to the 40-man roster was done to protect them from other teams. Andy Cavazos is widely regarded, described as possibly another Josh Kinney. There are arms to move.
San Diego, having traded Josh Barfield, also needs a second baseman now and have two selling points: The Padres may be willing (eager?) to part with Scott Linebrink and could reunite M. Giles with brother B. Giles. Various reports also have the Padres thinking of bringing Loretta back or following the Cardinals lead and letting the position play out for awhile.
Giles, a righthanded hitter, is two years removed from consecutive seasons with a .300 average. As an arbitration-eligible player he could command upward of $5 million for 2007 and be a free agent a year from now. A move for Giles makes sense if an extension is announced shortly thereafter — to shave off some dollars for the coming season and secure him for a few seasons beyond.
Are the Cardinals willing to give up their annual holiday hunt for a stocking stuffer at second base?
The timing may be right.
The Cardinals do not have a prospect at second base pushing toward the majors. Brendan Ryan and Tyler Greene are both going to play shortstop for now, especially with the traction Ryan got with his performance in the Arizona Fall League. There is room to sign a second baseman to a multi-year deal without blocking any prospect.
And, it’s possible the Cardinals will need to address both positions in the middle infield a year from now.
The Julio Lugo gambit — sign him to play second this year, move to shortstop in 2008 — I discussed early does not appear likely. He wants to play shortstop. Boston is among the several teams that want him. He’s in demand. That leaves the Cardinals with the Mark Grudzielanek situation ringing in their ears as they explore how to best to fill this position.
Outside of Giles and the silly free-agent market, the Cardinals can go the Junior Spivey route by waiting for players to be nontenders and getting the attractive one-year deal done at the position. (Not expected to be much there at second.) Or, they could wait until spring and fish for a deal. Both ways could end up costing the Cardinals more than slotted — as it did in 2006 than they would have spent less to keep Grudzielanek than they did total to fill his position. But it did give them a chance to audition Belliard for the deal he may now receive.
When he was acquired, Belliard was billed as the best bat the Cardinals could land at the trade deadline. He hit .237/.295/.371 in 54 regular-season games with the Cardinals. Clearly energized by his first trip to the postseason, he hit .240 there and shared starts with Miles. The bat wasn’t as advertised, but the defense was more than expected.
Belliard spoke after the first game of the NL Division Series about how he plays deep because that’s where he’s become most comfortable, but he only plays that deep when the batter allows. Brian Giles, for example, is faster than you’d expect, Belliard said, and doesn’t allow Belliard to play as deep on the ball as, say, Adrian Gonzalez or Carlos Beltran does. Belliard has a feel for each individual player — each invididual lefthanded hitter really — and lines up accordingly.
“Someday,” he joked, “you’ll find me in right field.”
Just not sure whose right field it will be.
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Derrick Goold said he was going to Mizzou for capital-J journalism, but after growing up in the Time Zone Baseball Forgot he was really drawn to MU sitting between two major-league cities. Goold joined the Post-Dispatch in 2001 after working for The Times-Picayune and Rocky Mountain News, covering sports from LSU to NHL and every level of baseball in between. 
Thanks for passing on that story about why Belliard often positions himself like a rec-league softball outfielder.
I’ve come to like very much the idea of Giles playing second for the Cards next year. He’s always been an excellent #2 hitter, but for whatever reason a lousy leadoff hitter. His 2006 offensive problems, I’m convinced, were the result of misuse and not decline.
Until the FA market flooded with cash this year, I’d been expecting Brendan Ryan to come up as a 2B in 2008. You make a good point that we can’t count on him not being our starting SS that year if Eckstein leaves.
When are we going to sign a second baseman? I mean, it seems like we have a guy that wouldn’t be too bad to have around for a few years. He has experienced a World Series title in St. Louis, which has to give him some incentive to stay around. And it appears as though Ronny Belliard is a serious player, who wants to win. Lets keep him around and quit playing this second base b.s. we play every year! What’s the opinion D.G.?
After reviweing my comment, I think I’m pretty correct. We should try and keep around as many players on the World Series roster as we can. Lets try to compete with the high markets! We seem to make everybody that comes to St. Louis fundamentally sound. Fundamentals is what wins in the postseason?
Panther4209,
If history tells us anything, the Cardinals will wait to sign a second baseman. I’ve given the chronology elsewhere, but it bears repeating: Womack (Spring ‘04); Grudzielanek (Christmas ‘04); and Spivey (Christmas Eve ‘05). It gets earlier each offseason, but not much. Kevin Wheeler made the point tonight during our — in the sense that it’s his and Tom Ackerman’s show and I get invited on as a regular guest — weekly show on KMOX. The second base market may pay off the patient this season.
Giles may offer the opportunity though to skip a few years of this second-base shopping, and, as discussed above, the timing may be right if the price is for a multi-year contract at second.
It could be Belliard, and that would be fine. I think there are better alternatives, but they are few. I do not think that the Cardinals should try to capture lightning in a bottle twice and bring everybody back from the championship roster. Turnover is good. Turnover is essential. If there is one thing the Cardinals do very, very well is preserve a nucleus of strong players and outfit it with a rotating cast. That’s part of why this Cardinals-mystique thing works. The nucleus of stars makes it work.
dg
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Given the economics outlined in the Dash for Cash story a couple days ago, I wonder if the Cardinals’ best off-season moves would be to ink five-year extensions to the deals that Pujols and Carpenter currently have. Both have been shown to be guys that we’d like to have finish their careers in St. Louis, and one wonders if future prices would make them prohibitively expensive. Coming off a world championship seems as good a time as any to put warm feelings down in ink. Viva el Birdos (I finally took the link, thanks Derrick) had something about the Soriano deal making it less likely to keep Albert when his contract is up in several years (2011?). Let’s add five years at $18 million per (or 20 or 22 mill), or whatever. I sure am generous with other people’s money, but by the middle of the next decade, that’ll be a bargain for Pujols. I think the risk that he’ll be broken down or otherwise fall off is no larger than the risk that the Yankees in several years would offer him $25 million-$35 million a year. I know goodwill and $5 will buy a cup of latte, but he’s a once in a lifetime player, whom the fans want forever.
Similarly, given the current bargain of Carpenter, adding a couple years to his contract seems like a priority if Jocketty is thinking beyond just this year, as the team always claims. Of course, the long-term risk is a bit higher given the vagaries of pitching and Carpenter’s personal injury history. I’m not sure about Rolen long-term, given his injury issues, and I don’t even know his contract situation beyond the coming season.
Is this insane, or what? Actually, for all the noise about the Soriano deal at $17 million a year (not so crazy now, but even in the out-years, the payroll inflation may make that number less astonishing), we should have smelled the overpriced Starbucks when the Cards gave $18 million to an aging, injury-prone guy who hasn’t hit left-handed pitching lately and might well be a part-time outfielder in 2008, if not already next year (as he was this year). And a guy who seemed to be in TLR’s doghouse at times this season. I believe that $3 mill of that contract was already in the buyout option, so it’s really only $15m, or $7.5 million a year. But that’s a lot of money for what we can really expect from Edmonds. We’ll hope for 2004, at least intermittently, but every time he dives for a fly ball and puts those rebuilt shoulders and overripe, post-concussion melon at risk, the accountants will be holding their breath. Seriously, Soriano’s tools (if not his clubhouse presence) might be a bargain, which hadn’t occurred to me before.
Derrick -
I’m personally hoping Ronnie moves on. There’s something about the way that he goes about his business - with the exception of some fiery moments in the postseason - that feels lackadaisical to me. And it’s an attitude that usually ends up contrary to what the Cards search for in a player.
I’m thinking Loretta will get snatched up while we’re taking care of other priorities, and we probably end up with Kennedy. Which is fine. It’s not horrible.
Also, not sure if you’ve seen this, but an article you might enjoy about Rasmus/Springfield: http://www.news-leader.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061126/SPORTS02/611260406/1096
Sounds like Rasmus is a Pujols-type player as far as sheer determination to be the best.
Enjoying the blog as always,
dg:
Every year it seems that we go through this hand-wringing over what to do about second base. In some cases I guess it was warranted since we were letting a proven commodity like Mark Grudzilanek go without having any one on the horizon to take his place.
This year, however, that is not the case. As you pointed out in your blog, Aaron Miles is still a Cardinal. Granted, by the end of the season, his stats were probably not that much different from Belliard’s, but I can’t help it, I like the guy’s bat. It seemed like every time he was called upon, he would get a key hit, and usually for extra bases.
If this past season showed us anything, through his play at both second base and filling in for Eckstein at short, Miles is a grinder, and a player with a strong desire to win. In that respect, he reminds me in many ways of Tommy Herr. I’m not sure I ever got the feeling from Belliard that it was anything more than a job.
So, I guess you can put me down as one of those fans not particularly concerned about jumping in and doing anything drastic as it pertains to second base. With Miles on the team, I have no problem waiting to spring training to see how things shake out.
B. J. Page
Memphis, TN
Aaron Miles is a fine utility player, and has shown some good clutch hitting. But in this era of beefy muscle-hitters, there is something about having a middle infield with a combined weight of less than 275 pounds that says: “Take that extra base, please.” Second basemen are generally beefier than shortstops, perhaps in part because they’re the ones that stand in on stolen bases and take more than half the double play pivots. Smaller guys won’t take the pounding as well, and may not be as imposing to baserunners in general. There are exceptions, but Miles is not built like a sterotype 2-bagger. Eckstein has shown that size isn’t everything, and maybe Miles is of the same ilk - it’d be great if he is. But I don’t see him putting in over 75 -80 games before he goes the way of Bo Hart - the pitchers get a book on him and the baserunners start to take advantage of his size.
They also need to keep drafting position players with 150+ game potential. If that means inking a deal with Taguchi that guarantees him a scouting job in the Asian market after he retires, so be it. They need to committ to keeping Oquendo, too. He’s a huge part of the infield solidarity, and he must be in the long term picture, because TLR isn’t forever.
Following the mantra of more for less, they may be preparing to rest on the successes of this past year and the ticket sales for 2007. There have been so few repeat performances in baseball in recent years, that they may feel there is no need to break the bank, just to try and do the impossible - repeat. But by so doing, they run the risk of serious sticker shock - players are not going to be cheaper in November 2007, and they may have 1 or 2 position players that can step up from triple A, but no one that’s beating down the doors. It’s rebuilding time, I’m afraid, and that makes your job fun because you get to play us against them!
So, I forget, how do you stand on Mac’s 1st round?
JK, others,
Seems like as long as the Cardinals have the trinity of Albert Pujols, Chris Carpenter and Scott Rolen under contract it’s retooling time, not rebuilding time. That said, a slow trickle of prospects would be welcome for this organization. Saw the first stream of that this season — Wainwright, Duncan, Reyes, Kinney, Johnson … well, that’s more than a stream. But you get the idea. Have youth, will contend because you can spend the cash elsewhere.
Repeating is difficult, sure. But not impossible. A team shouldn’t be given a pass because, hey, they won it last year so it’s OK. That’s how a franchise goes 24 years (or worse!) without a title.
The job is to be one of the eight playoff teams.
Then anything can happen.
What’s all the fuss about second base? The Cardinals did recently sign a second baseman: Edgar V. Gonzalez. They signed him to a minor-league deal on the same day Jim Edmonds re-upped. Who is Gonzalez? Well, he stormed to the PCL this year and hit .392 in 46 games there. Overall, he had an on-base percentage of .401 and a slugging of .502 at three stops in Florida’s minor-league system. Here are two places to check out additional information on him:
http://www.minorleaguebaseball.com/app/milb/stats/stats.jsp?n=Edgar%20V%20Gonzalez&pos=2B&sid=milb&t=p_pbp&pid=452989
http://www.minorleaguesplits.com/pl/452/452989.html
Food for thought.
Oh, and as for the question about Mac’s first round? I assume you mean Mark McGwire, right? Spoke about that this afternoon on KMOX. That was the first time I had been asked my opinion on the subject. You are the second. It’s a question that deserves more than just a reply here. I should do a blog entry on it.
Eaton off the market. Didn’t think that would be the first domino.
dg
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Well, looks like Walt’s got the band back together - as seen on a clip on MyTube posted link on the Cards Talk blog - Spiezio, Kennedy and Eckstein will make their return to prime time together next spring - especially when Spiezio spells either Rolen or Albert.
And it also looks like McGwire is not in on the first ballot - but there’s been a lot said about providing enough ammo for keeping Bonds out on his first ballot as a statement, too, and by not putting McGwire in first time, it makes it less of a potential racial controversy