DG’s 10@10: A Trade Revisited. A Trade Required?
HOUSTON (for the moment) — The St. Louis Cardinals were scheduled to land in Washington D.C. for their one-game visit to the nation’s capital sometime around, oh, about now.
The wheels down time for the Cardinals’ charter flight from Houston to D.C. was around 4 a.m. according to folks as they packed up the clubhouse last night. Manager Tony La Russa said how smooth the hasty and late travel that a rainout forced upon the team will be determined by one thing.
“Win the game,” he said, “and it’s not too tricky.”
The Cardinals lost the game, Houston swept the series, and now that NL Central division race is a lot tighter, all while the Cardinals have a three-game series in Philadelphia looming this weekend. Should be an interesting drive-by in D.C. — a visit that could include the debut of a new player (you may have heard) and a look at one of the name’s surfacing on the trade radar (Nationals left fielder Adam Dunn). My flight for D.C. is boarding, so consider this a bite-sized, time-permitting 10@10.
Fitting, it’s actually a 5@5 …
1. Members of the Cardinals’ coaching staff and clubhouse will argue that Duncan never got his due as a Cardinal — you may have heard that recently — and that they would have preferred he get a chance to end on a better note with the only franchise he’s ever known. But as I mentioned in the Round 2 yesterday, at least one player felt it was better for Duncan get a fresh start somewhere else. Even his father, pitching coach Dave Duncan, acknowledged that somewhat Wednesday pointing out his son’s splits. Hitting coach Hal McRae said Duncan just couldn’t “relax at the plate.” Duncan Sr. suggested I take a look at Duncan’s numbers at home and his numbers on the road as evidence of how the criticism was weighing on him. Sure enough:
At Home … .181 BA, .291 OBP, .276 SLG
On Road … .271 BA, .365 OBP, .436 SLG
“I think when you look at it you’ll see he played better on the road than he did at the home ballpark,” Duncan Sr. said in the coaches’ room Wednesday a few minutes after the trade was officially announced. “He was criticized when he was going bad. He was also unjustly criticized a lot — not equal to other people.”
2. Julio Lugo is expected to meet the team in Washington D.C. and he’ll instantly assume the backup shortstop role. Manager Tony La Russa said he hasn’t seen Lugo enough recently to know how he’ll fit into the lineup — or how much he’ll fit into the lineup. Third base is spoken for as La Russa doesn’t want to “disrupt” Mark DeRosa, and he uses the same word when describing second baseman Skip Schumaker. That said, he allowed for the possibility that Lugo will be used as a righthanded complement for Schumaker. Lugo has hit .333 and slugged .444 against lefthanded pitchers this season, though in the previous three seasons combined he’s been a better hitter against righties (.261 vs. .248 and .371 slug vs. .365).
3. All of that talk of the trade leads to the obvious poll question for today:
Loading …4. Ryan Ludwick’s hitting streak may have ended recently, but his hitting continues. Ludwick had five hits in the three-game series at Houston, and he brings into tonight’s game at Washington a stretch where he’s hit safely in 14 of his previous 15 games. He’s batting .411 during that stretch. … DeRosa hit three home runs in the span of six at-bats against the Astros. His two-homer game Tuesday was his third career multi-homer game, and his first outside of the Pacific Time Zone and in a hitter’s ballpark. Back in 2008, he had a two-homer game at San Francisco (of all places) and in 2006 he had a two-homer game at Oakland.
5. This week’s New Yorker has a cartoon that isn’t meant to be an editorial on the quaint and chaotically noisy little ballpark in downtown Houston, but it sure looks a lot like Minute Maid Park does from the posh press box (which is, granted, the best press box to watch a game in the National League). It has the place pegged right down to those Crawford Boxes that look like you could skee-ball roll a home run to …
Minute Maid Park? (Source: New Yorker)
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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. 
Listen, regarding Duncan, it’s a mistake to have a father-son combo in the bigs. If Pujol’s father was a coach for the Birds, I would say one of them would need to make a move too. This will prove to be a better move for Duncan than it was for the Cards (getting Lugo). My bet is, Duncan Sr. would agree.
Lugo has the fielding range of a postage stamp. Miklasz at 300+ lbs covers more ground. Hope you Duncan haters like that!
In spite of what he says, the numbers don’t lie. He claims that all the criticism didn’t bother him, but Duncan had to be affected by all the negativity of Cardinal fans, witness his numbers at home vs on the road. I think eventually he will be an asset for the Red Sox and fit in quite well there, as he gets his swing back. He may end up with the last laugh, playing for a team that makes the playoffs.
I am certainly glad CD did go to a american league team, that part of it they got right. Overall it sounds like sourgrapes for everyone other than CD. He now has a chance to make millions in the AL where he needed to be all along. And the FO is 0-2 trade a young for a old (which we won’t see no more than this year and slim chance next) and CD and Perez can join the ranks of Haren, Marquis, Rolen, Renteria, Eckstein, Looper, Mulder, Edmonds, Miles, and Suppan. “Which is players that didn’t quite fit the mold or management didn’t take a shine to or was hurt beyond repair or blah blah blah,…”
Time for a bet DG,…2 cigars and a bottle of brandy says C. Duncan hits 40+ hrs in 3yrs or less for some AL club, once he figures out how to swing with that new surgically fixed neck.
Thanks DG. Above and beyond work considering the schedule.
Duncan Sr. was probably right. Someone in the organization wanted his son out - and can you blame that someone? On-field management - Hall of Fame men both - were in the process of self imploding over Dunc Jr. They had lost their objectivity. Professionally speaking, that required a change regardless. I doubt anyone in club management was excited about trading Chris, but there really weren’t too many other available options were there?
Go Cards.
Great, now take the April numbers out of that equation, b/c no one is arguing that he had a good start. If this were any other player there would not be this much fallout. He stopped producing, he became an outomatic out, at home and on the road, and he costs his team with misplays in the field. I see a lot of people saying he tried hard. Well so do hundreds of thousands of Americans that lose their jobs. Look at this way, if the average person stopped being able to do the job they were paid to do, what would happen?
Look, I love the way CD plays the game: he goes 100% everyday. With that said, he only has one legitmate major league skill, he can hit when healthy and right-minded. He cannot run, he cannot field (really, really cannot field), and he has an average major league arm. CD deperately needs to be a DH, and now he has the chance. I think this works well for all of us. Let’s hope Rasmus, Ankiel, and Ludwick can carry the day.
I’m not a Lugo fan, but CD had to be moved. Period. From what I know of Lugo’s play in recent years, playing him as an everyday SS could very well end up costing the Cards some important games. I’m more comfortable with him coming off the bench and most of his playing time coming at 2B. However, I guess we must see first for ourselves what he is capable of in NL. My gut feeling is the same as when team signed JuanE: he’s just not a Cardinals type of ballplayer. Hope I’m wrong. I’d rather have Mark Loretta than Lugo as our utility inf./spot start 2B. Loretta offers a superior glove and is a standout person off the field, areas that are questionable with Lugo.
That’s funny, James. Suppan, Marquis, Looper, Renteria and Miles all got offers from other teams that were above their true worth. The FO didn’t do anything wrong with them. Rolen had to go. He was a crybaby and was a distraction to the team. No mistake made there either. Haren was traded because they believed they were getting one of the best left-handed starters in the game. It didn’t pan out. Sometimes they do. Sometimes they don’t. No mistakes made there either. Eckstein hasn’t done anything worthwhile since leaving. Edmonds’ career was over.
If you think Chris Perez or Chris Duncan are going to be superstars in the future, then I want to invite you to join my fantasy league. We could always use more dead money.
This is not popular sentiment, I know, but I’d be quite happy to see the Cards pick up Adam Dunn and plug him into the No. 4 or No. 5 hole everyday. Then I’d like to see Ankiel placed on the DL and get healthy, if that’s even possible this season. A healthy LH/RH Ankiel/Dunn platoon in LF would provide a lot of K’s, indeed, but a lot of much needed power in middle of lineup. Plus, Ankiel would be a nice late inning defensive replacement for Dunn. I still like Ankiel’s skill set but think he’s playing hurt, which is niether helping neither he or the team this season. But I’d resign him for an Ankiel/Dunn OF platoon for next season. Don’t think it will happen, but fun to think about and makes for good debate at the pub.