Stan Musial's Stance

(Editor’s Note:  ‘Nova did indeed lose in the quarterfinals to Marquette, 80-76.  I’ll be quite surprised if they’re seeded higher than 4th in the NCAA’s.)

I’m not superstitious by nature, but I do observe certain traditions, like wearing certain clothing for certain occasions.  The best example of this is my blue Cardinal hat, which I wore to 8 Cardinal games in 2009 and watched the Cardinals win all 8 (that hat only comes out when the Cardinals are in dire need of a win; the last time was Game 7 of the 2004 NLCS).  So I knew I was tempting the Sports Gods to mete out punishment, wailing and woe when I put up this post on the Villanova Basketball team.

Sure enough, they saw the post and took action.

• Before my post:  Villanova 18-1 (7-0 Big East)
• Since my post:  Villanova 6-5 (6-5 Big East)

Villanova has fallen from #1 in the Big East, #2 in the Nation and probable #1 seed in the Tournament, to #4 in the Big East, #10 in the Nation, and probably a 3 or 4 seed depending on how they fare in this week’s Big East Tournament.

I hadn’t watched many of their games during their hot streak, but I have watched some since putting up the post – part of the game at Connecticut, most of the Syracuse debacle, the second half abortion against West Virginia.  If they had any mojo, even as late as the last week of January, they’ve certainly lost it now.  The Wildcats, to this untrained eye, have devolved into a team that has no inside presence and can’t defend the low post.  They routinely get out-rebounded by their opponent.  That  may not be much of a problem if you’re bombing away with success from deep, but it seems they can’t hit the long jump shot anymore either.  Watching Syracuse and West Virginia defend the perimeter was instructive.  Reynolds gets his points, but the opposition shadows him all over the court.  The rest of the shooters get a blanket of defenders, and there’s no need to sag on the center in Villanova’s offense because of their lack of low-post presence.

All that said, they are still a good team.  But the ceiling has been lowered rather dramatically.  Villanova will get Marquette, whom they’ve already beaten twice.  Insert ‘it’s hard to beat a team three times’ urban legend comment here.  Should they win that game they get a rematch with Syracuse.  I’m quite sure they’ll be emotionally ready to play that game, so long as they don’t look past today’s contest in anticipation of getting to the Orange(men).

I don’t expect the Wildcats will win the Big East Tournament in 2010.  I can’t confidently say they’ll survive today.  They were definitely Final Four favorites, both going into the season and as late as 5 weeks ago, but based on what’s transpired since I’d be pleasantly surprised to see them get out of the Sweet Sixteen round in the NCAA’s.

One more comment on the program.  Yesterday the press reported Taylor King was held out of the West Virginia game by head coach Jay Wright because of a ‘undisclosed personal issue’.  Wright stated he’s got a ‘teaching point’ he’s trying to stress with King.  To me, this is exactly what a head coach, a mentor, should be doing with his charges.  Having Taylor King in the lineup for last Sunday’s game probably would have helped the rebounding differential, and might have tipped the scales to a Villanova regular season win vice Mountaineer victory in overtime.  However, it is just a basketball game.  If Wright is trying to teach King something he can carry with him into adulthood, which it seems he is, then it was absolutely worth the game loss to reach the kid.

Although all us sports-a-holics hope the point’s been made and won’t affect their performance in the Tournament(s).

It’s spring training, so that means it’s time for the United Cardinal Blogger Roundtable – Spring Training Edition.  For the past two weeks some of the biggest names in Cardinal blog-dom (and yours truly) have been trading questions and opinions on a wide variety of topics.  For a complete list of the participating blogs, check out the UCB homepage.

My turn came up on Friday, which was awesome because it (a) gave everyone the weekend to work on answers, and (b) gave me a chance to run through the questions with less urgency, since I can’t access my email from work.  Also because it was the weekend, and I thought I had two good questions, I was able to ask both.  The questions were:

1. Which Cardinal do you expect to have a big season in 2010 and why?  You can’t pick AP, he has a big season every year.
2. There are millions of Cardinal fans across the country and around the world, but only a handful decided to write, either professionally or for fun, about the team.  What compelled you to start writing about the Cardinals?  Or for our professional brethren, what led you to a career in sports journalism?

See the responses after the jump.

Keep reading →

I made a comment on Twitter yesterday that Julio Lugo was better than Felipe Lopez as a shortstop.  To which Erik Manning replied,

Yeah, but Lugo’s knees are gone.  I think a folding chair has more range, at this point.

One could reasonably conclude Erik thinks Lopez’s defensive antics are no worse than Lugo’s defensive ability at this point.  Hmmm.  I’d better take another look at the data.

Two of the more commonly cited defensive metrics these days are Ultimate Zone Rating (which I get at Fangraphs) and Dewan Plus/Minus (over at Bill James Online).  But don’t take my word for it – here’s the data in a graph.

Keep reading →

Not 24 hours after the UCB debated what holes remain on the projected 2010 Cardinals roster, the team went a long way to filling one.  ESPN and the St Louis Post-Dispatch are reporting the Cardinals have signed Felipe Lopez to a one-year deal worth about $2 million plus incentives.  The deal is not final until Lopez passes a physical, scheduled for Saturday.

Cot’s Baseball Contracts has not posted any details on this signing, so I can’t comment on what the incentives are.

Let’s take a look at this deal.

Keep reading →

Programming note:  The United Cardinal Bloggers are in the midst of their annual Spring Training Roundtable.  This year 17 Cardinal blogs are participating, each asking a question a day for comment by the other 16.  The complete schedule can be found here.  Please check out each blog for the discussion if nothing else.  So far the questions have been great (First Cardinal memory, Salary Cap in baseball yes/no, what is the 2010 Cardinals’ most pressing need at this point).

I’ve been in class all week, which has cut into my sports reading.  Being in class is not an excuse for letting work (the work that allows me to keep the lights on and the wife happy) lapse, so after I get home from school, and entertain my kids, I log into my laptop for a couple of hours a night.  That’s REALLY cut into my sports reading.  I guess this is a round about way of saying sorry for the lack of posts this week.

Now to business.  Baseball America put out their list of top 100 prospects on 23 Feb, which was Tuesday I believe.  I don’t know if this has been discussed anywhere else in the Cardinal blog0sphere, although I suspect it has (Erik Manning probably commented on it at a minimum).  Baseball America (can I abbreviate that BA?  Probably not) uses the following criteria to establish the list:

The rankings follow our standard prospect guidelines, which means any player who has not exceeded 130 at-bats, 50 innings or 30 pitching appearances in the major leagues (without regard to service time) is eligible. As always, our view is not necessarily to what a player will do this season, but what his ultimate major league ceiling is, weighed against the likelihood that he will reach that ceiling.

Without further adieu, here are the Cardinal prospects on the list:

• Shelby Miller (#50)

Pretty short list, eh?  Actually this shouldn’t surprise anyone given who the Cardinals traded away in 2009 for DeRosa and Holliday.  The UCB has been discussing what the Cardinals still need for the 2010 version, and the bench has come up; some interesting takes have been offered on how they build that bench vis-a-vis free agency or from within.  If the Cardinals don’t have a top 100 prospect hitter going into 2010, well, that sounds like one more data point suggesting Mozeliak will have to acquire a bat before Opening Day.