tkihshbt wrote:

I think we know who the culprit of the 2010 rotation is.

You sound very defensive of Mozeliak, which is a bit ironic since your take at the time was that it had all the hallmarks of the front office lining up a salary dump for 2011.

And I still think it was, though I supported the acquisition of Westbrook.

The Cardinals lost in 2010 because their offense was non-existent in the last two months of the season. They got nothing from catcher, second base, third base (obviously), shortstop and eventually right field. The starting pitching was fine; the bullpen and offense was not.

You have twisted my words and argument, again, TK.  I did not say that Westbrook is to blame for the Cardinals not making the playoffs.  Rather I have said, umpteen times, that the midseason fix did not put us over the hump and get us to the playoffs.  That's just an observation of fact, not an opinion. 

My opinion is that there was enough grumbling about the Ludwick for Westbrook trade that by the offseason, after a season in which we failed to make the playoffs once again, that Mozeliak was under pressure to make the trade look good and therefore sent good money after bad by signing Westbrook as a middle-to-back-of-the rotation innings eater, during an offseason when many more economical options were available, and when, with Wainwright, Carp, and Garcia, paying real money for starting pitching should not have been such a high priority.   That's the 'opinion' part.  Disagree with it if you like.

With 20/20 hindsight, the loss of Wainwright made pitching depth quite valuable, depth that was ultimately provided by Lohse and McClellan.  Who knows, maybe Mozeliak had a hunch that Wainwright's injury was serious?

"trading away ludwick for a guy who did not perform well enough to get us over the hump and into the playoffs"

The implication is fairly clear.  If Westbrook had performed better, the Cardinals make the playoffs.  Thus his poor performance was the reason they didn't make the playoffs. 

AP said it a few months back--it's pretty amazing how everyone seems to "twist your words," but we seem to understand everyone else fairly well.

If you're arguing that Mozeliak didn't do enough, I don't think anyone would disagree with you. But if you're arguing that it's Westbrook's fault, that's just wrong.

Max wrote:

forsberg_us wrote:

AP said it a few months back--it's pretty amazing how everyone seems to "twist your words," but we seem to understand everyone else fairly well.

I don't remember that specific criticism.

Then you either have a poor memory or a selective memory.

"Max, you claim everyone misreads you.  If every is misreading you then maybe you need to be more clear.  You seem to paint yourself in a unwinnable corner."

http://2006cardinals.boardhost.com/viewtopic.php?pid=6248#p6248  (See post #136)

Max wrote:

Mostly it is you and TK playing tag-team to twist my words.  Actually, I thought I was having this debate with TK, but are welcome to join in if you feel he can't hold his own.

Funny, I thought it was a public message board, meaning that anyone was free to post.  Although I'm sure TK can more than hold his own against someone who doesn't understand that the price of option years isn't important since the team can decline the option if the cost isn't a good bargain.

Max wrote:

I've made it as plain as I can.  Baseball 101: the roster is Mozeliak's job, on field performance by the team is La Russa's, and individual play is the responsibility of each player.  You can debate the reason's why we didn't make the playoffs until the cows come home, or do not come home for that matter, but the fact is we failed to make the playoffs.  Surely Mozeliak feels pressure because of that.  Surely Mozeliak realizes that he will be judged by that failure.  Surely he wants to make the moves he made look as good as he can.  If you don't get that, I cannot help you much more.

You've argued on multiple occasions that Moz was hired to serve as a puppet of Dewitt.  If Moz is nothing more than a puppet, then his job depends less on the on-the-field performance and more on whether or not he's doing Dewitt's bidding.  Moz shouldn't feel any pressure at all.

tkihshbt wrote:

If you're arguing that Mozeliak didn't do enough, I don't think anyone would disagree with you. But if you're arguing that it's Westbrook's fault, that's just wrong.

I don't think I'm doing either at the moment.  I think I am arguing that Mozeliak felt, or should have felt, pressure to sign Westbrook, as a way to shore up the opinion that the Ludwick for Westbrook deal was a good one.  With Westbrook currently faltering, it raises questions of the signing, was it a good move or not?, and why we signed him in the first place, as a means to make the Ludwick trade look good?

Even the argument that the Westbrook signing was a bad one, or a good one, is just a hypothesis that people can debate back and forth.  But like the Lohse signing, it's ever so much more debatable while it is still current. 

For the record, I thought the Lohse signing was a good one at the time.  A down turn in the economy made the terms look generous, and a freak injury led to it not performing all that well.  But I agree with Mozeliak on that one.  In contrast, I thought--then as now--that the Westbrook signing was a bad one, and that he did it partly under pressure to make the Ludwick-Westbrook trade look better.

forsberg_us wrote:

Max wrote:

forsberg_us wrote:

AP said it a few months back--it's pretty amazing how everyone seems to "twist your words," but we seem to understand everyone else fairly well.

I don't remember that specific criticism.

Then you either have a poor memory or a selective memory.

"Max, you claim everyone misreads you.  If every is misreading you then maybe you need to be more clear.  You seem to paint yourself in a unwinnable corner."

http://2006cardinals.boardhost.com/viewtopic.php?pid=6248#p6248  (See post #136)

First off, I rarely have any issue except with you and TK.  Second, to misunderstand and to twist ones words are different things.  So, don't twist AP's words about 'misunderstanding'.  You and TK seem to twist my words, such as TK's running gag that Miller sucks. 

Why you twist my words, and not those of other people on this board is really your business.  But I also note that you, and you alone on this board, make repeated ad hominem attacks on me.  Why?  I dunno.  We debated for six months one passing comment about Jon Jay--would he be this year's Bo Hart?  And the debate was never so much about whether he would or not, but whether it was a stupid thing for me to even opine.

forsberg_us wrote:

You've argued on multiple occasions that Moz was hired to serve as a puppet of Dewitt.  If Moz is nothing more than a puppet, then his job depends less on the on-the-field performance and more on whether or not he's doing Dewitt's bidding.  Moz shouldn't feel any pressure at all.

Yes, and to some extent I still think that was probably true at the time.  But I have also repeatedly revised that opinion with comments with new respect for him, and about where I think he has done things well.  What's more, I also apologized for ever referring to him that way, for the same reason that I don't like to hear the ballplayers being called derogatory names.

Max wrote:

If Westbrook doesn't put us over the hump, then why make the trade?  Why not wait until the offseason and try to get something better than a 2 month rental?

You make the trade because the starting pitching was floundering (as has been pointed out, we were starting Suppan and Hawksworth at the time of the trade) and the hope is that by bolstering the starting pitching, the team's chances of making the playoffs is improved.  All the GM can do is improve the team to increase its likelihood of success.  The GM cannot guarantee said success.  Is that really a difficult concept for you to understand?

At the risk of picking the scab off an old wound, the Cardinals won the 2006 World Series the year after making the Mulder trade.  Using your logic, that makes it a good trade.

Last edited by forsberg_us (7/08/2011 4:47 pm)

"With Westbrook currently faltering"

Faltering? He threw seven shutout innings in Tampa a week ago. I know wins don't matter in baseball, but he's one win behind the team leaders. His problem, as we've discussed in great detail, is a lack of consistency. Which is exactly what you'd expect from a guy who is and is being paid like a fourth starter.

Last edited by artie_fufkin (7/08/2011 6:29 pm)

"The Cardinals hold on to Ludwick, and keep sending out a combination of P.J. Walters, Blake Hawksworth and Jeff Suppan every fifth day. Would they have made the playoffs? You tell me."

That's actually understating the problem.  With Lohse and Penny on the DL, they were running TWO of those three out there every 5 days.

"So now you start 2011 with an outfield of Holliday, Rasmus and Ludwick. So you don't sign Berkman. You've saved yourself $8 million there, but you lose the player who has been the Cardinals' MVP in the first half of the season. So take the $9 million you were going to spend on Westbrook, add the $8 million you were going to give to Berkman and who do you get? Cliff Lee?"

Again this understates the problem.  To keep that outfield you have to give about $6M to Ludwick, leaving you $11M for Lee.

Then again, maybe they could have traded Ludwick for Uggla, paid him $62M for the next 5 years and we could have watched Uggla hit .183 in a Cardinal uniform.  Of course, we wouuld have had to be willing to commit to using the next Bo Hart in RF.

forsberg_us wrote:

At the risk of picking the scab off an old wound, the Cardinals won the 2006 World Series the year after making the Mulder trade.  Using your logic, that makes it a good trade.

This isn't logic, Fors.  This is you making a bad argument . . . again.

artie_fufkin wrote:

"With Westbrook currently faltering"

Faltering? He threw seven shutout innings in Tampa a week ago. I know wins don't matter in baseball, but he's one win behind the team leaders. His problem, as we've discussed in great detail, is a lack of consistency. Which is exactly what you'd expect from a guy who is and is being paid like a fourth starter.

The question is whether Westbrook is playing well enough to make signing him for 2 years at $16.5 million makes Mozeliak look good or bad.