When Duncan drives in a run in a game this season, the Cardinals are 11-3.

Plus they haven't been shut out in any of those games.

The Phillies are 1-0 when Chan Ho Park drives in a run.

Cardinals fans get really defensive when anyone offers even a little bit of criticism of anything Cardinals, don't they?

Cardinals fans get really defensive when anyone offers even a little bit of criticism of anything Cardinals, don't they?

Not all of us. But, while there are some Cardinals fans who cry like little babies anytime something bad is said about them, I think the same can be said for any team's fanbase.

AO

fans who cry like little babies anytime something bad is said about them, I think the same can be said for any team's fanbase.

The fans of the Atlanta Braves would like to introduce you to Jeff Francouer. Pound away at him my friends; have at it.

Cardinals fans get really defensive when anyone offers even a little bit of criticism of anything Cardinals, don't they?

The Great Duncan Debate is more of an internecine thing.

Well, last year he put up and 88 OPS+ with defense well below average. For a corner OF that is pretty horrible. I'd be pretty pissed if my team was running that out. Now if he can keep this up, he could be a valueable player; but 100 AB's isn't exactly overwhelming evidence.

There is a significant portion of vocal Cardinal fans that complain that the ONLY reason Duncan is on the team is because his dad is the pitching coach. They do not recognize that he has any offensive value, and will swear on any bible, baby, or mothers grave that he is the absolute worse defensive outfielder in baseball history, no matter how much evidence you bring contrary to that opinion.

As a fan, it sucks that you will be chatting baseball with some random person and then out of left field they pull the Duncan complaint, even after he makes two solid defensive plays, has a two hit, multi rbi game, they will remember that 8 days ago that a ball bounced off his glove and cost us the game in an 8-3 loss or something.

7. Fancy Pants Handle Posted: May 12, 2009 at 11:13 AM (#3175756)

Well, last year he put up and 88 OPS+ with defense well below average. For a corner OF that is pretty horrible. I'd be pretty pissed if my team was running that out. Now if he can keep this up, he could be a valueable player; but 100 AB's isn't exactly overwhelming evidence.

last year he was severly hampered by an injury, that was hopefully fixed by a surgery that has never before been performed on a professional athlete.

Duncan's been doing well against lefties so far, too: .303/.324/.515.

He's still sometimes fooled by sweeping junk across the plate that falls out of the zone, but that's the case for a lot of lefties vs. LHP. His pitch recognition is much better vs. righties: he walks 16% of the time vs. RHP, but just once all year vs. LHP.

Through Duncan's first 560 or so ab's in the big leagues (prior to getting injured) he had this line:

562 ab, 103r, 43hr, 105 rbi, 70 bb, .292/.373/.580.

A lot of the time, though, he was not seeing a lot of LHP, but still, even with the subpar defense, that's a pretty damn good player.

Well, last year he put up and 88 OPS+ with defense well below average. For a corner OF that is pretty horrible. I'd be pretty pissed if my team was running that out. Now if he can keep this up, he could be a valueable player; but 100 AB's isn't exactly overwhelming evidence.

As cfb pointed out, Duncan was hampered by a very serious injury last season. He still plays left field like, to paraphrase from memory one of my favorite BTF posts, a circus bear riding a tricycle while being strafed by machine gun fire from WWI biplanes - but when healthy, he hits. Maybe not enough to make him anything more than average to slightly above, but the Cardinals do not have a real offensive surplus at any position other than first (everybody else on the diamond is, at the moment, around an average hitter for their position or a little above/below), so we need that.

I'm still confused by TLR's outfield juggling, though. Okay, you've got four outfielders - Duncan, Ludwick, Ankiel, Rasmus. Duncan and Ankiel are similar hitters - decent BA, decent OBP, good SLG, struggle against lefties. Ludwick is good BA, good OBP, great SLG, but also has some lefty troubles at times. Rasmus projects to be similar to Duncan/Ankiel with better plate discipline - say, a .280/.370/.500+ type hitter. Anyway, Rasmus is the prototypical centerfielder - smooth, quick, great routes, decent enough arm from what I understand (I haven't seen him play much yet). Duncan should never play anywhere but left. Ankiel is athletic enough to play CF, but takes such bad routes and gets such bad reads/jumps that he's substantially below average when he does. His cannon of an arm makes him perfectly suited for RF in this group. Ludwick should simply be playing everyday - in left if Ankiel plays, in right if Duncan plays.

Yet TLR often plays Ankiel in CF, and Rasmus in right. He's even gone Rasmus in left, Ankiel in CF, and Ludwick in right. What the hell? The positions that these guys *should* be playing is so obvious - and TLR doesn't do it anywhere close to the majority of the time. I don't get it.

TLR believes in paying respect to veterans, and it would be disrespectful to make Ankiel move for a rook.

Yet TLR often plays Ankiel in CF, and Rasmus in right. He's even gone Rasmus in left, Ankiel in CF, and Ludwick in right. What the hell? The positions that these guys *should* be playing is so obvious - and TLR doesn't do it anywhere close to the majority of the time. I don't get it.

several reasons, whether people agree with them or not.
1. Rasmus hasn't really shown himself to be a better defensive outfielder, contrary to the scouting reports.
2. Ankiel has a lot less experience as an outfielder so they want to make him comfortable.
3. Ankiel will most likely be gone after this season, so it's not worth the effort to retrain him at a new position that Rasmus can play perfectly well with less of a learning curve.


Ludwick plays right almost exclusively, along with Duncan playing left. (there are a few parks that I think he may flip them around but for the most part the lineup is Duncan Left, Rasmus left/center/right, Ankiel Center, Ludwick Right. Rasmus as the guy trying to prove himself is the odd man out.

The fielding numbers I've see on Rasmus have been pretty sparkling. Especially compared to the numbers Ankiel puts up. I know he's had some gaffes, but Ankiel is just...bad. Athleticism can't make up for routes as bad as his.

Rasmus is so obviously superior to Ankiel in CF that it's a joke when he plays LF with Ank in center.

When a ball is hit deep to center, Rasmus just glides back---even when he's running hard he's gliding---and balls that go to the wall often seem to end up in Rasmus' glove, whereas with Ankiel they seem to always be off the wall.

last year he was severly hampered by an injury, that was hopefully fixed by a surgery that has never before been performed on a professional athlete.

I didn't mean to imply that you should be expecting him to be that bad again, I was onyl trying to say that I understand fans frustration about him. The season before that he put up 115 OPS+, and his career OPS+ is 117. That's pretty averageish for a corner OFer. He's also 28 now so he's at the stage where big leaps forward become less and less likely (although not impossible). So that's likely what you're gonna get from him when healthy.

Average offense + bad defense = not good. And considering the glut of corner OFers on the market this offseason, I just can't fault any cards fan from crying for an upgrade. That's all I'm saying...

The fielding numbers I've see on Rasmus have been pretty sparkling. Especially compared to the numbers Ankiel puts up. I know he's had some gaffes, but Ankiel is just...bad. Athleticism can't make up for routes as bad as his.

agreed, but Ankiel has looked better out there overall. They know about his bad routes, but at the same time his 100% effort to make up his mistakes looks a lot better than Rasmus less than full effort to cover his mistakes. Also Rasmus has made some Duncanesque level of gaffes (I compare some of his routes/jumps to Taguchi)

Rasmus is so obviously superior to Ankiel in CF that it's a joke when he plays LF with Ank in center.

I disagree with that, Rasmus first step is very suspect in my opinion and he plays a deeper than Ankiel so he has a better chance than Ankiel to get deeper hit balls (at expense of shallower). Mind you a lot of that is small sample size, and I think that Rasmus is the better defensive outfielder, but he hasn't really showed himself to be better this season.

I guess Bernie thinks Duncan is a good bet for a 180 OPS+ then.

If he's going to compare Duncan's defense to just LF, shouldn't his offense compare to only LF?

I didn't mean to imply that you should be expecting him to be that bad again, I was onyl trying to say that I understand fans frustration about him. The season before that he put up 115 OPS+, and his career OPS+ is 117. That's pretty averageish for a corner OFer. He's also 28 now so he's at the stage where big leaps forward become less and less likely (although not impossible). So that's likely what you're gonna get from him when healthy.

Average offense + bad defense = not good. And considering the glut of corner OFers on the market this offseason, I just can't fault any cards fan from crying for an upgrade. That's all I'm saying...

The Cardinals are kinda tricky to work with as it is. One superstar cornerstone, a good but unspectacular rotation, a decent bullpen, and a bunch of average-ish players filling out the rest of the lineup, with a glut of outfielders (which are easy to find) and a dearth of quality middle infielders (which aren't). The obvious move for the Cardinals would have been signing Orlando Hudson, and it's looking like a whopper of a mistake not to have done so, especially with the abortive Skip Schumaker experiment still going (I respect and admire that he is trying to make it work, but, he is terrible - I think UZR has him at something like -50/150 so far). Khalil Greene hasn't bounced back so far like some (including me) had (perhaps unfairly) hoped, and, worse, he's been playing poorly in the field at times too.

So you've got a team that is basically treading water with the potential to be a Wild Card team, constructed from the best player in baseball plus a bunch of average to above-average players but nobody else close to being a star. Rasmus and Wallace will hopefully be that in a year or two, but we need to get a good middle infielder in the worst way.

I didn't mean to imply that you should be expecting him to be that bad again, I was onyl trying to say that I understand fans frustration about him. The season before that he put up 115 OPS+, and his career OPS+ is 117. That's pretty averageish for a corner OFer. He's also 28 now so he's at the stage where big leaps forward become less and less likely (although not impossible). So that's likely what you're gonna get from him when healthy.

Average offense + bad defense = not good. And considering the glut of corner OFers on the market this offseason, I just can't fault any cards fan from crying for an upgrade. That's all I'm saying...

except average left fielder is 104-106 ops+, so he's not average offense, he's above average to good offense, and of course there is the argument that his improvement vs lefties (if real) should help his overall value. And the crying for an upgrade is fine, but when they cry with the wrong recognition of his actual value then that is the problem. The complainers seem to think that an average left fielders defense is similar to Schumaker, which is just plain ignorance, when you have position manned by the likes of Manny, Burrell, Ibanez, Dunn, etc. The expectations on defense is higher than the reality of the position.

Khalil's career road numbers are .268/.317/.481. I expected decent things once he got out of Petco, but that obviously hasn't happened.

Ankiel has looked better out there overall.

Even though I think this is crazy, I suppose it's reassuring to know that somebody besides TLR thinks Ankiel's been better on defense than Rasmus this year.

Seeing ess eff categorizing the Duncan-bashers brings back a lot of memories.

The season before that he put up 115 OPS+, and his career OPS+ is 117.

Duncan OPS by month, since he began playing regularly in the major leagues:

6/2006: .869
7/2006: .909
8/2006: 1.184
9/2006: .794
4/2007: .902
5/2007: .818
6/2007: .884
7/2007: 1.140
(back/neck injury)
8/2007: .541
9/2007: .422
4/2008: .839
5/2008: .628
6/2008: .596
7/2008: .786 in 42 pa, then out the rest of the year
(surgery)
4/2009: .938

I think his career OPS+ of 115 is not indicative of his true ability. It seems like when he isn't playing with a herniated disc he's more like a 130 OPS+ hitter...

Even though I think this is crazy, I suppose it's reassuring to know that somebody besides TLR thinks Ankiel's been better on defense than Rasmus this year.

most people I talk to thinks Ankiel looks better out there. Rasmus makes too many obvious mistakes. I think Rasmus is better, and neither look really good out there, but Ankiel just covers his mistakes better. I agree with you, that if it was me, I would have Ankiel in right and make Ludwick the swing man, but I do see the argument against moving your second best player around and treating him as a guy without a defined position.

I totally disagree---I think Rasmus looks smooth and fluid; he seems to easily get to and get under balls that drop when Ankiel is out there. In a game last week I saw him race in to easily snare a low liner that had me nervous when it left the bat, and later sprinted out to right-center to make a grab on a ball that seems too often to be a double when Ankiel is out there.

Rasmus seems to have a great first step... his arm isn't too bad either...in one of those Pirates games last week he gunned down a runner at home with a nice no-hop throw from medium CF...

his arm isn't too bad either...in one of those Pirates games last week he gunned down a runner at home with a nice no-hop throw from medium CF...

it was the first time he didn't screw up a throw though. Again I think he is a better defensive player and has probably played better than Ankiel, but he doesn't look like he is as good. It's the same problem people had with Drew in that he was so smooth that people thought he didn't care. It's the Pete Rose phenomenon, if he looks like he is hustling, then he must be doing a better job. Just like people can't realize that Duncan is actually doing a good job of getting to the balls he can be reasonably expected, but instead focus on his clear mistakes and misses that almost nobody would have gotten too. heck it seems like Duncan in the last week has played three balls off the wall as perfectly as possible, and yet people still criticize if he makes a minor mistake that didn't make a difference in that it would have been a double either way type of deal.


Again I think Rasmus is better, just think that the average fan seems to feel that Ankiel has looked better out there.