Scott Rolen picks Cards cap, Fred McGriff skips logo for HOF

Scott Rolen will have a St. Louis Cardinals cap on his Hall of Fame plaque while Fred McGriff will not have a team logo.

Rolen, a seven-time All-Star third baseman elected last month by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America, played for Philadelphia (1996-2002), St. Louis (2002-07), Toronto (2008-09) and Cincinnati (2010-12).

“I believe this decision accurately represents a pivotal portion of my career based on our teams’ successes in St. Louis,” Rolen said in a statement issued by the Hall of Friday. “I am grateful to Philadelphia, St. Louis, Toronto and Cincinnati for the opportunities given to me as a player, but more importantly, for how they embraced me and my family.”...

“In discussing my career with the Hall of Fame,” McGriff said in a statement, “we decided that with no logo on my plaque, I can equally represent these cities and the incredible fans in Toronto, where I got my start, Atlanta, where we won the World Series, and my hometown of Tampa Bay, as well as my time in San Diego.”

After winter revamp of swing in ‘the lab,’ Paul DeJong eyes decisive spring with Cardinals

“This is the first offseason where I’m truly optimistic about the changes.”

Asked how best to illustrate those changes, DeJong shared a split-screen video Wednesday that had synced his new swing on the left to his abandoned swing on the right. The three-second clip showed the hours of work he’s put in over these winter months. Gone is the lift of his left foot, replaced instead with a twist for timing. From that moment it’s clear in the new swing how his head remains still, his sight-line level. What follows is a swing that keeps his torso upright, less lunging for balance, and then doesn’t snap forward until contact. His previous swing came down on the ball with a negative attack angle, as if chopping wood, instead of using the lumber to lift liners.

He finished his former swing by releasing his right hand for a one-handed follow-through. Now after a positive attack angle, he holds tight for a two-handed follow-through that maintains control through the entire sweep of the swing.

The results have been like the split-screen: On the old side, a ground ball spins off the end of the flicked bat as DeJong’s swing finishes high, straight-armed but body bent forward.

Report: Chip Caray the new voice of the St. Louis Cardinals

The St. Louis Cardinals have found their new play-by-play announcer for the upcoming season.

First reported by Davis O’Brien with The Athletic, Chip Caray will join the St. Louis Cardinals as their new play-by-play announcer.

Chip Caray is the son of Skip Caray and grandson of former Cardinals announcer Harry Caray.

Matt Holliday resigns; McEwing hired as bench coach

The St. Louis Cardinals have hired Joe McEwing as their bench coach after Matt Holliday resigned the position.

McEwing, 50, a native of the Philadelphia metro area, comes to St. Louis after spending 15 years coaching with the White Sox organization, most recently as the third base coach from 2021-22, also serving as the bench coach from 2017-20 under manager Rick Renteria….

Holliday, 42, who was hired by the Cardinals as the bench coach on November 6, 2022, after serving as the volunteer coach for Oklahoma State University, has resigned from his post. Daniel Nicolaisen will be added to the Major League staff as the third hitting coach. Patrick “Packy” Elkins will be responsible for gameday duties, planning for both hitting and pitching.

A payroll primer: Exploring the questions, complexities of Cardinals’ spending for 2023

An interesting look at the Cardinals’ payroll, particularly Arenado.

Source: Cardinals, Willson Contreras reach 5-year, $87.5M deal

The St. Louis Cardinals have found their replacement for the spot vacated by longtime catcher Yadier Molina, reaching a five-year, $87.5 million deal with free agent Willson Contreras on Wednesday, a source familiar with the deal told ESPN’s Jeff Passan.

Contreras, 30, has spent the past 14 seasons in the rival Chicago Cubs’ organization. In seven MLB seasons, he has hit .256 with 117 home runs and 365 RBI.

Known for his strong arm, Contreras has dealt with criticism about his game calling, but that may have been overblown as he helped oversee a Cubs pitching staff which went to the postseason in five out of six years from 2015 to 2020.

LONDON SERIES 2023: Ticket News Announcement – Bat Flips and Nerds

The games are June 24th and 25th. Cards vs. Cubs. Now I just need to get my wife to sign off on a trip to London.

Drum roll… we have ticket sales dates for the 2023 games.

Pre-registered sales: 10:00 am, Wednesday 30th November
General sales: 10:00 am, Tuesday 6th December
Time is running out to register with MLB to get pre-sales access. Click on the link below. Don’t miss out.

A Primer on Minor League Free Agency - Viva El Birdos

After spending nearly 3000 words on this article, I’m fully prepared for the St. Louis Cardinals to bring in exactly 0 of the players I listed here. That’s because there’s a ton of minor league free agents. I only examined 6, but there are probably plenty of others who would make good depth options.

I do want to see the Cardinals nab a few players still on the younger side and see if they can unlock their development. Players like Jair Camargo, Micker Adolfo, Sherton Apostel, Guillermo Zuniga, and Ariel Jurado would all fit into that category.

Happy Sunday, VEB! I hope you enjoyed reading this article. Minor league free agency can have a big impact on an organization. Sometimes it doesn’t, but sometimes you find a Moises Gomez or a James Naile.

A little further down the pipeline, these are 8 Cardinals prospects to keep tabs on

I love this type of deep dive on lower level prospects in a system. It’s helped me find hidden gems with late draft picks.

If MLB’s postseason roulette is so unpredictable, how do Astros continue to beat the odds?

“It’s a really hard question to answer, but obviously our guys have continued to come through in those big spots, year in and year out,” Houston general manager James Click told the Post-Dispatch during a recent conversation. “So, while there is a level of unpredictability in the playoffs and I think we all understand that this is a game of inches — talent still plays in the playoffs. Nobody is suggesting that it’s all luck. It’s probably a little bit more of a question of luck and skill than the regular season, but three is still plenty of room for skill to play up.”

Hitting coach Jeff Albert, pitching coach Mike Maddux won’t be back for Cardinals in 2023

Cardinals President of Baseball Operations John Mozeliak announced on Wednesday that hitting coach Jeff Albert, pitching coach Mike Maddux and bullpen coach Brian Eversgerd will not return for the 2023 season.

Mozeliak said that the team was prepared to offer Albert a new contract, but he informed them of his desire to move on from the position. Mozeliak also said that Maddix was not fired or retiring, and that he decided to step down.

Maddux had been with the Cardinals since 2018, with Albert joining in 2019.

Cardinals’ Adam Wainwright: Intends to play in 2023

Wainwright informed the Cardinals on Wednesday that he intends to return to the team for another season in 2023, Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports.

After being rumored to be set for retirement following the 2022 campaign, Wainwright looks poised to stick around for his 18th season in St. Louis. He’s scheduled for free agency this winter, but the two sides are likely to come to terms quickly on a new deal. The right-hander struggled down the stretch during the 2022 season, but he produced a solid 3.71 ERA and 1.28 WHIP with 143 strikeouts over 191.2 frames in 32 starts.

Storied careers of Pujols, Molina come to a close: ‘We left a mark’

Smiles were in short supply on a cold Saturday at Busch Stadium when the end of two historic careers came much sooner than expected. However, Albert Pujols chuckled—even if it was just for a second—when close friend and teammate Yadier Molina refused to go down easily near the end.

With two outs in the ninth inning and the careers of Molina and Pujols hanging in the balance, the veteran catcher showed off his trademark grit and refusal to roll over by singling to extend the baseball lives of the Cardinals legends just a little bit longer.

“I was really happy for [Molina] there because he’s like my little brother,” Pujols said. “Then, I started pulling for Tommy [Edman] to hit a three-run homer so we could have a Game 3. I’m just happy for Yadi that his last at-bat was a base hit. For him, just like me, it’s going to take a while for this to soak in. More for him, actually, because he’s been with this organization for 19 years.

“At the end of the day, we’ve both been so blessed because we’ve had unbelievable careers,” added Pujols, who had two singles in his final game. “But I feel like we left a mark—him here [in St. Louis] and myself in every place I played.”

Hall of Fame Cardinals writer Rick Hummel retiring from Post-Dispatch after 51 years

Hummel began covering the Cardinals when Red Schoendienst was the manager, and was on the beat during Whitey Herzog’s tenure in the 1980s —  when the team went to the World Series three times and won in ’82.

“I love being with people who love their job, and he certainly does,” Herzog said last year in an extensive profile of Hummel’s career on these pages. “He loves the game; he’s very knowledgeable. I couldn’t have had a better beat writer for those 10 years, I was very fortunate to have him as my beat writer.”

Hensley has a similar feeling about Hummel.

“He’s grown to mean a whole lot more to me than the pearls of wisdom he puts on paper,” Hensley said. “He’s a great friend and confidante, someone I have always been able to count on to roll with the changes as our industry has changed. And he’s been a great mentor to many young writers that have come through our doors, and I’m sure around the industry as a whole, too.”

One of those who has flourished under Hummel’s tutelage is Goold, who now has Hummel’s former job as the Post-Dispatch’s lead Cardinals reporter.

“He means the world to me,” Goold said, adding that he “wouldn’t know what great baseball writing is if I didn’t have his guidance — his bar to try and reach.”

IT’S THE CUBS’ WORLD NOW

Not to spoil the ending, but:

But the Cardinals aren’t doomed. They still have a solid lineup, a solid rotation and a solid bullpen, and you’d have to think they’ll add somebody. But for years, some fans have claimed, wrongly, that Cardinals-Cubs isn’t a real rivalry because the Cards have always been so much better than the Cubs. This, not coincidentally, is the same thing Yankees fans used to say about the Red Sox, before Epstein took over there as well. Now, some have said, in the wake of the Cubs’ signing of Heyward, that this ratchets up the rivalry.

But if anything, I believe it dampens it. Even before Friday, the Cubs were a better team than the Cardinals in just about every way. Now that the Cubs took the Cardinals’ best player, the gap between these teams have widened. If anyone needs to prove this is a rivalry, it’s the fading Cardinals.

Pujols, La Russa absent as Obama honors Cardinals

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama on Tuesday dubbed the St. Louis Cardinals the “greatest comeback team in the history of baseball” thanks to their thrilling late-season charge into the playoffs and death-defying, seven-game triumph in last November’s World Series.

[...]

Two key figures of the championship season were absent. Manager Tony La Russa retired after the series. And star Albert Pujols signed a $240 million contract with the Los Angeles Angels in the offseason.

Classy!

Retrosimba: An interview with former Cardinals pitcher Al Jackson

Q: You began the 1967 season in the Cardinals’ rotation and in April pitched a one-hit shutout, beating the Astros, 4-0, in Houston. Bob Aspromonte broke up the no-hitter with a leadoff single in the eighth. Do you recall what happened?

Al Jackson: Yes, I do _ big-time. It wasn’t so much the no-hitter. I just wanted to maintain the stuff that I had that night, the control that I had. I wasn’t throwing as good as I was earlier in the game but I also knew that when I got a little tired, I was a better pitcher because I could keep the ball down. Against Aspromonte, I got the groundball I wanted. The pitch may have been down the middle because it was hit in the hole between short and third. If I had thrown it a little further away, the ball may have gone to the shortstop. I wasn’t worried about losing the game. I just wanted to stay on top of mine.

I also had pitched a one-hitter with the Mets against Houston. Joe Amalfitano got the hit. Boxscore Later, I was asked to speak at a dinner in New York. I began by saying I disliked Italians. The room was full of Italians and they looked at me like I was crazy. Then I had to explain: the two guys who broke up my no-hitters are named Amalfitano and Aspromonte. It got a laugh.

Q: Musial was 4-for-5 in his career against you. He batted .800 against you. You were smart to put him on with the walk…

Al Jackson: I’m glad I had a place to put him. I was asked after the game, “Why would you walk him? He’s a left-handed hitter.”  I said, “Why? That’s Musial.” Just look at his record. He’s known for beating teams. And here I am in that small ballpark _ just 250 feet down both lines. I know he can hit for power down both lines. And I never thought about striking him out. That wasn’t on my mind at all.

Thanks to Heck.

MLB.com: Wainwright expresses admiration for Tebow

ST. LOUIS—Hours before taking the field against the New England Patriots on Saturday night, Tim Tebow found himself the center of discussion in the Cardinals’ interview room. Yes, these days it seems as if there is no setting that the Broncos quarterback can’t effectively infiltrate.

Putting his Southeastern Conference allegiance aside, Adam Wainwright spent several minutes expressing his admiration for Tebow, particularly for the fearless the University of Florida product shows in expressing his religious faith in a public forum.

“I am obsessed with Tim Tebow,” Wainwright said. “I’m not afraid to say it. It’s almost embarrassing to us athletes that this much emphasis is put on Tim Tebow because that means we aren’t living our lives as we should. If we did that more often, the way he is living wouldn’t be as big a story. I’m so proud of him for living out his faith.”

MLB Trade Rumors: Bartolo Colon Agrees to Sign With Unknown Team

Bartolo Colon has agreed to a deal with an unknown club reports Bob Nightengale of USA Today (on Twitter). The right-hander wouldn’t divulge the team because he has not yet passed his physical.

Pretty sure it’s either the All-Stars or the Champs.

Neyer: Who Will the Cardinals Miss the Most?

Rally squirrel, obv.

Thursday, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s website ran a poll:

Whose departure will have the biggest impact on the Cardinals?

The choices: Dave Duncan, Tony La Russa, Albert Pujols…

What I found most interesting about the poll wasn’t that Pujols finished last, but that Dave Duncan finished first, with 42 percent next to La Russa’s 30 and Albert’s 28… I’m intrigued by the notion that Cardinals fans might actually give more credit to Duncan than La Russa for the team’s recent successes. Partly because I’m not completely sure they’re wrong.

But hey, let’s make this about the Hall of Fame, since we could never get tired of that.

This isn’t an original thought, either for me or the rest of the Internet, but I believe Dave Duncan deserves, if not more credit than La Russa, at least some real Hall of Fame consideration…

In the five years before Duncan got hold of Dave Stewart, he went 30-35 with a 98 ERA+. In the next five years, he went 93-50 with a 118 ERA+.

I don’t know how much of that was Dave Duncan, how much was Tony La Russa, and how much was just Dave Stewart getting a chance to pitch. But if I were somehow involved with the Hall of Fame, I would like to know.

I would like to know that, and a lot more.

Robothal: Cards’ Duncan taking leave from team

Dave Duncan, one of the game’s most respected pitching coaches, is taking a leave of absence from the St. Louis Cardinals, general manager John Mozeliak said Thursday night.

Duncan, 66, is leaving the team so he can be with his wife, Jeanine, who underwent surgery to remove a brain tumor on Aug. 21, the team announced in a news release…

The team said that Mozeliak will meet with new manager Mike Matheny in the near future “to determine the team’s course of action to fill Duncan’s position during his absence.”

Duncan missed more than a month after his wife’s surgery last season, but rejoined the team for the final day of the regular season and remained with the club through the Cardinals’ march to the World Series title.

Bullpen coach Derek Lilliquist served as pitching coach while Duncan was away from the club…

Duncan is under contract to the Cardinals through 2012 with a club option for the 2013 season.

Cybermetrics: Why Didn’t The Writers Vote Johnny Mize Into The Hall Of Fame?

Being that he saw his whole career…I once asked Madden the same exact thing.

He got in, via the Veterans Committee, in 1981. So it might seem a little late and silly to complain about it.

But he never he even got 50% of the vote from the writers (he topped out at 43.6% of the vote in 1971 and he got 41.3% in 1973, his last year of eligibility). If we went strictly by WAR, it seems like he should definitely be in. Even now, about 50 years from when he first became eligible, he is 55th in career WAR among position players with 70.2. He had 8 top 5 finishes and one first place. He was in the top 5 each year from 1937-40.

So he had very high career value and peak value. In Win Shares, he also had 8 top 5 finishes among position players, including 3 first places finishes. He was 104th through 2001 in career Win Shares (338) including pitchers. He also missed 3 seasons due to WW II. Bill James ranked him as the 6th best 1B man in the 2nd Historical Abstract.

...In his first year of eligibility, 1960, he got only 16.7% of the vote. Click here to see the voting that year at Baseball Reference. Twelve guys got more votes than he did that year and he had more WAR than all of them. He beat 8 of them buy 20 or more WAR. Edd Roush, Sam Rice and Eppa Rixy all got over 50% of the vote that year, a level Mize never achieved. None of them had even 52 WAR (Mize had 70.2). All but one of the 12 got in before Mize (except Lazzeri). Most were by the Veterans Committee. So they too, did not give Mize the credit he deserved.

I think the writers, and to a lesser extent the Veterans Committee, did a poor job in evaluating Mize. I hope the writers have been, and are getting, better. But when I see the voting for guys like Raines and Bagwell, not to mention Lou Whitaker being gone after just one year on the ballot, I am not sure.

Jayson Stark (ESPN): Strange stuff … in the 2011 postseason

The postseason edition of trivia and oddbits that Jayson Stark excels at collecting and presenting…

Here’s one I didn’t know:

All four teams that advanced to the LCS—the Cardinals, Brewers, Rangers and Tigers—got outscored by the teams they played in the Division Series … and won.

Carlos Beltran Signs 2-Year Deal With St. Louis Cardinals, According To Report

According to a report from Derrick Gould of the Post-Dispatch, free agent outfielder Carlos Beltran has agreed to terms with the St. Louis Cardinals on a two-year contract. St. Louis emerged as a major contender for Beltran’s services this week, though the club was cautious given the veteran’s recent injury problems.

  The Cardinals and Beltan’s agent, Dan Lozano, were able to finalize a deal Thursday evening. Beltran missed significant playing time in 2009 and 2010 as he recovered from knee surgeries, and the Cardinals wanted to understand more about his health before completing the deal. The Cardinals intensified their pursuit of the switch-hitter this week.

Thanks to Doug.

Perry: Why I’m Not Mad at Pujols

Dayn’s first piece for Pitchers Hit Eighth.

This is a story without a villain:

I’m not angry at Albert Pujols. How can I be after all this? He’s provided us with too many impossible moments to chronicle and ferried us to a pair of championships. The past is unchanged, as some philosopher said at some point, probably in the original French.

...We’ll never, ever know the full complement of motivations that led him to do this. Pujols might want a new challenge after winning it all and seeing the only manager he’s ever known retire. He might believe the Angels provide him with a better opportunity to win than the Cardinals do (although there’s a self-fulfilling element to that prophecy). It could be layers of reasons. The weather. The chance to ease into the DH role in five years or so. Maybe his favorite cousin lives in Mission Viejo. He enjoys fresh, roadside citrus. Whatever. Even the most enterprising reporters aren’t privy to his thoughts.

...Most of all, to read into L’Affaire Pujols the basest of impulses is to pretend you know things you simply don’t. You’ll never know his innermost workings, the exact tenor of negotiations, or his true reasons for making this choice. Never. It makes for a tidy narrative to color him as a bad actor in all of this, but one could just as easily say the organization, after enjoying a decade-plus of Pujols for pennies on the dollar, is the disloyal party, the one who’s most transparently “about the money.” I choose not to make either case, mostly because a negotiation isn’t a morality tale.

And with that, I am sufficiently purged. I’m also ready for actual baseball.