We know, we know: Jason Isringhausen isn’t going to be traded and next season, barring any health problems, will be the team’s designated reliever in games when the team leads by no more than three runs in the ninth inning. But the Cardinals’ recent re-signing of fellow reliever Russ Springer to a $3.5-million, one-year deal gave us a chance to ponder a Moneyballish what-if. As we’ve noted in this space, Izzy had a superb 2007 season in relief, but Springer was perhaps his equal and could probably do the job in 2008. Consider that:

• Springer led the team in BRAA (Batting Runs Above Average) (20.7) and was 13th in all of baseball.
• He led the team in FIP ERA (2.81).
• His VORP (25.1) was second on team behind Adam Wainwright.
• He was third on the team in Pitching Runs Created (ahead of two guys who pitched twice as many innings as he did).
• His K/BB rate was 3.47, third on the team.

And Springer compares favorably to Isringhausen, and not insignificantly in salary:

As a couple of readers have reminded us (and Derrick Goold kindly confirmed), Izzy is a CBA-entitled 5-and-10 man which means that, unless his agent was looking the other way when the ink on his contract dried, he has the right to decline a trade. That, of course, doesn’t preclude a trade from happening — if Cardinal fans boo him as they did in 2006, he may ask for a trade. But for all intents and purposes the idea of Springer as closer is academic. However, it does remind us that the Cardinals, as presently led, aren’t going to go in a significantly different direction from their recent past. BPro’s Christina Kahrl had an interesting article in the New York Sun Friday about the shift in GM styles across baseball and touched upon the Cardinals’ situation:

Jocketty’s departure seems more like a variant on Schuerholz’s concerns — the Cardinals were spending money, yet not keeping pace in the weak National League Central, and increasingly, Jocketty’s friction with younger, analysis-oriented staffers was seen as unproductive. … It hasn’t gone unnoticed among the people paying the bills that the Indians, Diamondbacks, and Rockies all made the league championship series with relatively modest budgets (and sensible budget management), core talent grown, and developed within their own organizations, and with differing levels of commitment to using performance analysis to enhance — not drive — their decision-making. Being a proudly scaly, unsuccessful, and expensive dinosaur is suddenly very much out of fashion.

The Cardinals, with more than half the amount of their 2007 payroll tied up in contracts to players whose ability to play the entire 2008 season is very doubtful, fit that definition of a “proudly scaly … and expensive dinosaur” (salaries in million $):

Indeed, one of the reasons that Springer gave for re-upping was Mr. DeWitt’s assurance that the Cardinals are "going to be competitive." We’re not opposed to being competitive, of course. It’s just that being competitive and retooling seldom occur in the same season. Granted, since only Carpenter’s and Rolen’s weighty contracts extend beyond 2008, perhaps DeWitt is thinking that the team will make one last run in 2008, then begin the rebuilding in 2009. As it sounds now, though, if you’re looking for a shift in style as regards the team makeup — a movement toward a younger, more cost-controlled roster — it’s not going to happen, at least not in 2008. The proof will be in the first multi-year deal the Cardinals make in the post-Jocketty era.

This entry was posted by Pip on Monday, October 15th, 2007 at 1:45 pm and is filed under analysis. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.