Before anyone reads Joe Strauss’s article today and cries foul on the Cardinals for not prioritizing Jason Bay, we wanted to dispel a couple of bits of, well, misinformation in Strauss’s dispatch. First is Strauss’s claim that

Bay’s offensive numbers parallel Holliday’s in the last five seasons

A more accurate phrasing would be "Bay’s traditional but ultimately meaningless offensive numbers…" In that case, Bay does indeed look similar to Holliday:

But some more useful offensive statistics show a greater disparity between the two free-agent leftfielders:

And that’s to say nothing of each player’s defensive production, which leads to our next point. Strauss goes on to write

but numerous defensive "metrics" insist Bay is far inferior defensively.

First, why put scare quotes around metrics? That defensive metrics exist isn’t in question; they are actual metrics. This appears to be a case of Strauss, who is on record as doubting the value of certain kinds of quantitatve metrics, projecting his personal views into his news report. But even qualititative (aka, scouting) metrics — such as the Fielding Bible’s 10-member panel — show that Bay is an inferior fielder:

Overall, then, Holliday is clearly in a class above Bay:

That’s not to say that Bay isn’t a good player or won’t provide value in his free-agent contract. But our interpretation of the Cardinals’ position that "he’s not one of [their] top priorities" is merely that he won’t offer the kind of return on investment that makes pursuing him worthwhile, not when the Cardinals would have to outbid Boston for his services. The "If not Holliday, then not Bay" approach makes sense, even if Strauss’s bias doesn’t.

[Note: This is the second of a two-part retrospective on the Cardinals' 2009 transactions. We overlooked a couple of important offseason transactions last time, so we'll cover those before getting to the in-season moves.]

Agreed to terms with Ryan Ludwick and Rick Ankiel
The Cardinals avoided arbitration with two-thirds of their 2008 outfield, splitting the difference with Ankiel ($2.83 million) and Ludwick ($3.7 million). Ankiel’s salary seemed reasonable, given that he was a 2.0-WAR centerfielder the year prior. But his HR/F rate went down by half (17.7% to 8.9%), crippling his slugging percentage. A couple of injuries sustained through aggressive play didn’t help, and he lost his centerfield job to the rookie Rasmus and wound up with a 0.1 WAR. It was a long season, as fans had to endure what seemed to be La Russa giving Ankiel sympathy at-bats, exposing his horrendous plate discipline (fifth-worst in the league in chasing balls) and costing the team too many outs. For his part, Ludwick expectedly (by some, anyway) fell off from his career 2008 campaign, creating only 5.0 wRC/27 (down from 7.7 in 2008). Paired with his solid defense, though, his hitting was still good enough to produce 1.8 WAR, making his one-year deal a steal for the Cardinals. Overall, the team came out ahead. Grade: B.

Did not sign Brian Fuentes
We added this to our list of transactions, because the Cardinals deserve credit for not making this one. They apparently offered a two-year deal for around $16-18 million, which Fuentes sat on and ultimately spurned for the Angels’ $17.5-million offer. Despite calls to extend the offer to three years, Mozeliak didn’t budge. The Cardinals were better off for it, even if their offer was too much in the first place. Grade: B.

Acquired Blaine Boyer from Atlanta for OF Brian Barton (04/20/09)
Blaine Boyer Designated for Assignment, selected by the Arizona Diamondbacks off waivers (06/04/09)
Barton was for the Cardinals what he currently is for the Braves: "nothing more than a spare part in the long run," as one blog put it. Still, that descriptor fit Boyer, too. Boyer never really pitched enough — 16 1/3 IP — to make an impact, but, curiously, he had about the same K/BB (1.80) as closer Ryan Franklin (1.83) and a better xFIP (4.02 to 4.23). Neither player would’ve made much difference, and with Holliday’s arrival, Barton — despite his .344 OBP in AAA — wouldn’t have seen any action north of Memphis, anyway. Grade: C

Acquired infielder/outfielder Mark DeRosa from the Cleveland Indians for pitcher Chris Perez and a player to be named (Jess Todd) (06/29/09)
Unfortunately, the Cardinals bought DeRosa high. His RBI total at the time made him look more productive than he was, and the wrist injury that he sustained shortly after joining the club short-circuited much of what he actually might’ve contributed. He put up only 0.4 WAR — the same amount as Brian Barden, the player he ousted at third base. So DeRosa wasn’t even worth the remaining salary that the Cardinals owed him. As for the players traded for him, Perez wasn’t likely to impact the bullpen in 2009 but may have been a useful arm in the next couple years, and Jess Todd remains to be seen. All the Cardinals have to show now is a potential draft pick, if DeRosa spurns yet-to-be-offered arbitration. Grade: C.

Agreed to terms with outfielder Wagner Mateo (07/04/09)
Terminated the contract of OF Wagner Mateo (09/23/09)
What was considered a high point in the team’s 2009 transactions became the season’s feel-bad story less than 90 days later. When the team signed the 16-year-old Mateo, considered to be among the top international amateurs, Mozeliak hailed it as a "significant step" for the team, and it validated the effort spent building in Latin America. It was the second time in the year that a physical impacted a transaction (see Trever Miller), though in this case it led to a voided, rather than renegotiated, contract. The transaction resulted in more intangible losses (e.g., reputation, time and other resources) and perhaps was due to no fault of the team, but it would still have to be considered a failure. Grade: D

Acquired Julio Lugo and cash from Boston for Chris Duncan (07/22/09)
If ever a player needed to be "freed," it was Duncan, who was unappreciated by Cardinal "fans" during his tenure (including his courageous comeback attempt after a rare surgery last offseaon). With Colby Rasmus’s ascendance and the re-signings of Ludwick and Ankiel, Duncan was expendable. More pressingly, the Cardinals neededmiddle-infield help because of Khalil Greene’s ineffectiveness and inability to stay off the DL because of an anxiety disorder. According to John Mozeliak, ""The reason we pursued it was because we have question marks at shortstop in terms of what happens if Brendan can’t go. Obviously, we also still have questions with Khalil Greene, and it seemed like this would help solidify that position." Mozeliak got the BoSox to assume nearly all of Lugo’s remaining salary, which is approximately $13 million through 2010. Lugo turned in an above-replacement-level 51 games, even if his fielding at shortstop was subpar. Less than a month later, the Red Sox released the erstwhile Busch Stadium punching bag. The saying is that it’s better to be lucky than good, and Mozeliak, who was forced to find other options at short because of his mistake in trading for Greene, found both Lugo and Ryan. Grade: A

Acquired outfielder Matt Holliday and cash from the Oakland Athletics for third baseman Brett Wallace, pitcher Clay Mortensen and outfielder Shane Peterson (07/25/09)
As we’ve noted previously, Holliday had no clearly demonstrable "protection" effect on Albert Pujols (one of the oft-cited reasons for keeping him), though of course that doesn’t mean he was a bad addition. Indeed not, since he accounted for 2.7 WAR (a $12.3-million value) and provided a consensus upgrade in team confidence. The saying goes "there is no such thing as a pitching prospect"; we’ll see how high Wallace, the former Cardinals’ third baseman of the future, goes (after the trade, he continued to rip up PCL pitching with a .365 OBP and .505 SLG with Sacramento). Losing Wallace has already begun to impact this offseason, in which the team has not one (LF) but two (also 3b) holes to fill, but for the purposes of this exercise, we’ll only assess the impact through the end of the 2009 season. It’s fair to say that if not for Holliday, the Cardinals probably would not have won the division title. At the very least, that should further burnish their credentials as being dedicated to winning. If it doesn’t help bring Holliday back, it will putatively go a long way toward extending Pujols’s time with the team. Grade: B.

Signed John Smoltz as a free agent (08/19/09)
The Cardinals took a smart chance that Smoltz’s traditional numbers in only eight games with Boston — like his 8.32 ERA — were misleading. Indeed they were: even with the Red Sox, Smoltz had a reasonable 4.36 xFIP, and for the Cardinals, he put up a 3.51 xFIP and a less flukish-looking 4.26 ERA. The second Cardinal player whose salary the BoSox paid, Smoltz helped the club hold off the Cubs, over whom the club had an eight-game lead upon his arrival. During his time wit the team, he was second among starters in K/9 and and in K/BB, tossing 38 innings worth $6.6 million. Grade: A.

Overall in-season
Mozeliak and the Cardinals finished strong, and their positive moves had more of an impact that their bad ones did. Grade: B

Overall grade for 2009 transactions: B

Judging by ERA, Seattle’s Erik Bedard (2.82) and Los Angeles’s Randy Wolf (3.23) would appear to have had the best seasons of this winter’s crop of free-agent starting pitchers (min. 70 IP). But did they?

Expected Fielding Independent Pitching (xFIP) tells another story. By its lights, Rich Harden (3.70) and the Cardinals’ Joel Pineiro (3.76) were best. Sometimes, the disparity between ERA, which includes a lot of defense and “luck” noise, and xFIP is great. The following chart shows today’s free-agent starters in increasing order of the positive difference between their ERA and xFIP.

With that 2.82 ERA but a 3.92 xFIP, Bedard was the biggest beneficiary of ERA, while John Smoltz was the most “unlucky.” Note that just because a pitcher was “lucky,” it doesn’t mean that he was bad: Todd Wellemeyer, with a positive difference in ERA-xFIP (0.59) and high xFIP (5.30, shown on the blue line), is an apt example.

As fans look ahead to the trades and signings of this offseason, it may be instructive to look back at the transactions of the season recently concluded. In his second full season as general manager, John Mozeliak wasn’t afraid to shuffle the deck; with the advantage of hindsight, let’s review the team’s transactions since the end of the 2008 season. In this first part, we’ll consider moves made before opening day 2009. Because moves are often made in pairs, we’ll combine those transactions that relate to one another.

Cesar Izturis granted free agency (10/30/08)
Traded a player to be named later (Luke Gregerson) and Mark Worrell to the San Diego Padres for Khalil Greene (12/04/08)
By the end of the season, it was clear that Izturis wasn’t going to be the answer for 2009 at short. The only problem was who was the answer? The market offered a couple of high-dollar free agents in Rafael Furcal and Edgar Renteria — both signed multiple-year deals averaging at least $9 million, and several replacement-level options, but little in-between. Izturis eventually signed a two-year, $5 million deal with Baltimore and turned in a $5.8-million (1.3 WAR) season.

A month later, on the day that the Giants signed Renteria, Mozeliak broke the Cardinals’ winter silence with the Khalil Greene trade. Greene turned out to be awful, costing the team $6.5 million in salary and $3.6 million on the field, not to mention a talented righthanded reliever in Gregerson (his 2.85 xFIP would’ve led the team). Grade: F

Braden Looper granted free agency (10/30/08)
Loop was a Type-B free agent; he signed a one-year (plus option) deal with Milwaukee late in the cycle (Feb. 12). At the time, we argued that the Cardinals should’ve offered arbitration; as it turned out, he would’ve been a useful end-of-the-rotation starter. His unlucky 17.2% HR/F rate jacked up his ERA, but his xFIP was better than Todd Wellemeyer’s and on par with the group of fill-ins (Thompson, Boggs, Walters). Grade: C

Aaron Miles granted Free Agency (12/12/08)
Signed Joe Thurston as a free agent (12/17/08)
The Cardinals wisely thanked Miles and wished him well as he inked a two-year, $4.9 million deal with the Cubs. To replace him, the Cardinals signed Thurston for a tenth of that ($475,000), and he put together a $700,000 (.2 WAR) season. Miles, meanwhile was -$5.7 million. Grade: A

Russ Springer (10/30/08), Ron Villone (10/30/08), Jason Isringhausen (11/01/08), Randy Flores (12/12/08), Tyler Johnson (12/12/08) granted free agency
Signed Trever Miller (11/20/08), Royce Ring (01/06/09) and Dennys Reyes (03/05/09) as free agents
Selected Charlie Manning off waivers from the Washington Nationals (10/15/08)
The Cardinals divested their veteran relievers, overhauled the LOOGy side of their ‘pen and ultimately upgraded. Manning and Ring never materialized at the major-league level, but after his physical revealed damage to the labrum in his left shoulder, Miller was a pleasantly surprising picture of health, pitching in 74 games, and was worth $2.2 million, yielding some surplus value on his $2 million contract, which had been adjusted to only $500,000 guaranteed upon his medical news. Reyes was worth about as much ($.9 million) as he was signed for ($1 million). Springer got a good deal with the A’s ($3.3 million), and while he would’ve helped the Cardinals’ inconsistent righthanded relief corps, in the end wouldn’t have been worth it ($1.9 million value). Grade: A

Released Adam Kennedy (02/09/09)
The Kennedy release was the biggest surprise of the offseason. Evidently, Mozeliak had been unsuccessful trying to trade the unhappy second baseman. But with no clear options and $4 million in owed salary, dumping him left some people scratching their heads, including Skip Schumaker, who was unprepared to be forced into duty as his pal’s replacement. Ultimately, Schumaker would prove equal to the task, performing admirably and providing $5.4 million of value (1.2 WAR), something few thought he could do. But Kennedy resuscitated himself, putting up $7.7 million of value (1.7 WAR) for the A’s. In retrospect, Schumaker might’ve been a more valuable asset in the outfield, where Rick Ankiel, Chris Duncan and Nick Stavinoha took 799 below-replacement-level plate appearances. Grade: D

Overall offseason
Credit Mozeliak with some courage and creativity. Unfortunately, his moves were too uneven to improve the Cardinals’ chances much heading into the 2009 season and necessitated other moves made in-season. Grade: C

Now that baseball’s second season has begun (or, given that the playoffs now take more than a month, third season), fans have two things left to do: Discuss trades and signings or vote in meaningless online polls. It is the latter that inspires today’s post.

The Cardinals’ official web site is running an "All-time 9" election:

What’s your dream lineup in Cardinals franchise history? It’s time for you to decide. Vote for the best single-season hitting performances by position in Cardinals franchise history.

So let’s take a break from thinking about the Cardinals’ future and look at their storied past, shall we? The team has had many outstanding hitting performances through the years, so in order to normalize across the generations, we used weighted stats such as wOBA (Tom Tango’s version of linear weights weighted to fit an OBP scale) and wRC. So now we can come close to knowing whether Albert Pujols’s 2003 season was better than Stan Musial’s 1948 (it probably wasn’t). We’ve provided our selections for your reference in voting. Also, as it turns out, the nominees for each position occasionally aren’t even the best options; in those cases, we’ve provided some "write-in" candidates (in italics), even though fans can’t actually vote for them.

First Base: Johnny Mize, 1940

Albert Pujols’s 2009 season was more spectacular, from a weighted-stats standpoint, but probably because he had better traditional triple-crown numbers in 2006, the latter season was the one nominated. Therefore, we’re picking the Big Cat’s 1940 campaign, which edged 1928 Sunny Jim Bottomley, only because of a slightly better wRC/27 (9.7 to 9.4).

Second Base: Rogers Hornsby, 1922

The Rajah’s 1992 season makes the others look like replacement players. And it probably wasn’t even his best: in 1925, he had 174.1 wRC and a .544 wOBA, one of the greatest hitting performances of all-time for any team and likely the best by a second baseman (better even than the St. Louis Maroons’ Fred Dunlap 1884 season in which he had a .477 wOBA).

Shortstop: Edgar Renteria, 2003

Hornsby could’ve been nominated here, too: He played shortstop in 1917 and had a .413 wOBA. But Renteria’s 2003 will do — his 111.2 wRC is the most by any Cardinal shortstop (though Dick Groat’s 107.1 in 1963 comes close).

Third Base: Whitey Kurowski, 1947

Quick, name the player with the best hitting season at third base in Cardinal history. Unless you said Whitey Kurowski, you’re wrong. The club’s lesser-known Whitey, Kurowski had a career year in ‘47 with a .420 OBP and a .544 SLG, culminating in a .442 wOBA. Joe Torre’s ‘71 season was similarly gaudy and he actually produced more wRC, but we’re giving Kurowski the nod because he had slightly more wRC/27 (8.6 to 8.5). As with first base, either season is defensible.

Outfield: Stan Musial, 1948; Joe Medwick, 1937; Chick Hafey, 1929

Selecting three outfielders was tough, given that six of the nominees are Hall of Famers. Musial’s ‘48 season, one of the best in baseball history, was the only easy choice. Unfortunately, Pujols wasn’t nominated, or his 2003 season would’ve been our second pick. As it was, Muscles Medwick (please don’t call him "Ducky") had worthy .467 wOBA in his Triple Crown season, and fellow HOFer Chick Hafey struck a chord with his Jazz-Age .449 wOBA in 1929 (even though his 1930 season was possibly better).

Catcher: Ted Simmons, 1975

It’s too bad that Torre wasn’t nominated in the catcher category instead of third base, because his 1970 season — 121.3 wRC, .395 wOBA — would’ve topped Simba’s ‘75. Simmons’s year was no slouch, of course, and he has more bona fides at the position: he caught 154 games behind the plate (Torre played only 90, and another 73 at third).

Pitcher: Curt Davis, 1939

Davis is probably the best-hitting pitcher you’ve never heard of. At least he was for one spectacular season back in 1939. His .393 wOBA was probably the result of a flukishly high BABIP (.476) — his career BABIP was a more reasonable .246 — but the reality was that he avoided outs that year like few hurlers have ever done, including Bob Gibson. Just don’t tell him we said so.