In the Cardinals’ 13-2 tanking to the Dodgers last week, Defensive-Spectrum Defier™  Skip Schumaker took one giant leap for his kind, moving all the way off the spectrum chart to pitcher, striking out two of the five batters he faced. He was no Aaron Miles, but he at least proved his versatility and added his name to Tony La Russa’s list of non-pitcher pitchers.

So where does the latter-day Howie Shanks rank among La Russa’s rag-armed fielders who have done a stint on the mound for the Cardinals? Here’s the list, ranked by number of appearances:

Some notes:

• Miles may be TLR’s all-time fielder-reliever, but Joe Mather also got a lot of work in (second with 12 batters faced).
• For all of his bellyaching about pitchers not plunking batters, Tony La Russa’s mop-up men have been relative head-hunters, hitting about 5% of the batters they’ve faced (compared to less than 1% among this year’s regular pitchers).
• Rick Ankiel both pitched and played games in the field, but never in the same season.
• The profile of the La Russa fill-in pitcher appears to be a switch-hitting (half have been) third baseman (all).

Let’s extend our quest to include La Russa’s Oakland Athletics days. Did the profile hold true back then?

• Kevin Seitzer
• Vance Law

Though neither was a switch hitter, both were third basemen. (We should note here that Seitzer had a perfect outing, striking out the only batter he faced back in 1993.) You have to go all the way back to TLR’s ChiSox tenure to find the first mold-making fielder-pitcher: the infamous left-handed catcher — and yes, sometime third baseman — Mike Squires.

While we’re at it, let’s look at the reverse: TLR’s Cardinal pitchers who have played somewhere else in the field:

• Kyle Lohse
• Jason Simontacchi

Of course, the Cardinals had a tradition of fielding pitchers before La Russa came to town. Whitey Herzog switched his relief pitchers into the outfield with aplomb:

• Todd Worrell
• Ricky Horton
• Jose DeLeon

Oh, and Whitey also had a couple of infielders that he turned to to handle the blowout innings. One was Tim Jones. The other? Tony La Russa’s longtime and current third-base coach, Jose Oquendo.

Post-Dispatch writer Rick Hummel wrote recently that the Cards starters are having an off year. His argument seems to rest on the rotation’s win totals, which is always an argument “smell,” of course. But he quotes pitching coach Dave Duncan making a similar, if more general observation: “I thought the performance of our rotation would be better than it’s been.” So have the Cardinal starters somehow not lived up to expectations?

First, their to-date numbers (as starters):

And if we revisit the preseason FIP projections for this group, who, with the exception of McClellan, has been the rotation the entire season, we see how well they actually fared relative to their average FIP projections:

RC: RotoChamp
BJ: Bill James
M: Marcel
Z: ZiPS
F: Fans

The team’s top three starters — those with the most games started and innings — all have done better than expected. The last two, one of whom lost his spot in the rotation, have fared worse.

The Commish is right on a good many things, but on this one, he was led astray by reliance on a bad stat. The Cardinal starters haven’t had an off year: They’ve been no worse and, if anything, on the whole slightly better than anyone expected.

In the Cardinals’ game Monday, the Dodgers picked off Jon Jay. It was the second straight game in which the Cardinals needlessly lost a baserunner (Matt Holliday was caught napping at second base Sunday night). In a season of forgotten fundamentals, how have the Cardinals fared running the bases?

First, let’s narrow the scope to only outs on bases and pickoffs. (The Cardinals are last in the major leagues in stolen-base percentage at a pathetic 58%. The good news is that they haven’t tried much, with the third-fewest attempts per opportunity.) We consider failure at stealing less of a mental blunder (at least on the part of the player) than getting picked off and thrown out stretching. Let’s start with outs on bases — we used Outs On Bases per Stolen-Base Opportunities (a decent way of determining chances):

The Cardinals are clearly better than average here. So what about those pickoffs?

Here, too, the Cardinals aren’t that bad. Now we don’t have an easy way of contextualizing those outs on bases or pickoffs (perhaps that’s an offseason project), which may help in understanding the actual impact of those plays, even if they haven’t happened all that often. As for pure rate of baserunning blunders, this doesn’t appear to be one of the fundamentals with which the Cardinals have struggled this year.

The Cardinals’ erstwhile Central Division rival Astros reportedly placed starting pitcher Wandy Rodriguez on waivers yesterday. Assuming the Cardinals haven’t thrown in the towel on the season (a big assumption, considering their Saturday-afternoon lineup vs. the Cubs) — and if they want to get a head start on 2012 — they should claim Rodriguez.

First, if the Cardinals are going to seriously try to catch the Brewers this year, they’re going to need help — and not simply a minor improvement — in their rotation. Hitting isn’t their weakness — they lead the league in wOBA, as they have all season — but their rotation can stand an upgrade for the final 40 days of the season: Their starters’ combined FIP is 3.79, seventh in the NL, notably behind the Phillies, Braves, Giants and Brewers — all teams with better records than the Cardinals. For the rest of the season, Rodriguez represents an upgrade from four of the team’s current five starters — consider the projected ERA and FIP for the following:

Unlike Edwin Jackson, for whom the team traded to shore up the pitching (and provide cover for jettisoning Colby Rasmus), Rodriguez probably won’t require much — certainly not a Rasmus — to acquire. True, his contract isn’t a bargain, but it’s rather reasonable, considering that it’s low exposure (two years) and that it’s hard to imagine that Jackson will settle for a contract of less value this winter.

And unlike Jackson, Rodriguez isn’t simply a one-off acquisition. Under contract for two more seasons at $10 and $13 million, respectively, the lefty fills a hole in the club’s rotation not only in 2011 but in 2012 and 2013. Rodriguez figures to be a better deal in 2012 than Chris Carpenter, whose $15 million option at age 37 is untenable. Even though the Cardinals will have Garcia, Wainwright (likely), Lohse and Westbrook next year, Wainwright’s health, and Lohse and Westbook’s remaining skill sets are far from certain. And the only major-league talent under contract in 2013 will be Garcia and Wainwright.

Whether the Cardinals can claim and acquire Rodriguez simply for the price of his contract or negotiate with the Astros to land him in a trade, it makes sense both in the short- and long-term to get Rodriguez. Why not give the fans a legitimate final hope for the all-in 2011 season while keeping the team in competitive shape next year?

Today, as Chris Jaffe at The Hardball Times kindly chronicles, is the 60th anniversary of the debut of baseball’s shortest player (and owner of the best career on-base percentage), Eddie Gaedel. In honor of the St. Louis Browns’ Gaedel and vertically challenged players everywhere, we present two all-time teams, prompted by a discussion with curator of all things abnormal, Matt Sebek: The All-Time Diminutive Cardinals and the All-Time Diminutive Browns (that is, 5′9″ and under). We took the best single-season performances at each position and filled a 25-man roster for each team.

First, Bill Veeck’s Browns:

And the Cardinals:

Notes:

• The Cardinals lineup features several Hall of Famers: Wallace, Burkett, Slaughter, Bresnahan, Huggins, Eckstein*.
• And you thought Branch Rickey was famous only for his role in Jackie Robinson’s career! He was a legendary short player!
• Crab Burkett, Wallace and Willie Sudhoff appear on both teams.
• Long before Stubby Clapp came onto the scene, there was Stubby Overmire.

* University of Florida Athletic Hall of Fame