Comments on: Ryan Franklin says former teammate Brendan Ryan was routinely late with Cardinals

By: spudchukar

spudchukar — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 16:45:27 +0000

The axiom defense never goes into a slump, has a merit of truth to it. Seldom does a player, especially a young player lose defensive talent over night. The Cards are going to miss Ryan’s defense, whether Theriot, can produce enough to offset his defensive skills will be determined. Ryan had a miserable year at the plate in 2010. While I believe he will be better in 2011 I do not think he can replicate his 2009 numbers. Theriot is probably a bit better defensively than his numbers show, Wrigley Field is a tough place to play, but unless he hits near his 92 OPS, the Cards will be worse off for the move.

By: paperlions

paperlions — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 16:35:36 +0000

Yes, stats are just data that are a record of occurrence, however, with large enough sample sizes they can be effectively used to estimate skill. Brendan Ryan is an elite defender, Ryan Theriot is below average.
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Using your logic, we have no idea if Pujols will be better than Vernon Wells this year; yeah, he’s been better before, but that just tells us what happened, not what will happen.
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Theriot is not anything like an average offensive player. His best full year he had an OPS+ of 92 and he has a career OPS+ of 82; Ryan has a career OPS+ of 76 and is younger. The difference in offense simply isn’t enough to justify the huge downgrade in defense.

By: PanchoHerreraFanClub

PanchoHerreraFanClub — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 15:50:17 +0000

Gosh, it is nice to see the you can predict the future. I’d put that talent to more use, like picking stocks, or going to Vegas.

Seriously, while what you said is true based on past defensive performance, I see no basis for thinking it will be true for this coming season. Past really doesn’t predict the future. Statistics don’t tell you what will happen only what has happened.

A final note there are two basic components to winning games, scoring runs and preventing the other team scoring runs. So, going from one of the two worst offensive players in the game to one that is about average, perhaps the pitchers will enjoy pitching with an extra run or two.

By: xmatt0926x

xmatt0926x — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 14:47:02 +0000

Yeah lets face it. Its easy to get rid of a clubhouse problem when they are not producing on the field. If he was hitting .325 with 40 stolen bases, etc., he could do anything short of assaulting women and children and he’d still be with the Cardinals. People don’t keep giving Milton Bradley jobs because they just want to see the poor fella succeed somewhere for his own good. They know he has talent and they are gambling that they can get it out of him. If he had no talent him and his “everyone is against me” race card act would have been banished years ago.

By: paperlions

paperlions — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 14:41:51 +0000

I’m sure the Cardinals ground ball pitchers will miss him on a regular basis; going from the best defensive SS to a below average one will be pretty noticeable….hope they enjoy all of the extra outs they’ll have to get.