Year in Review – St. Louis Cardinals

October 31, 2008 5:39pm CDT

We will be taking a look around all 30 major league teams and see which players and pitchers failed, which excelled and which youngsters you might want to keep in mind as you begin to prepare for your 2009 Fantasy Baseball draft.


HITTERS

Fantasy Flop - Chris Duncan
.248-6-27-26-2 in 222 AB

Chris Duncan cannot hit left-handed pitching, as he owns a .196 average and just five home runs in 163 career AB against them, but he has always been able to handle righties with aplomb (.282 with a .893 OPS and 45 home runs in 724 AB). Over the past two seasons, despite an average of just 328 AB, Duncan hit 43 big flies, leading to hope that he might crack the 25 home run barrier for the first time in 2008. Alas, he produced the worst numbers of his career due to a back injury (he eventually had surgery for a herniated disc). As we have been saying throughout this series, it is very difficult to pin a flop label on someone who was injured, but the fact is that even when Duncan was able to play in 2008 his production was terrible. Duncan set three-year lows in batting average, OBP (.346), SLG (.365, which was .122 points below his career mark), HR/F ratio (9.8 percent, less than half his career mark of 20.6 percent) and AB/HR (one per 37.0 AB in '08, 17.86 in '07 and 12.7 in '06). Obviously he was never full healthy while on the field as his back completely sapped him of his ability to drive the baseball. The future is unknown with this former slugger given that it is unclear just how much pop he will have left in his bat after having his back surgically repaired.

Fantasy Find - Ryan Ludwick
.299-37-113-104-4 in 538 AB

How easy it is to forget where Ludwick came from after he was so spectacular this season. Based on available ADP data, Ludwick was not even one of the top-400 hitters being taken in March 2008. Not players, but hitters mind you, so the fact that he was a fantasy all-star, literally out of completely nowhere, was an amazing accomplishment.

Ludwick entered 2008 with a .251-28-96-80-8 line with a .764 OPS in 637 AB spread out over five seasons. Clearly when he was given a chance he produced rather solid numbers, but he was unable to stay healthy long enough to convince anyone that he deserved to be a starter in the majors. However, when injures hit the Cardinals in 2008, Ludwick ran with the chance and never looked back, though he gave his owners quite the scare in June when he hit just .228 with a .704 OPS that had many abandoning ship. But the truth is Ludwick never gave up, and in the second half he hit .313-16-48 with a .971 OPS over his final 65 games. Ludwick had an extremely high .349 BABIP mark as well as a potentially elevated 19.9 percent HR/F mark, but again, he was fairly consistent over the course of the season. He certainly could stand to cut his strikeouts (146) and walk a few more times (he had a 0.42 BB/K ratio), but then again, that's kind of nit picking after an effort like this one.

Youngster to Watch in '09 - Colby Rasmus
Minors: .252-12-38-58-15 in 349 AB

One of the top prospects in all of baseball, Rasmus didn't pick up a single at-bat with the Cardinals in 2008 as he spent the entire year in the minors. However, a knee injury sidelined him for a couple of months (he missed the Olympics) and he was only able to play in 96 games. As a result, his numbers failed to remotely approximate his standout work at Double-A in 2007 (.275-29-72-93-18 in 472 AB). Still, Rasmus won't turn 23 until next August, meaning he is clearly at a point of his development that a potential breakout could occur in 2009. However, the Cardinals aren't simply going to hand him a starting role until he proves to the club that he deserves the chance to roam the outfield. Rasmus owns a .277 average in 1,500+ minor league at-bats, and he appears to possess the speed to be a constant 20+ stolen base threat in the majors. Moreover, Rasmus is a five-tool talent that has power to all fields, and his batting average should also improve from this season's poor effort if he is able to maintain his career BB/K mark of roughly 0.70 once he joins the Redbirds. Playing time is the real issue here, but if Rasmus is given a shot in spring training he is certainly capable of posting a 20/20 season in his first exposure at the major league level.



PITCHERS

Fantasy Flop - Jason Isringhausen
1-5, 5.70 ERA, 36 K, 1.64 WHIP with 12 saves in 42.2 IP

Isringhausen had a completely lost season due to injury and stupidity, an often lethal combination. Izzy dealt with arthritis in his hip early in the year, but the real cause of his early season struggles was the fact that he punched a television out of anger and injured his hand (didn't he watch Bull Durham where Kevin Costner's character, Crash Davis, teaches Nook Laloosh to make sure he throws punches with his non-throwing hand?). Jason then dealt with some issues in his knee before ultimately needing to undergo surgery on his elbow, which caused him to question whether or not he could continue pitching (he currently says he will). In between those injuries, Isringhausen produced his worst save total since 1998 and ended a run of seven out of eight seasons with at least 32 saves. Izzy also produced a hideous ERA of 5.70, and if you add up his performance in 2006 and 2007 you get an ERA of 6.03. And his WHIP of 1.64 was atrocious for a guy who had been under 1.20 in six of the previous seven seasons. You can blame injures or age, or that damn television set that forced itself on him, but the fact of the matter is that this was Isringhausen's worst effort of the 21st century.

Fantasy Find - Todd Wellemeyer
13-9, 3.71 ERA, 134 K, 1.25 WHIP in 191.2 IP

This might seem like a bit of a surprise for those of you expecting to see the name of 15-game winner Kyle Lohse, but in truth he was ever so slightly behind Wellemeyer in multiple categories, not to mention that Todd was nothing more than a bullpen arm prior to 2008. Here are the facts.

ERA: Wellemeyer (3.71), Lohse (3.78)
WHIP: Wellemeyer (1.25), Lohse (1.30)
K/9: Wellemeyer (6.29), Lohse (5.36)
K/BB: Wellemeyer (2.16), Lohse (2.43)
H/9: Wellemeyer (8.36), Lohse (9.50)
BAA: Wellemeyer (.245), Lohse (.272)

Obviously, Wellemeyer beat Lohse in these six categories, so hopefully it's clear now why we chose to highlight Todd over Kyle. In addition, Wellemeyer had a much lower visibility level than Lohse at the start of the year, considering he had only 11 starts in his brief big league career prior to the start of the 2008 campaign. A bit surprisingly given the fact that he was used a reliever since 2003, Wellemeyer actually got stronger as the year wore on with a 2.97 ERA and a 1.15 WHIP over his final 11 starts to conclude his strong 2008 effort.

Youngster to Watch in '09 - Chris Perez
3-3, 3.46 ERA, 42 K, 1.34 WHIP with seven saves in 41.2 IP

When Jason Isringhausen was injured, the Cardinals were forced to scramble a bit to find a closer they could count on. Ryan Franklin actually ended up leading the squad with 17 saves, but the club never really viewed him as a long-term solution to the question of who should close. The club also wasn't sure they wanted to rush minor league phenom Perez to the majors, but given the state of their bullpen the decision was made to do just that. Perez, who saved 36 games in 2007 between Double and Triple-A, owns a 2.80 ERA, a 1.22 WHIP and a massive 12.13 K/9 mark in 109.1 minor league innings. Like many young flame throwers, Perez has his struggles finding the strike zone (he owns a ghastly 5.94 BB/9 mark in the minors), but when he is throwing strikes there is little chance of most batters squaring up the ball. Upon joining the Cardinals, Perez exhibited the same dominating stuff with a 9.07 K/9 mark, though he also continued his wild ways (4.75 BB/9). Still, the former first-round draft pick of 2006 was able to post a 2.50 ERA with 20 K and seven saves over his final 18 innings, and he could end up closing for the Cardinals as early as the start of the 2009 campaign. Even if he doesn't begin the year in that role he certainly should be considered as an addition to nearly all fantasy teams, even those in mixed leagues, next season.