Facebook and the future of baseball broadcasts

On Wednesday afternoon, Cardinals super-prospect Alex Reyes made his 2018 Major League debut in Milwaukee, delighting and then terrifying fans with his two-strikeouts-and-a-pickoff first inning and later being pulled from the game after just four innings. It was, for a regular season weekday game in May, extremely anticipated among Cardinals fans, but it was an…

A tale of two Carpenters

By any reasonable measure, Matt Carpenter's 2018 to this point has been a disappointment. After an abysmal start to the season offensively, Carpenter has rebounded significantly, but he has still been only roughly average at the plate. While Carpenter has logged material innings at first, second, and third base, he is generally not well-regarded defensively--his…

A re-examination of the Marcell Ozuna trade

A hallmark of the 2017 St. Louis Cardinals, a pretty good team which nevertheless did not make the playoffs, were pretty good but not amazing outfielders. With the exception of the genuinely excellent Tommy Pham, most of the Cardinals' outfield playing time was accumulated by Dexter Fowler (good hitter, bad fielder, basically average on balance),…

Is Tommy Pham an ideal leadoff hitter?

Leading up to the season, excitement stemmed in part from the lineup's anticipated 1-4 with Dexter Fowler, Tommy Pham, Matt Carpenter, and Marcell Ozuna. With all of them producing, we would expect a solid if not dangerous lineup. Yeah, anyway, this is baseball and that doesn't happen. All but Pham have been lackluster at best,…