Cards Should Have Aimed Higher Than DeRosa
Stan McNeal - SportingNews.com
Jun 29, 2009
ST. LOUIS -- Take the Cardinals out of the Matt Holliday trade talks. They all but ruled out the possibility of trading for the A's slugger when they dealt for Mark DeRosa on Saturday night.
General manager John Mozeliak said he plans to let the Cardinals play for a few weeks before deciding what, if any, moves his club will make next. Would the GM be surprised if the club stages another news conference in a month, this one to announce a Holliday acquisition? "Yes," he said.
Hmmm. Sounds like the Cardinals have settled on good when they could have gambled on great.
DeRosa fits St. Louis because he's versatile and his 13 homers and 50 RBIs are more than any Cardinal not named Albert Pujols. He will play left field, right field, third base and second base and hit second, fourth, fifth or sixth. In his debut Sunday, he made a highlight-worthy catch in left and went 0-for-3 with a walk batting cleanup.
DeRosa costs much less than Holliday, too, both in salary and in trade. Holliday is making $13.5 million this season, DeRosa $5.5 million. The Cardinals sent the Indians young reliever Chris Perez and a prospect to be named. The A's apparently want much more for Holliday.
While DeRosa strengthens the Cardinals' lineup, that's not saying much. Their cleanup hitters have provided little production.
Holliday, meanwhile, has not been driving up his value. He has no homers and three RBIs in the past three weeks. Except for his .373 on-base percentage, his numbers for the season (eight homers, 39 RBIs) are inferior to what DeRosa put up for the last-place Indians.
In Oakland, Holliday has done little to quiet the skeptics who largely consider his career averages -- .315, 29 homers, 110 RBIs -- a creation of Coors Field. That is debatable because Holliday played in Coors during the humidor era when home runs have been harder to come by. Padres GM Kevin Towers, in fact, is one who believes hitting in Coors is more difficult than in NL bandboxes such as those in Philadelphia and Cincinnati. Yet Holliday hit nearly twice as many homers at Coors than he did on the road with the Rockies.
Coors Field remains batting average-friendly because its vast outfield is difficult for three outfielders to cover, so undoubtedly the Coors effect played into Holliday's career splits with the Rockies: .357 at home, .280 on the road.
Coors or not, Holliday would have posed a bigger concern hitting cleanup behind Pujols than DeRosa. Give me the guy with a .340/36/137 season (Holliday's 2007 line) over the guy who has never hit .300 or had more than 21 homers or 87 RBIs in a season.
The Cardinals deserve credit for beating the rest of the teams to DeRosa, and there were several pursuers. Mozeliak said the Indians, 3-11 in their past 14 games, were intent on trading DeRosa by the end of the weekend but as late as Friday, Mozeliak said he didn't think the Cardinals would be the team.
He talked with Indians GM Mark Shapiro on Friday night and Saturday morning, and by Saturday evening a deal was in place. DeRosa was held out of Cleveland's lineup Saturday, and was officially informed of the trade during the Indians' game. He caught a Sunday 6 a.m. flight to St. Louis (through Chicago, he pointed out).
The Indians wanted a young, big-league reliever and the Cardinals had Perez and Jason Motte to offer. The Indians preferred Perez, who has superior numbers and, more important, is a bit more ready to be a closer than the converted catcher Motte. Having Perez aboard gives them better insurance if they move Kerry Wood as they should.
With his club in serious need of offensive help, Cardinals manager Tony La Russa welcomed the move even though he admitted DeRosa doesn't have the kind of bat that can be plugged into the cleanup spot on a regular basis. "He stretches our lineup," was how La Russa put it.
By stretching the lineup -- that is, giving it another solid bat -- DeRosa strengthens the Cardinals' chances of playing in October. Factor in the cost and getting DeRosa was a good move for the Cardinals.
But good doesn't win in October. Great does, and that sometimes doesn't come without a greater gamble.
Stan McNeal is a writer for Sporting News. E-mail him at smcneal@sportingnews.com.
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