Earlier Tuesday, word got around that the St. Louis Cardinals had called an afternoon press conference. Word got around because the Cardinals spread it. Immediately, there was some speculation that the Cardinals had made an acquisition. There was also speculation that the Cardinals were going to announce a long-term contract extension for a player or coach. But then there were whispers that the news conference would have to do with Chris Carpenter’s future, and many began to expect a retirement announcement. Carpenter has not retired, but retirement doesn’t appear to be far off.

Carpenter’s coming off major surgery, and he started throwing early on this offseason to test his body. Recently, he informed the Cardinals that he’s feeling similar symptoms to the ones he experienced a year ago. He’s going to get himself examined, but the Cardinals all but wrote him off for 2013, and they repeatedly referred to Carpenter in the past tense. This is not a Chris Carpenter retirement article, but you can consider it just one step below.

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The Steamer projections courtesy of steamerprojections.com are now available in the projections section and in the player pages.

The Steamer projections on FanGraphs use the playing time projections from the FAN projections.

Huge thanks to Jared Cross, Dash Davidson, and Peter Rosenbloom; the team behind the Steamer projections.

Update: FIP, HR, and BABIP columns should now be corrected. There was some bad data cached.

One of the most often cited criticisms of WAR is that replacement level is essentially an arbitrary construct, making the entire model just an act of theoretical speculation. The idea of replacement level is to essentially set a baseline for expected performance from a team that invested the absolute minimum in putting together a Major League roster. This replacement level team wouldn’t have a farm system, so that they didn’t have to spend money on draft picks, coaches, equipment, or facilities. They would rely entirely on league minimum veterans to build out their roster, thus allowing us to see how approximately many wins a team could expect if they did the absolute bare minimum in terms of organizational investment.

That team doesn’t exist, obviously, as even organizations that completely tear down their big league roster work to rebuild through accumulation of young talent, and no team actually spends the league minimum on its Major League payroll. Thus, the criticism that the entire exercise is a thought experiment, not applicable to the Major Leagues and incapable of serving as a baseline against which Major League players should be judged.

However, that argument misses out on the fact that MLB teams give us a pretty great list of replacement level players every winter, thanks to the processes of minor league free agency and the waiver system.

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Play the player-profile game again tomorrow — in this case, at 1:00pm ET. We’re giving away a free annual subscription to FanGraphs+ to the first reader who guesses correctly the identity of that day’s mystery player. (Limit one copy per customer).

As Eno Sarris announced yesterday, FanGraphs+ is once again available to the sexy, teeming masses.

In celebration — and to the end of nearly relentless promotion — we’re playing the player-profile game I introduced in these pages a few offseasons ago.

The game is easy: one person (me, in this case) offers the text of single player profile, being careful to omit any proper names that might reveal the identity of the player in question. The other person (you, the reader) attempts to identify the player using only the details provided in the profile.

First reader to guess correctly (in the comments section below) gets a free annual subscription to FanGraphs+ — approximately a $1000 value!

Today’s entry comes to us courtesy of Mr. David Wiers.

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There was the Reggie Bar, named for and endorsed by Reggie Jackson. There was Yogi Berra and Mickey Mantle in a prominent ad for Yoo-Hoo Chocolate Drink. Stan Musial was on the back of the Wheaties box and paired with Ted Williams in ads for Chesterfield cigarettes. Roger Clemens was in a Zest soap commercial and Rafael Palmeiro talked about erectile dysfunction for Viagra. Okay, maybe that last one isn’t the one to highlight.

But why aren’t there big major league stars on today’s Wheaties boxes?

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When I think of expectations, I think of a line an old college buddy used to say regarding just about any undertaking: “Aim low and miss.” Olympian, he was not.

But that line came back to me when I was thinking about Kevin Millwood, not because Kevin Millwood aimed low, but because I think many observers had unreasonable expectations for his career. Millwood, as you probably are aware, decided to hang it up and do the spend-more-time-with-the-family deal. And from what I’ve read about him across electronic and print pages, he “failed to meet expectations” during his 16 seasons in the majors. I’m not sure that’s entirely fair.

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Table of Contents
Today’s edition of the Daily Notes has no table of contents, it appears.

Caribbean Series Information Post, Game Day 5
The Caribbean Series — featuring the champion from each of the Dominican Winter, Mexican Pacific, Puerto Rican, and Venezuelan Winter Leagues — began Friday in Hermosillo, Mexico, and continues through February 7th.

What follows is an assortment of information regarding that Series after four games.

Scores
Here are the results from Monday’s games, with links to the relevant box scores:

Game 1: Puerto Rico 6, Dominican Republic 4
Game 2: Mexico 2, Venezuela 0

Standings
The Series is played in a double round-robin format, with each team playing every other one twice. After the completion of same, the top two teams will meet in a championship game with a view to acquiring capital-G Glory.

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Don’t believe Gerrit Cole when he says velocity isn’t important. The 22-year-old right-hander has a fastball that reaches triple digits and his slider is as hard as many heaters. His ability to overpower hitters is what makes him one of the top pitching prospects in the game.

The 6-foot-4 flamethrower is on the fast track to Pittsburgh. Drafted first overall in 2011, out of UCLA, he pitched at three levels last season and struck out more than a batter per inning while logging an impressive 2.80 ERA. His next stop is the Pirates starting rotation, where he projects to be the ace of the staff for years to come.

Cole talked about his game when the Double-A Altoona Curve visited Portland late in the 2012 season.

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David Laurila: How would describe your approach?

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The Texas Rangers organization continues to churn out high-ceiling prospects but, unlike some clubs, it relies heavily on home-grown players rather than flipping them in trades for established big-leaguers. If the playing time develops, look for Jurickson Profar to have a Bryce Harper-type impact in 2013.
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