Prior to the start of the National League Championship Series, the St. Louis Cardinals activated starter-turned-reliever Lance Lynn from the 60-day disabled list (strained left oblique) and added him to the active roster. The 24-year-old last appeared in a game on August 9th before taking the mound in game 1 of the NLCS. Since, he has faced nine batters in the series, allowing just one hit.

Lynn made his major-league debut as a starter in early June. He took two turns through the rotation before being returned to Triple-A. He was recalled later in the month and used as a relief pitcher. Over the next six weeks, he made 16 appearances out of the Cardinals’ pen before straining his oblique.

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On the same day he took home the National League Comeback Player of the Year Award, Lance Berkman was given the day off in favor of Allen Craig. This raised a few eyebrows, as Berkman had started and hit in the middle of the order in each of the Cardinals’ first eight postseason games. But in Craig, the Cardinals had an apt replacement, and perhaps the best bench player in this year’s postseason.

Craig displayed the light tower power that he is capable of in his second trip to the plate last night, unloading on a Randy Wolf pitch and taking it to out deep to right field. There was talk of the wind blowing out to right field last night, but while the home run from Matt Holliday may have qualified as wind-aided, Craig’s blast probably gets out on any day. It’s nothing to new to Craig.

The quintessential player without a position, St. Louis has seemingly not known what to do with Craig throughout his professional career. Drafted in the eighth round in 2006 out of the University of California, Berkeley, Craig saw time at shortstop, second and third base in his pro debut that summer. In 2007, he consolidated to third base, but saw time at first base as well. He carried both of those over into 2008, but also added 17 games in left field to the mix. In 2009, he made his Triple-A debut and for the first time his primary position was left field rather than third, though he saw time at all four corner spots. In 2010, the Cardinals could no longer deny his bat — his wOBA’s from stop to stop from 2007-2009 read .400, .450, .386 and .400 — and he made the Opening Day roster. But after garnering only 20 plate appearances in the RedBirds’ first 17 games — all as an outfielder or pinch-hitter — he was sent back to Memphis. There, for the first time ever, he didn’t play even one inning at third base, though his blurb in this year’s Baseball America Prospect Handbook said he was still taking grounders at third. This year, the experimentation continued, as Craig was thrown back into the keystone mix. He started once at second in Memphis, and started eight times at second for the big Birds in May. Ultimately, he moved back to the outfield, spelling Berkman, Holliday and Jon Jay during the second half.

The lack of a true position has conspired to turn Craig into a late bloomer. But blooming he is. He sowed the seeds in the second half last year, as he put up a respectable but not flashy .284/.330/.484 in 103 plate appearances. The total was low, because while he started 24 games, he only finished seven of them, as the ever-tinkering Tony La Russa was nearly always on hand with a defensive replacement. This season, that ratio more or less persisted, as Craig finished only 20 of the 62 games he started. But he keeps turning up in the lineup, and his bat is why.

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Today’s installment of our series on the coming free agent market takes a look at some of the first base and DH options that will be available. While the 2012 free agent class is pretty shallow overall, at first base (and DH, if you include it) there is some true quality and a bit of depth. At the top of the list are an old player, a player some people think will get old fast, and a player some people think is older than he says he is.

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We know this much: The NL will send a team from its Central Division to the World Series. Who? We do not yet know. But: The fact remains that this circumstance is no less a surprise to many prognosticators, forecasting systems, and blathering media faces. I cannot recall any one credible source projecting the the NL Central as the team to send a World Series team into the fray — much less to two playoff-teams to the tourney.

Nonetheless, here we sit on the cold stone of pondering, staring into the abyss of unpredictability, the majestic, mysterious abyss of this:

A moon ago, we heard news of the impending Astro’s sale, which comes with a DH apparently, as the proud once-Colt .45s intend to move AL-wise.

This is bad news for the top chihuahuas of the NL Central who feasted on their weak division, and produced perhaps the two least-qualified World Series contenders in a long… long… long time.
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This kicks off a position-by-position series that will look at the upcoming free agents. Because there are fans of 26 teams out there already thinking about next year and how their team can get better, that’s why.

Top Shelf
Ramon Hernandez
Not a single free agent catcher qualified for the batting title. Among those that managed 200 PAs, though, Hernandez led the crew in both batting average and wOBA. He actually managed offense that was 11% better than the league average, which is like wow for a catcher. The position managed a .245/.313/.389 line, and Hernandez had a .282/.341/.446 line. That would make him the offensive class of the free agent class. And by Matt Klaasen’s most recent catcher defense rankings, he graded out as top-tier as well. So why might the Reds let him go? Well they have Ryan Hanigan in hand and Devin Mesoraco on the way, so they don’t need to spend that money. Also, Hernandez is 36 years old, has averaged 337 PAs over the past three years, and is as likely to be below-average with the bat as he is to be above-average (or more likely below, given he’s another year older). Even though his defense is at least decent and the Dodgers are a possibility, the best fit for him might be an American league team that can shuttle him between catcher and DH to keep him fresh. Could he return to Baltimore? Replace free-agent-to-be Josh Bard in Seattle? The Mariners are looking for offense at any position they can get it.
Verdict: Mariners.

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Just look at that lovely mug.

Tonight’s NCLS matchup, pending the game isn’t rained out: Yovani Gallardo vs. Chris Carpenter.

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News broke this morning that Red Sox President of Baseball Operations (the de facto Red Sox GM) Theo Epstein and the Chicago Cubs have agreed to, though not finalized, terms which will bring the Yale grad to Chicago’s Northside. The deal appears to be worth $20M over five years, but the Cubs will undoubtedly need to send compensation (say, a prospect or some Benjamins) the Red Sox’s way — which may well escalate the cost beyond what’s beneficial to the Cubs.

If the compensation package includes a number of significant prospects, this may well result in Theo Epstein starting from scratch as the Cubs GM. So, let’s assume he is starting with a largely depleted farm system (one that was half-depleted in the Matt Garza trade). What moves does Epstein need to make immediately? And no, extending John Grabow is not one of them.

1) Fill the Front Office
The Jim Hendry regime nearly took pride in how small their front office was. They had scouts, sure, but their “statistics department” had long consisted of one man, Chuck Wasserstrom, until Cubs owner Tom Ricketts doubled their staff, bringing in Ari Kaplan and presumably purchasing a few more bristles for their push-broom.

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Because I’ve been a horrible person and not included this in my past few articles, thanks to the Joe Lefkowitz Pitch F/x tool for the data in these posts.

Earlier I looked at today’s ALCS game, so now we move  on to tonight’s NLCS matchup: Edwin Jackson vs. Shaun Marcum.

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Roy Halladay and Chris Carpenter were drafted by the Toronto Blue Jays within two years of each other in the early to mid 1990s. The two friends, and mountains of men, were supposed to front a talented Toronto rotation heading into the new millennium.

However, in quite the Pulsipher-Wilson-Isringhausen fashion, the desired results were not yielded. Expectations were lofty, but Halladay struggled with command — which sounds ridiculous but remains true — and Carpenter was unspectacular when healthy, and unhealthy rather frequently.

Following the 2002 season, the Halladay-Carpenter experiment ended. Unfortunately for the Blue Jays, it’s possible that one more year of patience would have benefited them greatly. That season marked the first when Halladay became Halladay, the eventual Hall of Fame pitcher that will undoubtedly go down as the best of this era.

Carpenter, meanwhile, made just 13 starts and spent three stints on the disabled list with shoulder troubles. His numbers were nothing to write home about — 5.5 K/9, 3.1 BB/9, 5.28 ERA, 4.67 SIERA — and the Blue Jays removed him from the 40-man roster after the season. Intrigued by his potential, the organization offered him an incentive-laden, minor league deal, but Carpenter turned them down. He hit free agency, and the rest is history.

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To see the definition of an expertly handled bullpen we need to merely look three days in the past, to Tony La Russa’s masterful performance Sunday against Philadelphia. After Chris Carpenter sputtered on three days rest, La Russa’s bullpen maneuvered deftly through the last six innings, holding the Phillies scoreless. All six of the Cardinals’ relievers — Jason Motte, Mitchell Boggs, Fernando Salas, Octavio Dotel, Mark Rzepczynski and Arthur Rhodes — appeared in Sunday’s game, and thus a long start from Jaime Garcia on Tuesday would have been a boon for the bullpen.

Naturally, in the bottom of the sixth inning Tuesday in St. Louis, Tony La Russa was confronted with a conundrum: in a 0-0 game, Garcia came to bat with two outs and runners on first and second having thrown a mere 74 pitches. La Russa left Garcia in, and the decision would eventually lead to both their downfalls. Garcia would strike out to end the inning, and minutes later, with two outs in the top half of the seventh, Garcia would give up a three-run home run to Ben Francisco to effectively end the game.

Although Garcia certainly should have been able to retire Francisco, a .244/.340/.362 hitter on the season, La Russa’s decisions, first against pinch-hitting and then against removing Garcia, ultimately cost the Cardinals Game 3 and a 2-1 series lead.

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