Benjamin Hochman Live
Bring your Cardinals, Blues, Mizzou and STL sports questions, and talk to Post-Dispatch columnist Benjamin Hochman in a live chat starting at 2 p.m. Thursday.
3rd & 7 37yd
3rd & 7 37yd
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I think my favorite thing is more the idea of Winter Warm-Up in general - the start of a new season, the uniting of fans and players back in town. It's a cool thing they do. It's fun to see the players for the first time since the season ended (who got fat? who lost weight??). And this will sound cheesy, but I love seeing the dang outfits of the creative fans. That one guy with the hat with all the bobble heads on it, or the kid wearing full catcher's gear. Great stuff.
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I think the Cards will win, at least, 90 games this coming season. This is a strong team, so they don't have glaring weaknesses. But I suppose the answer to your question is: Just how much production will they get out of spots 6-8? For sake of this chat, I'll put Jhonny, Yadi and Kolten in those three lineup spots (knowing we'll surely see other fellas down there during the course of 162). I'm not that optimistic about Jhonny -- I just don't get this sense that a fully healthy Jhonny will, snap of the fingers, be Jhonny of 2014. Yadi had a stellar offensive season last year. Hard to think he'll duplicate it. And then Kolten? Assuming the Cards let him play through his slumps, he should have a pretty good season. But will Matheny have a quick trigger in regards to replacing Kolten? And how good is "pretty good?"
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This is interesting. Let's look at it this way. Yadier was the best player at his position for a decade. Best of his era. Many smart baseball people say he's the best catcher to ever play baseball. Seven-straight seasons as an All-Star, eight-straight as a Gold Glove. And he could very well win another Gold Glove before it's over. But I hear you about Omar -- he won 11 GGs, including nine in a row -- but was only a three-time all-star (a lot of good SSs in the AL during his era). I guess there's the aspect of the unwavering statement. Who's the best catcher since 2000? Yadier Molina. That's the answer. Posey could play more seasons though, but right now, Yadi is the answer. Who's the best shortstop of the 1900s-early 2000s? Cal Ripken, Jeter, A-Rod, etc.
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Isn't being denied entry into the HOF the best thing for Curt Schilling and his nascent political career? His core voting base already sees you media types as The Enemy. Curt can't get elected if he focused his campaign on real issues, but this persecution by the leftist baseball media can be a rallying point for the Schilling 2018 Train. Curt's smarter than he looks.
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Ha maybe not the worst way of looking at it. I don't vote for the Hall of Fame, so I didn't have a say in this. But there is a character clause in the Hall of Fame voting, and if you're a fringe player like Schilling, it probably hurt your cause to say a shirt that suggests lynching journalists "is awesome."
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Yo Bh: Normally I like to drop in a line about movies or TV on your chat, but I've got to get something very different off my chest this week. Will you please tell all those in your profession that arguments about voting for possible steroids users into the baseball Hall of Fame isn't an issue of being the "morality police" or not. That's just a meaningless phrase that sounds good (like "defense wins championships"). Judging steroid or potential steroid users' worthiness into the Hall isn't about morals. The issue is whether you can truly accurately evaluate the body of a given player's work. If you can't be sure that the person earned the numbers through talent and work or through PED enhancement, then you're aren't "policing" the moral stature of the candidate, but rather the quality of his play.
PS The show "Teachers" on the TVLand network is maybe the funniest show of all time. Check it out. -
Great analysis, and it is true -- it is very complex for voters to approach the steriods issue. It is hard for some voters to, as you say, not be "morality police," since they might think -- if I vote for Bonds, what am I saying about steroids use from that era? I like what you wrote about the idea of trying to evaluate someone's quality of play due to the aspect of PEDs. Because, if they're NOT being morality police, then Bonds is a first ballot HOFer, right? Consider that in 1999, The Sporting News named Bonds their Player of the Decade. From the 1990s. The whole dang decade. But we know (from a preponderance of evidence) what happened next. So you would think that a non-PED Bonds would've made the Hall, no problem.
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Keep hearing the saying "transition year" when it comes to the Blues. They lost Backes which hurts. Losing Brouwer for Perron is pretty close to a wash. The only real difference between this years team and last is goaltending. If (big if) Allen was the goalie he was last I think this team is as good if not better that last years team. Statistically this is probably the best offensive team we've had in years. Your thoughts?
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Hey Sean, a good question to be sure. I think the Blues problems are bigger than just Jake. Noting that STL is 9th in goals for and 25th in goals against, the reality is, Jori is Lehterable this season. Yes, apparently, his presence helps 91. But he an't getting the assists on those goals. So say what you want about his defense, the fact is, Jori is a problem. And when the defense is bad, it can be extremely bad -- in the Ottawa game, they made some poor passes from their zone and didn't win many board battles. But yes, I always say that hockey goalie is the second-most important position in sports, besides football quarterback. And Jake's glove side and overall reaction has been hard to watch lately. Yes, he did just have a baby, so we don't know the toll that is taking on him. Maybe that's a factor. But he should be well rested heading into tonight's game against TJ and the Capitals. He's sat out three-straight games. But yes, if Allen doesn't get better, the Blues won't be playing in May.
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I would love to see a Weekend At Bernies 3, if only so the Bernie dance can become popular again. As for Joe in STL, his 93 team did win 87 games, more than last year's Cards, but yeah, you didn't watch those teams and say -- this guy'll someday be on the Mount Rushmore of managers.
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And, for your viewing pleasure -- the Bernie: www.youtube.comby Benjamin Hochman via YouTube 1/19/2017 8:38:38 PM
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Great" read and week for Cardinals birthday's Jan 15-21-thank you. With additional birthday's for HOFers "the Big Cat" Mize (Jan 7th) and Bruce Sutter (Jan 8th), along with other WS champ team members like Bob Forsch (Jan 14th) and Charlie Gelbert (Jan 26th), does that make this 1st month of the year a most special month to be destined in becoming a notable Cardinals player past and possibly present? P.S I see that Stephen Piscotty was born Jan 14th...
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I love it! Yes -- January is the month when Cardinals are born. And I like you pointing out that Piscotty is a January-er. I really like his game, and even though he approaches batting as a hitter and not a masher, I think Piscotty could flirt with 25-27 homers this season. Remember this time last year, when we talked about Grichuk and Piscotty? We said both guys needed to ascend for the Cardinals to contend (sorry for going all Johnny Cochran-like there). Well, Randal didn't. Imagine if we get 2016 expectations for 2017?
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Thanks for your response. Just a quick push back, though. I'm going to disagree that based on pre-2000 performance, Bonds earned HoF status. Since we're basically sure he used for a stretch at one point in his career, I would argue that this puts the earlier portion of his career under a cloud of suspicion. Why did his HR numbers go up the moment he went to SF, where BALCO was located? Do we know he used then? No. But are we sure? No. So, now it becomes hard to truly evaluate his career in terms of HoF, and I think it would be fair for any voter not to vote for him or any other obvious user under that argument.
Ok, I promise that'll be that last of it from me about this topic. You da man, Hochmeister! -
A fair argument! But I defer to the authors who wrote books on Bonds, who said that it was the summer of 1998 that inspired (if that's the right word) Bonds to start using steroids. He became the first 400-400 guy, and nobody really cared. But McGwire hit balls to Alton, and that was national news. So the books say that the following season, Bonds started using. But I hear ya, who knows what else he might have been doing in SF to improve his numbers in the 1990s. That's what we'll never know. A lot of the Hall of Fame voting comes down to -- how good were the journalists in a certain player's city? Or, just how little evidence is there that, say, Pudge juiced, besides his call-out in the Canseco book "Juiced?" ... Piazza isn't considered a juicer because we don't have any reported evidence. Maybe he just never did and was just an awesome player. Or maybe he dodged a bullet.
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That is interesting indeed -- Hitchcock himself has said, on occasion, that 91 disappears in some periods or some games. That isn't the trait of a superstar. Vladimir is still "only" 25, and has room to grow, but he definitely seems like a player who can growing in the category of: "When the going gets tough..."
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Ben, I know I'm in the minority here, but I'm still holding out hope that something clicks with Matt Adams this year and he stays healthy and just gets after it. The news of him losing some of that extra weight has me intrigued. Wouldn't mind seeing him make it impossible for MM to just pen him in at 1B everyday. Carp at 3B and Adams at 1B sounds better to me than Carp at 1B and Jhonny 3B everyday.
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That's the question -- can Adams play so well in Jupiter that he "beats out" Peralta and Gyorko, meaning Carp is moved to third and Adams plays first? It really sounds like STL is committed to Carp at first, so that scenario is harder to see become a reality. And I'm glad Adams lost the weight, but could that be counter-productive with his home runs? And, stuff happens. I remember a big piece in our paper from last spring, Adams talking about "rediscovering" his power with his stance. Well, he wasn't a stud last season, with a .309 OBP and a .471 slugging percentage. So he'll get his chances, I just see it as a longshot for him to force STL to move Carp, once again, to a different infield position.
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Quite possibly. Or Usain Bolt, but he doesn't compete as often. I had a piece in today's paper (and on insidestl.com) about Serena Williams. The reality is, a lot of us don't follow tennis (or women's tennis) and I think we easily brush those stars to the side, saying: "yeah, yeah, they're good." ... But Serena might be the best women's athlete of all-time. And thus is the argument for BEST ATHLETE of all-time, no offense, Sixto Lezcano. But sometimes it takes spelling out their accomplishments for us to truly appreciate where they stack up. Same can be said for Federer.
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Follow-up on the Yadi HOF question from earlier: Yadi's career caught stealing percentage (relative to the league average) is the highest in MLB history -- Pudge Rodriguez is a distant second. So one could certainly argue that he's the greatest throwing catcher ever. His blocking of pitches in the dirt has been elite throughout his career (see Bojan Koprivica's research), worth an average of roughly 5 runs a season, and his framing of pitches, also elite, has been worth ~15-20 runs per year according to Harry Pavlidis and Matthew Carruth. Lastly, Yadi's game-calling has been worth about 8 runs per season according to Mitchel Lichtman. In other words, based on what we now know about the run value of the very very best catcher defense, Yadi is probably a worthy Hall Of Famer right now. He's been an above average hitter relative to his position, he's been much more durable than the average catcher, he's won a lot in October, and he's almost surely the greatest defensive backstop in history.
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OK friends (and people I accidentally snubbed at the Winter Warm-Up), I've gotta run... should be a fun week with more Cardinals columns from Winter Warm-Up interviews, plus Oshie back in town and all this SC STL stuff. Stay tuned, always keep checking stltoday.com and please follow me on twitter, @hochman
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