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The season is young, but never too young to raise a few issues we've seen so far. Here are 10:

1. Yu Darvish's control
In Japan, Darvish was known not only for his terrific stuff but his ability to throw it with precision. In 2011, he walked just 36 batters in 232 innings. Through three starts with the Rangers he's walked 13 in 17.2 innings. I've watched all three of those starts and there's no denying his ability, with good movement on his fastball and a sharp-breaking curve. The command hasn't been there, however, and I do see some Dice-K syndrome: Nibbling at the corners, not pitching inside, not trusting the quality of his stuff. It's early and I do think he'll be fine in the long run, but there is at least a little reason to doubt he'll be the No. 1 many projected.

2. Adam Wainwright
Wainwright has had a tough start this season as he dropped to 0-3, 9.88 after a five-inning outing against the Reds on Thursday. He gave up fourth-inning home runs to Brandon Phillips and Ryan Ludwick, giving him five home runs allowed in just 13.2 innings. One positive sign is that he has 14 strikeouts, an indication that the stuff is still there. From the heat map below, we have his curveball location in 2012 on the left versus 2010, when batters hit just .170 against it. He's only thrown it 45 times so far, but it appears the command in that lower quadrant of the strike zone isn't quite there yet.

3. Marlins' defense
I was worried about Miami's defense before the season and so far that's a legitimate concern, as entering Thursday the Marlins ranked 29th in Defensive Runs Saved at minus-13 runs (only the Rockies ranked worse). The biggest holes so far? Jose Reyes is at minus-6 runs and Hanley Ramirez is at minus-2. Factor in Logan Morrison's plodding defense in left, Emilio Bonifacio's inexperience in center and Giancarlo Stanton's testy knee and this could be a season-long issue.

4. Angels' plate discipline
Entering Thursday's games, the Angels ranked 27th in the majors in walk percentage, ahead of just the Pirates, Royals and Phillies. The Angels also ranked second behind in the Phillies in percentage of pitches outside the strike zone they've swung at (33.1 percent). No matter how many home runs you hit, it's difficult to string together some rallies without drawing a few walks. The major culprits: Kendrys Morales (no walks in 42 plate appearances), Peter Bourjos (no walks in 32 PAs) and Vernon Wells (one walk in 47 PAs).

5. Tampa Bay's bullpen
As bad as Boston's bullpen has been (6.63 ERA), Tampa's has struggled even more with an 8.64 ERA. The Rays pieced together a decent pen a year ago from the likes of Kyle Farnsworth, Joel Peralta, Juan Cruz and others. That pen benefited from having to throw the fewest innings in the majors. With Farnsworth on the DL, Fernando Rodney has been getting the save opportunities and he's done the job, but the rest of the pen has been shaky. Of concern: While Boston's relievers have 31 strikeouts and 12 walks, Tampa's have 26 strikeouts against 20 walks.

6. Josh Johnson
For all the concern over Tim Lincecum's drop in velocity and unsightly 10.54 ERA, the ace pitcher I'd be most worried about is Johnson. While Lincecum has 16 strikeouts and four walks in 13.2 innings, Johnson doesn't have any positives on his ledger: 16.2 IP, 28 H, 6 BB, 8 SO. Both have been burned by high BABIPs (.444 for Johnson) and Johnson hasn't allowed a home run, but the low strikeout rate is a big concern and his fastball velocity is also. Like Wainwright, Johnson is coming off an injury, but you have to hope the shoulder is OK.

7. Phillies' lineup
No surprise here with the absence of Ryan Howard and Chase Utley, but it doesn't help that Jimmy Rollins and Shane Victorino have combined for just one home run. Even when Howard and Utley return, the Phillies will need a lot more production from Rollins and Victorino.

8. Scott Rolen
The Reds were counting on Rolen to hit cleanup, but Dusty Baker has already moved him out of that spot after his .171 start through 13 games. Considering his long injury history and struggles in 2011, the end of the line may be approaching for the 37-year-old third baseman. The Reds may eventually have to turn to Todd Frazier, but his minor league track record suggests bench player, not starting third baseman on a playoff team.

9. Brent Morel and Gordon Beckham
The White Sox have a solid rotation, a solid bullpen and ... well, they'll need offense and they were counting on these two infielders to improve from 2011. But Morel is hitting .103 with 18 strikeouts in 39 at-bats and Beckham is hitting .152 with 12 strikeouts in 33 at-bats. Neither has homered.

10. Kids running out on the field
What kind of example is this for the adults?

PHOTO OF THE DAY
Follow David Schoenfield on Twitter @dschoenfield.

Eric Karabell wrote about Kevin Youkilis today and then we talked about Youkilis and two other 30-something third basemen off to slow starts, Scott Rolen and Placido Polanco. We also discussed Chris Young's injury and where Ivan Rodriguez ranks all-time among catchers. Check it out!

As the All-Star break approached back in 2010, Scott Rolen was -- if you'll forgive the pun -- absolutely rollin'. He was a sure-fire All-Star, and his name was being mentioned in MVP discussions as the Reds were flying high in the National League Central. With good reason, Rolen's resurgence was linked to Cincinnati's outstanding play that year.

Just prior to that season, Reds GM Walt Jocketty had signed Rolen to a contract extension that would carry him through 2012. Signing an aging, oft-injured player through his age-37 season raised a number of eyebrows, but Jocketty's decision looked pretty good when a rejuvenated Rolen entered the All-Star break hitting .290/.361/.548
with 17 home runs, 57 RBIs and a 145 OPS+. Sure, Rolen had lost a half-step defensively, but he was still very, very good.

During the second half of 2010, however, Rolen looked noticeably the worse for wear. A sub-par second half culminated in a miserable performance in the National League Division Series. Rolen, looking tired, managed just one single and struck out eight times in 11 at-bats, as the Reds suffered a three-game sweep at the hands of Philadelphia.

After an injury-plagued 2011 that saw Rolen contribute just 0.6 WAR to the Reds' bottom line as he hit .242/.279/.397, Rolen came to spring camp with renewed optimism for a healthy, productive season. Unfortunately for Rolen and the Reds, the first couple of weeks have just been more of the same. Rolen
had two hits Wednesday night, and one of them was even an extra-base hit (a double). That prodigious output gave Rolen the following line for the 2012 season thus far: .171/.209/.244.

Obviously, we don't want to draw any sweeping conclusions based on 12 games worth of data. However, after watching him swing and miss at a
couple of mediocre fastballs Wednesday, I became curious. After the 11-1 drubbing in St. Louis, I decided to do some quick, back-of-the-envelope calculations. The results weren't pretty.

Since the 2010 All-Star break, Scott Rolen has played in 131 games. In those games, he's hitting .249/.303/.401, with 8 homers, 64 RBIs, 31 walks and 39 doubles.

Yikes.

Remember, this has been the primary cleanup hitter in Dusty Baker's lineup. Then again, that .704 OPS looks pretty good compared with his 2011 OPS of .676 (with an 82 OPS+).

Everyone in Cincinnati loves Scott Rolen. He's clearly one of the leaders on a young ballclub that's expected to compete, he's hilarious in an interview, he plays hard every night, and he still manages a pretty mean defensive game at third base. The guy has had a great career; probably a Hall of Fame career, frankly.

Let's be honest, though: Rolen has had one good half-season for the Reds. Since the 2010 All-Star break, he has been one of the worst hitting third basemen in the majors. Now he's 37 years old, appears to be having trouble getting around on any fastball quicker than Jamie Moyer's, and there is reason to wonder what the future has in store.

Is there any reason to believe that Rolen, at his age, with his injury history, is going to produce even average offense for the Reds this year? The Reds certainly hope so -- the club desperately needs his production, if he's going to hit in the middle of the lineup -- but I'm afraid there aren't many reasons to be optimistic.

Chad Dotson writes about the Reds at Redleg Nation. Follow him on Twitter.

This is what will have American League pitchers and managers waking up in cold sweats all season long: Those stretches when Miguel Cabrera and Prince Fielder are both raking, eyes bulging as they pummel meaty fastballs over fences and into outfield seats.

Josh Beckett become the first pitcher to experience these forces of nature in action, as both hit two home runs off him in Detroit's 10-0 victory Saturday over Boston. Fielder hit one out to left field and a low, screaming bullet to right for his pair. Going the opposite way is nothing new for him; 11 of his 38 home runs in 2011 went to left or left-center. There were some concerns that Fielder would lose a few home runs moving from Miller Park to the more spacious environs of Comerica, so hitting one out to left is a good, early sign.

How dynamic is this pair? A season ago, Fielder hit .299/.415/.566 with 38 home runs; Cabrera hit .344/.448/.586 with 30 home runs. The last team with two players to hit 30 home runs with a .400 OBP? The 2006 Red Sox with Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz. Twelve teams since 2000 have had such a duo (or in the case of the 2004 Cardinals, three players):

2006 Red Sox: Ramirez, Ortiz
2005 Yankees: Alex Rodriguez, Jason Giambi
2004 Cardinals: Albert Pujols, Jim Edmonds, Scott Rolen
2003 Yankees: Giambi, Jorge Posada
2002 Astros: Jeff Bagwell, Lance Berkman
2001 Rockies: Todd Helton, Larry Walker
2001 Cardinals: Pujols, Edmonds
2000 Cardinals: Edmonds, Mark McGwire
2000 Angels: Tim Salmon, Troy Glaus
2000 Astros: Bagwell, Moises Alou
2000 Mariners: Rodriguez, Edgar Martinez
2000 Giants: Barry Bonds, Jeff Kent

Of course, all of those pairs or threesomes did this during the high-offense steroids period. Six other teammates did it between 1995 and 1999. But before that? That previous team to have two such players was the 1969 Oakland A's with Reggie Jackson and Sal Bando. Throughout baseball history there have been only 34 such pairs. Here's another way to do this. Let's add OPS+ (adjusted on-base plus slugging percentage) as a third measuring stick. OPS+ adjusts a player's offensive production for home park and era. In 2011, Cabrera's OPS+ was 181, second in the American League. Fielder's was 164, fourth in the National League. Let's set a minimum of 30 home runs, .400 OBP and 150 OPS+.

This takes away some of steroids-era pairs and leaves us with 24 such teammates in baseball history. And six of those 24 were Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig.

And that, my readers, is the kind of company Cabrera and Fielder have the chance to join.

A few more notes from today's early games:

• Beckett served up five home runs, sending waves of sweats and swears throughout Red Sox Nation. He became just the fourth pitcher to allow five homers twice in his career, joining Tim Wakefield, Pat Hentgen and Jeff Weaver. Gordon Edes had a good piece on Beckett before his season debut, detailing his motivation for 2012. Beckett is a bit of an enigma, a guy usually viewed as an ace due to his postseason heroics with the Red Sox in 2007 and Marlins in 2003. But the facts also don't lie: He's finished in the top 10 in his league in ERA only twice, including last season with a 2.89 mark. Beckett has been homer-prone at various stages of his career, most notably in his first season with Boston, in 2006, when he gave up 36. It's only one start, of course, but considering the spring training thumb injury he insisted wasn't an injury, it puts Beckett on the early "keep an eye on him" watch list.
• Angels manager Mike Scioscia picked Game No. 2 to get disgruntled Bobby Abreu in the lineup, putting Abreu in left and moving Vernon Wells to center, sitting defensive whiz Peter Bourjos in the process. "I'm not calling this a day off for Peter, it's the second game, but it's a combination of that and trying to get some left-handed bats in the lineup," Scioscia told Mark Saxon of ESPN Los Angeles. I can't imagine a more defensively challenged outfield pair than those two. Unable to see this game since I had the Red Sox-Tigers game as my local Fox broadcast, I tweeted Angels and Royals fans to ask how many of the 11 hits Dan Haren allowed fell just out of their reach. The consensus seemed to be two or three, although @dblesky wrote, "There were really only a couple. And one was glaring." It will be interesting to see how often Scioscia runs out this lineup, essentially to placate Abreu. I just don't see the Angels being a better team with that alignment and Bourjos on the bench.
• Zack Greinke had a dominant effort in the Brewers' 6-0 shutout over the Cardinals, allowing three hits in seven innings with no walks and seven strikeouts. I wrote this before the game, but here's why Greinke is a good Cy Young pick. Especially impressive were Greinke's economical 91 pitches.
• Tweet of the day after Daniel Hudson and the Diamondbacks beat the Giants for the second consecutive game:
  

  Good way to start the season. Two mistakes and I paid for it. But a win is a win. #sweepthegiants tomorrow! #GoDbacks
  
  — Daniel Hudson (@DHuddy41) April 7, 2012

Links to check out from around the SweetSpot network (and a couple other places):

• The Royals apparently made a lot of money last season.
• Bill Baer examines the pros and cons of some potential trade targets if the Phillies decide to add infield depth.
• Is Clay Buchholz the key to Boston's success? There is a lot riding on a pitcher who has never made 30 major league starts in a season and more than 16 just once.
• Who is the real Ubaldo Jimenez? The stud of 2010 or not-the-awesome version of 2011? Brenden Lowery takes a look.
• The guys at Disciples of Uecker have started a podcast. Listen in if you're a Brewers fan -- or even if you're not a Brewers fan.
• Likewise, Pro Ball NW has started a podcast. Check it out, Mariners fans!
• Brandon Cloud with a good examination of what the Rockies need from their rotation.
• Is it time to worry yet about Justin Morneau?
• Mike Morse is hurting. And the Nationals don't have a good solution to replace his bat. When the possibilities include Jason Michaels and Xavier Nady ...
• Third base will be an important position for the Reds. Our friends at Redleg Nation take a closer look at Scott Rolen, Todd Frazier and Juan Francisco.
• Is there a chance the "Zambrano trade" will end up being remembered as the "Chris Volstad trade"?
• What should the Yankees do with Michael Pineda? Dave Cameron has an idea.
• In an excerpt from the new Baseball Prospectus book, "Extra Innings: More Baseball Behind the Numbers," Colin Wyers asks: Are relievers being used properly?
• A's blogger Jason Wojciechowski has been running a series at The Platoon Advantage called "the path to respectability." He takes bad teams and shows how they could win 88 games. Here's his look at the A's.
• Arizona minor leaguer Adam Eaton received a bunch of $20,000 checks. Trouble is: They were intended for the other Adam Eaton.
• Baseball-Reference.com has added Negro Leagues stats. Sparse and very incomplete, but also very cool.
• Jon Shepherd has his 2012 preseason talent rankings, based on projected WAR. No surprises: the Yankees are No. 1, the Astros No. 30.

All for now. Enjoy your weekend!

Are first basemen doing more to put runs on the board today than they did 10 years ago? How about 25 years ago? How do you make broad comparisons like this?

With any question like this you can get hung up on the differences between eras. Run-scoring environments are going to bounce around as a matter of course, and that’s before you get into the bump of the so-called "Steroids Era." If you were a fan just getting started in the late ’90s, chances are you might wind up with an inflated sense of what player performance is supposed to look like.

Happily, you can compare player performance within the context of their own season. Clay Davenport, an old colleague from Baseball Prospectus, cranks this data for every season. We can get a snapshot of where performance has gone at each position by using his Equivalent Average, or EqA. Equivalent Average isn’t the only stat you can employ; Clay scales production to batting average, with .260 defined as average.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at performances from the eight major positions over the past 25 years. We’ll start with the premium offensive positions, the four corners, from 1987 to the present:



Keep in mind, .260 is average for every season, so the year-to-year variations are going to refer back to that baseline. We can already draw a few broad conclusions -- some of which are pretty much accepted wisdom, but some prove slightly surprising.

Runs come from first base. This might seem obvious, but that’s especially the case now. It hasn’t always been that way. As you can see from the chart, left and right fielders have sometimes approached the first basemen, but that usually coincides with bad years for first basemen. But these days, first base is the game’s premium offense position.

If you look back further, that picture gets a lot more complicated. During the ’70s, first, right and left were equally important offensive positions, and in 1982 the four corners and center field were separated by just eight points. That changed in the late ’80s, as the standard for production at first base now winds up north of a .280 EqA year after year.

This higher standard has survived two expansions and the steroid era. This year Mark Teixeira was below average despite hitting 39 homers. Admittedly, it was a down year for him: he posted a .281 EqA compared to an MLB average of .283. In contrast, in 1991 Carlos Quintana defined adequacy at first -- if you’re from outside Boston and have forgotten him entirely, it’s probably just as well, but he was a nice OBP guy without much power.

What does that mean today? Well, this goes a little bit towards what Dave Schoenfield was writing about as far as Albert Pujols ranking as the top player in the game for so long. It also means that while teams like the Rangers have been leaving runs on the table by playing Mitch Moreland, you can understand why the Red Sox traded for Adrian Gonzalez while the Angels landed Pujols. Credit the Rays for keeping up with the other big-money contenders by bringing Carlos Pena back (.292 last year).

Right field is where outfield stars play. This might take us back to the days of Babe Ruth or Hank Aaron as opposed to Ted Williams or Barry Bonds. While the averages for the two positions have balanced out over time, right field is the much stronger position these days. Some of that has is because of a matter of preference: Lance Berkman played right for the Cardinals not because he’s a good right fielder, but because he’d help them score a ton of runs. Jose Bautista might be a fantasy league’s perfect third baseman, but the Blue Jays keep bumping him back to the outfield. Add in breakthrough seasons for Mike Stanton and Matt Joyce and even nice bounce-backs from Justin Upton and Jeff Francoeur, and you wind up with the game’s reigning premium outfield slot.

Left field is down. Way down. As you can see, the last 25 years have been pretty up and down for the left-side corners. The average for left fielders in the era of division play is .277, but they haven’t reached that mark since 2004.

The sad state of left-field offensive production has already been debated plenty among statheads. Is it an affordable risk on offense at a time when teams are more defense-conscious than ever before? Or is it a case of reaping what you sow when you make a point putting guys like Juan Pierre in your everyday lineup? It might reflect an industry-wide choice to employ better defenders at the position, sacrificing some offense. But in other ways it might also reflect how left field has become almost a garbage-time position for teams that stow their backup center fielder or a sputtering veteran holdover. Teams now lack the roster space to platoon or mix and match on offense the way that they could before the seven-man bullpen became fashionable.

Whatever your take, offensive production from left fielders is down at its lowest point in 25 years, matching 1997 for punchlessness with a .268 EqA. That isn’t a coincidence; much like the present, 1997 featured a lot of transition in left fields around the majors, with guys like Gregg Jefferies, Wil Cordero and B.J. Surhoff playing their first full seasons in the outfield. Moises Alou got hurt (again), Bernard Gilkey’s career started imploding, and Greg Vaughn and Ron Gant had the worst years of their careers.

Fast-forward to the present, and you find your share of setback seasons (Carl Crawford and Delmon Young). You also see a lot of flat-out awful from self-inflicted bad ideas, like Raul Ibanez in the last year of his contract while Vernon Wells, Carlos Lee and Alfonso Soriano marked time on huge deals that won’t go away soon enough.

Against that, you’ve got the guys we might call sops to the speed-and-defense crowd, or what I think of as the next-gen Dave Collins solutions: Brett Gardner, Jose Tabata, Michael Brantley, Sam Fuld, Pierre and more. They range from useful OBP sources to significantly less so, but not one of them is going to be Tim Raines, let alone Crawford. Last year Gerardo Parra had the best season among this group (.280 EqA); he also stands to lose playing time in 2012 to Jason Kubel, a guy who’s a much more conventional corner-outfield selection.

Third Base is hurting. If you’re a student of baseball history, you already know that back in the Deadball Era second base was more of a high-offense position than the hot corner. That changed in the 1920s with the introduction of the livelier ball, but every once in a while you get a year where you’ve got a great group of second baseman and a weak crew of third-base vets. That was very much the case in the late ’80 and early ’90s (thanks in part to guys like Roberto Alomar, Ryne Sandberg, Robby Thompson, Lou Whitaker and Julio Franco), but after the Marlins-Rockies expansion in ’93 second base fell back again. But now we’re at this same point again, where third base has slipped behind second base, if only barely (.262 EqA to .261).

With the declining standards reflected by Scott Rolen getting named to an All-Star team despite a lousy season, finding merely competent options for third base isn’t as easy as it sounds. Alex Rodriguez and Chipper Jones certainly aren’t getting any younger.

You can hope this will change for the better with the arrivals of touted prospects like Brett Lawrie, Mike Moustakas and Lonnie Chisenhall, but we’ve also seen a few major third-base prospect flops: Pedro Alvarez or Andy LaRoche, anyone? That’s why journeymen like Casey Blake, Ryan Roberts or Jack Hannahan get opportunities to stick around.

If anything, the state of third base these days speaks volumes about the Tigers' decision to move Miguel Cabrera across to the diamond after signing Prince Fielder. As Mark Simon notes, the defensive penalty might be steep, but reviewing this data suggests that there's a major competitive advantage to be gained relative to the competition, because they're making room for two superstar bats in the lineup: Cabrera with his career .315 EqA, and Fielder with his .313. The Cardinals just ran up a flag after risking their defense at the corners with Berkman in right, so you can't blame the Tigers for trying to do likewise.

Tomorrow, we’ll look at the up-the-middle positions. If you’re one of those people who think finding good help at shortstop or catcher is hard to find these days, you might have a surprise to look forward to.

Christina Kahrl covers baseball for ESPN.com. You can follow her on Twitter.

ESPN Insider Matt Meyers has a piece on Adrian Beltre, arguing that the labels placed on Beltre throughout his career are unfounded and inaccurate. I agree with Matt's general assessment that Beltre has been a tremendously underrated and underappreciated player during his career. Matt points out that Beltre is 19th on Baseball-Reference.com's all-time WAR (wins abovement replacement) for third basemen (or 21st, depending on how you do your search).

Considering Beltre is 32 and coming off an excellent season, he should have more good years left and climb up that list, maybe close to the top 10. That would certainly seem to put him in the Hall of Fame discussion ... except: Except there is probably too little perception of Beltre as a Hall of Famer. Much of Beltre's value derives from his excellent defense. B-R rates him ninth all-time in runs saved among third basemen (behind, in case you want to know: Brooks Robinson, Buddy Bell, Robin Ventura, Clete Boyer, Scott Rolen, Graig Nettles, Mike Schmidt and Gary Gaetti). But Beltre also has 310 home runs and 1,113 RBIs. It's not too much of a stretch to see him topping 400 home runs and 1,500 RBIs ... and the only third basemen to do that are Schmidt and Chipper Jones. George Brett is the only other third baseman with 1,500 RBIs.

Still, Beltre will be facing an uphill battle, no matter where his career totals end up. But he's been a terrific player, even if he's flown under the radar much of his career.

• Another must-read Insider piece: Experience matters in the postseason, right? Dan Szymborski went back to 1969 to study the issue and found ... that previous postseason experience is a nonfactor in determining which teams win playoff series.
• It was A.J. Burnett's best moment as a Yankee, writes Brien Jackson.
• The Phillies are up 2 to 1, but Bill Baer is concerned about the team's lack of plate discipline. With sometimes-wild Edwin Jackson going for St. Louis tonight, it will be interesting to see the Phillies' approach at the plate.
• Ron Roenicke gave a long leash to Shaun Marcum and paid the price.
• Orel Hershiser talks about the Yankees-Tigers series.
• ESPN Insider Kevin Goldstein explains why Robinson Cano was never viewed as a top prospect.
• Amy Nelson writes on what could be Albert Pujols' final game with the Cardinals.
• Via Aaron Gleeman at Hardball Talk, Tim McCarver needs minor surgery and Terry Francona will fill in for the first two games of the ALCS.
• The Phillies had the highest local TV ratings this year. Last? The Dodgers had the lowest rating, the Nationals had the fewest number of households.
• Finally, don't miss Jim Caple's Off Base column on the Rays, their poor fan support and their unhappy owner.

Earlier, I looked at three key American League players. Here are three guys in the National League who could provide a big in-house improvement the rest of the way.

Scott Rolen, 3B, Reds

Rolen was a big key to the Reds' division title in 2010, batting .285/.358/.497 and providing a solid right-handed bat between Joey Votto and Jay Bruce. He's been terrible this season, with a .242/.279/.399 line and just five home runs in 243 at-bats, unacceptable numbers for the Great American Ballpark bandbox. Rolen does have 20 doubles, indicating some increased power potential is there. Dusty Baker has moved him down to sixth in the order. The Reds are unlikely to trade for a replacement given Rolen's veteran status, but he's showing signs of an aging player who has battled injuries through his career. The indicator: His walk rate is 3.8 percent, nearly six percent off last season and well below his career rate of 10.6 percent. Often, as a player ages and his bat speed declines, he has to guess more to "speed up" his bat; that leads to chasing more pitches or swinging earlier in the count. While the Reds' rotation has many issues, it's Rolen's bat that may provide the best hope for a stretch-drive kick.

Stephen Drew, SS, Diamondbacks

Drew has alternated good years with mediocre ones during his career. He hit .316 as a rookie and then .238 in his full season. In 2008, he hit .291 with 21 home runs; his OPS fell nearly 100 points in 2009. Last season, he hit .278 with a .352 on-base percentage. This season, he's hitting .254/.320/.370, an OPS nearly 100 points lower than 2010. Who is the real Stephen Drew? I think he has a good chance to improve his numbers in the second half, given that he's hitting just .223 with three home runs at home. In a ballpark conducive to hitting, those are terrible numbers. If Drew can produce an .800 OPS -- or higher -- the rest of the way, Arizona's lineup becomes one of the deepest in the league. Drew is hitting just .217 against lefties, and second baseman Kelly Johnson is hitting just .198, meaning the D-backs would also be wise to pick up a right-handed hitting middle-infielder to spell the lefty hitting Drew and Johnson. You can't worry about bruising egos at this point. (Of course, modern-day roster construction makes it difficult to carry too many platoon players, since every teams keeps seven or eight relievers.)

Colby Rasmus, CF, Cardinals

As expected, Kyle Lohse is starting to regress -- he's allowed four runs or more in five of his past seven starts -- meaning the burden of capturing the NL Central crown will continue to be placed on the Cardinals' offense. This was supposed to be the breakout season for the 24-year-old Rasmus, after he hit .276 with 23 home runs last season in 464 at-bats. While Tony La Russa no longer holds him back against some lefties, Rasmus' OPS has declined from .859 to .730, leading to trade rumor speculation. Rasmus has cut his strikeout rate from 2010, but it hasn't translated into bigger numbers. Surprisingly, he's hit lefties better than righties (.844 versus .692 OPS). With Jon Jay hitting .310 with a .360 OBP, moderate power and possessing the ability to play center, maybe the Cardinals will shop around Rasmus to upgrade the pitching staff. I wouldn't do it, but Rasmus could be one of the best trade chips on the market.

Considering that the Cincinnati Reds play in a division they won by five games in 2010 and in which the other contenders have been hit with injuries to key players in 2011, you might have expected them to be sitting in a very comfortable position by now. Instead, after a 5-4 loss in Milwaukee on Thursday, they’re on the wrong side of .500 at 44-45 and trail the Brewers, Cardinals and even the Pirates in the NL Central. They’re 7-12 since a three-game sweep of the Dodgers in mid-June. For all that, they’re still just three games out of first place. Can the ship be righted, and how?

The team took a stab at dealing with its two most obvious problems on Thursday. They demoted Edinson Volquez, who had been walking nearly six men per game on the way to a 5.93 ERA and may be replaced by an apparently resurgent Dontrelle Willis. And they gave a long-overdue promotion to shortstop prospect Zack Cozart, who had been hitting .310/.357/.467 and will be given an opportunity to replace the shockingly poor production they had been receiving from Paul Janish and Edgar Renteria, who have combined to produce -0.1 wins above replacement (WAR), according to FanGraphs.com. Both moves represent huge steps in the right direction.

Those weren’t the only problems this team has, however. Bronson Arroyo has arguably struggled even more than Volquez, and his veteran status and hefty price tag running through 2013 make him a harder burden to shake off than Volquez. Travis Wood has been similarly ineffective if you go by his 5.11 ERA, though his 4.11 FIP suggests he’s been mostly unlucky. All told, for all the preseason talk about the great starting rotation depth, and despite a great first 11 starts from Johnny Cueto, Reds starters entered Thursday with a 4.60 ERA, second-to-last in the National League, and tied for last with just 3.5 FanGraphs WAR.

Outside of that little rotation issue, though -- and that’s a big one -- it’s hard to pinpoint areas in which this team has gone wrong. They’ve gone with an unorthodox sort of three-headed-monster approach in left field, dividing the position among Chris Heisey, Jonny Gomes and Fred Lewis. Yet all three have been effective, with Gomes and Heisey providing good offense and Lewis good defense, combining for 3.1 WAR. It’s starting to look like Scott Rolen’s bat has fallen off the old-age table, but he appears to be making up for it with his still-excellent defense, and his oft-used substitute Miguel Cairo (against all odds) has been solid with both bat and glove. At catcher, first, second, center and right, the Reds have received well above-average play (at least), and the bullpen has been solid. One would think a team with this lineup would be better than 44-45, even with a shaky rotation.

And in at least one sense, they have been better than that. Coming into Thursday, the Reds’ “Pythagorean record” -- the record suggested by their run differential -- was 47-41, which would have them tied for first place in the division. A negative disparity between a team’s Pythagorean and actual record sometimes suggests a managerial failing of some kind, but I don’t see a lot of evidence of that here. Dusty Baker certainly has his flaws (ones we in the sabermetric community are all too aware of), and sometimes makes some interesting decisions regarding the use of his bullpen and other personnel, and it’s possible that his decision-making has lost some close games. There’s no hard data to back that up, though, and anecdotally, most Reds fans I know seem to think that Dusty is doing a better job of in-game managing this year than he has in the past.

Rather, the discrepancy seems to be the result of a lack of “clutch hitting” by the Reds; the team’s .259/.330/.403 overall line (through Wednesday) slips to .237/.313/.343 in “late and close” situations, suggesting that they’re finding it easier to score runs when ahead or trailing by a bunch than they are late in a tight game, when each individual run matters a bit more. The team’s overall hitting line is above the NL average, but its “late and close” line is slightly below average across the board. (The NL “late and close” average entering Thursday was .244/.322/.359.)

So the Reds’ problems, after dealing with their shortstops and Volquez, seem to boil down to Arroyo, Wood and clutch hitting. The last bit can’t be dealt with; study has shown that “clutch,” to the extent it exists, is impossible to separate from simple dumb luck, good or bad. Wood should be fine for essentially the same reason: He has really struggled with runners in scoring position, and unless the team has some reason to believe he has problems pitching out of the stretch or gets more rattled than most do with men on second or third, those numbers should get better. Arroyo on the other hand has been legitimately struggling for two months, and is a real worry; if they’re willing to recognize his huge contract as a sunk cost and move him to a long-relief role (or off the team entirely), and in favor of Sam LeCure (if healthy) a possible acquisition on the trade market, that could really improve the team going forward.

For the most part, though, the Reds have done almost everything they can by finally calling up Cozart and demoting Volquez. Most else is out of their control: The hits should get more timely, and the non-Arroyo pitching should get better. Even the hitters who are doing well in 2011 -- Joey Votto, Brandon Phillips, Drew Stubbs and Jay Bruce, in particular -- have shown themselves capable of doing even better. It wouldn’t be a surprise to see one or more of them get incredibly hot and carry the team over the second half.

Looking up at three other teams at the All-Star break is never a good place to be, but the Reds seem about as well-positioned to make a second-half run as a fourth-place team could get.

PHOTO OF THE DAY
Bill Parker writes for The Platoon Advantage. Follow him on Twitter: @Bill_TPA.

San Francisco Giants cleanup hitters are batting .252/.324/.378, for a .703 OPS that ranks 23rd in the majors. Reds cleanup hitters are performing even more poorly, with a .249/.323/.377 line. Both teams have a used a variety of guys in the four-hole: Buster Posey, Aubrey Huff and a slew of others guys for the Giants (Cody Ross, Pat Burrell, Pablo Sandoval); for the Reds, Brandon Phillips hit OK there, but Scott Rolen and Jay Bruce have hit poorly when batting cleanup.

Both the Giants and Reds are playoff contenders, so my question: Can you make the playoffs with poor production from your cleanup position?

Going back over the past five seasons (40 playoff teams), here are the teams that ranked in the bottom third in the majors in OPS from the cleanup spot.

2010 Giants: .788 (21st)
2009 Dodgers: .769 (23rd)
2008 Dodgers: .778 (26th)
2007 Diamondbacks: .812 (21st)
2007 Angels: .801 (23rd)
2006 Padres: .802 (27th)
2006 Tigers: .805 (25th)
2006 Twins: .764 (28th)

Eight teams made the playoffs and two -- last year's Giants and the 2006 Tigers -- reached the World Series. Some of these teams resolved cleanup issues as the season progressed. For example, the 2006 Twins had Rondell White hitting there early on and he went 6-for-64 in the four-hole. Michael Cuddyer ended up with the most playing time there. The 2006 Twins are also a prime example of why you can't assume 100 RBIs means you're getting great production from the cleanup spot: Despite ranking 28th in the majors in OPS that year, Twins cleanup hitters still drove in 107 runs. Nearly every team gets 100 RBIs from the cleanup position.

The 2008 and 2009 Dodgers made the playoffs in back to back years despite subpar production from their cleanup hitters. In 2008, it was mostly Jeff Kent and James Loney hitting there before Manny Ramirez was acquired at the trade deadline. Ramirez was terrific in the cleanup spot but Joe Torre ended up using Ramirez as his No. 3 down the stretch and in the playoffs that year (with Russell Martin and Andre Ethier hitting cleanup). In 2009, five players started at least 20 games in the cleanup spot -- Casey Blake, Ethier, Matt Kemp, Ramirez and Loney. All told, Dodgers cleanup guys hit .265 with 19 home runs that year.

Last year's Giants similarly used several players there. Huff began the season hitting cleanup. Oddly, Bruce Bochy tried Bengie Molina there for a couple weeks, even though Huff had been hitting well. Eventually, the team would settle on Huff hitting third and Posey hitting cleanup. Huff and Posey actually hit well; Burrell's .155 mark in 30 games in the cleanup spot dragged down the team totals.

The problem Bochy faces this year is the lack of an alternative as viable as Posey. He's been trying Huff there lately, and after a slow start he has been hitting better, so he's the guy for now. In Cincinnati, Dusty Baker would undoubtedly prefer to keep Joey Votto and Bruce -- who both hit left-handed -- separated in the order by the right-handed Rolen, but Rolen just hasn't produced. Baker may be better off hitting Drew Stubbs and Chris Heisey in the 1-2 spots, and moving Phillips back to the cleanup spot if he doesn't want the two lefties hitting back to back.

In the end, neither team is necessarily doomed by their cleanup production, but it's a key aspect to keep an eye on as the season progresses.

Step aside, Yankees-Red Sox and Giants-Dodgers. There is a new most-heated rivalry in baseball. The Cincinnati Reds and St. Louis Cardinals are no longer just NL Central rivals: They are officially blood enemies.

In closing out the Reds' 9-7 victory over the Cardinals on Sunday -- completing Cincinnati's first three-game sweep over St. Louis since 2007 -- Francisco Cordero hit Albert Pujols with an 0-2 fastball that rode a little far in. Now, the pitch wasn't that far off the plate ... maybe a couple inches. But like so many hitters these days, Pujols crowds the plate, his hands hanging over the black like a couple sides of beef. It was good purpose pitch; and as Cordero said after the game, he wasn't trying to put Pujols on base, not since he represented the tying run ... and Matt Holliday and Lance Berkman were on deck.

But in typical Tony La Russa fashion, the Cardinals starting barking. La Russa wasn't at the game as he was dealing with an eye infection, but his longtime pitching coach Dave Duncan, acting manager Joe Pettini and players on the bench didn't like their star getting hit and started yelling at Cordero. So after Cordero struck out Berkman to end it, he yelled back and pointed to the St. Louis dugout.

"They took offense to it, we took offense to it, and the soap opera continues between these guys," Pettini said. "It's always something when you come in here."

Pujols acknowledged after the game that Cordero wasn't trying to hit him, but this incident comes on the heels of last August's brawl in Cincinnati, when Brandon Phillips and Yadier Molina exchanged pleasantries that led to a bench-clearing brawl in the first inning, a brawl that led St. Louis backup catcher Jason LaRue suffering a severe concussion after getting kicked in the head by Reds pitcher Johnny Cueto.

"I know our guys," La Russa said after that game. "This is not the first time that we've been challenged. You just go up and down our roster -- we've got a bunch of guys that are very tough characters. Like I say, there's times that you beat us, we're not good enough. But you're never going to scare us and we're never going to back down."

That's definitely a typical La Russa response, and a reason his teams are often in the middle of these conflicts. La Russa does seem to believe in a certain code of conduct when it comes to pitching inside -- not that he necessarily follows that code too religiously himself. The Cardinals are second in the NL in hit batters, and while they ranked 13th last season, they're usually in the top half of the league: 13th, 8th, 8th, 3rd, 2nd, 9th, 6th, 7th, 5th and 2nd, going back to 2001.

As for the Reds and Cardinals, the sweep pushed the Reds past St. Louis and into first place. They're 9-2 over their past 11 games as they allowed more than four runs just twice over those 11 games. Scott Rolen returned to the lineup this weekend and went 7-for-15. Drew Stubbs is playing like an All-Star center fielder, hitting .282/.371/.468, with 31 runs and 13 steals in 14 attempts. Their catching duo of Ramon Hernandez and Ryan Hanigan continue to be a secret weapon, combining for eight home runs and 27 RBIs. Reds mananger Dusty Baker seems reluctant to pull the plug on Jonny Gomes, who is down to .186 and doesn't play good defense, in place of Chris Heisey, a solid defender with an .847 OPS so far in 57 at-bats.

As for the rivalry, I think it's the best in baseball. Sure, Jason Varitek and Alex Rodriguez aren't going to dinner together, but the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry has cooled down from its 2003-05 peak. The hate seems to come from the fans than it does the players. The Dodgers and Giants haven't been in a pennant race against each other since 2004. Those two just don't have the animosity and dislike that fuels every Reds-Cardinals game these days.

The Reds and Cardinals next meet July 4 in St. Louis. Think there may be some fireworks?

SERIES OF THE WEEK

Cubs at Red Sox, Friday-Sunday

Friday: Carlos Zambrano (4-1, 4.35) vs. Jon Lester (4-1, 3.28)
Saturday: Matt Garza (2-4, 4.17) vs. Daisuke Matsuzaka (3-3,4.64)
Sunday: Casey Coleman (1-3, 7.22) vs. John Lackey (2-5, 8.01)

The series everyone wanted to see in 2003 will finally happen as the Cubs visit Fenway Park for the first time since the 1918 World Series. The Red Sox won in six games despite hitting .186, as Babe Ruth won two games.

By one measure, Matt Garza has been the third-best pitcher in baseball this season. FanGraphs rates him third in WAR (behind Roy Halladay and Dan Haren), thanks to his 1.61 FIP, which factors in his walk rate (2.9 per nine innings), strikeout rate (11.8 per nine, best in the majors among starting pitchers) and home run rate (one in 49 2/3 innings). What Garza hasn't been doing is eliminating base hits: his .382 average on balls in play is worst in the majors. Has he been unlucky or the victim of bad defense? The Cubs do rank 29th in Defensive Efficiency and 21st in UZR, so he's not getting backed by Gold Glove-caliber defense.

After last Thursday's start, John Lackey uttered the infamous "Everything in my life sucks right now" quote in reference to his bad start and his wife's battle with breast cancer. A disappointment a year ago, Lackey's strikeout/walk ratio has deteriorated to 19/18. His ground ball percentage is a career-low 34 percent (compared to 46 percent over his career). So he's giving fewer ground balls, walking more and striking out fewer. The Red Sox will soon need to consider other rotation options.

PITCHING MATCHUP OF THE WEEK

Thursday: Justin Verlander (4-3, 2.91) vs. Josh Beckett (3-1, 1.75), Tigers at Red Sox

Beckett has allowed 10 runs in eight starts (none in his past three, although one of those was rain-shortened) and opponents are hitting .175 off him. Verlander has not struck out 10 batters in a game this season, but his opponents are batting just .175 off him. Also pay attention to this: Roy Oswalt returns from the DL to face red-hot Jaime Garcia, who is 5-0 with a 1.89 ERA for the Cardinals.

THREE SWINGS

1. One of the biggest disappointments this season has been Reds reliever Aroldis Chapman. He's been so bad that Baker brought him in for mop-up duty with a 9-2 lead in the ninth on Sunday. Chapman walked four of the five hitters he faced, giving him 20 walks in 13 innings. He may throw hard, but right now the Reds need to send him down to Triple-A to see if he can find the strike zone.

2. On a similar note, when do the Marlins pull the plug on Javier Vazquez? He's had a nice career (154 wins), but after another bad start Sunday he's 2-4 with a 7.55 ERA and looks near the end of the road. He has 24 walks and 20 strikeouts in 39 1/3 innings. He's allowed 17 first-inning runs, most in the majors. The Marlins have a good team -- Logan Morrison returned this weekend and showed no ill effects from his DL stint -- but they need more production from the back of their rotation (Vazquez and Chris Volstad). How they replace Vazquez could go a long way towards them staying in the NL East race.

3. Jose Bautista is crazy awesome right now. After hitting three home runs Sunday, he's hitting an insane .368/.520/.868. "It's ridiculous, it feels like a dream right now," Bautista said after his three-homer barrage, which gives him 16 in just 32 games he's played. "Sometimes I can't really believe it myself, but I keep seeing the good pitches." His OPS+ entering Sunday's game was 266 ... which is Barry Bonds territory. Bonds holds the three best OPS+ seasons of all time, led by a 268 mark in 2002. Bautista is the best player in baseball right now.

RANT OF THE WEEK

My editor Nick Pietruszkiewicz makes a guest appearance: "I swear I watched the entire fourth quarter of the Heat-Bulls game in the time it took the Red Sox and Yankees to play a half-inning." And that's saying something since the usual NBA playoff game consists of eight timeouts in the final two minutes. (Of course, that game wasn't close, so I'm guessing the timeouts were avoided.) But that's always the problem with Yankees-Red Sox: Their. Games. Take. Way. Too. Long. Their six games this season have gone 3:07, 3:26, 2:58, 3:35, 3:26 and 3:41. And that's worth ranting about.

PHOTO OF THE DAY

The Reds have lost eight of their past 11 games to fall to 11-11 and third baseman Scott Rolen has landed on the DL with a strained left shoulder. In the short-term this won't hurt the Reds much as Rolen has been struggling with a .216/.246/.417 line. His replacement is 24-year-old left-handed hitter Juan Francisco, whom the organization has long billed as the future third baseman. Chad Dotson over at Redleg Nation isn't a fan of Francisco's, comparing him to Wily Mo Pena -- which means power potential, but lots of strikeouts with little awareness of the strike zone. I'm inclined to agree, although I think there are worse backups to rely upon.

The bigger question: How good is this Cincy offense? The team is hitting just .229/.309/.386 over those 11 games; and that's despite playing seven of those games at home against Pittsburgh and Arizona. Overall, the Reds still lead the NL in runs scored thanks to Joey Votto, Brandon Phillips and Jonny Gomes, but there is a bit of a mirage going on here: the Reds are hitting /285/.356/.469 at home, .229/.309/.349 on the road. The split wasn't so severe last season when the Reds had a .796 OPS at home and .754 on the road, but The Great American Ballpark is clearly a great hitters' park, enough so that it can cloud the evaluation of the Reds' hitters if you don't examine the numbers more closely.

The long-term issue with Rolen's injury is that he was really good last season, a key component to the Reds' division title. He had the second-best OPS on the team, played 133 games (his most since 2006) and produced 5.0 WAR (wins above replacement) according to FanGraphs. Francisco projects to not much better than replacement level, so the Reds could be looking at a significant win deficit if Rolen doesn't eventually return and come close to his 2010 level of play.

Follow David Schoenfield on Twitter at @dschoenfield. Follow the SweetSpot blog at @espn_sweet_spot.

Why will the Brewers contend in 2011?

1. The Brewers have already patched up their bullpen.
On opening day, the Brewers' bullpen contained (among others) Trevor Hoffman and Claudio Vargas. After two awful starts, Jeff Suppan joined this awful duo. Those three all had ERAs above 6.90 in April and May, and they combined for a stunning minus-2.96 WPA – mostly via Hoffman and his five blown saves, but also from the general incompetence of the trio. That means that this group was three wins worse than merely average relievers.

Since then, Hoffman has been replaced as closer by John Axford, Suppan has been replaced in the rotation by Chris Narveson and in the bullpen by Kameron Loe. Zach Braddock has taken the role of top lefty from Mitch Stetter (a middling-at-best LOOGY who was utterly incompetent against RHB). Vargas’s low-leverage innings have been split between players like Chris Capuano, who is an interesting project if nothing else, and David Riske, who is merely biding the time until his contract expires.

Axford, Braddock, and Loe have been fantastic since joining the Brewers, combining for plus-2.22 WPA in their time on the team, largely coming after Jeff Suppan’s June 7 release. All three will be under team control next year, making them near locks to be important bullpen pieces next season, added to relievers Carlos Villanueva and Todd Coffey.

2. The Brewers have a favorable payroll situation.
With the toxic contracts of Jeff Suppan, Bill Hall, and others coming off the books, the Brewers will shed roughly $45 million in contracts after this season. After arbitration raises, I estimate that the Brewers will be about $25 million below the 2010 opening day payroll, even if Prince Fielder remains a Brewer. That means they'll have some money to play with.

The Brewers aren't losing much, either. The only important player from 2010 who's on his way out is Jim Edmonds, but he can be replaced in-house by either Carlos Gomez or Lorenzo Cain. At every other position, the Brewers are solid. CHONE's August update projects the Brewers with one above-average player (+2.0 WAR per 150 games) at each position.

That means the Brewers can spend most, if not all, of that "extra" $25 million on their weakness: starting pitching. The market this winter isn't great, but Javier Vazquez, Brandon Webb, Ted Lilly, Jon Garland (likely to decline his mutual option), Jake Westbrook, and Kevin Millwood, among others, are all interesting options. Perhaps a better move would be to use some of that cash to deal with a team like the Marlins, who might attempt to move Ricky Nolasco's high arbitration award in the offseason. They could also trade Prince Fielder for pitching, as Mat Gamel could step in and likely be an average first baseman. For the right pitcher, trading Fielder could actually make the Brewers better in 2011.

The roster certainly isn't perfect, but much of it is returning and there's money to fix the holes.

3. The NL Central is weak.
St. Louis has a good team this year, certainly, but it's not without its holes. Perennial All-Stars Albert Pujols, Adam Wainwright, Chris Carpenter, and Matt Holliday form an excellent core, but there are question marks after those four players. The back of the rotation has struggled mightily, as the Cardinals have attempted patches with Blake Hawksworth and Jeff Suppan, eventually trading Ryan Ludwick away for Jake Westbrook. Losing Ludwick, one of the better right fielders in the NL, will hurt next year, and Westbrook will be a free agent. They also lose Brad Penny, who has been injured much of the year, and Felipe Lopez, who was an absolute steal in last year's free-agent market. The Cardinals have played like an 89-win team this season according to Beyond the Box Score's power rankings (looking at cW%). They have a modest amount of money to spend this year, but they are losing enough to the point where I wouldn't feel comfortable projecting any sort of major increase, especially given that St. Louis's top financial priority will be locking up Albert Pujols past 2011, the last year of his current contract.

The Cincinnati Reds have played about as well as the Cardinals so far this year, but there's really only one word to describe why I'm not super high on this team heading into next year: regression. Will Scott Rolen continue to be a power threat in his mid 30s? Is Mike Leake a sub-4.00 ERA pitcher despite skipping the minor leagues? Is Arthur Rhodes really one of the best left-handed relief pitchers in baseball? I'm inclined to say "no" to all of these questions. There's enough young talent on this Reds team to still be solid next season, and they might add Aroldis Chapman to the mix as well, and they won't have Edinson Volquez recovering from Tommy John surgery for half a season. That said, there's no reason to believe that the Reds are anything more than an 89-win team themselves, and simple regression says that we should expect something closer to 86 or 87.

4. "Contending" doesn't mean favorites.
The favorites to win the division next year will be, barring the unforeseen, Cincinnati and St. Louis, in some order and for good reason. However, they're not elite teams, and given the crazy things that can happen during the course of the season, they could each just as easily end up as .500 squads as 95-win teams. The Brewers look like a true talent 81-win team right now. They've played .519 baseball since releasing Suppan, and that's just above what the Beyond the Boxscore rankings expect (a .505 cW percent). I would feel pretty confident calling the roster on hand an 81-win team for next season.

The Brewers had a similar projection opening the season last year, and were given playoff odds of about 17 percent by Baseball Prospectus prior to the season. With the money available to plug holes in the rotation, the Brewers can definitely make themselves a preseason contender (say, 30-40 percent playoff odds) prior to the season, even if they're not favorites.

Jack Moore writes about the Brewers at Disciples of Uecker, a member of ESPN.com's SweetSpot Network.

As the Cardinals enter the home stretch of what might become a death match against the Cubs, FanGraphs' Erik Manning remembers some players who might have helped this season, if only the Cards' manager hadn't driven them away:

Tony La Russa has more managerial wins to his credit than anyone not named Connie Mack or John McGraw, probably making him a lock for Cooperstown. While measuring a manager's worth is a murky task, one thing we know just from reading the news on a regular basis is that some managers can earn their keep by making good players feel comfortable and causing them to want to stick around. Or in La Russa's case, there can at times be the opposite effect.

--snip--

Appeasing La Russa has been said to be one of the big motives for the Cardinals to gut their farm system to get [Matt] Holliday and Mark DeRosa. He's in the last year of his contract and wants to see some commitment from ownership before considering signing an extension. Maybe if he didn't run off his players with these sort of immature personality clashes, the trades never would have been necessary. The Cardinals' short-sided attempts to assuage La Russa has razed their farm system and driven away productive big league players. I can only fear what will happen to the Cardinals if they keep him around longer.

Well, yeah.

I reproduced here the first and last grafs of Manning's essay, and thus left out the parts about the Cardinals jettisoning Scott Rolen and Adam Kennedy, both of whom would presumably have fit nicely into the lineup this season, and perhaps obviated the impulse to trade for DeRosa and Holliday.

Fair enough. But hiring (and employing) a manager isn't like ordering a car from the factory; it's like finding one on the lot that you like: Maybe it's not exactly what you want, but it'll get you around and people won't laugh when they see you driving it.

OK, maybe that's not the greatest analogy. La Russa fights with some of his headstrong players; Neyer needs to work on his similes. We get it (or I do, anyway). My point is that La Russa's going to wind up in the Hall of Fame, and at this point in his career we should probably just accept him for who he is (at least until he starts losing). You know, warts and all.

And that's assuming that his positions regarding Rolen and Kennedy were actually warts. Isn't it possible that La Russa's my-way-or-the-highway approach benefits his teams in ways that we simply can't understand?

Yes, I'm talking about intangibles, which are, by their very nature, not quantifiable. So I'm not saying that Manning is wrong, or that the Cardinals wouldn't be better off with Rolen and Kennedy. What I'm saying is that La Russa, after 2,516 wins, may have earned the benefit of the doubt on personnel matters.