Mike Matheny Retires

This is actually relatively old news at this point, having been announced last Thursday, but former Cardinal catcher Mike Matheny retired from baseball after 13 seasons. All of us here at MWSF(which of course is just me) want to wish him well in his future endeavors, and I decided there's no better time than to discuss the catcher's achievements than now.

Matheny was a very fierce competitor who from previous interviews and seasons worked very hard in Spring Training and the off-season trying to improve his anemic batting average. While in St. Louis, he worked several off-seasons with 2005 MVP Albert Pujols, working on improving his stroke, even considering becoming a switch-hitter fairly late in his career to try to improve upon his career .239 average.

His best season came in 2005, his first season with the Giants, when he only batted .242, but hit 13 home runs and drove in 59 runs(both career highs) and posted an OPS of .701(also a career high). That year was also the last of his four gold gloves(others in 2000, 2003 and 2004, all with St. Louis). Other career highs include his .261 batting average in St. Louis in 2000, his first season with the Cardinals, and his strong 2003 season where he had a career high .320 on-base and played in 141 games.

His career highs, offensively, are not impressive, but they don't really fully depict what Matheny meant to his teammates and especially to his pitchers.

From the above linked article on ESPN.com: "As my catcher and as a person he just meant so much to me," said Giants pitcher Matt Morris, who also threw to Matheny in St. Louis. "On the field he taught me how to be a professional. Off the field he taught me to be a man and a respectful person. He's going to be sorely missed by everybody."

This appeared to be how many pitchers viewed him, as well as his former manager with the Cardinals Tony La Russa, who at one point questioned out loud that, had Mike Matheny been healthy to catch for Rick Ankiel in that 2000 NLDS, whether Ankiel would be the star pitcher that everyone in St. Louis envisioned he would be.

His work with Yadier Molina has turned Molina into one of the best defensive catchers in the majors as well, so by that coaching job, I honestly hope to see Matheny in a Cardinal uniform as a coach someday.

He seems, by all accounts, including the account of my wife, who had the opportunity to meet him in the St. Louis clubhouse after my brother-in-law took a batting practice ball to the head during pre-game one time, to be a wonderful person and a clubhouse leader. My wife has been completely in awe of Matheny since that day, far before I ever met her.

Mike Matheny--Not that you're reading this, but I'll talk directly to you anyway--have a wonderful life away from baseball, and we hope to see you back sometime as a coach. You'd make an excellent one.

WORLD SERIES CHAMPS!

So yeah, it's been awhile since I've posted. Work was hitting me hard and I got lazy and complacent, actually having Cardinals games covered up here around Chicago for awhile.

This is officially the 2nd championship the Cardinals have won during my lifetime, but only the first I have any knowledge of personally, as I was 1 year old in 1982 when they last won it.

Some observations: This one has been pointed out several places, but the pitching discrepency of ERA from regular season to postseason was just amazing. From around 4.5 to 2.6.

The 4.5 actually had them as one of the worst teams in the NL in pitching this year. However, as one ESPN.com article pointed out, if you take out the games started by Marquis and Mulder and use only the stats compiled by the four pitchers used in the postseason(Carpenter, Suppan, Reyes and Weaver), the ERA drops to just a shade over 4, which would have been 2nd best in the NL. So while they pitched out of their minds, it wasn't quite as out of their minds as it may have seemed.

Big Props to Jeff Weaver. In the clincher, there were 2 bad plays behind him by Chris Duncan. The Edmonds/Duncan dropped ball in short right which should have been easy, and the misplay that allowed a double a couple innings later.

The first situation, he was taken out by Sean Casey, who was the only Tiger to show up for the Series on offense, but it was a pitch that wasn't really an easy pitch to hit out, an inside cutter, off the plate that Casey had his hands practically buried into his chest to hit.

The second situation, he bore down and got out of the jam with no damage done.

These were the situations as a Yankee, Angel and to a lesser degree as a Cardinal during the regular season that killed Weaver. It seemed like he was very fatalistic about this situations and actually let up on hitters after something bad happened behind him. This would lead to 3-4 runs in an inning, if not more.

Lastly, on the whole Game 2 incident. No one's going to criticize TLR now because they won it despite the whole Rogers mess. However, my thoughts would be, get him checked out. I know it opens up your own guys, but we'd all like to believe none of them are doing anything of that nature. If Rogers was cheating, you have to get him out of there. If he wasn't, having him checked out might have settled the Cardinals hitters enough for them to actually hit the garbage he was throwing. If nothing else, it seemed to get in the Cards' hitters heads that Rogers was untouchable because he was cheating. Either get him out of the game or at least quell those thoughts for your hitters' sake.

But anyway, this might very well be the last Cardinals writing of the year, not counting free agency movement. A more realistic post for who they can bring back and who they should get is probably in order now(sadly, we're probably saying good-bye to Jeff Suppan, who might have just gotten himself an 8M a year contract or more).

WORLD SERIES CHAMPS BABY!!