On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me
Twelve runs a-batting,!
Eleven errors committing,@
Ten runs creating,~
Nine rightfielders starting,+
Eight-place batting pitchers*,
Seven spots a-playing&,
Six hits a-spraying ^,
A five-rule draftee%;
Four exceeding arms$,
Three million fans#,
Two Dewan gloves,
and another Pujols MVP.

!Late-season acquisition Felipe Lopez created 12.0 batting runs, in a mere 43 games for the Cardinals. It was fourth-best on the team, behind Pujols (76.6), Ludwick (39.9) and Glaus (21.0).
@Cesar Izturis committed only 11 errors, second-fewest among qualifying major-league shortstops. More impressively, though, he was second in baseball in Revised Zone Rating (RZR) and third in the league in Ultimate Zone Rating, the best UZR for a Cardinal at the position since at least 2002 (when the data starts):.

~Ryan Ludwick set the club’s 2008 mark for runs created in a single game with 10 in the Cardinals’ 6-3 win over the Phillies Aug. 1. His line:

+The Cardinals started nine different players in rightfield last season, the most since 1997, mainly Ryan Ludwick, who led all major-league rightfielders with a 54.7 VORP:

*The Cardinals in 2008 broke their own record for most games in which the starting pitcher batted eighth. The top five since at least 1956:

#The Cardinals had their third-highest attendance in franchise history with 3,432,917 fans, marking the 11th time in team history that they surpassed three million. The Cardinals sold out 40 of their 81 home dates in 2008.

This entry was posted by Pip on Monday, January 5th, 2009 at 5:00 pm and is filed under fun. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.