The Colonel turned in his best strikeout-to-walk ratio of the season and helped the Cardinals split their series with the Giants. Since we’re now at the midway point in the season, and since Wellemeyer’s opponent tonight, Barry Zito, is one of the highest-paid players (and, we might add, most overpaid players), now seems a good time to review the Cardinal roster and see how well players are paying off (let’s hope they’re better than Zito). We’ll use salary as listed by USA Today and value as given by Fangraphs. First, the pitchers:

The big and pleasant surprise here of course is Joel Pineiro. The man who couldn’t make the Puerto Rican WBC team has already exceeded the value of his contract by almost $4 million. Chris Carpenter, with an albatross of a contract, is actually living up to it (so far). And Adam Wainwright’s value is triple the amount his salary. Relievers Ryan Franklin and Trever Miller are ahead of the game, too. Wellemeyer and Lohse are the only major deals that are coming up short. Middle relievers Josh Kinney and Kyle McClellan are in the negative, though their salaries make them relatively small fish.

Now for the batters:

Albert Pujols has — big surprise — already exceeded his contract total (he’s the most valuable hitter — literally — in baseball). The other huge assets are Yadier Molina, Brendan Ryan and Colby Rasmus, all of whom benefit from playing skilled positions (and, of course, playing them well). On the down side, the Cardinals have gotten nothing from Troy Glaus’s $12 million contract this year and are actually “in the red” on Khalil Greene. And as badly as they’ve played, the team’s two to-be free-agent outfielders, Rick Ankiel and Ryan Ludwick, are on pace to make good on their one-year deals.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering about Zito. He’s set to make $18.5 million in 2009. Prior to Thursday’s performance, he had earned value of $2.7. We’d say he’s got a ways to go.

This entry was posted by Pip on Friday, July 3rd, 2009 at 1:43 am and is filed under analysis. 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.