New Cardinals, Former Cardinals

The Cardinals made a minor move yesterday, signing D'Angelo Jimenez to a minor league contract.  There are a couple of things that come to mind when I hear about Jimenez.  One is that, when they were coming up in the Yankee organization about a decade ago, observers were split on whether he or Alfonso Soriano would be the better player.  That comparison doesn't happen much anymore.  And, secondly, I remember he had a pretty solid year for the Reds a few years back.  Looking through that PD article, they note it was 2004, with a .270/12/67 season.  Boy, if the Cardinals got anything close to that, they'd be thrilled.

His signing, however, is just one of those insurance things.  If Jarrett Hoffpauir needs more time at Memphis, then Jimenez could be the backup guy on the bench.  You figure that Brendan Ryan and Adam Kennedy will be the usual starters in the middle infield, but Cesar Izturis and Jimenez could be the backups.  Jimenez can play third base as well, which ups his value.

Then we have our former backup catcher, Gary Bennett.   Not as bad of a week as you'd expect for someone named in the Mitchell report.  Bennett admitted he used HGH, then signed a new contract with the Dodgers.  Which is surprising, because Bennett isn't that great with extra help, but anyway.  It just goes to show me that the culture of baseball hasn't done much changing with these allegations and admissions.  You aren't going to be punished.  You aren't going to have that much of a stain on your reputation, especially if you come out and admit it.  I mean, how much focus on Andy Pettitte has there been versus Roger Clemens?

There's the big focus on Bonds and Clemens, but other than that, the steroid stuff is going to just go away, I think.  Hopefully the testing and the mindset has been changed enough that it won't happen again, but without serious punishments for those that did it, I wonder if that's the case.

Site note: I plan to use Wordpress's new option for tags to take former Cardinals out of the categories section.  So in case you start looking, now you know.

2 Comments

2 Comments | Leave a comment

The Angry Rant | December 19, 2007 11:57 AM | Reply

Jimenez was cited as a 'part of the [2005] friction in the Reds Clubhouse' in that PD article. Since LaRue was also on those Reds teams, it will be interesting to see if that friction re-appears. Hopefully not.

With the Rolen/LaRussa soap opera already running, the last thing this team needs is more discord in the clubhouse.

cardinal70 | December 19, 2007 12:04 PM | Reply

Hey, maybe they can be like those old A's teams in the '70s that hated each other and fought constantly, but managed to win.

If nothing else, it could help give us bloggers something to write about during the upcoming year.

I'd guess that Jimenez and LaRue didn't have anything against each other, or Jimenez wouldn't have signed. I doubt we were his only option.

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