Birdhouse Update
Ron Shandler / Cards Advisory Board
Ron Shandler
By Brian Walton
I had the chance this past weekend to sit down and catch up with Ron Shandler from BaseballHQ.com, leader of the new Advisory Board for the Cardinals. As Shandler noted before, at this late date, his group is not able to provide much direct input to the team in terms of its 2004 makeup. Their first main interaction is expected to be around the draft, as the team looks to strengthen methods to project college stats into future professional performance. Those darned aluminum bats complicate matters substantially.
Ron said that he and the BaseballHQ team were working on a trip to Florida this month to make a presentation to Walt Jocketty and other front office personnel to “legitimize ourselves”, as if that is necessary. Anyway, that trip is now going to happen next month, instead. My perception of Ron’s remarks seem to confirm that Walt and Tony run the show; that not being a surprise to any of us here.
We’re all also familiar with the old line about not wanting to know how sausages are made, right? Well, Ron says his first look into major league team operations reminded him of that. The example he used was the recent waiver claim of Luis Martinez. Shandler characterized the team acting like little kids who found a nugget of gold, as they worried that other teams might preempt them. In fairness to the team, they did consider potential media and public backlash over Martinez’ off-field difficulties before putting in their claim. Ron noted that one reason the Brewers may have dropped Martinez is because the team is for sale and they didn’t want the risk.
Ron was especially frank about the Cardinals' assessment of itself. They know the minor league system has challenges and are firmly committed to rebuilding it. Jeff Luhnow has recently been traveling in the Caribbean and that may play some part in the future.
In closing, Ron provided a tease regarding his main job, statistical analysis as applied to fantasy baseball. In this coming weekend’s Tout Wars expert league draft, Ron is planning to unveil a new strategy, code named “RIMA”. Probably partially because he knows I work with one of his Tout Wars competitors and partially because he doesn’t know if the strategy will work, Ron would not say more about RIMA at this time. However, his “LIMA”, Low Impact Mound Aces approach, selecting low-profile players who will help WHIP and ERA scoring categories, has been a successful fantasy strategy for years. Look for more about RIMA, whether success or failure, at BaseballHQ soon.
Of course, I’ll also keep you updated as the new Cardinals’ Advisory Board comes into full operation.
