The Fresh Smell of Pine-iro

Joel Pineiro announced today (Wed.) that he will not be competing in the 2009 World Baseball Classic. His decision comes two days after Albert Pujols also decided against playing in the Classic. There are now no active Cardinals playing in the classic.

Pineiro is not happy about how everything happened. He based his decision to pass on the tournament after being told that he did not make the cut and would not be a part of Puerto Rico's three man rotation and would be used in a bullpen role.

What does that say about the Cardinals' rotation this season? Pineiro is in our rotation and was picked behind Javier Vasquez, Ian Snell and Jonathan Sanchez. Vasquez is the only one in the rotation to pitch more than three full seasons. I put together a chart to compare the three in the rotation to Pineiro statistically.

Pineiro is not an All-Star type pitcher by any stretch of the imagination. But compared to the guys who made the rotation, only Vasquez can be justified as being selected over Pineiro. Of the four, Pineiro is the only one who did not finish below .500 last year and is the only one above .500 for his career. Based on this, it's fair for Joel to be upset about the decision.

But wait... it gets worse.

Team Puerto Rico's manager is the one that relayed the information to Pineiro. This part really adds salt to the wound. Puerto Rico's head coach is, of course, Cards third base coach, Jose Oquendo. He was passed over by his own coach! How can your own coach have so little confidence in you? That is the equivalent of the coach's kid riding the bench in little league.

Maybe Oquendo was trying to tell Pineiro something. I could see Pineiro pitching out of the pen before this season is done. Possibly he wanted to give him some practice just to see how he would manage the pen and did not consider that Pineiro would take offense to it.

Or maybe the Cardinals did not want to be accused of showing favorites and playing their own players. It would not be the first time for something like that to happen. (See 2007 All-Star game: La Russa benching Pujols.)

Or it could have been to protect his pitcher. Oquendo might have been trying not to over work Pineiro early in the season for fear of who his replacement might be. Mitchell Boggs? Brad Thompson?

Whatever reason it may be, Pineiro did not like it. Joel was clearly qualified for the spot, and felt disrespected when he was passed by. Pineiro said, "I'm very disappointed, very heartbroken. I felt disrespected. Everybody knows it's only been two pitchers in Puerto Rico the past 8-10 years, consistent starters, which is Javier Vazquez and myself. To hear that from him, it was such a setback and I'm very disappointed."

I'd be disappointed too.

That's all for today. See everybody tomorrow. Same time. Same place.

edit [10:53 p.m.]: If you want to read more, I wrote another article over at RealGM.com; this one on Albert. Check it out at this link.