{"id":2677,"date":"2011-01-23T12:47:54","date_gmt":"2011-01-23T18:47:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/?p=2677"},"modified":"2011-01-23T12:49:02","modified_gmt":"2011-01-23T18:49:02","slug":"the-nick-punto-small-fry-club","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/archives\/2677","title":{"rendered":"The Nick Punto Small Fry Club"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/nick_punto_small_fry_award.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-2678\" title=\"nick_punto_small_fry_award\" src=\"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/nick_punto_small_fry_award-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"393\" height=\"260\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>On Friday afternoon the St. Louis Cardinals signed infielder <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/p\/puntoni01.shtml?utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_campaign=Linker\" target=\"_blank\">Nick  Punto<\/a><\/strong> to a one-year deal worth approximately $700K.\u00a0 Punto, who can play both middle infield positions as well as third base, will likely serve as the backup for <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/t\/theriry01.shtml?utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_campaign=Linker\" target=\"_blank\">Ryan  Theriot<\/a><\/strong> and <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/s\/schumsk01.shtml?utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_campaign=Linker\" target=\"_blank\">Skip  Schumaker<\/a><\/strong>. However, knowing Tony La Russa&#8217;s affinity for \u201cgamers,\u201d I\u2019m sure that he will receive far too many starts.<\/p>\n<p>The Cardinals\u2019 middle infield now consists of three players who are under 6-feet tall and coming off seasons in which each posted less than a 1.0 WAR.\u00a0 In 2010, Theriot, Schumaker, and Punto hit a combined .262 (1,314 ABs) with eight home runs and 91 RBI.\u00a0 After <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/p\/pujolal01.shtml?utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_campaign=Linker\" target=\"_blank\">Albert  Pujols<\/a><\/strong>, Schumaker is considered to be the Cardinals\u2019 second-most productive infielder headed into the upcoming season.\u00a0 I know, frightening.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>At this point, it\u2019s obvious that Tony will never understand that having a slew of pint-sized infielders doesn\u2019t quite equate to one, above average infielder. He might as well bring back <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/e\/eckstda01.shtml?utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_campaign=Linker\" target=\"_blank\">David  Eckstein<\/a><\/strong> and <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/b\/belliro01.shtml?utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_campaign=Linker\" target=\"_blank\">Ronnie  Belliard<\/a><\/strong> \u2013 both of whom are still free agents \u2013 in an effort to solidify the shortest infield in baseball history.<br \/>\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On Friday afternoon the St. Louis Cardinals signed infielder Nick Punto to a one-year deal worth approximately $700K.\u00a0 Punto, who can play both middle infield positions as well as third base, will likely serve as the backup for Ryan Theriot and Skip Schumaker. However, knowing Tony La Russa&#8217;s affinity for \u201cgamers,\u201d I\u2019m sure that he [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1300,6,16,11,13,14],"tags":[21,1715,1717,1714,1713,1582,647,571,510,1716,1196],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2677"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2677"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2677\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2682,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2677\/revisions\/2682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thegoldensombrero.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}