SB Nation User Blog: chuckb

The 2010 rotation

chuckb — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 16:16:43 -0000

My first order of business today is to let everybody know that this will be my final daily post here at VEB. Though I’ve truly enjoyed doing this for the last couple of years or so, I’ve found that it takes too much time away from my family and my job to do this well. It’s simply a matter of priorities and my kids are getting older – they’re 6 and 8 now – and my son thinks he’s going to be Albert Pujols one day (and who am I to tell him he won’t?) and I’ve made the decision to spend more time with them and less time doing this. Additionally, my job as a teacher means I quite frequently have work to do at night and on the weekends and it’s a beautiful weekend this weekend and I’m going to spend it locked in my house working on threads for VEB and grading papers. Such is life but at some point, something’s gotta give. I want to thank LB for giving me this shot, and Dan, RB, and AZ for helping me out as much as they have. I also want to thank each of you for helping to make this experience such an enjoyable one. You’ll still see me popping up in the comments from time to time and in the occasional fanpost, I just won’t be a regular contributor any longer. There’s no doubt in my mind that the site is in good hands so I’m totally at peace by stepping away right now. All that said, it’s time to get down to business.

So John Smoltz would like to return to the Cardinals next year, huh? As of right now, the team appears to have 2 holes in the rotation, since Chris Carpenter, Adam Wainwright, and Kyle Lohse will fill 3 rotation spots. If Smoltz returns, that leaves one spot available. It’s been generally assumed that either Mitch Boggs or Jaime Garcia would fill the other spot but Dan O’Neill, yesterday, suggested that either Blake Hawksworth or Kyle McClellan should be moved to the rotation. This is intriguing. AZ has long been on the "free K-Mac" bandwagon and, if nothing else, it would provide substantial depth for the 5th spot in the rotation.

I’m not sure which of Hawksworth or McClellan would make the better starter but I think creating a competition in spring training between them, Garcia, and Boggs for the 5th spot is a pretty good idea. The "losers" could move to the pen (where we’re going to need to make some changes anyway) and provide reinforcements in case Carp, Lohse, Smoltz, or Smoltz’s replacement end up on the D.L. This season the Cards used 9 starting pitchers, including P.J. Walters for 1 start and Brad Thompson for 8. Here are the ’09 major league peripherals for 3 of the 4 contenders.

	K/9	BB/9	HR/9	FIP	GB%	xFIP	tRA*
Boggs	7.14	5.12	0.47	4.10	52.7	4.78	4.61
McClellan	6.89	4.59	0.54	3.97	50.0	4.43	4.69
Hawksworth	4.50	3.38	0.45	3.95	53.8	4.48	4.17

Though they’re somewhat different pitchers, their numbers all look very similar. They all walk more than we’d prefer, though Boggs’ and McClellan’s K rates are higher than Hawksworth’s. They all had very low HR/9 b/c they’re all ground ball pitchers. But they were all probably lucky to have such a low HR rate since all three had HR/FB around 6% -- about 5% below league average. Boggs and Hawksworth throw a little harder than McClellan, w/ fastballs averaging 92.7 and 92.5 mph to McClellan’s 91.4. This year, Boggs’ best pitch was his slider, McClellan’s was his curveball, and Hawksworth’s was his fastball. It seems to me that, of the 3 – or 4 if Garcia is added to the mix – we’ll be able to find one guy to fill that 5th spot.

So that leaves Smoltz for the 4th spot…or does it? We could probably add Smoltz on a 1 year, $5 M or so contract to return, thus leaving us quite a bit of coin to resign Holliday, or add a higher priced 3B than David Freese/Allen Craig (yeah, right!). The thing is, though, while the free agent class isn’t very strong – John Lackey is really the only really solid free agent pitcher available – there are a lot of fairly strong comeback candidates that could provide a huge boost to the rotation should they pay off. I’m not sure we should just settle for Smoltz and be done with it.

Dave Cameron over at fangraphs addressed this some the other day -- that there will be a lot of potentially very good starters on the market who are looking for a short-term deal. In other words, a lot of potential for adding a low risk, high reward starter. Some of the starters on the market this offseason will include Rich Harden, Randy Johnson, Ben Sheets, Justin Duchscherer, Kelvim Escobar, Brett Myers, and Erik Bedard in addition to Smoltz.

Briefly, now…their resumes:

Rich Harden – will be just 28 in November. He hasn’t pitched more than 148 innings in a season since 2004 and this year he gave up a ridiculous 23 HR in just 141 innings. He is a fly ball pitcher who had extremely bad luck this year w/ fly balls leaving the park (HR/FB = 15.1%). When he’s on, there are few better. He has a career K/9 of 9.35 and BB/9 of 3.93. Over the last 2 years, his fastball mph is down from averaging 93-94 mph to 92.1 and 92.0. In ’08, he was worth 4.4 WAR for the A’s and Cubs in just 148 innings.

Ben Sheets – 31 years old. Missed all of 2009 with an elbow injury. From 2005-2008, he threw 156.2, 106, 141.1, and 198.1 innings (averaging just less than 151 innings per season). He hasn’t had an ERA above 4.00 since 2003. Career K/9 – 7.60. Career BB/9 – 1.97. He’s not really a ground ball pitcher either but his career HR/9 = 1.01. He’s basically a fastball/curveball pitcher whose FB has been pretty consistent throughout his career and averaged 92.7 mph.

Erik Bedard – turns 31 in March. The only lefty in the group. Since being traded to the Mariners prior to the ’08 season, he’s thrown only 164 innings. He was having a great season before tearing his labrum this season. He likely won’t be ready to go on opening day b/c of a 6 month recovery period. Pitching his entire career in the AL, he hasn’t had an ERA above 4.00 since 2004. Career K/9 – 8.77. Career BB/9 – 3.56. Career HR/9 – just 0.82 despite averaging a 36.7% FB rate for his career. He’s basically a two pitch pitcher as well w/ a terrific curveball.

Kelvim Escobar – turns 34 in April. I’ve always liked this guy. He’s had shoulder problems over the last couple of years as he’s thrown just 5 innings since 2007. From ’03 – ’07, however, he threw over 180 innings every season but one. Career K/9 – 7.78. Career BB/9 – 3.65. He’s much more of a ground ball pitcher than any of the previous guys. He’s always been basically a fastball, curveball, change pitcher whose fastball has averaged nearly 94 mph. Who knows what he’ll look like when the scouts see him throw, but he’s always had terrific stuff.

Justin Duchscherer – turns 32 in November. Duchscherer’s been a reliever throughout his career until the A’s moved him to the rotation in 2008. He’s been battling elbow problems and depression since throwing 141.2 innings for the A’s last season. Career K/9 – 6.94. Career BB/9 – 2.30. Duchscherer doesn’t throw hard. His fastball’s only averaged 86.0 mph for his career but it, his cutter, and his curveball have all been effective pitches for him in his career. I doubt the team will want to go there after their experience w/ Khalil Greene this season but…

Brett Myers – turned 29 in August. Myers has bounced back and forth from the Phillies’ rotation to the bullpen for the last 3 years and has suffered from shoulder and hip problems this season. Career K/9 – 7.50. Career BB/9 – pi. His career GB% is over 47% and, while he had homer problems this season (18 in just 70.2 innings), he was horribly unlucky, as evidenced by his ridiculous 23.4% HR/FB rate. He’s a fastball, slider, curveball pitcher whose fastball averaged just 89.3 mph this season – down from 90.8 for his career.

Randy Johnson – just turned 46. Yes, 46. He’s Julio Franco meets Cy Young. I advocated signing Johnson prior to this season. He’s definitely scary b/c of his age and the fact that he threw just 96 innings this season. And while his K rate and BB rate were very good, his HR rate was very high – and that’s for someone who pitched half his games in whatever the Giants’ park is called these days. (3 Com? AT&T? …whatever). However, like Myers, he was ridiculously unlucky in that his HR/FB rate was 19.2%. His fastball’s been losing velocity for the last couple of years but his slider’s as potent as ever.

Of course, before we look to sign any of these guys we’d have to double and triple-check their medical reports and watch them pitch, check out their mph, whatever. We’d absolutely have to do our due diligence. And we’d have to understand that we’re unlikely to get 200 innings from any of these guys but if we could get 140-150 from them and then another 50 or so from whoever finishes 2nd in the 5th starter derby, we’d potentially have a very potent 1, 2, and 3 when the playoffs arrive next fall.

I’d say my top 3 at this point would be 1. Sheets; 2. Bedard; 3. Smoltz but I’d like to see what Myers, Escobar, and Harden look like as well.

See you soon.

Poll

Assuming all the pitchers appear healthy and strong, which one do you think the Cards should pursue for the #4 spot in their rotation for 2010?

Bedard

256 votes

Duchscherer

39 votes

Escobar

27 votes

Smoltz

239 votes

Johnson

19 votes

Myers

37 votes

resign Pineiro

117 votes

Sheets

454 votes

Smoltz

110 votes

Harden

138 votes

1436 votes | Poll has closed

Patience...please!

chuckb — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 14:24:53 -0000

There’s been a lot of discussion of late about whether or not the Cards should resign Matt Holliday, who they should pursue should the fail to resign him, and whether or not Hal McRae should return as the Cards’ hitting coach next year. Someone ought to, at some point, study the impact that hitting coaches have on an offense, to the degree that that’s possible. Look at the table below and see if anything stands out.

	P/PA	wOBA
Cards	3.66	.325
Rockies	3.99	.340
Phillies	3.86	.340
Dodgers	3.88	.331
Yankees	3.88	.366
Red Sox	3.94	.352
Angels	3.88	.346
Twins	3.86	.338

Did anyone else know that the Twins’ offense, featuring Nick Punto, Brendan Harris, Matt Tolbert, and Carlos Gomez for almost 1600 PAs, was better than ours – and it wasn’t even really close. The Cards’ offense, featuring clearly the best hitter in the game, was the worst of the playoff teams. Only the Giants saw fewer pitches per plate appearance than did the Cardinals. That’s right – we were the 29th most patient team (or 2nd most impatient team) in the major leagues in 2009. Our most patient hitter – Albert Pujols – averaged 3.84 P/PA, barely above the league average of 3.82 P/PA. Actually, everyone’s favorite whipping boy – Chris Duncan – averaged 3.91 P/PA in just 304 PA.

Let’s look at the team as a whole.

	2009 P/PA	2008 P/PA	2009 wOBA	2008 wOBA
Pujols	3.84	3.83	.449	.458
Ludwick	3.83	3.83	.336	.406
Skip	3.73	3.58	.336	.341
Yadi	3.60	3.36	.337	.323
Ryan	3.62	3.78	.324	.277
Ankiel	3.52	3.82	.288	.360
Holliday	3.62	3.88	.390	.418
DeRosa	3.78	3.90	.327	.376
Rasmus	3.61		.311
Lugo	3.90	4.04	.342	.317

The table says a lot about Ankiel’s struggles this year, in particular. I can’t account for the decreases in Holliday’s and DeRosa’s numbers but they both saw their wOBAs fall this year as their P/PA did as well. The bottom line, however, is that the Cards like to swing the bat. The league average % of pitches swung at was 45% and the Cards swung at 48% of the pitches they saw – only the Giants were higher. Again, we were 29th in the big leagues.

Individually, only Albert (42.6%), DeRosa (44.3%), and Lugo (40.1%) swung at less than the league average 45% of the pitches they saw. The others were all above league average – Skip (45.5%), Yadi (50.4%), Ludwick (49.9%), Ankiel (54.1%), Ryan (46.9%), and Holliday (49.6%).

Is this a problem of the players or the team’s approach to hitting? I can’t really say but, to me, there’s little doubt of a connection between the team’s impatience and the team’s struggles at the plate. We can blame Hal McRae if we want but, w/o a little more evidence, that’s a little tough for me to swallow. In order to properly evaluate McRae, it seems to me that we’d have to see how hitters perform for McRae and how they perform elsewhere and see if there’s a trend. Are hitters less patient as a result of McRae’s tutelage? Again, we’d have to compare the "with McRae" to the "w/o McRae." Lugo, DeRosa, and Holliday all provide some info but the sample sizes are awfully small. Plus, we’re talking about players who, at one point in the transition, changed leagues. It’s not as cut and dried as we may think it is.

Still, there’s a problem w/ the team’s offense. We can look to fix it at 3B and I’d expect Rasmus to improve in year 2. But Ryan’s not going anywhere, nor should he b/c of his defense. Yadi’s hardly the problem and, while it wouldn’t surprise me if only one of Holliday and Ludwick return, they’re not the biggest culprits either. Certainly extricating Ankiel from the lineup will help some and maybe replacing McRae is the solution. I know that something’s gotta change, however b/c we’re going to be hard-pressed to pitch as well next year as we did this year.

NLCS Preview

chuckb — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 01:53:47 -0000

The NLCS begins tonight on TBS w/ the Phils heading out west to meet the Dodgers. Needless to say, I’d rather be doing this for the Cards and Phils but here we are. It appears, on paper, to be a fairly evenly matched series. See below.

Dodgers	wRC	PA	RC/PA	UZR/150	Phillies	wRC	PA	RC/PA	UZR/150
Furcal	74.3	680	0.109	6.7	Rollins	79	725	0.109	2.3
Kemp	101.1	667	0.152	3.9	Victorino	97.7	694	0.141	-1.9
Ethier	105.3	685	0.154	-13.1	Utley	123.8	687	0.180	8.8
Ramirez	75.7	431	0.176	-14.7	Howard	122	703	0.174	1.4
Loney	79.7	652	0.122	0.7	Werth	110.7	676	0.164	5.7
Blake	79.5	565	0.141	7.0	Ibanez	91.2	565	0.161	8.1
Belliard	36.9	287	0.129	3.9	Feliz	61.3	625	0.098	3.1
Martin	60	588	0.102		Ruiz	48	379	0.127
Total			1.084		Total			1.153

The Phils’ potent lineup averages about .07 runs created per PA more than the Dodgers’ balanced lineup does. The Phils’ defense, overall, is better than the Dodgers’ – even historically wretched fielders such as Howard and Ibanez were above average this year by UZR – but the Dodgers’ is better up the middle (2B, SS, and CF). Let’s now look at the pitching.

Dodgers	RAR	IP	RAR/IP	Phillies	RAR	IP	RAR/IP
Kershaw	38.9	171	0.227	Hamels	35.5	193.2	0.183
Wolf	29.2	214.1	0.136	Happ	17.4	166	0.105
Kuroda	20.6	117.1	0.176	Lee	61.8	231.2	0.267
Padilla	20.4	147.1	0.138	Martinez	5.6	44.2	0.125
Kuo	3.9	30	0.130	Blanton	21.2	195.1	0.109
Belisario	7.0	70.2	0.099	Eyre	-0.3	30	-0.01
Sherrill	13.6	69	0.197	Madson	13.3	77.1	0.172
Broxton	27.3	76	0.359	Lidge	-7.2	58.2	-0.123

The Dodgers have the home field advantage, a lot of lefties to match up w/ the Phils’ hitters, and the advantage of being in a better position to set up their rotation. The Phils have the more potent offense and the better defense. It sets up to be a great, evenly matched series but I see that the Dodgers have 2 major advantages.

First, the Dodgers have a ton of lefthanded pitchers ready to face Rollins, Victorino, Utley, Howard, and Ibanez. They’ll start 3 lefties in 6 games and they’ve got Kuo and Sherrill – 2 very good lefties – ready to give them innings out of the pen. As a team the Phils have actually performed slightly better against lefties this year than against righties. In fact, Utley and Ibanez have crushed lefties this year from the left side and Werth and Victorino have been solid from the right side. However, for his career Ibanez has given up about 90 points of OPS against lefties and Utley’s given up about 30. Howard just isn’t good against lefties and there’s only so much damage Victorino – a very good player – can provide. Plus, Kershaw and the rest aren’t ordinary lefties. Sherrill and Kuo, for example, would right now be the best two pitchers in our pen.

The other advantage is at the back end of the pen. Brad Lidge has been absolutely awful this year and has barely survived the series against the Rockies. Broxton, though he wasn’t dominant against the Cardinals, was the best closer in the NL over the course of the season. I’d take him over any closer in the NL at this point. It helps also that the Dodgers have the home field advantage. As I said, it’ll be a great series but I’m going to take the Dodgers in 7 – surviving 2 starts against Lee – to advance to the World Series.

Looking to own and run a real minor league franchise?

chuckb — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 01:03:41 -0000

Looking to own and run a real minor league franchise?

If you haven't heard of this yet, this site is run by some people who are hoping to organize many people to purchase and run a minor league franchise -- probably a minor league baseball team. The members will vote on all the important decisions. This is not a fantasy league -- they (we, b/c I joined) will run an actual minor league franchise. Team player subscriptions will run $5-10 per year, if all goes well. Their hope is to have a team together to begin operations next April.

Check out the site and its blog on the sb nation called www.frontofficefans.com.

It ended as it began

chuckb — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 13:51:20 -0000

Well, it was a good ride while it lasted – a much better season than most of us expected. We didn’t deserve to win the series. We were outpitched, outhit, and outfielded; the Dodgers were clearly the better team over the 3 game series. First of all, I wanted to deal w/ the elephant in the room – the strike zone. I’m sure there was some discussion of it last night, as there certainly was from the Cards’ dugout and, occasionally, the Cards’ batters box. The graph below shows the strikezone map for called strikes during last night’s game. You can see the farthest left red triangle is the pitch that Albert was called out on in the 6th. It was definitively not a strike. On the other hand, it wasn’t the worst call Mike Everitt made last night.

We can see that Everitt definitely called the high strike, and Padilla got several calls toward the top of the strike zone. On the other hand, he didn’t miss any balls at the top of the strike zone. He did miss 1 strike thrown by Pineiro and 1 also by Padilla but there were a couple I thought were high that were called strikes. I was wrong. If he was inaccurate, it was on the inside corner to lefties and outside corner to righties. He also missed at least 5 pitches at the bottom of the zone – 3 for the Cards and 2 for the Dodgers. However, Pineiro got the benefit of 3 balls below the knees that were inaccurately called strikes. I see nothing in this graph to indicate any sort of bias or that Pineiro was squeezed. He missed a few pitches, of course. There were 7 balls that were called strikes and the Cards got the benefit of 5 of those pitches. There were 8 strikes that were called balls and the Dodgers got the benefit of 5 of those. Overall, a pretty balanced strike zone. He did call the high strike and we could have benefited from a lower strike zone, however.

The bigger problem last night is not the graph above, but the one below.

This is a strikezone plot of Joel Pineiro’s pitches from last night’s game. The problem is that his pitches are scattered all over the strike zone, w/ as many pitches being in the middle of the zone and above as there are in the middle of the zone and below. In order to have a successful outing, he needed to stay around the bottom of the zone and he just didn’t. And when he didn’t, they belted him. That’s the bottom line – Pineiro has a very small margin for error b/c he can’t throw the ball past hitters. If he’s not around the knees, he’s going to get hit hard and the Dodgers hit him hard. It was exactly what I was afraid of – that he would pitch as he did throughout September and not as he did the first 4 months of the season. As a result, Carp won’t get a chance to redeem himself in game 4.

As I said, the Dodgers beat us in every way possible during the series. Here are the offensive numbers from the 3 game series.

	R	XBH	HR	AVG	OBP	SLG
Cards	6	9	1	.262	.327	.369
Dodgers	13	10	3	.276	.358	.448

Colby Rasmus was the only Card w/ more than 1 extra base hit – he had 3 doubles. Albert had no extra base hits. And now for the pitching table:

	IP	H	BB	K	HR	ERA
Cards’ starters	17	19	5	13	3	4.76
Dodgers’ starters	17	19	7	10	1	2.12
Cards’ relievers	8.2	10	6	11	0	2.08
Dodgers’ relievers	10	8	1	7	0	1.80

The Cards’ relievers’ ERA is a little misleading b/c they did give up 2 HUGE unearned runs as well. The Dodgers’ starters weren’t that much better than ours were – they did get 2 good starts rather than just one – but they did manage to get out of trouble when they got into trouble. At times, we had all 3 Dodger starters on the ropes and couldn’t get the hit or 2 that we needed. The PA that definitely set the tone for the series was the Matt Holliday PA in the first inning of game 1.

All in all, we got a lot farther this year than I, or most us, anticipated. The only thing left now is to adopt a playoff team to root for. (I’d suggest NOT the Twins or Red Sox as they may not be long for the playoffs either.) The poll is below.

Poll

Which team should be VEB's adopted playoff team now that the Cards' season is over

Dodgers

375 votes

Phillies

117 votes

Rockies

373 votes

Angels

507 votes

Red Sox

6 votes

Twins

106 votes

Yankees

97 votes

1581 votes | Poll has closed

NLDS Game 3 Open Thread

chuckb — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 18:09:46 -0000

Vicente Padilla is criminally insane. Everyone in baseball knows it. Milton Bradley has it much more together than this guy. What's a better kept secret is that he has pretty good stuff. That's the reason he's been allowed to stick around in baseball as long as he has. He has a 4.45 FIP this season. His problem has been too many walks. Fortunately, he throws fastballs about 75% of the time. We like hitting fastballs though his is a pretty good one.

Though he's bounced around, he's not really the typical journeyman pitcher. He's got much better stuff and has shut-down ability. It wouldn't surprise me if he came out and threw a gem today. It also wouldn't surprise me if he imploded and went on a rampage either. In any case, today's game could be a tough one, what w/ Pineiro's recent troubles and Padilla's ability. If we get through today, and come back w/ Carp tomorrow, I like our chances.

Once more, for those in the back

chuckb — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 16:17:38 -0000

Ok, now that we’ve all had a chance to decompress following the 9th inning debacle in game 2 – and the lynch mob has had an opportunity to put the torches away – maybe we can settle down and realize that Matt Holliday is not solely to blame for the Cards’ game 2 loss. Dave Cameron said it quite well over at fangraphs yesterday. I’ll admit that I was never a huge fan of the Holliday trade, I’m not one of those who believes that the reason we’re in the playoffs is b/c of Holliday, and I’ve got serious reservations about throwing him $90 or $100 M this offseason. That said, his error Thursday meant that, rather than having a 100% chance of winning the game, we "only" had an 86.7% chance of winning the game. Many have pointed out the obvious – that if Holliday catches the ball, we win the game. Well, if Ryan Franklin gets either of the next 2 hitters out – Casey Blake and Ron Belliard, btw (not exactly A-Rod and Teixeira!) – we win the game also. And if he gets only 1 out of the next 4 hitters out – Blake, Belliard, Russell Martin and the always potent Mark Loretta – we go to extra innings and still have a chance. Ryan Franklin’s transgressions were much greater than Holliday’s.

Lost in all the talk all summer about Ryan Franklin’s metamorphosis and how his use of the cutter rather than the slider has changed his career was any sort of discussion about how Franklin was pitching over his head. He simply was never as good as he was pitching and some regression should have been expected. He pitched extremely well in 2007 as well and regressed at the end of the year. And boy has he regressed this year. The pen was, in my opinion – and I mentioned it several times here and elsewhere – our biggest area of concern entering the playoffs and they haven’t exactly redeemed themselves in the first two games. They’ve given up 3 runs (only 1 earned) in 3.2 innings while yielding 11, yes 11, base runners in those 3.2 innings.

The irony now is that our chances are dependent on another pitcher who made a huge leap forward this year and has regressed somewhat as the year has drawn to a close. Joel Pineiro’s regression hasn’t been as dramatic as Franklin’s, but after being nearly unhittable most of the summer, Pineiro’s August ERA was 4.19 and his September/October ERA was 4.98. After giving up 3 home runs in the first 4 months of the season, he gave up 3 in August and 5 in September/October. His walks are slightly up as well, but the biggest problem is that he’s not getting the ball down like he did earlier in the season. My guess is that Tony will have little patience with him today. I wouldn’t expect him to pitch deep into the game and we could see John Smoltz or Kyle Lohse early – and for multiple innings – today.

Though Tony and Duncan have to this point been mum on the subject, rumors abound that the plan is to bring Chris Carpenter back on 3 days’ rest should we reach game 4. Carp’s never started a game on less than 4 days’ rest in his career. It is, however, almost inarguably, the correct decision. Doing so allows the team to use Adam Wainwright on 4 days’ rest in game 5. The bottom line is this – we have to win 3, 4, and 5 in order to advance and which 2 starters do you want going in games 4 and 5 – Smoltz and Carpenter, Lohse and Carpenter, or Carpenter on short rest and Wainwright. I’m going w/ door #3, w/o a doubt. Maybe Carp will only be able to go 5 or 6 innings but 5 or 6 innings from Carp should be better than 5 or 6 from Lohse or Smoltz.

Finally, for all the talk about the Cards’ offensive ineptitude over the first 2 games, our offense hasn’t performed all that badly. We’ve batted .300/.379/.422 over the first 2 games. An .800 OPS against the Dodgers’ pitching is nothing to sneeze at. Ryan is clearly overmatched at the plate and belongs hitting at the bottom of the order, particularly against righties, but the others have performed fairly well at the plate. The possible exception is Pujols, who’s just 1 for 6 w/ a single and 3 walks in 2 games. We also have 7 extra base hits but all that offense has just manifested itself into 5 runs. We haven’t gotten the hits we need w/ runners on base and we do have just 1 homer in 2 games, but if we keep getting runners on base, we’ll be ok. We need to put a better hitter in the 2 hole – not Colby, I don’t like sticking our only 2 lefties right next to each other in the order -- and get more runners on base in front of Albert and then get a hit or 2 behind him. Hopefully JP can get us through 5 or 6 innings w/ just a couple of runs given up. If we can get it to game 4, I think we’ve got a decent chance. If not, there’ll be lots of time to ponder what might have been.

To Hit or not To Hit

chuckb — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 03:57:00 -0000

Note: I have a job where I get to work at 6:20 a.m. Therefore, I am putting this post together beginning in the top of the 4th inning of game 1. I’ll be finished (hopefully) before this game is. Skip Schumaker just lined a double down the left field line to make the score 3-2.

It’s interesting that Joe Torre chose to intentionally walk Albert Pujols in 2 of his 1st 3 plate appearances in the series. Both PAs featured an empty base at first. Anyone see a pattern here? Both were terrible decisions, IMO, though they both worked out for the Dodgers. Bases loaded, no one out, first inning? Terrible decision, Joe. You got lucky! What’s interesting is that the Dodgers led the NL in intentional walks with 68 this season. The Cards, who prefer to pitch around hitters – the UNintentional intentional – were last in the NL in intentional walks w/ just 23. Then he pulls Randy Wolf in the top of the 4th? Is this a prelude toward using him to start game 4, so that Torre can avoid using the slumping Chad Billingsley? Interesting moves, to say the least.

There’s always a lot of concern entering the playoffs about a team’s ability to score runs. "If we can score runs, we’ll be ok" is what a lot of people say entering the playoffs. Teams are facing the best pitching staffs and often, the best defenses as well so it’s reasonable to be concerned about a team’s ability to score runs. Hell, I’m guilty of it as well. It made me wonder how many runs a team needed to be able to score in order to be successful in the playoffs. The table below shows the number of runs scored by the 2 teams combined in each playoff series in the last 5 years, as well as the average number of runs per game scored in each league over the same time span.

	NLDS	NLCS	NL season	ALDS	ALCS	AL season	World Series
2004	10.13	9.29	9.28	10.71	12.29	10.02	9.0
2005	11.14	6.33	8.90	9.75	6.8	9.52	8.5
2006	7.14	7.86	9.52	8.43	7.75	9.94	6.6
2007	7.67	6.5	9.42	9.0	11.86	9.80	9.75
2008	7.14	9.0	9.08	8.13	10.14	9.56	7.8

Teams have scored fewer runs than in an average game in 16 of the 25 playoff series over the last 5 years (64%) and there have been fewer runs scored on average in the playoffs than in the regular season 12 out of 15 times over the last 3 years (80%). On average over the last 5 years, 7.5% fewer runs have been scored per game in the playoffs than in the regular season. This year, NL teams averaged 8.86 runs between them per game and AL teams averaged 9.64 runs between them per game. The reality, then, is that teams really don’t have to score THAT many runs in order to win most postseason games. We need to pitch well, play good defense, and score a few runs but we don’t need to average 5 runs per game (hopefully – if we pitch and play defense well) in order to have a successful postseason. The Cardinals scored 4.51 runs per game this season and 4.64 runs per game in August through October (Matt Holliday was acquired on July 24) but we shouldn’t need to average that many runs in order to win most postseason games.

I don’t really have much to say about Chris Carpenter’s relatively poor performance so far tonight. He can’t be great every time out and the Dodgers had some good PAs but he had trouble locating all night long. His command was, for him, horrendous. It seemed to me that the only pitch he was able to consistently command was his curveball, his third best pitch throughout the season. Hopefully we’ll be able to pull this out against their bullpen or, if not, hopefully Wainwright can get us a win this evening. It wouldn’t be too bad to go back home even in the series.

Game 162 Open Thread

chuckb — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 17:04:51 -0000

After this, they count.

Suppan against Pineiro

Bring on the Dodgers.

MVC! MVC!

chuckb — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 17:02:46 -0000

I’ll say this once and probably one time only – Tim Lincecum deserves the NL Cy Young. It’ll be great for Wainwright or Carpenter to win it but Lincecum’s been hands-down the best pitcher in the NL this season. It’s true that Carpenter has an advantage in the all-important wins category – a by-product of the fact that the Cards have 4 more wins than the Giants and that the Cards have scored nearly a run more per game in Wainwright’s starts than the Giants did in Lincecum’s – and he has 7.2 more innings pitched than Lincecum. In every other category, Lincecum’s been superior. He’s been worth 2.5 wins more than Wainwright this season. His ERA’s better. His FIP’s better. His K/9 is better. His BB/9 is better. His K/BB is better. His HR/9 is better. Flame away….

The real thing I wanted to discuss today is the most, and least, valuable Cardinals this season. Some players (ahem…Albert Pujols!) have been particularly valuable while others (ahem…Khalil Greene) have been colossal salary albatrosses (or is the plural of albatross albatri?) I’m using fangraphs valuation of WAR and value (at $4.4 M per win) and the players’ contracts according to cot’s contracts. Those that are most valuable, by my definition, have the greatest value minus the amount of money the team had to pay them. In other words, they have the greatest surplus value to the team. Those that are the least valuable to the team are the opposite – they’ve been worth the least amount of money when subtracting what they were paid from the value they provided. So, w/o further ado…

The most valuable Cardinals:

5. Yadier Molina – $11.95 M. Yadi’s had his best offensive season as he’s been more than 5 runs better than average and, when figuring in the replacement level adjustment and the fact that he plays the most difficult position on the diamond, has been worth 33.7 RAR. He’s a 3.4 win player, easily the highest of his career. On the free agent market, that’s worth $15.2 million but the Cards have only had to pay him $3.25 M. What a great bounty for the team.

4. Joel Pineiro -- $14.4 M. Who’da thunk this guy’d be this good this year. I still have no idea really what to expect of him in the playoffs but the very idea that he’s our #3 starter in the postseason is astounding considering how bad he was last year. He’s thrown 209 innings and been worth 45 RAR b/c of a 3.23 FIP. He’s become nearly a 5 win player – 4.9 – this season, worth $21.9 M on the free agent market. Unbelievably, he’s likely priced himself out of our price range.

3. Brendan Ryan -- $15.095 M. Like Pineiro, this guy came totally out of nowhere this season and, let’s face it, if he’d been the starting shortstop from day one, he’d have probably been worth nearly $20 M. Brendan’s been ok offensively (which is a big step up from last year, btw) but he’s generated nearly all his value from his fantastic defense. His UZR is 12.4 for the season – 2nd in the big leagues among shortstops w/ 800 innings or more. He won’t win the Gold Glove simply b/c of a lack of innings played. So – fantastic defense, premium position, league average offense – add it all up and it comes to 34.4 RAR or 3.4 WAR. He’s been worth $15.5 M but we’re paying him just 5 grand more than the major league minimum. Talk about surplus value!

2. Albert Pujols -- $22.2 M. It’s hard to believe anyone’s been more valuable than Albert this season but 1 player has been. He’s been 72 RAA on offense and just barely above league average defensively. Unlike Yadi or Ryan, he doesn’t play a premium position, which subtracts from his value but he’s still been worth 8.5 WAR this season. Subtract his $16 M salary from the $38.2 M he’s been worth to the team and you get $22.2 M in surplus value. He’s probably worth an 8-10 year deal worth $30 M per season. If we can sign him to a contract earning $25 M a year, we’re probably very fortunate b/c he’ll make more than that if allowed to become a free agent.

1. Adam Wainwright -- $23.3 M. He hasn’t been better than Albert this year but he’s only receiving $2.6 M from the team. He’s been fantastic – worth 52.9 RAR (and more than Carpenter due to the fact that he’s pitched 41 more innings ) – and 5.8 WAR. Along w/ Carpenter and Pujols, our postseason hopes ride on his shoulders. To me, it’s more important that we leave room in the budget to resign him at the end of his contract than it is to sign Matt Holliday to a long-term contract.

For what it’s worth, Chris Carpenter ($11.4 M) and Colby Rasmus ($10.1 M) were also worth more than $10 M in surplus value to the team this season. No wonder we won the division – we had 7 guys worth more than $10 M more than they were paid. With performance like that, it makes sense that we’ve had the division locked up for some time.

And now for the LEAST valuable Cardinals…

5. Kyle Lohse – minus $3.225 M. The first year, and cheapest, of Lohse’s $41 M contract was not a good one. He’s thrown just 117 innings and has been just 8.5 RAR – worth less than 1 win and $3.9 M. Unfortunately, he’s receiving $7.125 M from the team.

4. Nick Stavinoha – minus $3.5 M. Again…who’d a thunk it. Stavinoha was worth 4.4 runs less than average in just 91 PAs and another 3.7 runs less than average on defense. Add in the fact that he receives a negative positional adjustment for only being a corner outfielder and he’s worth 0.7 wins less than replacement level – minus $3.1 M. Fortunately, he’s only receiving the major league minimum.

3. Todd Wellemeyer – minus $4.25 M. 114 bad innings and a $4.05 M contract. Need I say more? He’s been worth half a run less than replacement level and minus 0.1 WAR. He’s been basically replacement level (a little less) and a small burden to the payroll – unlike #s 1 and 2.

2. Khalil Greene – minus $10.3 M. Sheesh! Ten million dollars wasted on this guy. I know we only had to pay him $6.5 M but he’s been worth negative $3.8 M this season b/c he’s been bad offensively and defensively. Negative 8.2 runs offensively and negative 9.3 runs defensively. What a waste! I guess it was worth a shot but it worked out horribly. I hope he gets his mind right and can enjoy life. Hopefully he can salvage his baseball career and turn into a useful baseball player for someone but, if not, I hope he’s ok on a personal level.

1. Troy Glaus – minus $11.25 M. I never figured this out from the beginning. We never heard anything was wrong until about January and then, all of a sudden, he’s having surgery. Then, he’ll be back the first part of the season, then June, then the All-Star break. Now, he may or may not make the postseason roster. He’s played a little 3B and had 31 PAs w/ a couple of doubles. He’s been basically useless (minus 0.1 WAR) this season but we had to pay him $11.25 M.

You might have thought Rick Ankiel would make the list. I did, too. I guess he can thank Stavinoha for keeping him off b/c Slick Rick’s been worth minus $2.825 M (his exact salary) to be a replacement level outfielder this season. Good luck to you, Rick. I hope you can turn it around for someone else next year.