SBNation.com User Blog: chuckb

OU football -- my own personal conundrum

chuckb — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 02:18:55 -0000

(Beware: this is lengthy.)

I love OU football...always have. I grew up in the '70s and remember having to take naps on New Year's Day so that my parents would let me stay up to watch the Orange Bowl that night. I remember the pass to Steve Rhodes and that great pitch from (I think it was) Thomas Lott to Billy Sims about 15 yards downfield while running the option against FSU. I remember oranges tossed onto the field after beating Nebraska. Keith Jackson running around end or catching a huge pass on that push off on the sideline. I remember the Selmons and Tony Casillas and Rick Bryan. I remember Jackie Shipp as a player and fumblerooskies. I remember Lydell Carr running right up the middle for a huge TD to help beat Penn St. I didn't attend OU as I have lived the last 40 years in Texas and got a scholarship requiring me to attend a college in Texas, but I truly am Sooner-born, Sooner-bred and when I die I'll be Sooner-dead.

But the times, they are a-changin'.

Today it was revealed that the NIH's study on Junior Seau's suicide was complete and that his suicide was brought on by a brain disease called CTE. Playing football for about 40 years led to so collisions with his head that he experienced severe memory loss, dementia, and depression that led to his suicide. He shot himself in the chest so that his brain could be studied to determine the effect that all of these head impacts had on his brain. The damage was overwhelming. Unfortunately, Seau's suicide was not the only football-related suicide in 2012 as former Notre Dame and Chicago Bear star Dave Duerson was similarly victimized by CTE.

The evidence is piling up that football and, specifically, the head injuries that occur during football games are doing tremendous damage to football players all over the U.S. It's bad enough that current NFL players are victims of this tremendous brutality but so are thousands of college kids -- including the 85+ who play football at OU -- and, more importantly in my opinion, millions of kids between the ages of 6 and 18. We are learning that football is a drug whose effects are more damaging to Americans than many that are illegal in this country.

This is not a post suggesting that football be banned. Please don't misunderstand. I have no illusions that a sport as popular as football is -- the most popular in our country -- will remain legal at least for the foreseeable future and I'm not generally inclined to tell adults that they can't do something they know is harmful as long as they are aware of the risks. But let's be honest...if I told you that millions of American kids, starting at the age of 6 or 7, were taking a drug -- legally -- that we knew led to a brain disease characterized by severe memory loss, dementia, and serious depression that has, in many cases, brought on suicide, there would be a movement to ensure that the drug was kept out of the hands of these children. At the very least, we would make sure that people were 18 before they could decide to take that drug legally.

This is something that's been eating at me for some time. I was recently watching the Texas 5A high school championship game between Katy and Cedar Hill. Cedar Hill was scoring a TD late in the game when a Katy LB lost his helmet during the play. The LB continued playing without a helmet and tried to tackle the RB as he was going in the end zone. On the play, the LB's bare head slammed straight into the RB's helmet and the announcers on TV praised how tough the LB was and what a great effort he made. I cringed, outraged that the LB didn't just let the kid score but mostly that the announcers neglected to talk about how dangerous that was to this 16, 17, 18 year old BOY! Even more outrageous was the fact that on Katy's next defensive series, the kid was back in the game! How could the coaches do that to him? Why didn't someone from Katy High School's administration or Katy ISD call the coach and tell him, "I don't care what the score is or what's going on in the game, that boy stays on the sidelines!" During the Cotton Bowl, Damien Williams carried the ball and was headed toward the sideline and an Aggie made a good, clean hit on Williams that nonetheless was a (legal) head-to-head collision. Again, I cringed. What damage did that play just do to a player I've been cheering for all season (to say nothing of the damage it did to the Aggie whose name I don't even know)?

So here is my dilemma: as I said, I love OU football and I get elated when we do well and extremely upset when we don't. But I am finding it extremely difficult morally to continue to support the sport. My conscience struggles with the extent to which I, by watching football games and buying the products that are advertised during their commercials, am enabling this disease among young Americans. I want to make it clear that I am not judging anyone else here or anywhere. This is my own personal moral conundrum. I am not trying to ban the sport. But it has become extremely difficult for me to justify supporting this sport because, in my opinion, by doing so I am enabling the damage that this very dangerous sport is doing to people all over the country.

I am not an NFL fan and haven't really watched the NFL for years. My brother has a Super Bowl party I'll attend and I'll watch the game but I don't really care who wins. It takes a lot out of me to be a fan of a team so I need a break once Sooner football (and, during good seasons, Sooner basketball) season and St. Louis Cardinal baseball season is over. I can give up, I think, other college football games. But I feel somewhat addicted to the Sooners. I don't want to give them up but, at the same time, by continuing to support them I am, even in a very small way, complicit in their harm. I'm not sure I can abide that any more.

The point here is not to place judgment on anyone though, if you feel you must, you can judge me. Sometimes I do feel like a hypocrite. I really feel, however, that I'm not. I'm simply a fan, a human with human failings who wants to do the right thing but can't all the time because Sooner football is such a part of me. I wonder if any of you are confronting similar dilemmas relating to the sport or relating to Sooner football specifically. Am I the only one here who, though a huge fan of the Sooners, feels some obligation to the players -- and to kids playing football all across the country -- to stop supporting the sport because their physical and mental well-being is more important than winning football games. We're not talking about broken bones or torn ligaments here. We're talking about a brain disease that leads to players' deaths.

So I'm interested in your comments, whatever they are. Most importantly, though, is that I wanted to open a dialogue about football and the damage it is doing to people. I can't be the only one conflicted. How far does our fandom extend? Don't we have a moral obligation to, at the very least, not continue enabling this disease. I think we need, as a society, to have conversations about this subject so that we can, at least, improve the equipment that players -- especially kids -- wear when playing.

I don't know what the right answer is. What I do know is that I'm going to pay attention to who OU signs on national signing day and I'm going to be very interested in Sooner football as next season approaches. I don't know if I'm going to be able to avoid watching the games or following the team. Deep down, I feel like I have a moral obligation to quit Sooner football. But it's going to be really hard for this old fan whose been addicted to the Sooners for 42 years.

(Beware: this is lengthy.)

But the times, they are a-changin'.

Kyle McClellan may be tipping his pitches

chuckb — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 02:06:50 -0000

I was watching today's game and noticed that McClellan, from the CF view camera, placed the ball in his glove in preparation for his 2-seam grip. When he went quickly after placing his hand in his glove, the pitch was always a 2-seamer. There was only a slight delay for his changeup. When he threw his curve ball, however, the delay was much more pronounced. I'm not sure that there was that much movement in the glove when he changed to the curve ball grip, but he did take considerably more time to throw the curve ball than either the change or the 2-seamer.

I don't know how to create a gif file of McClellan's inning today and the Pirates didn't give any indication that they were reading his pitches, but I could tell as the pitch was thrown what pitch would be thrown. I missed 1 change up thinking it would be a 2-seamer but nailed every curve ball after the first one. If an amateur like me can see that on video, others can as well. For years people have been talking about how good McClellan's curve ball is and it certainly has a lot of bite. But last year, according to fangraphs, last year his curve ball was 4 runs below average for every 100 curve balls thrown. Only Carlos Zambrano, among pitchers with 140+ innings, had a curve ball that was worse last year than McClellan's. That doesn't make any sense.

Since I can't add the video file, I would encourage anyone who has an mlb subscription to go back and watch the 9th inning. Notice how much longer it takes McClellan to throw his curve ball than it does to throw his 2-seamer. The 2-seamer comes out of his glove quickly after his hand goes in. There's a noticeable delay prior to the curve. Watch it and see what you think.

http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/gameday/index.jsp?gid=2012_04_22_slnmlb_pitmlb_1&mode=video#gid=2012_04_22_slnmlb_pitmlb_1&mode=wrap

Lee Roy Selmon in serious condition after a stroke

chuckb — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 01:04:42 -0000

Lee Roy Selmon in serious condition after a stroke

One of my earliest favorite Sooners. He's still alive but is in serious condition.

Pitchers' value

chuckb — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 17:23:49 -0000

With all the discussion today about a proposed trade for Roy Oswalt I thought I'd take a look at what his actual value might be to the Cardinals as well as what the Cardinals ought to expect to give up in order to receive Oswalt.

As we know, Oswalt is signed through next season with a team option for 2012 at $16 million ($2 million buyout). He also has a full no-trade clause that, presumably, he would leverage in order to get the Cards (or whoever he's traded to) to pick up the 2012 option. (It was reported in today's p-d that he might be willing to "restructure his option" in order to facilitate a trade to St. Louis. I, for one, don't read "restructure his option" to mean "get rid of his option" as some do. Instead, I would expect that would mean he'd be willing to consider deferring some of the money, though I think the debate on this is much ado about nothing.)

So what's Roy worth to the Cards? Over the last 2+ years, Roy has been worth 3.6, 3.1, and 2.9 wins for the Astros, according to Fangraphs. He's in the midst of a resurgent season but he's been in decline since 2005. That said, he's still an above average starting pitcher. He'll also turn 33 next month. ZIPS has him projected for a 3.53 FIP for the rest of the season which would make him worth a little more than 1.5 wins over his final 13 starts. Initially, he'd be replacing either Hawksworth or Suppan in the rotation but might replace either Penny, Lohse, or Garcia (if his innings are limited by the organization) in September. Let's call it a 1.5 win upgrade which is valued in the neighborhood of $6 million. He's owed about $5 million over the rest of the season so the team stands to gain about $1 million over the rest of 2010 if he's acquired.

An additional 1.5 wins this year would make Oswalt worth 3.6, 3.1, and 4.4 wins over his previous 3 seasons entering next year. He'd have to be projected, entering his age 34 season, to be about a 3.5 win pitcher next year. At $4.4 million per win, that makes him worth $15.4 million next year, about half a million less than the team would owe him. If we assume a decline of another half a win in Oswalt's option year and a 10% inflation rate for free agent value, Oswalt's 3 wins in 2012 are worth $14.4 million. So trading for Oswalt gains the team $1 million this year and costs the team $2.2 million over 2011 and 2012. Simply put, acquiring Oswalt is worth MINUS $1.2 million.

Some have argued that the team could work this deal so that they could decline Oswalt's 2012 option. That helps the team a lot, right? Not so much. Declining the option would cost the team $2 million but assuming the option (as you see in the paragraph above) costs the team just $1.6 million. The team is better off picking up Oswalt's option, assuming he's still projected to be a 3 win player in 2012, than it is declining the option.

This analysis has left out the possibility that the Cards might receive compensation when Oswalt becomes a free agent. This assumes that the Cards would offer a 35 year old pitcher in decline arbitration when, if he accepted it, he'd be likely to receive more than $16 million. I think, therefore, that it's unlikely that the team would make that offer but, for our purposes, we'll assume that there's a 50% likelihood that the team offers and has the offer rejected. According to Sky Kalkman's research on free agent compensation, type A free agents are worth about $7.8 million in compensation. A 50/50 chance at that $7.8 million means Oswalt is worth, at most $2.7 million to the Cardinals.

So what's Shelby Miller worth? Almost every publication pegs Miller as a top-50 prospect and Victor Wang's research on prospect valuation has top-50 ranked pitchers as worth $15.9 million. Using this as a basis, Miller, by himself, is worth more than $13 million more than Oswalt is worth. Trading Shelby Miller for Roy Oswalt would be a huge win for the Astros whether or not the Cards pick up Oswalt's 2012 option.

Some are likely to say something to the effect of, "but Miller's not guaranteed to do anything. He might flame out. He might become Anthony Reyes." This is true, of course. Sometimes top-50 pitching prospects flame out. And sometimes they become Roy Halladay. Miller's valuation is an average of the value that top-50 pitching prospects have provided over time; it's not his peak value. Pitching prospects, as we all know, are inherently risky but so is counting on 33, 34, and 35 year old pitchers to be above average producers. Miller might fade away but he also might turn into a perennial All-Star. Right now, he's worth $13 million more than Roy Oswalt.

You could do similar analysis involving Dan Haren as well. Haren stands to make about $3 million over the rest of 2010, $12.75 million over 2011 and 2012, and there's a $15.5 million option w/ a $3.5 million buyout for 2013. Haren's considerably younger than Oswalt, turning 30 in September, and has been more than a 6 win pitcher over the last 2 years. He's having a bit of a down year this year, primarily due to some bad luck w/ regard to balls in play and balls flying out of the ballpark, and is projected to be about a 4 win pitcher this year. If we project him as a 4.5 win pitcher next year, declining by half a win over 2011 through 2013, he's worth about $17 million over the next 3 years. Haren's much more valuable over the length of his contract than Oswalt is. He's younger, cheaper, and better. I don't know that the team could fit Haren's salary into the team's budget, assuming it wants to resign Pujols but, if so, he would be worth Shelby Miller. Roy Oswalt simply isn't.

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

116 votes

Sheets

454 votes

Smoltz

110 votes

Harden

138 votes

1435 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.

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.

Game 161 Open Thread

chuckb — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 16:16:47 -0000

Gonna get started early. Needless to say, last night's bullpen implosion did nothing to assuage my concerns about it heading into the postseason. We're just going to have to get meaningful outs from McClellan, Motte, Miller, and Franklin in order to have a strong run. I don't care how good Wainwright and Carpenter are, they can't pitch all the innings. I looked up the pen's splits since September began and they're actually a lot better than I thought. I knew Motte was pitching better but K Mac and Miller have been better than I thought as well. Even Reyes's OPS against since September began is just .473. Only Franklin's been a disaster over the last month.

Speaking of Motte, after being lit up from June through August -- each month featured an OPS against greater than 1.000 -- his OPS against this month (September and October) is just .474. Now, we're only talking about 39 PAs -- make of it what you will -- but his walks are down (just 2) and his strikeouts are up (14). Maybe that's a sign he's figuring it out. He gave up 10 homers in just 121 PAs from June through August but none since September began.

Bernie makes some good points in his column this morning. Why was Wainwright sent back out to start the 7th inning, having thrown 83 pitches through 6 w/ a 5 run lead? He threw 130 pitches the other day and will pitch game 2 of the postseason next week. What was there to gain by having him go back out there. Moreover, why is Yadi playing when he's obviously in pain and limited in his ability to catch? Again, what is there to gain? The point where I disagree w/ Bernie is that he seems to imply that an implosion was inevitable when McClellan entered the game w/ 2 on and a 5 run lead. I disagree. It's K-Mac's job to get people out. He failed miserably and it's not Wainwright's fault and it's not Tony's fault. It might have been better for him to enter at the beginning of the inning but he may have to enter the game w/ runners on next week. He's got to get batters out. It absolutely was not a situation where he was destined to fail.

Isn't it curious that the Reds fired pitching coach Dick Pole one day after the pine tar fiasco involving Bronson Arroyo? They chose now, w/ three games left in the season, to fire him? Interesting. To me it's also interesting that this is the 2nd time (of note) that it's happened to the Cards and neither time did Tony or Duncan want to make an issue of it. Both times they seemed to know, during the game, that the other team's pitcher was cheating (I'm of course referring to the infamous Kenny Rogers World Series game) and they ignored it. It's somewhat cowardly to ignore it during the game, not having the umpire go out and check the opposing pitcher, and then to blow up about it in the media after the game. Could it be b/c they know that our guys are cheating as well and they don't want the blowback? Here's my question -- why is using pine tar or vaseline or whatever to doctor a baseball considered less of a crime than using steroids (a baseball crime! I know that using steroids w/o a doctor's prescription is a legal crime!)? Why do we just sort of sweep it under the rug or say "That's part of the game" or whatever but treat those who used (or may have used) steroids as pariahs? I'm just asking. If a player injected himself w/ a steroid in the dugout, the world would go ape-shit but we see a pitcher on the mound obviously cheating and not even the opposing manager's willing to make an issue out of it? Think Bud Selig's going to punish Bronson Arroyo? I don't. Why? How is cheating w/ a foreign substance different from cheating w/ a PED? The only person being physically harmed by the PED is the user. It's not like his steroid use hurts other ballplayers physically. They're both cheating. Why is one the scourge of the Earth and the other's a harmless vice?

Tony apparently likes what he's seen of Troy Glaus. (Perhaps he didn't notice all the whining he did during last night's game!) I do, too. He really hasn't hit the ball that hard but he seems to be swinging ok and he has more potential to help the team in the postseason than someone like Khalil Greene or David Freese does, IMO. It may turn out that he's totally useless but there's enough potential that he's worth a roster spot.

Today is Lohse's last opportunity to show the world (or at least Tony and Dave) that he deserves to start any game 4 in the postseason. I've said multiple times that he's my choice for game 4 and I want Smoltz in the pen, mostly b/c he'd probably be our 2nd best reliever the moment he warms up. Still, it's curious to me that Tony and Dave haven't taken a game or 2 to see how quickly Smoltz can get ready and if he can help out of the pen. If Lohse doesn't start, I doubt that he'll get any meaningful postseason innings whereas Smoltz can really help the team out of the pen, IMO. I'm hoping for a good start today so that we can get the most out of both pitchers b/c, like I said, Carp and Wainwright can't do it by themselves.

Game 158 Open Thread

chuckb — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 03:12:15 -0000

Carpenter and Wells

Cards trying to avoid sweep

Aren't haikus grand?

Carpenter and Wells

Cards trying to avoid sweep

Aren't haikus grand?

A tale of two aces

chuckb — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 03:09:17 -0000

In 2001, Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling were 1-2 in the majors in ERA finishing w/ a 2.49 and a 2.98 ERA, respectively. Despite the fact that Johnson was quite clearly the best pitcher in the majors in ’01, Schilling started game 1 of the playoffs against the Cards. Schilling defeated Matt Morris 1-0 and again 2-1 in game 5 to win the series. Steve Kline actually got the game 5 loss. Morris pitched 15 innings in the series, had a 1.20 ERA and got a loss and a no decision. (anyone still think wins are the best measure of a pitcher’s success?) Randy Johnson was defeated by Woody Williams in game 2 in the desert on a marvelously pitched game but, as we all know, the D-backs went on to win the series 3-2 (Mike Matthews? Really, Tony?). Johnson and Schilling combined to pitch 26 of the 44.2 innings (58%) for the D-backs, yielding just 4 earned runs in those 26 innings. Clearly the plan for the D-backs was to ride the backs of their 2 aces as far as they could take them. The D-backs had a mediocre pen and a decent, but not dominant, offense but their rotation had 2 aces. Sound at all familiar?

The D-backs went on to take on the Braves in the NLCS. These Braves had Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, and John Burkett in their rotation and John Smoltz in the pen. Though they won just 88 games in the regular season, they seemed potent. Johnson started game 1 for the D-backs but they couldn’t use Schilling until game 3 (or chose not to) after having to use him in game 5 against the Cards. He had 4 days rest, but would’ve had just 2 had he been used in game 2 so the D-backs went w/ Miguel Batista. Johnson and Schilling each pitched complete games, yielding 1 run between them, in pushing the D-backs to a 2-1 advantage. When the D-backs won behind Brian Anderson in game 4 against Maddux going on just 3 days rest, it was just a matter of time before the snakes would be popping the cork. They had 3 games to win 1 and Johnson and Schilling would pitch 2 of the 3 if needed. As it turned out, they needed only 7 innings from Johnson in game 5 to win the series 4-1. In this 5 game series, Johnson started 2 and Schilling 1. Between them, they pitched 25 of the team’s 45 innings (56%) and neither had started on 3 days rest yet. They gave up just 3 ER in those 25 innings, bringing their total for the 2 playoff series to 51 innings and 7 earned runs (1.24 ERA).

The D-backs would face the Yankees, who were gunning for their 4th world title in a row. Fortunately for them, Schilling and Johnson would be lined up to go in games 1 and 2 in the desert. The Yankees’ pitchers were no slouches. Mike Mussina and Andy Pettitte were 2-3 in the majors in FIP (behind Johnson) and Roger Clemens was 9th. Schilling was 6th. Game 1 pitted Schilling against Mussina but the D-backs blew up Mussina in the 4th and then Randy Choate in the 5th and the rout was on. Schilling pitched just 7 innings and the snakes won game 1 9-1. In game 2 it was Johnson against Pettitte and the Big Unit threw a 3-hit shutout to defeat the Yankees 4-0. 16 innings, 1 ER. Up 2 games to 1, Schilling started game 4 on 3 days rest. He had thrown 102 pitches in game 1 so it wasn’t like he got the night off b/c of their offensive explosion. Schilling threw 7 innings (88 pitches) and gave way to Byung-Hyun Kim in the 8th when the D-backs were able to take a 3-1 lead w/ 2 runs in the top half of the inning. On the verge of taking a 3-1 series lead, Kim imploded and the Yankees evened the series behind a 9th inning homer by Tino Martinez and a 10th inning Derek Jeter homer. 23 innings, 2 ER.

In game 5, Bob Brenly turned to Miguel Batista, resisting (for whatever reason) the urge to go w/ Johnson on short rest as well. This set up Johnson on regular rest in game 6 and Schilling on 3 days rest in game 7. Either way, Johnson and Schilling would pitch 2 of the final 3 games so you may as well have 1 of them on regular rest, right? Makes sense. In any case, Batista was terrific in game 5 but Kim blew another 2 run lead and then the Yanks got another run off Albie Lopez in the 12th to take a 3-2 series lead. They couldn’t go back to Phoenix down 3-2 w/ Johnson and Schilling looming. In game 6, the D-backs put Johnson on the hill and brought out the whoopin’ sticks as they hung 15 runs on Pettitte, Jay Witasick, and Choate. Johnson threw 7 innings and 104 pitches, giving up just 2 6th inning runs as they evened the series and set up Schilling on short rest against Clemens in game 7.

Schilling threw 7 innings of shutout ball and had a 1-0 lead entering the 8th. The Yanks, however, hung a 2-spot on Schilling in the top of the 8th and he gave way to Batista for 1 batter, and then Johnson after having thrown 103 pitches. Johnson pitched 1.1 innings as the D-backs rallied for 2 runs in the bottom of the 9th off Mariano Rivera and were the series champs. In the 7 games, Schilling threw 21.1 innings and Johnson threw 17.1 innings. Together, they threw 38.2 of the team’s 65 total innings pitched (59%), yielding just 6 earned runs for an ERA of 1.40. All told, the tandem threw 89.2 of the team’s 154.2 innings in the playoffs (58%).

The question I want to ask then is are Carpenter and Wainwright capable of carrying this team the way Schilling and Johnson did in 2001? My first inclination was to think that Johnson and Schilling in ’01 were much better than Carp and Wainwright this year – that they were clearly the 2 best pitchers in the majors. That wasn’t really true. Johnson was clearly the best but there were others, notably the 3 Yankees and a couple of Braves + a Cardinal (Morris) in the conversation. In ’01, Johnson’s FIP was 2.13 (best in baseball) and Schilling’s was 3.11 (6th). This year, Carp’s is 2.79 (4th) and Wainwright’s is 3.15 (11th). Fangraphs doesn’t record WAR for 2001 but maybe we can use WPA as a fair replacement. Johnson’s was 6.23 and Schilling’s was 5.56 – 1st and 2nd in the majors. Carp’s is 5.64 (2nd) and Wainwright’s is 4.11 (5th).

If you look at the 4 pitchers’ peripheral numbers, you notice that…

	K/9	BB/9	K/BB	HR/9	GB/FB	AVG	OBP	SLG
Johnson ‘01	13.41	2.56	5.24	0.68	0.63	.205	.274	.309
Schilling ‘01	10.27	1.37	7.51	1.30	0.64	.245	.273	.402
Carp ‘09	6.62	1.77	3.73	0.34	1.93	.224	.272	.312
Wainwright ‘09	8.09	2.54	3.19	0.67	1.71	.248	.297	.350

Schilling and Johnson were absolute freaks in 2001. Wainwright’s and Carpenter’s numbers are terrific this year but they pale in comparison to the D-backs pitchers 8 years ago. Carp and Wainer are much better at getting ground balls than the D-backs duo was and maybe that will help them keep the ball in the ballpark in the postseason, as it has in the regular season. Many of the runs that Johnson and Schilling gave up in the ’01 postseason were via the long ball. Hopefully, Carp and Wainer can make other teams get 3 hits in an inning in order to score. That said, they get a lot of ground balls and ground balls inevitably find holes. They’re just not power strikeout guys the way Johnson and Schilling were in ’01 so I think it’s a bit unreasonable to expect our guys to replicate Johnson’s and Schilling’s success in ’01.

That’s not to say that our aces don’t have the capability of leading the team to the championship. Johnson and Schilling didn’t have Albert Pujols in the middle of their order, after all. I believe our aces do have the capability of throwing 58% of our team’s innings in the postseason and, if they do, we’ll probably be very successful.

Game 156 Open Thread -- Sep 27, 2009

chuckb — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 18:49:42 -0000

It's Lohse against De La Rosa today. This may be Lohse's last opportunity to make a statement to Tony that he deserves any game 4 starts in the postseason. I hope he does well b/c I really would like to see Smoltz in the pen. If Lohse performs poorly, Smoltz pitches any game 4 and our already weak pen loses the possibility of adding Smoltz.

I'm inclined to think that Tony sends out our B lineup today but I think it'll be more our A minus lineup. I doubt we'll see Tony and I think that Albert will probably sit as well but the Rockies are still in a playoff chase w/ the Braves and Tony has too much respect for the game to load up w/ Pagnozzi, Freese, Thurston, etc.

BTW, for those who think we don't need a game 4 starter -- that we can use Carp and Wainer on short rest -- I'm going to politely disagree. Our pen is weak and Tony likes to ride his horses late into the game -- witness Wainwright's 130 pitch outing last night. There's no way he can ride these guys for 120+ pitches AND bring them back on short rest. If the pen was deeper and stronger, we could go w/ 3 starters and have Carp and Wainer throw 90 pitches or so. But he's going to stick w/ them as long as he can, which means that we're going to have to use either Lohse or Smoltz in any game 4.

Dodgers clinched a playoff spot last night and they'll clinch the West any day now. Might they be our first round opponent? Like the Phillies, their top 2 starters (Wolf and Kershaw) are lefties.

Game 155 Open Thread -- Sept. 26, 2009

chuckb — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 23:35:12 -0000

It's Wainwright against Jimenez. We're going against their best tonight -- an absolutely terrific pitcher. Lots of K's. Low GB rate.

Over the last 11 games, we've only scored 43 runs. Cubs have already won today. Maybe this is the night we get it done? Let's hope so. We're 0-5 against the Rockies this season.

It's Wainwright against Jimenez. We're going against their best tonight -- an absolutely terrific pitcher. Lots of K's. Low GB rate.

Over the last 11 games, we've only scored 43 runs. Cubs have already won today. Maybe this is the night we get it done? Let's hope so. We're 0-5 against the Rockies this season.

What did we learn last night?

chuckb — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 19:26:33 -0000

Tony did something very telling last night in the 9th, right before McClellan blew the game (btw, why is McClellan in the game there and not Franklin?). He double-switched Julio Lugo into the game in place of Rasmus. Skip went from 2nd to CF and Lugo went to 2nd base. This move told us a few things about Tony's thought process as we approach the postseason. First, Colby wasn't the obvious choice to be double-switched out of the game. He batted first in the top of the 9th so his spot was due up 7th. Ludwick and DeRosa followed in the 9th and if Tony wanted to put the pitcher's spot in the order as far away as possible, he could have put the pitcher in either of their spots. I expected him to replace Ludwick w/ Ankiel. Instead, we went w/ Lugo for Rasmus?

What does this tell us? First, though we probably knew this already, we have no backup third baseman. If we did, putting the pitcher in DeRosa's spot would have been the obvious choice. At best, Khalil Greene and Joe Thurston are emergency third basemen. If either of them were a halfway viable option, DeRosa would've left the game. Second, Tony's becoming increasingly comfortable w/ using Skip in CF. He started in CF Monday against lefty Wandy Rodriguez, giving us an inkling that he might do this in the playoffs against lefties as well. Third, Tony's more comfortable w/ Lugo against the righties in the Rockies' pen than he is w/ Ankiel? If the Cards get to the World Series, who'll be the DH? I had previously thought he'd use Ankiel against righties and Lugo against lefties. The fact that he chose Lugo last night (when Ankiel could've gone to CF as well) tells me that Lugo may be the full-time DH should we make it to the series. I'd have no problem w/ that one.

Last night McClellan entered the game w/ Mike McCoy -- pinch running for Todd Helton who walked -- on first base and no one out. The leverage index when he entered the game was 2.99. 1.00 is average. This was an extremely high leverage situation. The average leverage index that McClellan faced last night was his highest of the season, as it went up when Jason Giambi's single moved Troy Tulowitzki to third base w/ 1 out. The question is why was Ryan Franklin not in the game? I've never been a huge Franklin fan but he's our closer and he's been without question our best reliever this season. For the season, Franklin's gmLI -- his average leverage index when entering the game -- has been 2.16. McClellan's has been 1.18. Tony has routinely trusted Franklin w/ the game on the line, thus his status as the team's closer. So why, w/ a man on and no one out in the bottom of the ninth, is Tony turning to McClellan rather than Franklin? Will he do the same in a week and a half?

To a certain degree, I'm feigning shock and awe. I know the answer...but it's a stupid answer. The answer is the old school rationale that, when on the road, you only use your closer when you have a lead to save the game and you don't use him while the game's still tied. The problem w/ that logic, of course, is that, b/c McClellan lost the game, Franklin never got to pitch. Our best reliever never got in the game b/c our offense couldn't get him a lead. This makes no sense whatsoever. Tony's not the only one guilty of this mistake (and pardon me for questioning Tony here!) but it makes no sense to lose a game w/ an inferior pitcher on the mound when the better pitcher is in the pen, never having entered the game.

Managers should turn to their best relievers first, in those high leverage situations, and work backwards. If Franklin was tired from having pitched 2 days in a row, it would have been understandable. But w/ Franklin rested, and w/ his spot in the order not due up for another 7 batters had we made it to the 10th, there was no reason for Franklin not to be in the game. Perhaps Franklin would've lost the game as McClellan did. It's not like he's been pitching that great of late but McClellan's mediocre at best. Our biggest weakness right now is in middle relief from the right side as neither Motte nor McClellan are that good. It's fortunate that Carp and Wainwright can go so deep into games. But Franklin's there for a reason and there's no reason to lose a game like that one last night w/o him pitching. If he blows it, at least Tony used his best bullets. Is McClellan taking over for Franklin? Has Franklin lost the closer's job? I think we all know the answer to those questions. Tony should've turned to Franklin.

There are no talks of an extension right now between the Cards and Scott Boras re: Holliday. No surprise there. It's in Holliday's interest to wait to see what the Red Sox, Yankees, and Mets plan to do and if they're interested in his services this offseason. He's going to get 1 crack at it so he may as well make the most of it. I know everyone expects him to take a below-market deal to stay in St. Louis b/c he loves it here, but I think if he stays, we're going to have to pony up for some big bucks!

Boras sees Rick Ankiel as a valuable commodity who could be starting for many teams in the league. I hope he's right. I'd like to see Rick starting somewhere else next year and I wish him the best of luck. I'm skeptical that there's that much of a market for a 31 year old OF w/ exceptionally poor plate discipline. I see him as, at best, a platoon player but maybe I'm wrong. Good luck, Rick. Maybe you can come up w/ a big hit or 2 in the postseason and improve your market.

Thursday stuff

chuckb — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 03:31:31 -0000

The Cubs lost, leaving us w/ a magic # of 1. This means that we've clinched a tie for the division. God help us if we can't win 1 of our last 10.

Smoltz wasn't too bad in his 2nd start since his 10 day layoff. Of course, we still can't hit Bud Norris. If the plan is for Smoltz to pitch in the bullpen in the playoffs, isn't it time to see if he can warm up quickly and otherwise get his arm ready to pitch out of the pen?

The Cards voided the contract of Wagner Mateo based on some issue related to his vision. Put aside the notion that we might use those $3 M toward resigning Matt Holliday. The team's budget and the player development budget are 2 different budgets and 1 doesn't affect the other.

The team promoted 4 players and guess what...Allen Craig isn't among them. Why should they? With Troy Glaus a healthy, productive, right handed bat w/ power off the bench, why would we need another? Instead the team chose David Freese, Tyler Greene, Josh Kinney (who actually MIGHT play a role in the postseason) and Matt Pagnozzi, the prodigy behind the plate who "batted" a robust .221/.299/.308 in the hitter-friendly PCL this year.

Tony says that, despite team splits of .235/.312/.367 against lefties, we have nothing to worry about in the postseason. If that's true, why did he start Skip Schumaker in CF Monday against Wandy Rodriguez instead of Rasmus or Ankiel? Could it be b/c of this? Now, Skip's not a lot better against lefties and he certainly isn't better in CF than Rasmus, but he does give the team a slight improvement at the plate over Colby. Of course, it's doubtful that he's worth what he costs the team defensively but the very fact that Tony's experimenting w/ CF the way he is indicates that he's not completely sold on the team's ability to hit lefties. (I apologize for any suggestion here that the team is flawed, btw!) If you look at what would be the starting 8's splits vs. lefties as Cardinals this year they are .271/.357/.434 w/ Skip and .264/.350/.436 w/ Colby. Both are respectable. However, that's also w/ Albert getting 179 PAs -- approximately 20% of the total. Needless to say, in the postseason he'd get slightly more than 11% of the PAs. Ryan Ludwick, FWIW, has 2 homers against lefties in 142 PAs this season.

Finally, right now the Cards sit in 3rd place in the NL -- just behind the Dodgers and Phils -- in the race for home field throughout the playoffs. If the playoffs began today, we would play the Dodgers and the Phils would play the Rockies. I think the Dodgers are the team I'd prefer to play in the first round. Sure, they have Wolf and Kershaw but the Phils have Lee and Hamels. Ubaldo Jimenez is really tough and I'm not sure we're better off facing him twice out of 4 or 5 games than we would be facing him in a 7 game series. The Phils may have the weakest pen but they also have the best lineup. Which team would you prefer to face in the first round? Or...discuss whatever you want to discuss (as if you need my permission!).

Game Magic #4 Open Thread

chuckb — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 16:38:47 -0000

Zambrano against Wainwright.

Link to Holliday's home/road splits at fangraphs. Lots of numbers.

The team intends to add 4 minor leaguers Friday. One may be (gasp!) Allen Craig. One will almost certainly he who cannot hit -- Matt Pagnozzi. Jaime Garcia will not be among them.

The Chicago Sun-Times reports that discussions between Mark DeRosa and the Cards on an extension have been tabled. Perhaps the Cards have backed off on the idea of giving him the Lohse-treatment. Maybe they've learned something from it?

Ryan Franklin is doing a great job! He who shall not be criticized starts Monday against the 'stros. I guess we need to find out if he belongs on the postseason roster.

Zambrano against Wainwright.

Link to Holliday's home/road splits at fangraphs. Lots of numbers.

The team intends to add 4 minor leaguers Friday. One may be (gasp!) Allen Craig. One will almost certainly he who cannot hit -- Matt Pagnozzi. Jaime Garcia will not be among them.

Ryan Franklin is doing a great job! He who shall not be criticized starts Monday against the 'stros. I guess we need to find out if he belongs on the postseason roster.

Game whatever open thread

chuckb — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 18:58:21 -0000


Dempster	Carp

No numbers. It's a shame this site has become so hostile to stat-oriented analysis. Hope we win.


Dempster	Carp

No numbers. It's a shame this site has become so hostile to stat-oriented analysis. Hope we win.

Lohse's Lost Season

chuckb — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 02:29:59 -0000

"Kyle Lohse’s had a lost season." Big Al uttered those words during the ballgame last night. Based on last year’s results, the Cards were expecting a lot more from Lohse this year. It’s not unreasonable to think that, if he’s healthy this postseason, he could be a productive 4th starter in the playoffs, when one is needed, thereby allowing Smoltz to pitch from the pen. Let’s face it, this guy threw 200 innings last year w/ a 3.78 ERA. The guy won 15 games for a fairly pedestrian Cardinals team and received a lucrative long-term contract as a result.

This is the prevailing attitude among the Cards’ broadcasters and, undoubtedly, among the St. Louis media. I’m sure it’s the attitude of many in the Cards’ brass as well. Once this guy’s healthy, he’ll go back to being the 15-win, under-4 ERA-generating, 200-inning starter the Cards were counting on heading into the season. He’s not yet past his prime; he won’t turn 31 for another couple of weeks. He still has some good years ahead of him; this year’s undoubtedly a fluke.

If you look at the table below, you’ll see his true talent level. The reality is that he’s a much better pitcher than he’s been this season.

	ERA	K/9	BB/9	K/BB	HR/9	GB/FB	FIP	tRA
2001	5.68	6.38	2.89	2.21	1.59		5.16
2002	4.23	6.18	3.49	1.77	1.30	0.89	4.77	5.87
2003	4.61	5.82	2.01	2.89	1.25	0.95	4.29	5.21
2004	5.34	5.15	3.53	1.46	1.30	1.22	5.06	5.58
2005	4.18	4.33	2.22	1.95	1.11	1.31	4.55	5.67
2006	5.83	6.89	3.13	2.20	1.07	1.15	4.34	4.94
2007	4.62	5.70	2.66	2.14	1.03	0.89	4.53	5.36
2008	3.78	5.36	2.21	2.43	0.81	1.43	3.89	4.80
2009	4.83	5.72	2.95	1.94	1.16	1.16	4.57	5.25
Total	4.68	5.63	2.75	2.05	1.16	1.11	4.54	5.35

Tell me again, Al, which season is the outlier? The only season that stands out here as being unique is 2008 – the season that garnered him the big $40 M contract. It’s true that the number of innings pitched is different both in this year and in his rookie year – 2001. In that season, he threw just 90.1 innings and he’s thrown only 100.2 innings this year but the quality of the innings he’s thrown this year is about the same as he’s thrown every season of his career. I understand that the conventional wisdom in St. Louis is that Dave Duncan turned Lohse into a ground ball throwing machine and turned a #4 or #5 starter into a #2 or #3 starter but you’ll notice that his ground ball to fly ball ratio has reverted to his pre-2008 levels this year. That’s, of course, the primary reason his home run rate has risen – to his career average, I might add.

Has Lohse been a victim of bad luck this year? Nope. His BABIP is just .297 – 11 points below his career average. His HR/FB is 10.7%, only slightly above his career ratio – 10.1%. In fact, last year his HR/FB was 8.6% -- a full 1.5% below his career average, indicating that he was probably pretty fortunate last season.

The point here isn’t that Kyle Lohse sucks. He’s not Todd Wellemeyer. He’s not Adam Wainwright, either. He is what he is – a #4 or #5 starter who has some value when he can throw 180-200 innings and is a liability at an $8-10 M salary when he’s pitching half that many. This is not, as Al claims, a "lost season" for Lohse. He’s not simply been a victim of injuries. All the injuries have done is reduce the number of innings he’s thrown. They haven’t made him pitch worse. He’s pitching worse b/c he simply isn’t as good as he led many to believe last season.

Can he be a viable 4th starter in the playoffs should we need one? Perhaps, but he shouldn’t be expected to shut down the competition. He’s not "a much better pitcher than he’s shown this year." He’s worse than what he showed last year. What we’ve witnessed this year is a half-year sample of Lohse’s true talent level.

Comparing Cards' Champs

chuckb — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 04:03:12 -0000

With the regular season nearing an end, I thought that now would be a pretty good time to take a look at the ’09 team in comparison w/ the ’04, ’05, and ’06 teams. How good is this team compared to the 100-win teams or the team that won the World Series? I compared the main hitters on the 4 teams by wOBA, UZR/150, and WAR. I compared th pitchers using FIP and WAR. For players who came over mid-season, I used their full season numbers so that we could more accurately compare the quality of the players rather than the amount of their contributions to the team.

The 2004 Cardinals:

Pos	Player	wOBA/FIP	UZR/150	WAR
C	Matheny	.273		0.4
1B	Pujols	.439	3.6	7.9
2B	Womack	.330	4.9	2.8
SS	Renteria	.312	0.4	1.9
3B	Rolen	.421	22.1	8.8
LF	Sanders	.341	10.3	2.2
CF	Edmonds	.436	1.3	8.1
RF	Walker	.432	0.7	3.2
SP1	Carp	3.85		3.2
SP2	Morris	4.93		1.1
SP3	Williams	4.10		2.7
SP4	Suppan	4.77		1.3
SP5	Marquis	4.55		1.9
MR	Kline	3.68		0.5
SU	Tavarez	2.92		1.3
CL	Izzy	3.02		1.1
Total WAR				48.4

The ’05 Cardinals:

Pos	Player	wOBA/FIP	UZR/150	WAR
C	Molina	.282		0.9
1B	Pujols	.436	1.0	7.7
2B	Grudz	.321	9.9	3.0
SS	Eckstein	.335	-3.6	3.4
3B	Rolen	.308	21.7	1.5
LF	Sanders	.384	-5.5	2.1
CF	Edmonds	.386	9.7	5.9
RF	Walker	.382	-12.2	2.0
SP1	Carp	2.90		6.8
SP2	Morris	3.99		2.7
SP3	Mulder	4.30		2.2
SP4	Suppan	4.53		1.5
SP5	Marquis	4.95		0.7
MR	Reyes	3.12		1.1
SU	Tavarez	4.01		0.3
CL	Izzy	3.60		0.7
Total WAR				42.5

And now for the World Champs:

Pos	Player	wOBA/FIP	UZR/150	WAR
C	Molina	.261		-0.2
1B	Pujols	.448	4.5	7.7
2B	Belliard	.313	-0.8	1.3
SS	Eckstein	.310	-0.6	1.5
3B	Rolen	.373	14.4	5.6
LF	Duncan	.399	-7.5	2.0
CF	Edmonds	.350	7.6	2.6
RF	Encarnacion	.320	7.1	1.1
SP1	Carp	3.44		5.2
SP2	Suppan	4.70		1.7
SP3	Weaver	5.47		0.5
SP4	Mulder	6.01		-0.4
SP5	Marquis	5.90		-0.6
MR	Looper	3.46		1.0
SU	Wainwright	3.31		1.1
CL	Izzy	5.70		-1.0
Total WAR				29.1

How in the hell did that team win the World Series? Especially when the others didn’t!

And this year’s Cards (all numbers are to date and are not final – duh!)

Pos	Player	wOBA/FIP	UZR/150	WAR
C	Molina	.331		2.9
1B	Pujols	.460	0.8	8.2
2B	Skip	.335	-6.9	1.0
SS	Ryan	.317	14.4	3.0
3B	DeRosa	.330	-6.8	1.6
LF	Holliday	.391	2.1	5.0
CF	Rasmus	.320	14.0	2.6
RF	Ludwick	.341	1.0	1.9
SP1	Carp	2.75		5.1
SP2	Wainwright	3.25		4.9
SP3	Pineiro	3.02		5.0
SP4	Lohse	4.57		0.7
SP5	Wellemeyer	5.26		-0.1
MR	Miller	3.48		0.4
SU	McClellan	4.18		0.1
CL	Franklin	3.27		0.9
Total WAR				43.2

Game 144 Open Thread -- September 13, 2009

chuckb — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 16:10:17 -0000


Vazquez	Carp
2.80 FIP	2.71 FIP

This ought to be a good game. It's our best against their best. No one really appreciates how good Vazquez has been this season but he's been fantastic. That's what's ridiculous about using wins and losses to evaluate pitchers. Carp's 16-3 and Vazquez is 12-9 but Vazquez has been every bit the pitcher this year that Carp has. His K/BB ratio is 5.20.

The Cards have been swept at home 3 times this season -- once by the Phils in a 2 game series in early May, in a 3 game series by the Brewers in mid-May, and by the (gulp!) Rockies in a 4 game series in early June. Interestingly, while Wainwright started a game in all 3 series, Carp didn't start a game in ANY of them. Sounds like we'll win this one, right?


Vazquez	Carp
2.80 FIP	2.71 FIP

Franklin's making me want to have some franklins!

chuckb — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 15:59:33 -0000

How fortunate are we to have been able to avoid this conversation until September 13? Our closer situation, one that was uncertain in the spring and a source of consternation on the first game of the season, has been a non-issue all season long…until now. Ryan Franklin’s made people not need to toss back a few franklins in order to survive the angst of the last couple innings but now the postseason’s approaching. It’s the wrong time for him to have some iffy outings.

I think we all know that Franklin’s been overreaching all year long. A 1-something ERA just isn’t sustainable for someone of Franklin’s skill set. Nevertheless, his ability to throw strikes, and throw them to his spots, has been a primary factor in his success this season. As you’ll see below, however, his control has gotten shakier as the season’s gone along.

	ERA	K/9	BB/9	GB%	Strike%
April	0.00	7.84	1.74	46.2	70.8
May	2.79	5.59	2.79	48.4	64.7
June	0.00	5.00	0.00	37.9	69.1
July	2.31	7.71	2.31	46.9	73.7
August	0.00	3.27	4.91	42.9	62.7
September	16.20	10.80	13.50	46.2	55.8

So there’s a big difference in August and September from the previous 4 months. Despite giving up no earned runs in August, he walked 6 batters in 11 innings and struck out just 4. In just 3.1 innings in September, he’s already walked 5 batters. His ability to get ground balls hasn’t really changed all season long, so that’s not the issue. It’s all about his control. It stands to reason that if he’s walking more hitters over the last 2 months, he’s also missing more spots within the zone. He’s, therefore, getting hit harder. His slugging % against this month is .611 – higher than his OPS against in every other month except May.

It almost seems that Franklin might be tiring but he’s a former starter. So far this season, he’s tossed just 55 innings but he threw 80 innings in 2007 and 78.2 last year. Last year June and July were his worst 2 months – between innings 25.1 and 52. He was very good in August and September, from innings 52 – 78.2. In ’07, he was fantastic (though, like this year, very lucky) the first 4 months of the season before struggling in August and struggling mightily in September. Sound familiar? He was great the first 54.1 innings, not great the next 13.1, and horrible the last 12.1. Unlike this year, however, his problem in ’07 wasn’t walks. It was home runs allowed. He was hit hard but not b/c he had a hard time finding the strike zone (apparently).

In looking at his velocities on fangraphs, and then his pitch f/x numbers from brooksbaseball, there’s nothing in his fastball velocity to indicate he’s tiring. He’s been consistently above 91 mph since June and averaged 91.07 yesterday. There’s nothing really that stands out except that he’s throwing more splitters now than he did at any point in the season. Early in the season, he was basically a fastball, cutter, curve ball guy but nearly a quarter of the pitches he’s thrown in September have been splitters/changeups. Yesterday 7 of his 25 pitches were classified as changeups (splitters). That’s 28%. The other thing that stands out is that his splitter has been clocked around 84-85 mph all season long but yesterday it was clocked at an average of 86.23 mph. Maybe it’s an insignificant difference but maybe dialing it up an extra mph reduces its movement a little.

Why is he throwing more splitters? I don’t know. Maybe it’s b/c he’s getting behind w/ his other pitches and so he’s throwing it in lieu of a fastball in fastball counts. Maybe he’s feeling less confident in his other pitches right now. Maybe he got pounded yesterday b/c he hadn’t pitched in several days. Clearly, I don’t have the answer. Dave Duncan doesn’t either:

"I don’t know if they hit good pitches, or if he had too many balls in the middle, or what. Nobody’s perfect," pitching coach Dave Duncan said.

The ball McCann smoked to center was a 2-strike pitch right down the middle, about belt-high. Not a good pitch at all.

I’m not sure what the answer is but clearly this is something that has to get fixed in the next couple of weeks. If we can’t close out games in October, we’ll be in big trouble. I was expecting to see some 4+ out saves in the postseason as it was. The good news is that in ’06 we were less settled in the 9th than we are now and we ended up ok so at least there’s time to work things out. The problem is that even when Franklin’s throwing strikes consistently he doesn’t miss many bats. Our right-handed relief is my main source of concern going into the postseason and Franklin’s doing nothing to alleviate that right now.

Game 143 Open Thread -- September 12, 2009

chuckb — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 14:36:39 -0000


Hudson	Lohse
2.27 FIP	4.43 FIP

Tim Hudson's been sensational in his first 2 starts since returning from Tommy John surgery. Of course, it was just 2 starts against the Marlins and Reds but they have to be happy w/ what they've seen. He's always been a ground ball pitcher so we've gotta make him elevate the ball.

This is a pretty big start for Lohse. He may be pitching for any playing time at all in the postseason. He's making his first start in three weeks and, considering how well Smoltz has pitched, Lohse may not get the opportunity to make those game 4 starts in October. If not, he becomes the guy at the end of the pen who only pitches in extra innings or blowouts. He's gotta prove to Dunc and Tony that he deserves a more prominent role.


Hudson	Lohse
2.27 FIP	4.43 FIP

Prelude to Postseason Production

chuckb — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 14:26:49 -0000

In August, the team averaged 4.46 runs per game, a total that is just about league average for the season (4.43) and would place us tied for 8th in the league in runs per game. It’s a bit of a concern that the team, despite its improvements, is still having trouble scoring runs. September’s been a little different (thankfully) as the team, including last night, is averaging 5.3 runs per game. That’s not to say that they’ll keep it up in the postseason, of course, especially considering the competition we’ve played for most of the month, but it’s nice to see what the offense is capable of once it gets going. The problem is that it’s still an offense that’s driven by our #3, #4, and #5 hitters.

Pujols and Holliday have picked it up in September but they were our best hitters in August as well. The main difference between the 2 months has been the hitting of Ryan Ludwick. Take a look:

	Aug. wOBA	Sept. wOBA
Pujols	.459	.595
Holliday	.391	.513
Ludwick	.271	.494
Ryan	.358	.334
Molina	.335	.396
Lugo	.320	.421
Rasmus	.318	.288
DeRosa	.317	.257
Schumaker	.316	.305

The major improvement by Ludwick, and unsustainable production from Pujols and Holliday, mask the poor months that DeRosa and Schumaker have had. When the leadoff hitter’s unable to reach base, you’re going to have a hard time scoring runs but another problem is the fact that Brendan Ryan’s been in the 2 hole 14 times over the last 6 weeks. Now, I’ve got no problem w/ him batting first or 2nd against lefties. He’s hit them fairly well for his career. That’s not true, however, for his production against righties. For his career, his splits against righties are..265/.314/.371.

Tony’s tried a lot of guys in the 2 hole this year, w/ Rasmus getting the most opportunities w/ 292 PAs in that spot. Though his OPS is .776 in those 292 PAs, there’s a good argument to be made that perhaps he doesn’t belong in that spot. Still, that .776 OPS is higher than Ryan’s this year – in the 2 hole or not. The real problem, of course, is that Tony’s married to Pujols, Holliday, and Ludwick in the 3, 4, and 5 spots. Lugo in the 2 hole is a good idea if he’s going to use Ryan to lead off against lefties but I’d rather see Holliday or Pujols in the 2 hole w/ the other batting 4th. I’m basing that on Sky Kalkman’s tutorial on optimizing a lineup based on The Book.

Our best hitters ought to be hitting 1st, 2nd, and 4th and, since I like Pujols hitting in the first inning (as Tony does, btw) I’d like to see Pujols 2nd and Holliday 4th. Bat Ludwick 5th and Rasmus 3rd maybe. We could use DeRosa in the 3 hole as well. Nevertheless, getting creative w/ the batting order isn’t going to cure the problems we had in August if Ludwick fails to hit in the postseason. If Ludwick isn’t hitting, teams will just walk Pujols repeatedly (they may do that anyway) and take their chances w/ Holliday. As I’ve said myriad times, I welcome the walks to Pujols since it almost always increases our chances of scoring more runs but that means that Holliday and Ludwick are going to have to come through.

Stuff

chuckb — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 03:47:12 -0000

A few random thoughts on this off day:

First of all, great stuff by Dave Cameron over at fangraphs re: Albert. In 6 games, his WPA has been 1.38.

Second, there's been some discussion here over the last week about the merits of "pitching to contact" vs. being a strikeout pitcher. The notion is that getting an out on 1 pitch is better than getting strikeouts b/c strikeouts increase pitchers' pitch counts so the best way to have your starter pitch deep into games is to have him "pitch to contact." The problem is that this is a false comparison. Of course, getting an out on 1 pitch is better than getting an out on 3 pitches (provided the 1 pitch doesn't allow base runners to move up or score!) but when a batter puts a ball into play, it doesn't always end up an out. Strikeouts end up as outs nearly 100% of the time.

NL batters have 75,182 ABs so far this season -- 15,516 of which have ended w/ a strikeout. Of the 59,666 balls put in play, 19,468 of them have resulted in base hits (.326). So nearly a third of the balls put in play this season in the NL have led to the batter reaching base successfully. 11% of the base hits have ended in home runs and another 22.7% have resulted in doubles and triples. Exactly 0% of the strikeouts this year in the NL have ended in extra base hits. Additionally, another 766 batters have reached base successfully via the error. All told, nearly 34% of the time a ball is put in play, the batter reaches base successfully and many of those have resulted in extra base hits. That's approximately 34% more often than batters reach base successfully when struck out. (I'll acknowledge that a handful of batters have reached base this season when struck out, due to a passed ball or wild pitch. Still, that number has to be extremely small.) Additionally, there have been 595 sacrifice flies in the NL so far this season. This means, of course, that runners have scored nearly 600 times JUST ON FLY BALLS b/c the ball was put in play.

Additionally, there's the argument that pitching to contact is better than strikeouts b/c sometimes a double play is better than a strikeout. That's true, of course. 2 outs are better than 1. However, the league strikeout % for pitchers is 18.1% The league's DP% for pitchers is 11%. That is to say that the average NL pitcher is 7% more likely to get a strikeout than a double play in a DP situation and the likelihood of a batter reaching base when he hits the ball is 3 times greater than the likelihood of him hitting into a double play. Therefore, in most cases, I'd rather NOT intentionally walk hitters to set up the double play. Why add an extra base runner when a DP just isn't that likely? Among Cards' pitchers, only Joel Pineiro, Kyle McClellan, Blake Hawksworth, and Brad Thompson are more likely to get a DP than a K.

The comparison of a 1-pitch out to a 3-pitch strikeout is therefore incomplete. The best way to limit pitchers' pitch counts is to limit the number of batters they face and the best way to do that is to avoid allowing batters to reach base successfully. Batters have reached base successfully more than 20,000 times so far this season just by putting the ball in play -- 20,234 to be exact. I'd be willing to bet that's 20,000 MORE TIMES than batters have reached base successfully via the strikeout. Anyone want to take that bet? It's hard to score and hard to run up pitch counts when they're making u-turns to the dugout.

Ground balls are good, to be sure, as long as batters are putting the ball in play. Grounders are less likely to end up as extra base hits and hardly ever end up as homers. But they do end up as hits fairly often. All things equal, in a big game, I'd rather have Chris Carpenter and his 6.97 K/9 and 55.4% GB%, or Adam Wainwright and his 7.68 K/9 and 51.5% GB% on the mound than Joel Pineiro and his 4.26 K/9 and 61.2% GB%.

Perhaps this weekend I'll have a chance to get into Derrick Goold's ridiculous article yesterday on the prospect of Matt Holliday receiving some MVP consideration this season. I suppose it's not ridiculous that people might vote for him, but realize that his WAR in the NL is lower than Colby Rasmus's and it's far lower than Manny Ramirez's was last season. I guess I'm not saying it's ridiculous that people might vote for him. I'm saying it's ridiculous to consider him worthy of MVP consideration. Additionally, he points out that Chris Carpenter is putting on a Rick Sutcliffe-like show and may warrant the Cy Young despite having fewer IP, CG, shutouts, WAR, RAR and many other stats than Tim Lincecum. I love Carp as much as the next guy but at some point don't we have to set aside our fandom and evaluate these guys somewhat objectively? Particularly if we're newspaper reporters? I can understand Cards' fans pushing for Carp to win the Cy, but objectively, if the season ended today, he simply doesn't deserve it. 2nd? Maybe. 3rd? Maybe. 4th? No way! Lincecum's the best pitcher in the NL and has demonstrated that throughout the season. Wins or not, he's deserving of the award and it's really difficult to objectively argue otherwise. As a Cards' fan, I'd love to see Carp win it but as someone who also loves intellectual honesty, I have a difficult time stomaching voting for anyone except Lincecum first.