SB Nation User Blog: lboros

Game 98 Open Thread: July 18 2008

lboros — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 18:34:14 -0000


Maddux	Looper
3-8, 3.90	9-7, 4.25

will this be the last time greg maddux pitches in st. louis? he has won 14 games in our city, and 26 against the franchise (against 20 losses). one of the best hurlers ever, and one of my favorite players.

Game 97 Open Thread: July 17 2008

lboros — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 20:40:24 -0000


peavy	lohse
7-5, 2.47	11-2, 3.39

somehow it has escaped everyone's notice that nick stavinoha, the lone st louis farmhand in last night's triple A all-star game, launched a 9th-inning comeback for the PCL stars. with his team down 2-0, he led off with a single against blaine neal (an olympic team pitcher) and came around to score the first of 6 PCL runs in the inning. milwaukee prospect luis pena pert near blew it in the bottom of the 9th, giving up 3 runs but hanging on to close out a 6-5 PCL win. way to go, nick.

jake peavy is one of only 3 pitchers who has a cumulative ERA under 3.00 over the last 5 years, ie since the beginning of 2004 (minimum 50 starts). the other two are roger clemens and johan santana. chris carpenter ranks 4th on that list, with a 3.15 overall ERA; smoltz, sheets, harden, halladay, zambrano, and webb round out the top 10.

if he wins his next 2 decisions, lohse will have 10 Ws in a row. anybody know the last st louis pitcher to achieve that? (i don't know the answer . . . . )

play ball

lboros — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 12:11:51 -0000

not-quite random musings as the season resumes . . . .

you gotta read HC's FanPost about Dan Uggla's awful all-star game ---- probably the worst performance by an all-star in history. but uggla shouldn't feel too bad; a lot of great players had lousy days / nights in the ASG . . . .
wanna know how previous wild-card leaders at the all-star break have fared in recent years? eventual playoff teams in bold:

2007 dodgers, indians

2006 dodgers, white sox

2005 braves, twins

2004 giants, red sox

2003 phillies, red sox

half the teams went on to make the playoffs; 50-50 are the baseline odds for a team in the cardinals’ position. but the odds must be somewhat less for this particular wild-card leader, insofar as it leads by the slimmest possible margin (half a game) and is being chased by a team that has cc sabathia and ben sheets in its rotation. Baseball Prospectus gives st louis a 34 percent chance of playing october baseball; i’ll accept that without argument and without complaint.
speaking of sheets and sabathia, they’ll start the brewers’ first two games coming out of the all-star break, on friday and saturday; that puts them in line to pitch wednesday and thursday at busch III, the last two games of the cards’ important 4-game set w/ the brewers. the cards are set to oppose them with looper and wellemeyer; pineiro and lohse will pitch games 1 and 2. the cards had a 4-game set at home with milwaukee last july too, and it proved to be a pivotal one; the cards had been planning to be sellers at the deadline, then changed minds after winning 3 of 4 in that series; kept their season alive for another 6 weeks. i wonder how the results of this year’s 4-game set w/ milwaukee will alter the buyer / seller matrix. short of a milwaukee sweep, i can’t imagine that it would change the cards’ current status (buyers) . . . .
did you know the cardinals have one of the best offenses in the league in road games? they’re 3rd in the league in runs per game away from home (5.2), 1st in batting average, 1st in obp, 2nd in homers, and 3d in slugging. at home they rank 12th in runs per game and no higher than 6th in any statistical category.
the cards have taken more plate appearances against lhp than any other team in baseball; not surprising, given their apparent weakness vs southpaws. yet they’re holding their own vs left-handers --- 6th in the nl in ops.
the cards, as per their custom, lead the league in hitting line drives --- 589 of them so far, or just over 6 a game. as i noted back in may, they have ranked at or near the top of the league in this category for several years running, mainly (i assume) because they have pujols roping the ball every night . . . .
their batting average on groundballs continues to plummet. i’ve been tracking that stat for a couple of months --- back on may 5 they were hitting .276 on grounders, 50 points above the league average and clearly an unsustainable figure. by the end of the month their gb batting average had dipped to .263; it now stands at .246, 3d in the league behind playoff rivals milwaukee and chicago. they’re approaching the equilibrium point --- they’re at .246 overall, and .233 since may 5. probably will stabilize at around .240 . . .
the cards lead the league in on-base percentage by batters leading off an inning, at .352. they’re 2nd to the dodgers in preventing the first batter of an inning from reaching base, holding those batters to a .299 obp. without running any numbers, i bet that discrepancy alone is worth enough runs to turn a .500 team into one that’s 10 games over . . . . oh what the hell, let’s at least eyeball some numbers. according to BR’s run expectancy matrix, getting the leadoff man on base in a particular inning is worth about half a run. compared to an average team, the cardinal offense has put about 30 extra runners on base leading off innings --- that’s +15 runs. and the pitchers have allowed 27 fewer leadoff baserunners than an average team; that’s worth +12.5 runs. so that means their skill at the beginnings of innings is worth nearly +3 wins, which amounts to most (but not all) of their +5-win advantage over .500. (read it carefully --- a .500 team would have 48 wins, and the cards have 53 ---- +5 wins). . . . .
using this guy’s system for ranking the pre-season predictors, i currently have 51 points ----- which would land me solidly in the middle of the pack of pro prognosticators. i forecast the mets, brewers, and dbacks to win the nl divisions, and the red sox, indians, and angels in the junior circuit. at 51 points, i’m leading jonah keri of BP fame by 1 point; ahead of tom verducci, rob neyer, and most of the espn staff; and within spitting distance of keith law and john heyman. my only clunker pick so far is cleveland; if the mets and / or brewers move up in the standings i’ll gain some points, but if the dbacks continue to suck i might lose a few points there.
re the rumor (overmuch discussed) that st louis might be willing to trade colby rasmus for xavier nady or the like --- just ignore it. we all know how rumors like that get started: the pittsburgh GM wants to create some buzz around xavier nady and/or jason bay, to drive up the asking price for those players. so he lets it drop that the cardinals are really interested (which they might be), and that colby rasmus's name has come up in the discussions (which it might have ---- only to be quickly shot down, but he doesn't mention that). a writer "overhears" this (note the verb), but he knows there's probably not much to it so he doesn't put it into print. but he does have a source, and it's a juicy tidbit --- perfect for his blog, where there's a higher tolerance for rumor / gossip.

All-Star Game overflow

lboros — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 02:28:39 -0000

pre-programmed thread ---- not watching the game, have no idea who is starring tonight. go NL go!

All-Star Game Open Thread

lboros — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 19:17:53 -0000

sheets (10-3, 2.85) vs lee (12-2, 2.31). when i was a kid, the national league won this game every year; from the time i was 6 years old until i was 19, the al only won it one time. but in the last 20 years, the national league has won just 3 times --- and they mustered a tie one year . . . . . .

i attended the 1984 all-star game at candlestick park in san francisco. the nl starter that night? the immortal charlie lea . . . . .

kyle and jarrod

lboros — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 13:13:10 -0000

programming notes: first of all, there will be a game thread tonight for the ASG. second item: i'll be on vacation next week. thanks to HC and Valatan, who've agreed to sit in for me.

suppose kyle lohse was willing to settle for a 3-year deal to stay in st louis --- what would be a fair price to keep him around?

this is a purely hypothetical exercise; i have no idea if lohse would settle for 3 years or not. i do know the cardinals are unlikely to offer more than 3 years --- unless i’m mistaken, the only pitchers they’ve offered 4 or more guaranteed years to in recent years are carpenter, wainwright, and aj burnett. they also probably offered mike hampton more years than that back in 2000 (and good thing he didn’t take it). . . . . i also know that lohse is very happy in st louis and, after last year’s off-season in purgatory, not enthusiastic about trying to max out his earnings on the free-agent market. if the cardinals make a fair offer, he might very well take it even if it means leaving money on the table. and yes, i know lohse’s agent is scott boras, who never leaves money on the table. after last season --- and after a rough winter for boras, which included a very humiliating calling-out by alex rodriguez --- boras ain’t quite as scary as he used to be. if the cardinals want lohse to stay, and he wants to stay too, boras can’t force him into free agency. i realize that’s what happened w/ jeff weaver after 2006; it doesn’t necessarily follow that it will happen that way w/ lohse after 2008.

hopefully most of you are still down w/ the premise: if the team and the player agree that 3 years is an acceptable length, then what’s the pitcher worth?

we gotta start w/ the cards’ payroll situation, which we were discussing yesterday in the context of a possible jarrod washburn acquisition. st louis already has $25m tied up for 2009 in 3 starting pitchers --- carpenter ($14m), pineiro ($8m), and wainwright ($2.6m). they’ll have cost-controlled internal options available to fill out the rotation in wellemeyer (arb eligible next year i think), mcclellan, boggs, garcia, mortensen, todd, and parisi. anthony reyes will probably be gone. if wellemeyer is sound, that looks like plenty of material with which to assemble a pretty decent rotation, with the potential to be very good ---- and it’s already paid for. so if the cards decide not to allocate their dollars to lohse, they won’t necessarily leave themselves exposed in the rotation. but here’s the other side of the argument: all three of the top 3 men in that projected rotation (carp welley wainwright) have some injury issues, while lohse has a clean health record. and you can never have too much pitching . . . . .

let’s look at the rest of the team. they probably won’t (and shouldn’t) be signing any high-priced outfielders; ankiel / ludwick / rasmus project as the starting trio, and schumaker / mather / barton / duncan provide plenty of fodder for the bench. no need to spend a lot of money there. they’ll be spending more money naturally anyway --- ankiel and luddy will both be arb eligible and will get substantial raises (probably into the $5m range), while molina’s salary will double to $3.3m next season. they’re set at the infield corners and at catcher; the only need is at middle infield, and they’ll probably only make one high-priced expenditure there (if any). as for the bullpen: if mcclellan moves to the rotation, the only known holdovers in the ’pen will be perez franklin and brad thompson; izzy seems unlikely to be back, springer might retire, and the left-handers . . . well, who needs ’em? they have plenty of rhrp candidates in the high minors (motte, salas, worrell, jess todd, parisi, possibly boggs) but no left-handers; they might need to spend a few million to sign one.

so a quick n dirty roster matrix, lising only the guys already under control for next year:

ROTATION	carp, wagonmaker, pineiro, welley, +1 promotion from memphis	$26m
LINEUP	ludwick, ankiel, rasmus, pujols, glaus, kennedy, ryan, molina	$45m or so
BULLPEN	franklin, perez, thompson, and internal promotions	$3.5m commited so far
BENCH	ryan, plus 2 of duncan / schu / barton / mather	$1.5m
COMMITTED		$76m
NEEDS	starting 2b or ss, lh reliever(s), backup c and if	$15m - $20m (est)

ok; this leaves us with a payroll of $90 to $95m, which leaves the cards somewhere around $10m below their self-imposed ceiling. that’s the amount they can afford to throw at kyle lohse (or some other pitcher) without leaving themselves short in other areas of the roster --- ie, without skimping on a starting ss or an lhrp. when discussing washburn yesterday, i had blanched at the idea of committing $10m to another starting pitcher, because i thought it would tie up too much in the rotation and leave the team short elsewhere on the roster; having looked at it more carefully, i now think a $10m pitcher is an affordable luxury.

is lohse worth it? well, let’s put it this way: if jeff suppan and carlos silva and gil meche and jarrod washburn are worth $10m a year --- and i am not necessarily agreeing they are worth that money, but that’s what the market valued them at --- then lohse most definitely is worth it. his performance this year is not a mirage --- his FIP (3.67) is very close to his ERA (3.39), a strong indicator that he hasn’t just been getting lucky. in fact, lohse’s FIPs (see his fangraphs page) have been very consistent throughout his career, and consistently decent --- almost always in the 4.50 range. compare his FIPs to suppan’s --- very similar. lohse has a slightly lower home-run rate than usual this year, because he’s pitching in a pitcher’s park instead of in a bandbox, and his BABIP is down just a tick, because he has a great defense behind him; on the whole, though, i think his performance is largely sustainable. indeed, he has sustained it since coming to the national league in august 2006. in that 2-year span, lohse has a suppanish 23-19 / 4.22 mark --- the 14th-best era among nl pitchers over that period. he’s been almost exactly as good as suppan over that span (supps is 21-20, 4.28) and about as good as guys like aaron harang (24-21, 4.07) and brad penny (27-17, 4.23) --- although both of the latter, it should be noted, play in front of much weaker defenses than lohse currently does. given his age (he turns 30 in december), his spotless health record, and the consistency of his FIPs (which --- say it with me, people --- are highly predictive of future performance), lohse is a very good bet to pitch 190 innings for each of the next 3 years with eras in the 4.00 range.

is that worth $10m a year? on a one-year deal, it’s definitely worth it; on a 3-year deal, i don’t think it’s worth it to the cardinals. let me repeat the last 3 words --- to the cardinals. it might make sense for some other franchise to make that investment, and for lohse’s sake i hope somebody gives it to him. but i don’t think the cardinals need the pitching that badly, particularly in years 2 and 3 of the hypothesized contract. by then the cards are almost certain to have one or more pitchers available internally (read: very cheaply) who are at least as good as lohse --- not potentially as good, but actually as good. that pitcher or pitchers won’t necessarily be ready in 2009, although they might be; but by 2010, i’m confident that one or more youngsters from that group i listed above (garcia, mortensen, et al) will have stepped forward and gotten himself established as a reliable big-league starter --- much as wainwright did in 2006-07. in which case, spending $10m on kyle lohse for those years would be a waste of money. if he'd give a deep discount --- say, 3 years at $8.5m per --- i would be more interested, because then lohse would more likely be an appealing trade commodity if the cards wound up w/ a surplus. another possibility would be to offer $10m per year, but front-load the deal --- offer him $13m for 2009 and $8.5m each for 2010-11; the avg annual salary is $10m, but the cards preserve payroll flexibility / tradeability.

that’s my opinion; yours may differ. discuss below.

now, let me cycle back around to jarrod washburn. the more i think about this guy, the more i like the idea of picking him up. the first thing to like about it is that, reportedly, the mariners aren’t asking for much in return; they just want a team to pick up his salary, which is about $4m for the balance of 2008 and $10m in 2009. as i said above, i now believe the cards can afford a $10m pitcher next season --- and the obligation to washburn would end after 2009, when the cards’ farm system is ready to produce solid replacements. unlike the make-believe 3-year commitment to lohse, this one is of an acceptable length, and --- better yet --- it makes the team better this year, when they’re fighting for a playoff spot. if the cards can acquire him without losing any prospects who matter, it is almost the equivalent of getting a free-agent signing midseason --- it would cost the team money but not talent. and the opportunity cost wouldn’t be particularly high, either --- ie, it probably wouldn’t block a deserving youngster from promotion.

is jarrod washburn a good pitcher? a lot of you think he sucks, but i refer you again to his FIPs --- mirror images of lohse’s and suppan’s. but he has compiled them in the dh league, which means he’s actually been slightly better than those two. for those of you who don’t really like FIP, check out washburn’s actual era’s --- again, very consistent. once you adjust for the dh, he’s been the nl-equivalent of a low-4.00s pitcher for 6 years in a row. and that includes this season, in which his numbers have been distorted by terrible defense. in his career, washburn has given up a .220 batting average on groundballs, which is right around average. but this year, batters are hitting .273 against him on grounders --- that’s a freaky stat and not likely to continue. and a good cardinal infield is likely to turn some of those groundball base hits into outs. if we apply washburn’s career average on grounders (.220) to his current-year line, he yields 7 fewer base hits, which translates to 5 fewer runs --- and an era of 4.40, rather than 4.83. again, that’s a 4.40 era in the dh league; in the nl, it’s more like 4.00 to 4.15. in other words, jeff suppan . . .

in every area that lies partly or wholly under a pitcher’s control --- k rate, bb rate, hr rate, gb rate, ld rate --- washburn is at or near his career averages; he’s not pitching worse this season than usual, he’s just getting worse results. but his results are due to improve as long as he keeps throwing the ball the same way. indeed, they are already improving. washburn had a dreadful stretch in may, which ended with a 2-inning, 9-run pounding at the hands of the tigers on may 21. but in 9 starts since then, washburn has an era of 3.02 and an opponent ops of .732. while the cardinals do have more talented pitchers in their organization --- including boggs, garcia, maybe mortensen and todd --- they don’t have more reliable pitchers than washburn; it often takes time for talent to translate into big-league performance. boggs might be better than washburn some day, but he clearly isn’t at this moment in time --- witness his upside-down k/bb ratio (12 ks, 17 bbs) in his short stint with the cards. we’ll find out soon enough how readily jaime garcia's talent translates to the big leagues. (for what it’s worth, john sickels agrees with azruavatar that garcia probably needs some more time at triple A.)

it is reasonable for the cards to give garcia a chance and see how he fares; if he does well, then maybe there’s no need to add a veteran for the stretch run. but if jaime struggles --- and if washburn can be acquired for a second- or third-tier prospect such as, let’s say, mke parisi --- then i think he’d improve the team in the short run without hamstringing them in the long run. and that’s the idea, right? get better today without messing up the plans for tomorrow.

let’s see how it plays out.

Game 96 overflow II

lboros — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 20:27:31 -0000

don't anybody leave ----- cards only ahead by 5 with 3 whole outs to go . . . . . .

Game 96 overflow

lboros — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 17:02:16 -0000

pre-programmed ---- don't know if the traffic will warrant this overflow or not. i'm sure we can all use a 3-day break from this season . . . . .

Game 96 Open Thread: July 13 2008

lboros — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 16:43:17 -0000


Pineiro	Snell
3-4, 4.17	3-7, 5.84

if they win today, the cards will be 10 games over .500 at the all-star break for the first time since 2005 --- and for just the 4th time in la russa's 13 seasons as the st. louis manager.

snell is one of the best baseball players ever born in the state of delaware . . . . he has won only once since april 12; his era is 6.34 over that span, and hitters have pounded him for a .932 ops. of course, pineiro has one only once in nearly as long a span (since april 29), but he's not pitching that badly --- 4.34 era, .803 ops against.

mopping up

lboros — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 12:55:05 -0000

HC is due back from vacation today. he had a pre-programmed post set to go, but i figure night’s meltdown might still be on people’s minds; i know it’s on mine. so HC’s post will run either tomorrow or tuesday, and i’ll toss out a few quick reflections about that loss.

the 21-blown-saves stat is getting a lot of play, and i think it’s worth parsing that for a moment. 21 blown saves don't (as many people seem to assume) translate into 21 losses; it’s commonplace to lose a lead late in the game, blow the save, and still end up winning the game. the cardinals have done that several times this year, e.g. on may 2 vs the cubs, may 17 vs the rays, june 15 vs the phillies to name 3 quick examples. and it almost happened last night: mcclellan blew a save situation in the 9th and allowed the pirates to tie the score, but the cards got the lead back in the 10th and, had they held the 2nd lead, would have recorded a win despite blowing a save. instead, they got two blown saves but only one loss --- another illustration of how we can’t map blown saves directly to win-loss totals.

the only way to gauge the won-loss impact of all those blown saves is to go through the schedule and count up how many of them actually led to defeats. which i have just done; not a difficult task, took me about 10 minutes. of the 21 blown saves, 8 came in wins and 10 came in losses. you’ll note the numbers don’t add up to 21 --- that’s because the cards have 3 losses (including last night’s) in which they blew more than one save opportunity. so the won-loss impact of those 21 blown saves is 10 defeats --- and in truth it’s less than that, because no bullpen can be expected to be perfect. every team blows some saves and loses some games late --- so the question is, how many games have the cards lost that they would have won with an average performance by the bullpen? my sense is that the number is right around about 5 --- a lot lower than 21, but it's still a depressingly high number. add 5 wins to the cards’ total and they have the second-best record in baseball; they’re 19 games over .500 (at 57-38), half a game behind the cubs, and 5.5 games ahead of milwaukee in the wild-card race.

the 5-game estimate, by the way, gibes w/ the bullpen’s aggregate WPA figure as listed at fangraphs. as a unit, they are at -2.31 in WPA, or negative 4.6 wins (0.5 of WPA = 1 win). the only team with a worse aggregate bullpen WPA is washington.

one thing i haven’t heard mentioned anywhere is that jason michaels has stunned the cardinals twice now: he’s also the dude who hit the grand slam off adam wainwright back on june 2 to tie up a game the cardinals seemingly had well in hand. they led 4-0, you’ll recall, but it seemed like a much bigger bulge than that because wainwright had a 3-hit shutout going through 6 innings and was only 2 batter over the minimum. in the 7th he gave up a double and two walks, and with two out michaels jumped on the first pitch and hit it out to tie the game; wainwright stayed in and gave up the go-behind run the following inning. that doesn’t count as a blown save, but it might as well; another late lead the team failed to protect.

i’m mostly a numbers guy, but i do wonder about the psychological impact of last night’s defeat. comes at a very bad time --- wins have been hard to come by this month, and the additions of sabathia and harden to the division seem to have raised a few doubts in the clubhouse; the team is looking to the front office for a countermove. one loss usually doesn’t mean much in a season this long . . . . . still, the last thing the team needs is another challenge, another hurdle to overcome. the cardinals have handled most of them so far this year, but how long can a thin lineup and thin rotation keep it up? if i may use a tour de france metaphor: the team is like a domestique who’s found himself in the leading pack in an alpine stage, right there with the elite hill climbers. how long can he stay in the group? how long before he cracks?

2007	dodgers, indians
2006	dodgers, white sox
2005	braves, twins
2004	giants, red sox
2003	phillies, red sox