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So many places this article can go, but one thing stood out:
“You talk to scouts around baseball; they say it’s the worst Cardinals defensive team they’ve seen in 50 years. Just ugly to watch,” he added. “They’re joking around that Miles Mikolas should have won the Cy Young if not for a defense like that behind him. It was just tough to watch.”
Given your knowledge of new defensive metrics, do they they tell you the same story as the esteemed Mr. Nightengale?
Errors are indeed ugly. But errors are only part of what determines defensive quality. Range is more important, often much more important.
According to Baseball Prospectus the Cards had MLB’s 13th best defensive efficiency in 2018. Link:https://legacy.baseballprospectus.com/sortable/index.php?cid=1905975
Baseball-Reference uses the numbers from Baseball Info Solutions (or BIS), and they had the Birds 30 runs above average as a team, which would be roughly 10th in MLB or so. (Wong and Bader were each +19 runs, and DeJong +14.)
But that’s not even the most optimistic evaluation. Per Fangraphs the Cards had baseball’s 5th best defense this year, at 48 runs above average.
Link: https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=0&type=8&season=2018&month=0&season1=2018&ind=0&team=0,ts&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&sort=19,dThe Cardinals were probably the single strongest defensive team in baseball up the middle, but were generally so-so at the corners, and poor off the bench, with the worst defenders (per BIS) being Jose Martinez and Yairo Munoz at -11 runs apiece, and Dexter Fowler, Francisco Pena, and Tommy Pham all either -5 or -6 runs in 2018.
The problem isn’t the defense. It isn’t the everyday lineup either — the Cards were 5th in the N.L. in runs per game, and just 2 runs behind the Cubs for 4th. (And the Cards were 3rd with more than 5 runs a game, behind only the Dodgers and Nationals, over the season’s second half, despite facing a LOT of excellent teams and pitchers.)
And the rotation had the majors’ 5th best ERA. So it ain’t them.
The bullpen was and is the problem. The only meaningful problem. The Cards’ bullpen had the 3rd worst ERA in the Senior Circuit. But much worse than that, they were tied for dead last in Win Probability Added (WPA). Their WPA was so terrible, that if they’d been merely average, the club would have won 6 more games in 2018. The Redbird pen was 6 wins below average, 11 wins worse than the Brewers, and an extraordinary 14 wins worse than the Cubs.
Link to WPA numbers: https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=rel&lg=all&qual=0&type=3&season=2018&month=0&season1=2018&ind=0&team=0,ts&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0
Bullpen. That’s the thing to fix. Not defense. Not the middle of the order. Bullpen, bullpen, bullpen.
We all know Jose Martinez is just godawful at defense. He accumulated 590 plate appearances, which means he was in the field an awful lot.
We can observe Dexter Fowler and his putrid defense in RF. He’s a man that takes 4.4 seconds to run 18 yards and drops the ball. He accumulated 334 plate appearances while missing two months due to injury. We all know the Cardinals would’ve kept running him out there had he not been injured.
We all saw Marcell Ozuna flailing around on fly balls and misjudging them by 10 feet.
We know Yairo Munoz struggled defensively. We know Gyorko had is worst year in St. Louis defensively. Pham did not have a great year.
So, when four of your starters have a bad season defensively, and your primary bench option does as well, I’d say the scouts were right.
There are a lot of things wrong with defensive metrics – especially for outfielders. They rely on where the ball lands and the probability of being a hit rather than hang time and how far the fielder has to run, there is multicolinearity in the models – is it attributable to pitching, park conditions, speed of runner, teammates, etc? When they start publishing the statistical models, the levels of significance of the variables and the size of the error of the regression models, maybe I’ll put more faith in them. But right now, what we know is the error of the regression models is so big, they won’t dare publish their models for they would lose all credibility.
The Cardinals allowed 69 unearned runs on 133 errors, meaning each error was worth half a run. Houston Astros were the game’s best, and they gave up 31 unearned runs on 63 errors. We can calculate with repeatability how much an error costs a team.
Now, you remember Kolten Wong’s play on Justin Turner, correct? The one where he ranged to the SS side of second and threw Turner out off-balance? Well, Justin Turner is something like the 370th fastest person to first base in the major leagues. If somebody faster is running, Wong does not get the out. How many runs did Wong save on that play? Well, how many outs were there? Two?
To roughly equal one error in terms of runs, there would have to be a guy on first and third with two outs for that play to have saved the equivalent number of runs that score on one error.
Now, how did DRS score that play? We don’t know.
So, let’s stick to the eye test – if four of your starting position players are awful at defense, how good is your defense? If you play people out of position to accommodate those players that are terrible at defense, how good is your defense?
The Cardinals were dead last out of 30 teams in errors. Do we really think that even with all the great plays by Wong & Bader, we were the 5th best team defensively? My eyes must be deceiving me.
Worst defender: Bozo Martinez
Runner up: Carpenter
No, gold glove Ozuna.
No…. It’s a tie then.I’ll bet you the farm that Carp doesn’t get traded and 1B doesn’t get a def upgrade.
That leaves only LF & RF and my money is on Bozo getting traded. Not solely for def reasons, there is the fowler reason. Mo needs to clear a path for a Fowler rebound.
Ozuna as a FA-to-be will be right there in LF when healthy.
Gyorko is not a problem defensively, imo, so what’s really going to change? The upgrade from Bozo to Fowler?
An upgrade over a traded Gyorko?
Kelly over Pena?If the FO doesn’t move Carpenter or Ozuna, were the same defensive club. Any upgrades would be slight.
Welcome to the new Cardinal Way.
For those who discount errors, I looked at the impact of the errors on the scoreboard – all those runs that did not count against the stellar team ERA. The “good” news is that St. Louis had “just” the fourth-most unearned runs scored against them this season in MLB.
Here are worst half-dozen teams in unearned runs allowed this season. The common thread should be evident. All except St. Louis were among the very worst teams in MLB this season – both in terms of pitching and win-loss record.
What this suggests to me is that the Cards had pitching that was better at working around the defensive mistakes than many other teams with a lot of errors.
Team Lg Wins Losses ERA UER Errors Err rank Cincinnati Reds NL 67 95 4.63 78 95 T14 Chicago White Sox AL 62 100 4.83 77 114 #4 Detroit Tigers AL 64 98 4.58 70 95 T14 St. Louis Cardinals NL 88 74 3.85 69 133 #1 Baltimore Orioles AL 47 115 5.18 68 104 #7 Texas Rangers AL 67 95 4.92 65 120 #3 The MLB team average number of unearned runs given up this season was 54. So, if the Cards could have allowed 15 fewer runs just by being average, how many more wins would it have meant? All they needed was three.
The bullpen was and is the problem. The only meaningful problem.
Totally agree, and have been saying that all season. We do not need an “impact” bat, in that it is not a requirement for us to win. It is always nice, and would allow for greater deficiencies in other areas.
But the primary problem with the Cardinals in 2018 was the lousy bullpen. Weak bullpens are not easy to fix, however. Guys who are good one year can struggle the next. So what looks like it could be an improvement may not work out that way (eg Jordan Walden and Brett Cecil).
I think we have taken a good step by bringing back Waino, but he needs to be in the ‘pen. At this stage of his career he is likely not going to give you 6 quality innings per start all season. But he can provide some quality bullpen innings.
What we do from there is anyone’s guess. From within, I think Luke Weaver is a possible reliever. He needs to harness his control more to be totally dependable though. Poncedeleon is another guy who might thrive in the reliever’s role.
As for defense, we do not want Martinez in the field, and do not want Carpenter at third base. Go with an outfield of Ozuna, Bader and O’Neill and there are three decent fielders, if Ozuna’s arm problems are healed. Plus you are putting together a nice up-the-middle core to your club, with Molina, DeJong, and Wong to go with Bader.
Gyorko can pick it at third, although he struggled more than normal in ’18, and Carpenter is passable at first. We mainly need to do a better job of shutting down the other club late, not giving away so many bases via the walk, and not falling behind hitters so often.
What BikeMike said. Word for word.
Trade Jose Martinez in a package deal with Hicks or Reyes or Kelly or Knizner or someone else or two, for Edwin Diaz, and the bullpen is 2-3 wins better immediately. And the infield and outfield defense improves as well. The bench hitting is distinctly weaker, but that won’t sting so bad when more than counterbalanced by the fairly massive upgrades. (How good is Diaz? Forget the saves. His road ERA, career, is 1.73 for three seasons.)
You want a solid defense? With O’Neill in RF and Gyorko at the hot corner, every single member of the starting 8 would have had positive runs values on defense last year, if you average the Fangraphs and B-Ref numbers. Honest.
Release Gregerson and Cecil, dump Fowler, and the 40-man is uncongested enough to grab a reliever or even two from the Japanese leagues — the one place the Cards really know how to scout, apparently.
BikeMike, in your proposal, the offense takes a hit. Or are you suggesting that O’Neill is going to hit as well or better in 2019 than Martinez did in 2018? That seems a very high bar to set for a young player who fanned over 40 percent of the time last season.
They key point I am trying to make is that to improve the defense (in this example by not playing Martinez), they need to add more offense somewhere to replace his important contributions with the bat. Gambling that O’Neill can fill the gap is probably unreasonable.
I am a little concerned about Martinez’ bat. He seemed to fade at the end of the year, along with others. But the uptick in strikeouts is what concerns me going forward. His swing has so much movement I can see strikeouts being a problem. Hopefully an anomaly, but he is one of the rare birds, pun intended, that made contact. If he continues K’ing more, along with his horrendous defense, it makes him a bench player. I say trade him, but I do not know his value to other teams.
A lot of our hopes next year, barring a blockbuster trade, are with Reyes health, and O’Neills improvement. A hot spring by Tyler could help Fowler being made the 4th outfielder. Win win.
I did not look at his monthly splits, but for the season, Martinez fanned at just a 17.6 percent rate. That was fourth-lowest on the team after Molina (13.1), Wong (14.7) and Ozuna (17.5).
I agree that in September, Martinez seemed to be pressing, expanding the zone and getting himself out.
Still, his wRC+ of 125 indicates he was the team’s second-best hitter (after Carpenter at 138). No one else was better than 114. Losing that offense without an adequate replacement could be significant.
In a thread that has “worst defense” in its title, it is perhaps appropriate to focus on Jose Martinez for a bit.
(A bit later, when I get to his career WAR total, I’ve taken the average of Jose’s Fangraphs, B-Ref, and BPro numbers. Those are the only 3 publicly available WAR tallies I’m aware of, so I can think of no more thorough or fair manner of determining his MLB value so far than averaging them together.)
As Brian mentioned, 30-year-old Jose Martinez had a very fine 125 wRC+ in 2018. He has an even better 130 for his career. For context, here are some career numbers for other active hitters, and some Hall Of Famers:
George Brett 132
Matt Carpenter 132
Buster Posey 132
Billy Williams 132
Orlando Cepeda 131
Anthony Rizzo 131
Christian Yelich 130
Yaz 130
Nelson Cruz 129
Justin Turner 129
Roberto Clemente 129
Jim Rice 128
Dave Winfield 128
Carlos Correa 128So 130 is really, really good. But we knew that already. Here’s the thing, though. Those other players, every last one of them, are or were soooooo much better than Jose Martinez at the non-hitting parts of baseball, that comparing them at all would just seem silly.
Jose Martinez, hitting like a Hall Of Famer, has been worth 2.6 WAR per 600 plate appearances for his brief career. That’s a good player. But only a good one. And again, he’s 30 years old. This makes it extremely unlikely that he’ll get noticeably better at any aspect of the sport. In fact, the odds are he’ll decline. Maybe soon, and perhaps precipitously.
This is not a guy who’s bat forces him to be in the lineup. It just isn’t. We’ve witnessed Peak Martinez, and he’s a bit above average on the whole. Tyler O’Neill, who slugged .700 in AAA this year and .500 in the majors, is already a much much better fielder & baserunner than Martinez. (Tiny Kingman is 54-for-64 in stolen bases since 2014.)
If Martinez is at his best in 2019, he’s a 2.5 to 3 win player. Tyler O’Neill, even with the 40% K rate in 2018, was on a 5 WAR pace, averaging the 3 aforementioned websites. Even with that 40% K rate, he was the one who posted a solid 114 wRC+ for the Cards this year. If that K rate drops (and it should, by a lot, maybe to 30-32% based on O’Neill’s minor league track record) then O’Neill could be a star right now.
ANother factor is injury history for Martinez. He has never played this many games, and I doubt he will in 2019.
I hope I am not being misunderstood. I am not arguing in favor of keeping Martinez. To improve St. Louis’ defense, he should be traded – to an AL team. I am trying to point out the large void his departure would leave in the offense, hence the need to add a big bat as his replacement.
Until O’Neill does it, he hasn’t done it. To this point, he has not earned a starting job on a contending-quality team. And if he steps up in 2019 to the level of his abilities, he can be a busy fourth outfielder and then replace Ozuna in 2020.
(Think about Bader in 2018. He didn’t even make the team initially. But through his solid play, he forced his way into the lineup and eventually the front office was comfortable enough with him starting to trade away his predecessor. That is what I want to see from O’Neill – not an unearned starting job served up on a silver platter, rationalized by the “P” word – potential.)
Bottom line, the reason I am in this discussion is that I am disagreeing with those who assert the bullpen should be the only significant focus this off-season. Trading Martinez while getting value in return and then replacing him with a good hitter who is at least not a negative defender will not be easy. But I believe it is very important.
P.S. Though this is not a huge matter, on the injury subject, O’Neill missed almost all of spring training with two different injuries and then went on the DL two separate times during the 2018 regular season. So he has not yet proven his durability, either.
Coming into 2018, I thought it would be O’Neill, rather than Bader, who would seize a roster spot with St. Louis and emerge. However, O’Neill’s injuries clearly got in the way as Bader shot past him. 2019 camp should offer O’Neill another opportunity to cement a major-league job, but I hope starting will be earned, not granted.
Just going off the eye test I would say our two worst defenders in 2018 were JMart and Munoz and it wasn’t really close. Take them off the field and our defense improves dramatically. Ozuna is actually good at catching the ball. He just couldn’t throw because of the shoulder. Hopefully that will be better in 2019.
Trading JMart to an AL team for bullpen help seems like a no brainer to me. Frankly, I would do the same with Munoz too. I know that idea will elicit wailing and gnashing of teeth but so be it.
And the idea that O’Neill is ready to be the everyday RF seems like extreme wishful thinking to me. He is a 4th OF right now and maybe by 2020 he will be ready to take over for Ozuna in LF. Maybe.
In case I haven’t said it in the last 10 minutes we need another LH bat.
A.E. Schafer of VEB proposed a trade with Seattle involving 3B Kyle Seager (LH) for Fowler. Two problem contacts that can be evened out with addition $$ and players. I was thinking along the lines of the Cards also sending Kelly ( part of our catching dilemma) to the Mariners for C Hermann (LH) and a minor league SS like LOW-A SS Oneil Cruz 20 y.o. 6’6″ and also a left handed hitter.
Hermann would act as a bridge to Knizner and offers that LH bat. Cruz would add something the organization is lacking, middle infielders at that level. That’s three left-handed hitters which has become an organization-wide target.
VEB has an interesting analysis of Munoz.
https://www.vivaelbirdos.com/2018/10/23/18007750/what-kind-of-player-is-yairo-munoz
This probably belongs in the Trade Ideas thread but I think I would prefer the Greinke idea over Seager as a way to get rid of Fowler. Seager just seems like a worse version of Moustakas.
You know what, I thought about it this morning, and I said, “Let’s accept DRS as a valid measure, the way we accept errors as a valid measure.” Let’s say the subjectivity of deciding an error is equal and opposite to the subjectivity of deciding a DRS. Let’s simply net out the Defensive Runs Saved versus the number of unearned runs allowed by a team and see what that gives us.
Using this compound metric, the Cardinals ranked 16th! About where they were in terms of season rankings. But continue reading down below!
So, here it goes:
Team DRS Unearned Runs Difference
Diamondbacks 157 39 118
Brewers 112 53 59
Braves 59 50 9
A’s 61 53 8
Rays 52 44 8
Cubs 42 47 -5
Astros 26 31 -5
Padres 48 54 -6
Marlins 39 47 -8
Dodgers 46 56 -10
Indians 27 37 -10
Angels 49 60 -11
Royals 24 47 -23
Giants 33 58 -25
Cardinals 40 69 -29
Yankees 26 58 -32
Twins 20 54 -34
Tigers 24 70 -46
Rockies -1 46 -47
Rangers 7 65 -58
Reds 8 78 -70
Mariners -23 47 -70
Red Sox -31 39 -70
Nationals -55 33 -88
Pirates -37 56 -93
Mets -76 46 -122
White Sox -56 76 -132
Blue Jays -99 60 -159
Orioles -94 72 -166
Phillies -146 63 -209Now, about DRS – you will notice that there are five teams who have given up more runs by DRS than unearned runs. What does that tell you? It tells me the metric is fatally flawed, but oh well.
Notice, according to DRS, the Red Sox, who are leading the World Series, are one of the worst defensive teams out there. They had -31 DRS but only gave up 39 unearned runs. That’s quite a ratio. Does anybody believe the Red Sox are worse than the Cardinals defensively?
Finally, Jose Martinez is the absolute worst defensive baseball player I have seen in my life time. He accumulated 590 Plate Appearances for the Cardinals. He represents 1/9th of our defense. I will leave it at that.
Notice, according to DRS, the Red Sox, who are leading the World Series, are one of the worst defensive teams out there. They had -31 DRS but only gave up 39 unearned runs. That’s quite a ratio. Does anybody believe the Red Sox are worse than the Cardinals defensively?
Just to further the point – the Red Sox have 5 gold glove finalists, including their entire outfield!!! bwahahahahaha
Red Sox with 5 Gold Glove FinalistsI have little understanding of how DRS is calculated but if not valid then those teams with really high or low DRS values should stick out as the sum of the individual player WAR values would differ greatly from the team total. I dont believe that is the case.
One problem with non earned runs is that a single error (which is an element of of DRS) can result in zero non earned runs or ten non earned runs. That makes it seem dubious to me.
BikeMike, in your proposal, the offense takes a hit. Or are you suggesting that O’Neill is going to hit as well or better in 2019 than Martinez did in 2018? That seems a very high bar to set for a young player who fanned over 40 percent of the time last season.
In my opinion, you cannot assume that a season will go the same as the prior season. For our club, given their ages and abilities, I believe it is reasonable to expect better offensive production in 2019 from Ozuna, Bader, DeJong, and Wong.
Now some guys may not be as good next year. Carpenter probably will not hit 36 homers again. As for O’Neill, he reminds me a little of Tommy Pham in 2015. When you have a guy with talent, and with O’Neill you are primarily looking at elite power, you play him. It’s like anything, to excel at your craft you need to put in the hours. In baseball, guys need the reps. You give the guy 500-600 PAs and allow him to develop. You live through the strikeouts and adjustments, and give him time to adjust to regular big league-level playing time.
PS – I replied to this before, but later edited it, and the post disappeared. I have noticed that happening once in awhile, where a post will be there, but then vanish after editing, although it does not happen every time.
Yeah, so I just had the same problem BikeMike did about a post disappearing:
I have little understanding of how DRS
Here you go:
Fangraphs
Fielding Biblebut if not valid then those teams with really high or low DRS values should stick out as the sum of the individual player WAR values would differ greatly from the team total.
Don’t the Red Sox stick out like a sore thumb?
One problem with non earned runs is that a single error (which is an element of of DRS) can result in zero non earned runs or ten non earned runs.
The benefit of using unearned runs is that they are known outcome that can be measured over time.
The dubiousness of DRS, UZR and WAR, is that they use this method:
The Plus/Minus System is the key technique that we use to study defense in baseball.
Now, even using the Plus/Minus system, how are the Red Sox rated so negatively, and how are the Cardinals rated so positively? The Red Sox and 5 Gold Glove nominees, the Cardinals have 2. The Cardinals have the worst defensive player I have ever seen in my lifetime. They have Fowler. They have players playing out of position. How does their total DRS add up to more than the Red Sox? It’s impossible.
Now, you will notice, the Plus/Minus system that is “the key technique” has no basis in actual reality. They are comparing to a mythical average player, for which there is no objective data.
Unearned runs are observable, documented, and recorded over time.
Which is more dubious to you? Unearned runs or DRS using a +/- system?
I agree, BikeMike. O’Neill, to my eye, appears to be a solid to plus defender and bat that is maybe not quite Martinez’s but is still valuable. I wouldn’t mind having him be the every day right fielder next year at all.
Also, the reason for posts disappearing has to do with formatting. For whatever reason, the software glitches if you have more than one type of code in a post, such as italics and bold, or a quote and underline, or even a link (code) and a quote.
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