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I am still looking at what I think the Cardinals need to do so I did a survey of WAR of both leagues. I am not tied to WAR as the end all. I surveyed total WAR by team. In the American League if you ranked highest to lowest in each division it exactly mirrored the finish of each team. In the National League the Phillies had the highest total WAR in the east and the Cubs in the central. All other teams in those divisions finished with their WAR ranking. Atlanta was second in WAR in the East and Milwaukee second in the Central. The West finished exactly in the order that the WAR would have placed them so i guess it is a pretty good indicator of team strength. The calculation was total hitter value and total pitcher value by team. Houston was the highest at 57.2. Miami the lowest at at 9.3. The Cardinals had 31.5 (hitters 25 and pitchers 6.5).
I looked at total WAR and defensive WAR for the eight Cardinals vs players on the other 29 teams. Used Baseball Reference
Yadi – total WAR 1.8, defensive WAR 0.5. 11 catchers had higher total with Realmuto the highest (4.3) and 14 finished higher in defensive WAR. Zunino of Seattle and Cotreras of the Cubs the highest at 1.7. Six finished higher in both.
Carpenter – Total 4.9 and defensive -0.1. Two (Freeman 6.1 and Goldschmidt 5.4) finished higher in offensive WAR. Five players finished higher in defense with Olson of Oakland the highest at 0.8. Only Freeman finished higher in both.
Wong – Total 3.7 and defensive 2.3. Five had higher total WAR with Baez (Cubs) the highest at 6.3. No one finished higher in defensive WAR.
Gyorko – Total 2.0, defensive 1.6. 13 finished higher in total with Chapman of Okland the highest at 8.2. Only Chapman finished higher in defensive WAR a 3.5. Chapman was also the only one who finished higher in both.
DeJong – Total 3.8, defensive 2.1 Nine players had a higher total WAR with Lindor of Cleveland the highest at 7.9. Only 3 finished with a higher defensive WAR with Simmons of the Angels the highest at 3.1. Lindor and Simmons finished higher in both. What an offensive position shortstop has become post Ripken.
Ozuna-Total 2.9, defensive 0.2. Eight left fielders had higher total WAR with Nimmo of the Mets the highest at 4.4. Eight also finished with higher defensive WAR with Jacoby Jones of Detroit the highest at 2.3. Only Dickerson of the Pirates finished higher in both categories.
Bader – Total 3.8, defensive 2.0. Three finished higher in total with Trout (10.2) the highest. Two, Inciarte of Atlanta and Cain of Milwaukee were higher in defense. Cain was higher in both categories. Both Inciarte and Cain had a lot more plate appearances than Bader so that may have had an effect.
Martinez – Used right field. Total 1.5, defensive -2.1. Eighteen finished higher in total with Betts of Boston the highest 10.9. 30 of the players with significant starts had higher defensive WAR with Betts also the highest here (1.8). 16 of them were higher in both categories. Martinez offensive WAR was 2.8 topped by only 10 players.
I compared Martinez 2.8 WAR with the American League DH’s. Only four of them (J.D. Martinez, Stanton, Davis of Oakland and Choo of Texas) were higher. Thus there may be a market for him in the AL as a DH. That could be a little misleading as Gattis of Houston had only a 0.3 offensive WAR, but they have so many hot prospects coming up they should have little problem filling the job.
Primarily I used the players Baseball Reference listed with the most games at each position but I also added others who played multiple positions, generally at the position they played the most games. That is how I ended up with 33 right fielders.
Also it is important that Baseball Reference WAR is kind of a moving target as they seem to be constantly tweaking their formulas. I have seen 1-2 point changes in relative short times in the off season.
Sorry for the long post.
Speaking of WAR, I was looking at Machado and Harper just today. Over the last three years, Machado’s WAR per B-R is 16.0, but is 15.1 at Fangraphs. Close enough, I guess. However, over that same period, Harper is 11.3 at FG, but just 7.5 at B-R. That difference is quite substantial. Hard to get fully behind a stat that is all over the place.
I was shocked with the -3.2 defensive WAR for Harper. I thought he was a good defender. Could his time in center field have been a factor. I also thought the 0.7 defensive WAR for Aranado was very low. I would think with the Statcast thing that defensive WAR would improve more.
Next question is who are the good to great probable free agents? The Cardinals can not stand pat again IMHO. The Memphis Mafia is pretty thin now with all of the callups.
The only elite FA’s are Harper, Machado, Kershaw, and Kimbrel. I would expect Kershaw to re-sign with LA but you never know.
After that there is a long list of average to above average FA’s but the list is subjective.
Daniel Murphy
Jose Iglesias
Josh Donaldson
Mike Moustakas
Michael Brantley
Carlos Gonzalez
Andrew McCutchen
Nick Markakis
Patrick Corbin
JA Happ
Dallas Keuchel
Hyun-Jin Ryu
Cody Allen
Jeurys Familia
Adam Ottavino
Zach Britton
Andrew MillerThere are a few names on that list that might be of interest to the Cardinals but age, health, and money will have to be factored in.
Who is available on the trade market is more difficult to tell.
Machado & Murphy would do just fine. Five years ago ago I would have turned double sockau sommersaults for McCutchen…but not anymore. Mo just needs to steer clear of FA relievers as they are not his strong suit, as we all are painfully aware of.
I still think that signing Donaldson is the way to go. We have average to potentially above-average backups if he needs help (or if he isn’t healthy) in Munoz, Gyorko, and Wisdom.
I think we have to trade Martinez even if it’s for peanuts.
In all likelihood, a solid bench of O’Neill/Fowler, Munoz, Gyorko, and Kelly will be needed to supplement the health of our key starters that are either aging (Carp, Molina, Donaldson) or injury-prone (Wong, Ozuna)
Pitching-wise, Mozeliak can’t be shy after getting burned by Holland and Gregerson. I would personally love to see Andrew Miller here. I think our rotation will be fine after all the young starters got a year of experience and Reyes will be back. Perhaps adding Ross back into the fray would be my choice. Ross, Miller, and Donaldson while trading Martinez and, if possible, trade/release Fowler/Cecil/Gregerson.
Machado + CarGo + Ottavino would feel pretty good to me
Throw in a trade or 3 to get a higher end starter, and a decent lefty reliever and some prospectsMachado is the face and core, Ottavino is the veteran setup/closer fill in, and CarGo on a 1yr deal for lefty power and solid defense
move on from JMart, Gyorko, and a few young good pitchers to get what you can
I dont mind the idea of Dan Murphy…but i think that only works in a world where Carpenter or Wong is traded…which i dont see happening
Pads…What do you think Donaldson will cost? In theory i could be interested in Donaldson, but the injuries (especially with how it may effect his defense) and potential costs at his age really scare me
I dont want to come accross as a tyson hater. It’s just that I prefer pitchers who are willing to compete in the strike zone. Ross is just the opposite, he needs batters to chase bad pitches outside the zone.
According to Baseball Reference Ross was one of the better Cardinals pitchers in BB/9. Only Mikolas, Norris, Mayers, Brebbia and Leone were better.
However, over that same period, Harper is 11.3 at FG, but just 7.5 at B-R. That difference is quite substantial. Hard to get fully behind a stat that is all over the place.
That is because WAR is a linear regression model. I read a study on it once. In the study, the grad student trying to replicate WAR (because the services that publish WAR don’t publish their models) came up with an adjusted R-squared of about 0.71. Keep in mind, WAR is essentially regressed upon itself, because you put all these variables together, cobble them into one metric, count it up over time, and then regress it against the team’s wins to make it of any value whatsoever.
I did a regression model of sales for the auto industry and had an adjusted R-squared of 0.83, and every single one of my variables was statistically significant.
In WAR, none of the variables are statistically significant until you make them a counting metric.
And any regression with 30 or more variables is inherently flawed.
And their adjustment factors are junk science. I mean, Wrigley field is 8% smaller than Busch, but there is a 1% difference in ballpark factor. And in statistics, you don’t make adjustments to data after you’ve run your model, you do the adjustments to the data before you run your model.
Finally, when you say Harrison Bader was 3.5 WAR +/- 1 fWAR, and Kolten Wong was 2.8 fWAR +/-1 WAR, can you really say Bader was better than Wong? No, you can’t because their confidence intervals overlap. And the size of the error term in calculating WAR is between 1-2 WAR, which makes the metric essentially useless, unless you are comparing Bader to Fowler, and everybody can see the difference with their own eyes.
But since WAR is a thing, if you are trying to improve the Cardinals:
1. Fowler has been among the worst defensive outfielders in the game both years in St. Louis. He was worth -1.2 fWAR in 334 plate appearances this year. The only thing that saved the Cardinals season was him getting injured. Tyler O’Neill was worth 1.3 WAR in 142 plate appearances, despite a 40% K rate. So, over a full season, Fowler would have cost the team -2 WAR while O’Neill would have contributed nearly 4 WAR if you extrapolate out (assuming 500 plate appearances).
2. Brett Cecil was worth -0.7 fWAR this yearGet rid of the two overpaid free agents from 2016, and you dramatically improve the team.
Finally, Gyorko had a bad year. He managed only 1.4 fWAR in 402 plate appearances. Wisdom attained 0.4 in 58 plate appearances, which extrapolates to a little under 2.8 WAR in 400 plate appearances (small sample caveats)…
Take JMart out of the field and only let him pinch hit, and you have a team in the playoffs. But it’s obvious the Cardinals managers can’t resist the temptation, so you have to trade him away to a team that needs a DH.
I’m too lazy to do an actual extrapolation, so I just ball-parked them. It’s about as accurate as WAR is anyway.
While I am not as big on the “must have a middle order bat” as some, Moustakas is a guy I would look at if I am Cardinal management – moreso than Donaldson. For one thing he’s two years younger than Donaldson. For another, we would subtract him from a division rival. Plus you have added some balance to the lineup with his lefty bat.
Donaldson was better in his prime than Moose, but I think Moose is the better fit for our club, and could be the better player over the next 3-4 years. Now if Donaldson can be had for a below-market cost, he would be a good gamble as he is ripe for a big comeback year. But his production is likely to decline after 2019.
Still though, you do not want to get too crazy on this so-called upgrade at third base, because Jedd was better than Moose in 2017, and not that much behind Donaldson that year (3.7 WAR to Josh’s 4.8 per BR). He is also the same age as Moose.
Both guys (Jedd and Josh) fell back in ’18, especially Donaldson, while Moose upticked a bit. But when healthy, Gyorko is pretty good. He does seem to be a bit injury prone though.
I don’t know why Mike. You put Harper in that lineup and it makes everybody better. We need what we had with Pujols. The two wins 06 and 11 don’t happen without the big feared hitter in the middle. I mention Harper because he is a lefty. Him and Ozuna would be awesome. Add Moustakas and that is potent lineup. Fix the bullpen and we are in business again. No Harper then back to 86-83-88
Forsch, ross and holland had the same strike % as cardinals. I dont consider either as competing in the zone.
Harper would be the big splash that could potentially make a huge difference. The risky part with him is he is having a good year, then not-so-good. He is a bit like Vada Pinson from “back in the day” as they say. The knock on Pinson during the first half of his career was that he was a marvelous talent, almost Willie Mays-like in his ability, but tended to have good odd-numbered years, and mediocre even-numbered years. Harper is like that as well. The thing with Harper, his good years are tremendous, in the Mike Trout stratosphere. In his bad years he is comparable to Jason Heyward.
If the club decides to break out the checkbook and commit to Harper, then they might have a monster season on offense as I expect Ozuna to be more like the 2017 version, plus several other guys should be better.
The problem management would then have is with the budget. Not only would you have a huge liability on the books for Harper, you probably have to bite the bullet and release Fowler, as there is no place for him. You do not want to give up O’Neill, as he would likely replace Ozuna in 2020.
Baseball-wise, signing Harper could be huge. Financially, the club may not be able to cope with the commitment plus writing-off Fowler’s remaining three years.
I’m not so sure that I would want Harper. Great individual performer but he hasn’t done for the Nats that is said he would do for the Cardinals. I would rather trade for Aranado.
I just refuse to spend much time discussing Harper and Machado because the chances of the Cardinals outbidding the Yankees, Dodgers, Phillies, and Cubs for those players seems very remote to me thus it is a waste of time discussing them.
As for the rest of the FA class, at one time I would have said Donaldson and Miller would be the way to go but both of them are coming off injury riddled and non-productive seasons so signing them seems very risky to me. If we are determined to sign a FA 3B I would agree with bicyclemike that Moustakas would be better than Donaldson for the reasons he cited. I think Jedd should be traded then Moose could share 3B with Wisdom. They can give us what we need until our stud 3B’s in the minors are ready. Or if we want to double down on defense and run prevention then Iglesias would be the way to go but I don’t get the sense the Cards will do that.
As for RF I just have this feeling we are going to see Fowler in the lineup on opening day. He will be almost impossible to trade and the Cards aren’t going to pay him $16.5M to sit on the bench. I think they are more concerned with ROI than they are putting the best players on the field. Sad but true. If by some miracle we can trade Fowler then I would look at signing Markakis or Cargo, or trade for Pederson or Peralta.
We need a dominant LH reliever but they are hard to come by. Miller is risky and we missed our chance to trade for Brad Hand so I don’t know what to do there. We might need to go after a veteran RH reliever and hope Shreve, Webb, or Cabrera can do something. Cecil should be released immediately but again the ROI factor is killing us.
As for a starter I see no need to pursue one unless it is a true ace. We already have a plethora of number 3 and number 4 starters so I see no need to acquire another one. Keuchel doesn’t move the needle enough for me. Corbin would be a maybe. If for some reason we had a chance to trade for someone like DeGrom or Scherzer then yes I would pursue it but I would think it is highly unlikely the Mets or Nats would do that.
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