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No. But it doesn’t bother me much thankfully.
As for the game, Hence and Loutos both had good innings in the mound. Stratton the opposite of good.
It was fun to hear the announcer’s subtly make an ass out of Kiley McDaniel for not including Walker in his personal Top 10 prospects. I.e. After showing McDaniel’s Top 10, then talked about Walker as one day being the ‘face of baseball’ and even comparing Walker to Aaron Judge when Judge first came up.
So that’s why players don’t want to steal bases anymore. According to the announcers, ‘caught stealing’ drives their WAR down, and the players’ agents tell them WAR is what gets them paid. That’s disgusting. As a fan, based on that alone, I hate the concept of WAR. It would be beautiful if the Cardinals players would forget about WAR, and just play to win. The players playing at the MLB level all have a real chance to become millionaires anyway, so they should just play to have fun.
I haven’t studied the box score yet, but lots of offense. I’m happy to see some hopefuls getting a chance in the early going.
I meant to ask how W-Rod looked yesterday, anyone?
In reference to a CS diminishing a player’s WAR and possibly causing him to be reluctant to pilfer his way into scoring position, it shouldn’t bother little Eddie as he collected 32 SB’s and was CS only 3 times last season for an almost 92 pct. success rate. He could borrow some of the lingo from the all-time stolen base leader and say something like, “When Eddie takes off, Eddie slides in safe”…
According to the announcers, ‘caught stealing’ drives their WAR down, and the players’ agents tell them WAR is what gets them paid.
Not WAR specifically, but there is a math analysis on this for expected runs scored. For example, it’s obvious the number of expected runs goes up with runners on 2B and 3B with one out compared to 1B and 2B with one out. So a double steal would be great to go from the latter situation to the former!
There are 24 different configurations that yield different results for expected runs scored (bases empty, runner on 1B, 2B, 3B, 1B & 2B, 1B & 3B, 2B & 3B, and loaded, then each of those with 0, 1, and 2 outs, 8×3=24).
A stolen base raises expected runs scored. Caught stealing lowers expected runs scored. The break even point was right at a 70% success rate for stealing, so one caught stealing leads to fewer runs scored to a greater degree than one stolen base leads to more runs scored. In that sense, WAR would go down for many players who attempt to steal….but not those who are good at it, i.e., better than 70% success rate.
Tommy Edman has been nearly 90% successful at swiping bases over the last couple years. Stealing helps his WAR and the Cards should be trying to exploit his skill in this area more. But then you have to consider other nuances such as are Goldy and Arenado the next two batters, or is it Burleson and Knizner. If the math is correct, I can understand why some teams have asked many guys to play it conservatively.
Edman’s one of my favorite Cardinals, Euro, but there’s no question he needs improve his OBP by scuffling for more BB’s and possibly even becoming adroit at laying down the opportune bunt to reach base. He’s crossed HP 95 and 91 times for the last two seasons despite just a so-so .324 and .308 OBP. If he can raise his OBP by 15 to 20 pts. he may score 120 runs this season and be a genuine catalyst for the Redbird offense.
Tommy Edman is my favorite Cardinal. What is not to like: He is fast, steals bases, a switch hitter, a great defender at multiple positions. If Tommy is at the top of his game then the Cardinals are winning.
If player A steals 2nd with his team up 6-0 in the 8th, and player B steals second with the score tied in the 8th, player B is making much more of a contribution toward generating a win than player B, even though they both are making the same contribution toward generating a run. But I guess the computer doesn’t know the difference when its telling the PBO who to pay.
Player A is probably going to get hit by a pitch his next time up. So he will be penalized one way or the other.
Exactly right bling, score and game situation is a biggie. That’s why I said nuances should be considered. As adroitly discussed by BW and 1td, how good is the opposing pitcher’s velo and spotting on his bean ball? Other nuances could be is it the NY Mets we are playing, is Christopher Blake going to be making the out/safe call on player B’s steal attempt, etc.
Seriously, Win Probability Added would address your concern, but not sure if WAR incorporates game situation to a significant degree, or any at all. And most of the analytics guys generally say doing good things when the game is on the line, i.e., what most fans would call the clutch stuff, is mostly random and luck. I’d bet my next game thread trivia prize that you’d get distinctly different answers to that question if you compared a survey of real competitors versus a cohort of spreadsheet jocks.
I’d bet my next game thread trivia prize that you’d get distinctly different answers to that question if you compared a survey of real competitors versus a cohort of spreadsheet jocks.
Euro you had best hide under the bed with mud and start drinking the kool-aide. Here, you can have mine.
Back on the subject of today’s game, I hope Parsons gets another chance. But there are a lot of guys to look at and only so many innings. I didn’t see the game, but I can imagine he put a couple right down Broadway in the ninth. Seems like he settled in, but two batters too late.
All jokes aside, I’ve got no problem with a baserunner attempting a SB with a 6 run lead in the 8th or 9th inning. Or a 7 run lead…Or an 8 run lead. We all know that impossible things happen all the time in the game of baseball and no lead is ever safe until the umpiring crew calls in the final score to NY. I’ll steal one from Hank and say, “Keep on matriculating”…
Euro, you sound like you have a degree from some prestigious university on the subject of analytics. I got lost after your first sentence. Bottom line for me is that I’d like to see players try to steal bases more.
bb- W-Rod was not really challenged much. He came in to pitch the ninth and by that time the Marlins were sending their lower level prospects up to the plate. He gave up two hits…. one was a grounder to the third baseman (Motter, the third baseman, made a couple of good plays prior to that one) who threw a rainbow over to first base that resulted in a base hit (with Arenado at 3B, the runner would have been out by at least two steps) the other was a seeing eye single that Edman might have picked for the out. No runs were scored. W-Rod looks tall and generally big all over. He has a slight pot belly which is okay, I guess. He was throwing, mostly two-seamers and sliders in the 92-94 MPH range with a couple of pitches coming in at 96 MPH. He did not throw any of his rumored 100 MPH stuff. He did stay within the strike zone, or close enough. He has a diving CB that he threw a couple of times, but doesn’t seem to have ready for prime time yet. He didn’t seem to be bothered by being back in a Major League camp. I thought he looked a little stiff, sort of like he didn’t bother to stay conditioned during the offseason. Makes me wonder if he really understands the opportunity that he has at hand, or maybe the Cardinals’ trainers didn’t keep him in the loop. We’ll just have to stay tuned for now. Give Oli credit for not sending W-Rod up against real major league hitters yet. Note: Scouting report courtesy of ‘mudville Enterprises’, a for-profit entity if he can get it, otherwise free.
The bottom line on umpires such as CB, is that the phone call to NY effectively neutralizes these types of reprobate adjudicators unless, of course, they’re situated behind HP. Then, there’s the possibility of a genuine problem such as the one spawned in AZ last season involving Bucknor and Marmol. Obviously, that’s where guys like CB or Angel have the opportunity to inflict the worst sort of damage. That’s why, in my view, you don’t really want to do or say anything that’ll increase their tendency towards inherent evil…Haha!
The portion of Euro’s comment that dealt with “what most fans would call the clutch stuff,” reminded me of a stat that is no longer used known as GWRBI’s, or game winning runs batted in. It was used throughout the 80’s and I liked it and was also sorry to see it scrapped. Incidentally, the all time leader in that stat category is former Redbird Keith Hernandez who collected 129 of them during the 8 years the stat was used. Hernandez also holds the single season record with 24 GWRBI’s in ’85 when he and his new team, the Mets, were involved in a pitched battle all season long for the NLE title. That stat was anything other than random or luck and I’d also say that any Cardinal or Mets fan who paid attention during the 80’s would agree. I miss it.
mud, I like a running team too. The Whitey years were great. Also, there is a spillover benefit to it. Running/stealing can get the defense out of position and take away their focus on the routine plays. It can be flustering to the defense and pitchers. That kind of indirect thing is not accounted for in the metrics and would be hard to quantify, but you know you see it sometimes.
It’s also true that teams aren’t built for it today the same way, so I think it’s easy for teams to shelve it. But if you have guys like Bader and Edman, you need to be keenly aware of the situations that are smart to put them in motion. For some reason, Bourjos comes to mind as the antithesis to the argument. Was he the worst fast guy base stealer in Cards history?
1td, replay helps for sure. Hopefully in a not-too-distant season they’ll take care of the HP issues. Replay still leaves me wondering sometimes — what did they see or not see? Maybe CB or Angel have relatives in the replay command center.
I do think replay has improved over the years.
Yeah, I’ve often thought of just who or what are these nameless and faceless chief justices that sit on the panel in the chambers of the replay command center…There’s no telling how much money and influence is passed from hand to hand in that sort of power wielding and secretive sort of atmosphere. I’m entirely certain that in order to enter one of these aforementioned rooms, one must certainly be required to pass through ring after ring of ultra type security emplacments before gaining access through the entrance of an armor plated steel door. But yeah, they’ve done a pretty good job thusfar…
Jack Flaherty pitched a two-inning simulated game on a back field at the Cardinals' spring training complex in Jupiter, Fla., on Monday. https://t.co/KP5sMloSNh
— St. Louis Post-Dispatch (@stltoday) February 28, 2023
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