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not like there weren’t a lot of home run hitters when there were a lot of .300 hitters. There were both at the same time.
Could it be because teams encourage and actually pay more for extra base hits than singles which are easier to get hence higher ba?
Outs Above Average Leaders – Second Baseman pic.twitter.com/wScXtw2228
— Thomas Nestico (@TJStats) August 12, 2026
Rookie WAR Leaders — AL & NL pic.twitter.com/aePnjdy0gW
— Thomas Nestico (@TJStats) August 12, 2026
After bling took another of his regular potshots at JJ on today’s Game Thread, I am going to reply here so it isn’t lost.
Our contract guy is out with a boo boo risking whatever chance a .240 hitter has at ROY.
Wetherholt played through wrist tendinitis for at least the entire month of August, during which he hit .200 and logged a .595 OPS. It may have been bothering him longer.
If you leave it to them, every player wants to play every day. The finger should be pointed at management regarding his downturn as they played him for a month or more when hurt.
On July 1, he was hitting .261
On August 1, he was hitting .251
Now he is hitting .242Not that BA is particularly relevant. Here is a far better measure, even more so considering his role as leadoff hitter.
On July 1, his OBP was .358
On August 1, .348
Now it is .343. That is still fourth best among NL qualifying rookies at all positions.And his defense is conveniently and consistently ignored, probably because it takes work to look up and understand. BA, taters and ribbies are right there on the back of his baseball card.
It is always a surprise to me that people devalue defense over offense.
If your defense gives up more runs than your offense scores, guess what happens?
It isn’t the pitching that is to blame either, because a defensive error doesn’t count against the pitcher, but the run scored by the other team still counts in the box score.
Defense is every bit as important as offense.
JJ is VERY GOOD at that part and he deserves to be given credit for it. That is why WAR is an important stat because it measures how good a player is at every aspect of baseball.
BA, taters and ribbies are right there on the back of his baseball card.
For good reason.
My point is that 1) our contract guy isn’t playing and 2) his ROY chances are diminished as a result. I am not sure which of those points you are disagreeing with. Yes, I admit I failed to genuflect when I typed his name but i did sprinkle glitter on my keyboard.
He isn’t playing because of management incompetence. He should have been taken out of games a month earlier than he was and he likely would be playing right now and racking up ROY points in the final month.
Here are my disagreements.
Belitting his injury by calling it an “boo boo” as if he is a three year old is a cheap shot. A dude in his armchair questioning a player’s toughness after he tried to play through an injury for weeks.
Constantly harping on his BA while not acknowledging his strengths shows a strong negative bias.
What happened to the days when fans rooted for players on their team instead of demeaning them?
He isn’t playing because of management incompetence. He should have been taken out of games a month earlier
I am willing to assume he was not taken out of games a month earlier because he was chasing ROY. I think that because they would not risk further injury to their prize investment without good reason. I am not sure I characterize that as management incompetence. The hope obviously was he could/would play through it. It didn’t turn out that way.
Not taking him out of games a month earlier risked making the injury worse which is exactly what happened.
He was unable to compete at a normal level with the injury, so absolutely nothing was accomplished other than to guarantee the crash of his ROY hopes in the final month of the season.
Had they taken him out earlier, he could have gotten treatment and returned healthy and able to perform at his former high level in the final month.
In my view, the Ol’ Perfessor explained it best…”I don’t like them fellas who drive in two runs and let in three.”
I don’t recall who or where it was said, but it think it was earlier on this thread where someone asserted that the ballpark doesn’t matter much in hitting home runs. The facts disagree.
For example, there have been 73 more HRs hit in Cincy vs. StL so far this season.
Here is something for JJ to work on. But having said that, playing at Busch hurts the entire offense. JJ is just the worst case.
Biggest difference in home and road OPS among current Cardinals:
Wetherholt:
Home – .623/ Road – .802(+179)Burly:
Home – .737/ Road – .907 (+170)Walker:
Home – .780/ Road – .920 (+140)Church:
Home – .599/ Road – .692 (+93)Ferminator:
Home – .630/ Road – .692 (+62)…— Cardinals Stats And Facts (@STL_Stats_Facts) September 2, 2026
It is likely they let him play because they were chasing the playoffs and they thought he made them better, even if sore. Then Winn got hurt and they justified that they needed him at SS. Hindsight is 20/20. It clearly looks like a bad decision now. It probably was a bad decision then too, but it’s hard to say what was known or how much pain there was initially.
Those HR totals are interesting. Seeing Houston so near to the top reminded me of how difficult it once was to tater up at the Astrodome back in the days of yore. The Cardinals placing last doesn’t surprise me one bit as it’s always been a difficult and challenging undertaking to launch one over the OF wall in the vast expanses of Busch Memorial Stadium…
I did go ahead and look up when is the last time a position player won NL ROY with a BA as low as .242. The answer is never. I do accept that there is always a first time and I hope JJ will be it.
JJ is not likely to win now, not because of batting average, but because he is not playing for most if not all of the last month of the season.
Recency bias is a thing, even for Rookie of the Year voters.
I dont think pujols struggled too much in st louis. Quite a few others hit pretty good as well. Maybe refine your hitting for the ballpark you hit most in. Personally i wish they would move the fences back 25 more feet. A homerun should be an accomplushment and maybe we would invest in more speedy guys who plug the gaps.
There has been speculation in recent years that One Cardinal Way, the new luxury apartment tower, and Ballpark Village have changed the wind currents around the stadium and have suppressed home runs.
St. Louis had a renowned hitters park until Sportsman’s Park closed in the 60s. The site dimensions resulted in short fences on the right side. Usually 310s down the line and 350s in the alley. Even so, it was a good hitters park for righties as well. By the 40s and 50s it was pretty completely enclosed, and although some distance from the riverfront, would have had the same low elevation, humid and heavy summertime air that the subsequent non-hitter friendly St. Louis stadiums have had.
My vote for NL ROY would go to the Rockies TJ Rumfield. Better average and WAR than Stewart. But we still have a couple of weeks to go so we will see how the final results look.
Some good young players in the majors this year.
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