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Worth a read – has some nuggets of success of players by academic level, too
To further what Brian was saying, about two years ago, DeWitt III said the Cardinals sell about 70% of their tickets before the season starts. So, they have rather good projections about where their next year’s revenues will be in terms of ticket & concession sales.
Factor in that they spent all last season unloading contracts with any value on them, May is the highest paid player on the Cardinals this year at $12 million, and yeah, it looks to be a few years before they will willingly spend money.
DeWitt has to make up for all his losses the last five years…
If Wetherholt wins ROY and May pitches well enough that the Cardinals are confident he will turn down a QO, that would be a phenomenal development.
Two extra picks in the draft next year (assuming they don’t take those away in the new CBA, which they might, because MLB likes to treat the Cardinals differently than other small market teams).
While the Cardinals may still cling to a wild card spot at the deadline Bloom has given every indication that he sticking to the long range plan.
I don’t think the Cardinals were expecting to be in contention at all this year. The fact that they are 2.5 games up in the wild card standings may change their minds. It is an easy way to generate an extra couple hundred grand in profits without additional investment.
Dattalo is about due for promotion, he has roughly the same number of PA’s at Palm Beach as Gurevitch did when he was promoted. After tonight, he is carrying a .398 batting average and .990 OPS.
Problem is, Peoria has more hitters than they know what to do with…
I was a bit surprised at a few people that Kyle & Karim liked in the draft, and here is why:
Data says you see about a 10% decrease between P4 college baseball and the MLB. 64% contact rates isn’t serviceable. But on the opposite side, a 14.6% chase rate is elite.
Helfrick is Luke Stevenson light from a data perspective, but produced better statistically. There are contact concerns at 75.6%, but that came with a 20% chase and a 92.1 mph average exit velocity.
Gracia has been a “data darling” for 3 years, but that stats have never aligned. Combining an 83.4% contact rate with a 21% chase is impressive bat to ball/plate discipline, but the 89.5 average exit velocity, which has not progressed in 3 college seasons, is worrisome.
I wrote about Lebron, and there is an infatuation with the athlete. A 73.7% contact rate and 23.8% chase is still a red flag, but if he develops the athleticism and tools screams 30/30.
Two of these guys have terrible contact rates, one has a bad average EV.
It does look like the new player development org is much more tolerant of strikeouts than the previous leadership. Power production is up, but so our strikeouts. It looks to be part of the new organizational philosophy.
I would expect them to stand pat at the deadline. Relief options come from Memphis.
I don’t think they are going to be sellers when DeWitt can make a few hundred grand extra by making the playoffs.
I agree. They need to release Stanek and Bruihl and bring up Rajcic and another reliever (I was thinking Mautz as a piggyback for Leahy).
Just received information that the 3 successful overturned calls that we had in the top of the 1st inning did set a record for one half inning of play.
I believe three batters have overturned three calls in one plate appearance.
The first was Matt McLain
The other two were Miguel Rojas and Salvador Perez.
In the case of batting Ohtani first, he has a career .377 OBP, and this year it is .421.
If that is the highest on the team, by all means, bat him first. Because only 26% of his hits are homeruns. You are increasing the chances of the team scoring the other 74% of the time he gets on base, and he gets to bat significantly more times than the number four hitter over the course of the year…
In terms of the metric that Brian brought up yesterday, my biggest qualm with it is that it subtracts homeruns from the numerator, so it penalizes a hitter for driving themselves in with a home run.
I would fashion the statistic more similar to the run expectancy table, where the chances of scoring a runner are based on what base the runner is on and how many outs there are. I would make it a counting statistic, like RBIs.
It would have to be based on the inverse of the probabilities. In the table I linked to, you have a .481 chance of scoring if you are the leadoff batter in an inning. Let’s say that was the probability of hitting a homerun (it is not, because it is heavily influenced by your ability to get on base, your teammates ability to advance you, and somebody’s ability to knock you in), you would be awarded (1-.481) for hitting that solo shot to start the inning. Because you are using the inverse, and the probability of scoring a runner decreases dramatically with two outs, you would get more points for two-out RBIs.
The one thing I would take out of the numerator are sacrifice flies, sacrifice bunts, and ground-out RBIs. They count against you in all situations except when there is a runner on third? They should still count against you.
the reason the top RBI guys have more opportunities is because they are run producers, and thus are put in the lineup to maximize their ability to drive in runs.
You are completely ignoring the fact they have to have people on base in front of them to drive in those runs.
Here is a more detailed discussion about the RBI efficiency metric:
Most serious baseball fans have known for years that RBI is a flawed stat. It’s skewed by RBI opportunities, that is, the more runners that are on base for the batter, the more runs he can drive in. Thus, the batter’s position in the lineup is going to radically impact his RBI total. Your cleanup hitter, say Prince Fielder, will get several more chances to drive in runners than will your leadoff hitter, say Austin Jackson. Also, the better the players are that surround you, the more runners will be waiting for you (the more “ducks you’ll have on the pond”). So there can be a significant difference in the number of runners on base for middle-of-the-order hitters from one team to another.
And Brian, you were right – that article was almost 15 years ago!
I first read about this 15 years ago, but don’t know if it is tracked anywhere.
Here you go, Brian:
I don’t know that I would call that a percentage – maybe an “efficiency rate”.
I wonder I’d Richardson is for real, or just had the week of his life. I suspect we will continue to see him hit for more power. His strikeout rate jumped also. It seems like a change of approach. Hopefully there’s not too much swing and miss now.
He has 10 HR on the season, versus 4 the previous three seasons combined.
His K rate is up to 31%, versus career 22%.
Yes, that is a change in approach. He appears to be selling out for power, as the old approach was not working.
.would think you have to throw LeBron in here as well (had a down year and expectations were high), but if he could have came out last year he probably was a top 7 pick
LeBron has had a down career at the plate. He has never performed well in conference. The BA guys say he has “about 70” grade on all other tools, but the hit tool means he will likely never be even average at the plate.
If it’s high school, I have no clue.
If Gio Rojas is not taken by the Pirates at 5, the Royals at 6 or the Braves at 9, he will likely be on the board at 13. The Orioles, A’s and Angels are out on him before the draft starts…
HS – the name I have seen most often is Jared Grindlinger, a LHP/OF from Southern California. I also saw one mock with Trevor Condon, an OF from GA. In one of their podcasts, BA mentioned Luke Williams, a SS from PA, linked to the Cardinals, but I did not get the sense that was at 13.
and that he could turn it off and on at will. This is an example. He’s still toying with pitches and at times toying with hitters.
You believe Mathews prefers pitching to a 4.53 ERA and 1.45 WHIP in AAA just to “toy with hitters” and make $80k per year rather than pitching for results in the big leagues making $770k per year?
I am going to throw out a few observations/thoughts from my earlier post.
Hjerpe is 25, hasn’t pitched in two years, and is realistically going to be at least 27 before he tastes the big leagues…
Mathews is also 25, is in his third season at AAA, and has an ERA 2.3 runs higher than Mautz, who is a year younger and in his first season at AAA…
Similarly, Fajardo is 19 and in A+, as is Tanner Franklin. He has a comparable ERA and WHIP to Franklin, is three years younger, and pitches an average of 2/3 of an inning longer in games. Franklin may have better “stuff”, but based on age, level and results, I’d probably have to give the edge to Fajardo for now.
I get the jokes, but it is time for folks to start recognizing that Walker has made himself into a good defender in right.
He is no longer one of the worst all-time like he was in 2023, but he is still not “good.”
Fangraphs has him ranked 9th out of 16 qualified right fielders.
Fangraphs RFStatcast Outs Above Average has him ranked 19th out of 37 by success rate and at -2 OAA.
But, yes, a vast improvement from where he was.
