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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.
I don’t love the direction of the lack of SP innings pitcher, but I don’t think it is a deal breaker. The Brewers have one of the best performing rotations and they have the 3rd least SP innings pitched.
The problem is, Marmol does not know how to let relievers pitch more than one inning at a time. If our starting pitchers get to the point they can only go three innings (as we are seeing in the minor leagues), he will use one reliever per inning the rest of the game, and have zero relievers available for extra innings.
$170 million is less than they receive from MLB.
Under the new collective bargaining agreement (CBA) negotiated in 2022, each MLB team pools 48 per cent of local revenues with the total amount split equally between all 30 teams. This results in each team taking in 3.3 per cent of the total—an estimated $110 million USD, if not more. Teams also receive a share of national revenues, totalling around $90 million USD per team.
Here’s a snapshot of how our ranked pitchers are doing to date:
#2 – Liam Doyle – 21 years old, AA, 9 starts in 2026, 34.0 IP (average 3.8 innings per start), 5.82 ERA; 1.56 WHiP; 70% of the pitches thrown in college were fastballs
#5 – Quinn Mathews – 25 years old, AAA, 10 starts in 2026, 39.2 IP (average of 3.9 innings per start), 5.22 ERA, 1.61 WHIP; his third year at Memphis
#6 – Tanner Franklin – 22 years old, A+, 10 starts in 2026, 34.1 IP (average of 3.4 innings per start), 3.93 ERA, 1.34 WHIP
#8 – Jurrangelo Cijntje – 22 years old, AA, 9 starts, 41.2 IP (average of 4.6 innings per start), 5.18 ERA, 1.44 WHIP
#9 – Brandon Clarke – 23 years old, AA, hasn’t pitched in 2026, 38.0 professional innings, 14 starts (average 2.7 innings per start), career ERA 4.03, career WHIP 1.16
#10 – Tekoah Roby – 24 years old, AAA, hasn’t pitched in 2026, 301.2 professional innings, 31.1 innings at AAA, 6 GS started at AAA (average 5.2 innings per start), 4.02 ERA at AAA, 1.31 WHIP at AAA
#11 – Cooper Hjerpe – 25 years old, hasn’t pitched since 2024, 93.1 professional innings
#12 – Ixan Henderson – 24 years old, hasn’t pitched in 2026, 0 innings at AAA
#14 – Yhoiker Fajardo – 19 years old, A+, 37.1 IP, 9 games pitched – 7 starts (average of 4.1 IP per game), 3.38 ERA, 1.37 WHIP
#15 – Brycen Mautz – 24 years old, AAA (made MLB debut this week), 40.1 IP, 9 starts (average of 4.5 innings per game), 2.90 ERA at AAA, 1.36 WHIP at AAA
#17 – Chen Wei-Lin – 24 years old, AA, 35.1 IP, 9 games pitched – 6 starts (average 3.9 innings per game), 4.58 ERA, 1.50 WHIP
#18 – Mason Molina – 22 years old, AA, 39.2 IP, 9 starts (4.4 innings per game), 3.18 ERA, 1.26 WHIP
#20 – Braden Davis – 23 years old, AA, 37.0 IP, 9 starts (average 4.1 innings per game), 6.08 ERA, 1.54 WHIP
#23 – Luis Gastelum – 24 years old, AAA, 26.1 IP, 22 games, 0 starts, 3.76 ERA, 1.22 WHIP
#24 – Hancel Rincon – 24 years old, AAA, 29.1 IP, 15 games, 3 starts, 5.83 ERA, 1.57 WHIP
#28 – Cade Winquest – 26 years old, AAA, 6.2 IP, 6 games, 0 starts, 6.75 ERA, 1.05 WHIP
#29 – Tink Hence – 23 years old, AAA, 8.1 IP, 8 games, 8.64 ERA, 2.28 WHIP
#30 – Jacob Odle – 22 years old, A, 33.0 IP, 9 games – 7 starts (average 3.7 innings per start), 1.91 ERA, 1.27 WHIP
The Cards system does probably have more interesting pitching prospects than hitters though.
I don’t know about that. Our ranked pitchers, if they are on the field, aren’t doing very well (except four of them). None of them is throwing 5.0 innings per start. Maybe that is organizational philosophy. But I don’t know how they are going to throw 5.0 innings at the major league level if they can’t do it in the minors.
I attribute his poor April to dealing with the shell shock of not going north. After getting over that he had a strong May.
So do Velazquez & Marmol
“It took me a little bit (to regroup), but I got to reset myself and I started doing everything that I needed to do to be on the field,” said Velazquez, 27
In all fairness, expectations for Bedell have hit rock bottom.
And yet the Cardinals brought him back off the development list to pitch this game, and brought a struggling reliever up from A ball to pitch in the game.
So, is that catastrophe on the players or the decision makers?
There come’s a point you have to start pushing guys down the rankings when they can’t take the field for multiple years in a row.
Keith Law’s top 100 prospects in the draft is out in the athletic… just by going with that the Cardinals would get: (Likely will get none of these 5)
13) Hunter Dietz LHP Arkansas Univ.
According to MLB pipeline, Dietz has four pitches graded as a 60…He is only in the Cardinals range because he missed two years due to injury.
The folks at BA have stated there is not a lot of separation between players in the range of 8-32. So, I wonder if this would be a year to try an underslot deal with someone like Mason Edwards, who leads the NCAA in strikeouts by a wide margin, then stockpile savings to go after HS players later in the draft.
Here are my top guys who I like and I am hoping one of them makes it to 13
1. Roch Cholowsky – this guy feels like he will be quick to the majors and with his glove he will be a above average regular.
2. Grady Emerson – probably has the highest ceiling and may make me regret not having him #1.
3. Eric Booth Jr – pure athlete who has power in his bat and obvious chance to stick in CF
4. AJ Gracia – I really like Gracia’s combo of power potential and hit tool with a decent chance of sticking in CF
5. Drew Burress – guy is a performer but I hope the tools live up as college stats don’t matter at the end of the day
6. Jackson Flora – best SP in the class
7. Tyler Spangler – He has been injured this spring but the tools he does have seem really interesting. Good contact skills with power projection as he fills outI don’t know why you are mentioning Cholowsky, who is projected to go 1-1 or Emerson, who is projected to go 1-2, in this conversation. Booth & Flora will also come off the board in the Top 6.
That leaves Gracia, Burress and Spangler as potentials, with Spangler the only one ranked low enough to realistically be on the board when the Cardinals draft. Burress may fall due to his size.
Gracia seems like a good fit, but if there is one outfielder I would like the Cardinals to draft based on hit tool, it is Logan Hughes out of Texas Tech, who will likely go in the second round. The knock on Hughes is that he never played outfield until college, so is not the best fielder, but the collegiate performance and loud exit velocities would be a great fit for a system lacking impact bats in the outfield.
HS shortstops, yeah, Spangler or Ebel.
Tink Hence has thrown more innings in each of the last three seasons than Cooper Hjerpe, but Hjerpe is still in the Top 11?
Roby and Clarke can’t stay on the field, either.
Yes, more alarming than the belief starting pitchers can’t throw more than 5 innings is the belief that relief pitchers can’t throw more than one inning.
ESPN has the Cardinals taking a prep OF/LHP in the first round
