[Bob Reed]

The park as currently constituted has done more to hurt Cardinal hitters than it has done to help Cardinal pitchers. There was an article about this somewhere a year or so ago, but I cannot for the life of me recall where. Probably the P-D.

The trouble is, over the past 4-5 years the Cards keep acquiring righty power, e.g., O’Neill, Goldy, Arenado, which is the one type of hitter most hurt by Busch 3. Plus we’ve got DeJong, Molina, Bader. (Check their Home/Road splits over the past few years, esp. Bader.)
The Cards hit 40% more homers on the road than at home from 2017-2020. And this year it’s over 60% more on the road. That’s insane.

—————————

So count me in the minority here — I say move in the left field fence as far as league rules allow. It will hurt Redbird pitchers, but it should help the hitters more and thus improve the club on the whole.

[Bob Reed]

On July 20 at another website someone wrote the following:

“Helsey threw a 1-2-3 7th inning on 13 pitches. So Shildt pulled him.
Then Miller threw a 1-2-3 8th inning on 13 pitches. So Shildt pulled him too.”

“This is Shildt’s 4th season as a manager and he has learned nothing. Shildt does this all the time. He’ll remove relievers who are highly effective on that night, and not-at-all physically taxed, and switch and switch until he eventually finds the guy who can’t get people out. He has no instincts. And with the roster composition this year, that’s killing the bullpen effectiveness overall.”

—————————

And on August 27th I wrote this, about Shildt’s bullpen usage:

“Perhaps he shouldn’t have removed McFarland after throwing TWO pitches.
There’s no way of knowing what woulda happened if he’d been allowed to remain in the game, of course. But removing McFarland for a pinch-hitter with a 4-run lead and two outs and a runner on 1st base, after throwing a grand total of two pitches…well, it creates the appearance that Mike Shildt was merely seeking any opportunity to get Matt Carpenter’s pinch-bat into the game.”

————————————

Hmmm. That’s sounds an AWFUL LOT like today’s game, yes? McFarland throws two pitches, then despite a 4-run lead he’s removed so Matt Carpenter can get his chance to pinch-hit.

Today Shildt merely repeated the same exact error in judgement that he has indulged in for months. Change & change & change pitchers, regardless of effectiveness, regardless of their pitch counts, until eventually you find one who simply cannot get people out today.

There was no reason to pull McFarland. There was no reason to pull Garcia. But pulled they were, because their manager is a dolt with no instincts for who’s hot and who’s not. A competent manager must possess some ability to observe and adjust.

————————-

Against the Pirates several days ago the Birds lost a game despite going to the 9th with a 3-1 lead. Reyes walked two then coughed up a game-losing homer to a journeyman nobody. And I do NOT blame Shildt one iota for that loss. Most losses are NOT directly the fault of the manager. A pair of full-count walks, and a homer. Boom, game over. It just goes bad sometimes.

But today, all Shildt, 100%. Same with the recent blown 7-1 lead against the Pirates that turned into defeat — six straight hits allowed by Cabrera = incompetent managing. And the same with a blown 5-0, 9th-inning against the Cubs, when Shildt left Alex Reyes in to hit his first batter then walk the next four. It’s actually quite rare to be able to point to three games in one year and say, yes, the manager truly blew it. Truly turned a victory into defeat.

Shildt’s done plenty of things wrong during his tenure, but he’s never bungled pitching moves so badly, to directly cost the team games. I’m sure over 6+ seasons Matheny did it once or twice. LaRussa certainly lost the 20-inning game against the Mets, via mismanagement. But this year, Shildt? A disgrace to the Cardinal uniform.

Free Stubby Clapp.

[Bob Reed]

Forget August, and forget July. Let’s just look at what the 23-year-old Yepez has done overall since arriving in Triple-A.

.294/.390/.617

That’s a 1.007 OPS for a team where #1 prospect Nolan Gorman needed a 4-hit game last night just to push his Memphis OPS over .800. In other words, Yepez has been downright tremendous in Triple-A — not just for a few weeks. But how about Double-A, earlier in the year?

.270/.387/.571

That was pretty darn terrific as well. Let’s just say, he’s been much better at hitting across AA and AAA than Jake Woodford has been at pitching, at the same levels. Not a proper comparison.

————————–

And Forschy, if we were in the middle of June or July I would absolutely agree with your earlier comment about Yepez needing regular AB’s at Memphis more than he needs 8-10 AB’s per week in the majors. For a developing player, prior to September, I would 100% concur.

But this is September. This is crunch time, guys. This team might wind up under .500 for all I know. But right now, in this moment, this team might really have a use for a big bat. Either in the lineup once or twice in place of Carlson versus righties (Dylan has a mediocre OPS against righties, both this year and last) or just as a high-leverage pinch-hitter.

And I’ll say this just one more time, as a reminder. The club has promoted Ali Freaking Sanchez, rather than by far the best hitter on the club’s Triple-A team. It takes one whopper of a rationalization to justify that.

[Bob Reed]

Yepez has to be in the majors. Even if it’s just to bat once a game as a pinch-hitter.

I’m not suggesting he could beat out any one specific player in the lineup right now. But I am absolutely convinced that he is a vastly superior hitter to Sanchez — a guy the MLB team didn’t need all year, and doesn’t need now.

That’s what it comes down to. It’s not a matter of whether Yepez should dislodge a starting Cardinal from the daily lineup. It’s a matter of whether he has more potential than a no-hit backstop to somehow, someway help the big club win an extra game over the final month. As a group, Redbird pinch-hitters are batting .186 with a .649 OPS. And Yepez might be a lot better than that, right now.

I am surprised this idea is meeting any resistance at all, frankly. How well would he have to be hitting in AAA to warrant the promotion, guys? Overall he’s got a 1.000 OPS for Memphis, and it’s 1.200+ over the past month! He’s not guaranteed to hit, nothing is ever guaranteed. But he’s earned at least a handful of at-bats, and heaven knows the team needs a shot in the arm, offensively, even if just in the pinch-hitting role.

Remember when the Cardinal front office used to be regularly praised by their young players, because they promoted guys based on their success in the minors? “Play well for the Cards and they’ll get you some MLB playing time,” is what used to be said. Stranding Yepez in AAA is the exact opposite of that. It’s not just weird, it’s weirdly unjust.

[Bob Reed]

Cranny said:
“Wish they had called up Yepez. He’s earned a trip to St. Louis.”

————————

And I could not agree more. Yepez was literally the hottest hitter in ALL of the minor leagues in August, and now he’s going to sit in Memphis while instead the Cards call up a third catcher — someone they’ve gotten along without all season long.

Here’s the Yepez portion from an article at MLB.com:

Cardinals: Juan Yepez, 1B (No. 27)

No one has mashed more than Yepez since the beginning of August. No, really. His .763 slugging percentage and 1.217 OPS over 24 games for Triple-A Memphis each lead all full-season Minor League qualifiers since Aug. 1. Eighteen of his 29 hits have gone for extra bases in that span (seven homers, 11 doubles), and he’s accomplished all that while walking more times (14) than he’s struck out (13). Yepez has primarily played first base since joining Memphis, putting him behind Paul Goldschmidt on the depth chart, but he’s certainly hitting enough to get attention from St. Louis brass.

———————-

Only three teams in the National League have scored fewer runs than the Cardinals this year. They need hitting, badly. The club is 2.5 games out of a playoff spot, and just one game in the loss column. So each game matters a lot. Yepez has been excellent all year, tremendous since his promotion to Triple-A, and absolutely otherworldly in August. Therefore this guy HAS TO be on the team right now.

I cannot imagine any possible intelligent justification for preferring a 3rd-string, no-bat backstop, when Yepez (who is only 23 and might, just might actually be a capital H Hitter) is hotter than a firecracker. For heaven’s sake, haven’t we seen enough already of the Cardinal front office underestimating the organization’s own hitters?!

On top of everything else, as cranny stated, Juan has earned this promotion. He’s earned it in spades.

[Bob Reed]

“80% of the pitching rotation was injured for most of the season and that killed the bullpen.”

——————–

Partly that, yes.
But Shildt chose, again and again, to run Cabrera, Gallegos, and Reyes into the ground. There were numerous games throughout the season when he could have given an inning here or there to someone else and he repeatedly elected not to. (At one point a week or so back, there were 4 National League bullpen arms with 50+ appearances and 50+ innings, and the Cards had 3 of the 4.)

Again and again, Shildt pulled other effective relievers from the game despite low (sometimes very low) pitch counts, only to watch the next reliever implode and set up a dangerous situation that need never have happened if Shildt had just left well enough alone. Heck, just tonight he pulled McFarland after TWO pitches. So Matt Carpenter could pinch-hit with a 4-run lead and two outs and a man on first. Not exactly a high priority pinch-hitting spot.

Shildt hasn’t had his full complement of pitchers. But the ones he has had, he has mismanaged badly, all season long. Take John Gant. When Gant was removed from the rotation, did he become a valuable long man/swing man type, throwing 40-50, even 60 or 70 pitches a couple times a week as needed? Nope. Instead of leveraging Gant’s durability and skill (career ERA as a Redbird around 3.50), Shildt inexplicably made him a one-inning garbage time mopup guy.

Simply put, Shildt honestly does not seem to know which of his hitters and pitchers are the best ones. He simply cannot accurately gauge the talent of even veteran major leaguers, which is an astonishing thing to say about an MLB manager.

Eight runs scored while Genesis Cabrera was on the mound tonight. It was almost as if Mike Shildt was asking to be fired, and I say the Cardinal front office should oblige him. Stubby Clapp won multiple AAA championships very recently, and unlike Shildt he actually played professional baseball.

Free Stubby Clapp.

[Bob Reed]

I haven’t read anything to that effect, ’64cards. Here are two direct quotes on the matter:

“He’d like to start, prefer to start. I mean, people that are used to starting and used to certain roles want to keep the roles. That’s the competitor in him, and he was honest about that, which I appreciated,” Shildt said.

“I’ll have to do my best out of the bullpen,” said Kim through interpreter Craig Choi. ” … I think with my body fitness, I could start as a starter.”

——————————–

Jon Lester hasn’t been a good starting pitcher since 2018. This moment represents a wonderful opportunity to replace him in the rotation with someone who may be a health risk, but who has been exceedingly effective when he is able to take the mound.

I think of it like this. Say Nolan Arenado went down for 10 days with an injury…and came back to find that Matt Carpenter had taken over his 3rd base job, with Arenado moving to a role as top pinch-hitter. After all, Matt Carpenter — just like Jon Lester — was very, very good waaay back in 2018, and has been mediocre-to-bad ever since.

But that would be pretty stupid, replacing someone who is much better and much younger, with someone who is old and terrible. Almost Shildtian you might say.

You know what maybe bugs me most? The idea that, in Shildt’s mind, K.K. Kim’s “role” has been starting pitcher. Like this is kinda a toss-up decision, an arbitrary coin flip sort of thing. Sigh.

In terms of effectiveness the man has been a star-level pitcher at the MLB level for two seasons. It is asinine to suggest a “role” change for anyone with his track record. Kim is NOT a relief pitcher. Shildt idiotically already tried it once, and the idea flopped badly. So now the fool returneth to his folly. Heaven help us.

[Bob Reed]

Apologies if someone has brought this up already, but it looks like Jon Lester (4 starts with the Cards and a nightmarish 7.08 ERA) has impressed manager Mike Shildt so darned much that he’s keeping his rotation slot, and K.K. Kim is being demoted to the bullpen.

As a reminder, Kim has made 19 starts this year with a 3.36 ERA. Overall as a Redbird he’s made 26 starts with a 2.79 ERA. As far as Mike Shildt is concerned, those numbers don’t rate another shot at the rotation — not when you’ve got Jon Lester and his 7+ ERA.

—————————

There’s no question whether Kim wants to start. Nothing like that. He very much prefers to start. And why wouldn’t he? He’s been a terrific starter for the Cardinals, and he was a terrific starter for many years overseas. That’s what he is, a really really effective starting pitcher. For full context, here’s a list of MLB starting pitchers with WORSE ERA’s than K.K. over the combined 2020/21 seasons (min. 120 IP):

Max Scherzer, Clayton Kershaw, Gerrit Cole, Adam Wainwright, Yu Darvish, Max Fried, Hyun-Jin Ryu, Sandy Alcantara…well, you get the idea. Now try to imagine any of those guys coming back from the Disabled List and being told that they had lost their rotation spot to Jon Lester. Jon Lester, who had made 4 starts for their team, and logged a 7+ ERA.

Insane, right? Just couldn’t ever happen. Violates all common sense. But then, as the poet said, common sense is not so common.

[Bob Reed]

“The things I want to scream at Mike Shildt right now would have me banned from this website within the hour. To say I’m pissed about what happened tonight is an understatement.”

————————-

Agreed, Black Hills. A poorly managed game, even by Shildtian standards. By needlessly pulling Genesis Cabrera after just 7 pitches and replacing him with “8th Inning Guy Gallegos,” he now can’t realistically use Gallegos (26 pitches tonight) on Thursday. And by sending Reyes back out there for the 10th inning and leaving him in forever (32 total pitches), now Alex isn’t available on Thursday either. Or maybe Shildt will just use them and risk their physical well-being, as he did the other night by deploying Gallegos one night after throwing 30 pitches.

If Cabrera had pitched the 8th (he can pitch to any part of any order, since he has reverse splits), then Gallegos could’ve pitched the 10th if it got that far. Anyway, no matter which path Shildt had chosen, anything would’ve been smarter than pulling an effective reliever after 7 pitches — but the heck of it is, he does that sort of thing all the time. He pulls highly effective pitchers on very low pitch counts all the time. All. The. Time.

This consistent, cotten-headed ninnymuggins “strategy” of his has made it much, much harder to have fresh bullpen arms for the long haul of a season, and moreover it’ll be a miracle if Cabrera, Gallegos, and Reyes are healthy to start next season. The combo of appearances/innings has been excessive for all three.

————————

But Shildt’s low point for me tonight was the bottom of the 9th. The Cards really only have have one base stealer, Tommy Edman. And whaddayaknow, he was hit by a pitch to begin the bottom of the 9th, in a tied game! If ever, oh ever, there was a spot in a ballgame that demanded a steal attempt, this was IT. If he’s safe, your victory chances increase enormously. If he’s out, so what? You’re still tied, and you have two batters who can win the game with one swing.

This is not a grey area decision. It’s an all upside choice. Yeah, you could get thrown out. (But that’s like getting intercepted if you throw deep on 4th and 25. Who cares?!) And you never know, the catcher could also airmail the ball into centerfield. Then you’re on 3rd base.

Faced with a riskier situation in the top of the 8th, Kolten Wong went ahead and stole a base against Yadi Molina. The Brewers were losing by a run, so there was a high risk/high reward situation there. And Milwaukee was aggressive, and successful.

———————-

The Cards weren’t only passive. They were also plain stupid, not to try. The contest was tied. In the bottom of the 9th. Edman’s run would literally end the game. Therefore a stolen base (steal of second, anyway) could never ever have more value than that. It’s just the odds. But Shildt/Edman/the Cards were too scared or stupid or both to attempt it. (And this isn’t even including the fact that Hader was likely at least a little bit distracted at the time, kicking himself for having nicked Edman with a pitch to begin the inning.)

Bottom line, the Brewers tried to make something happen. The Birds on the other hand were a pillar of timidity. The Cardinals sat and waited and hoped — even though they had basically nothing to lose in the 9th. Pathetic team, braindead inattentive fraidycat manager.

[Bob Reed]

Great, great week for Nolan Gorman. Incredible week, really. But maybe not the best week of anyone on his team.

Gorman: .346/.393/1.154 for an OPS of 1.547
Mr. X: .429/.600/1.143 for an OPS of 1.743

Moreover, Mr. X also fanned just 3 times while walking 5, and Nolan struck out 7 times while drawing just two walks.

Now Mr. X may not have even been eligible for league Player of the Week, since MLB Pipeline doesn’t yet have him in their top 30 Cardinal prospects. But the 22-year-old deserves some small scrap of public recognition for his tremendous 20 trips to the plate last week. This is that scrap.

Here’s to you, Aaron Antonini!

[Bob Reed]

Seven straight complete game victories in the World Series. Never before and never ever again.

Thanks, Bob.

[Bob Reed]

That makes 3 games the Cards have lost where at some point very late they were 92% or better to win the game. Twice they’ve lost after holding a 3-run lead in the next-to-last inning, and once with a 2-run lead in the final frame. I have often seen entire 162-game Cardinal seasons where those three things did not happen.

It feels like the worst baserunning and worst bullpenning keep happening only when it matters the very most. And it feels that way because that’s exactly the way it is. Between the managerial malfeasance and unsightly fundamentals, I’m done with this team for the year. See you all next season.

[Bob Reed]

“It would be a much more valid age comparison to measure Carlson again high school-drafted players. For example, Matt Carpenter wasn’t even drafted until he was 23 years old!”

This is a fair point. And in fact I did consider only comparing Dylan to high school draftees. But if I had done so (while using exclusively familiar Redbirds and ex-Birds) the sample size would’ve been awfully small.

And more importantly, by using only high school draftees the average age of the MLB hitting breakthroughs would have actually gone UP by a year, from just over 25 to slightly over 26. High schoolers:

Edmonds 25
Fowler 25
Yadi 26
Pham 29

——————————-

Your point about Tommy Edman on the other hand warrants zero rebuttal, Brian. Very well said.

If there are cold Carlson doubters out there, I would offer that Kyle Tucker is a young player with an almost identical career trajectory and prospect profile to Dylan Carlson. Their skillsets, their national prospect rankings in the upper minors, and their AA/AAA track records — all incredibly similar. And Tucker also floundered badly at age 21 in his first taste of The Show.

K.T. 72 PA’s .141 average, .439 OPS
D.C. 79 PA’s .162 average, .458 OPS

At 22 Tucker was solid over another small sample size, and now at 23 he’s playing full time and doing this:

.272/.327/.570 for a 135 OPS+.

I don’t think it’s greedy to expect something quite similar from Dylan Carlson in a couple of years.

[Bob Reed]

To put the 21-year-old Carlson’s struggles into a context, here’s the age at which each of the following Redbirds first posted at least a 100 OPS+ (min. 200 AB’s):

Miller 23
DeJong 23
Edman 24
Bader 24
Goldschmidt 24
Fowler 25
Yadi 26
Carpenter 26
Wong 26

And how about some former Cardinals:

Jon Jay 25
Jim Edmonds 25
Allen Craig 26
David Freese 27
Tommy Pham 29

Baseball has seen a rash of spectacular phenoms over the past few years, but even the eventual star players aren’t usually successful MLB hitters at age 21. I won’t worry about Dylan Carlson unless he’s still struggling at age 23.

[Bob Reed]

“So, after tonight, 9 of Bader’s 12 hits have gone for extra bases. Shildt ought to be raging mad about that.”

——————————

I dunno how Shildt will react. But it’s his job to know this and to use it: Harry Bader has always been an entirely different hitter when permitted to start a ballgame. These career splits don’t even include this evening’s sweet 3-for-3 performance:

As starter (just under 900 PA’s)… .244 avg. and .750 OPS
As sub (just over 100 PA’s)… .135 avg. and .432 OPS

I don’t know what’s happening in Shildt’s head this year, but he’s been making counterintuitive and counterproductive decisions all season. The Bader nonsense of the past two weeks was merely the most inexcusable — not unlike his benching Bader for a then-useless Fowler back in 2018. And inserting Gallegos to start the 9th inning tonight with a 4-run lead was (once again) truly bizarre and contradicts basic managerial competency.

Gio pitched yesterday. And he may be needed tomorrow in a much, much tighter situation than tonight’s zero-leverage appearance. Does today’s usage perhaps mean that Shildt is re-installing the remarkably inconsistent Andrew Miller as closer? Heaven help us if that’s the case.

But even if Miller is anointed closer again, that’s no excuse for using one of the team’s two best relievers on zero days rest with a big 9th-inning cushion. Especially not with a game tomorrow and two more on Tuesday. You start the 9th with a mop-up man, and if he gets into trouble you can bring in the top reliever. It’s what every manager does, all the time, over and over. Not that tricky.

Put your best players in the starting lineup.
Use your best relievers in important situations.

The importance of these dictums is of course magnified in a shortened season, and Mike Shildt has done a shabby job of following those guidelines this year. If he had done better, the club would have two more wins. Maybe three wins, depending how hot Bader would have been during his “time out” or whatever it was.

And perhaps more importantly the players would know that (as much as is practicable) their team is being run like a meritocracy.

I apologize to anyone who finds my tone overly unpleasant. You should see my posts before I remove the exclamation points and profanity.

[Bob Reed]

Thanks for the responses, everybody!

To get one thing out of the way, the Birds are 4-4 since Bader’s benching, so there hasn’t been some mystical winning transformation. (And Dylan Carlson’s OPS has gone from .501 to .498, so nothing’s happening there, either.)

——————————

“Bader has the 4th highest position player bWAR on the team and the highest OF bWAR on the team.”

“Forsch, the answer is that Edman, Carlson and Fowler are higher priority players for the team to play in the OF right now. I get that you don’t like the answer, but that seems to be the way it is.”

Well this raises a painfully obvious question. If those others are “higher priority players” when Bader has a .945 OPS, then how is Harrison Bader supposed to ever earn a full-time CF job? On the Cards in 2020, a .945 OPS translates to a 158 OPS+. Harrison Bader with a 158 OPS+ is Willie Mays. It’s that simple, honest.

For his career Willie had a 156 OPS+. So Bader, at the moment when he was benched, was Willie Mays. Career Mays, not prime Mays. But Mays nonetheless. So Bader apparently needs to be better than Willie Mays to safely secure Mike Shildt’s starting CF role. Best of luck with that, Harry.

Here’s the thing about earning a full-time starting role: performance is supposed to win out. For instance, Brad Miller came to St. Louis for a couple million bucks to be a bench player, but obviously earned full-time status with his play. And that’s great! That’s how baseball works, or is supposed to work. Playing Brad Miller every day was clearly best for the team, so that’s what Shildt did. He adjusted to circumstances.

Tremendous defender Harrison Bader on the other hand got scorching hot at the plate, hitting just like he did in both A-ball and AA-ball, whacking the horsehide with authority, and was immediately benched. That’s NOT how baseball works, except in the Bizarro World.

——————————-

Someone asked if Bader is the same player that he was from 2017-2019. Well first let’s briefly examine what kind of player he was from 2017-2019. I’m talking 2017-19 on the whole, without breaking it down into individual seasons. According to both Baseball-Reference and Fangraphs he was an elite CF defender with a slightly below average bat. In other words, a vaguely Terry Moore/Curt Flood type Redbird centerfielder. A little less hitting and maybe a bit better glove than his CF predecessors.

Okay, but what is that worth? Does that describe a starter on a playoff contender? Per both B-Ref and Fangraphs Bader was worth 5.6 WAR from 2017-19, in 925 plate appearances. Therefore, from 2017-2019 per 600 trips to the plate Bader was worth 3.6 WAR. According to each of the two most respected publicly available sources. So, yes, that’s quite clearly a starter on a playoff contender.

But I’ll play devil’s advocate, since it seems that some fans, and the StL manager dislike Bader for whatever reasons. (Too many Elvis gyrations was it, cranny? 😉 ) Despite having zero supporting evidence I’ll assume that both of those websites were radically wrong, and Bader was substantially less valuable than they say. Like, let’s say half as valuable. I’ll assume that he needed to markedly improve as a hitter in 2020 to secure a starting spot in center field.

Well, if he’s benched you’ll never find out if he’s truly improving as a hitter. Bader turned 26 in June, and players develop in the mid-20’s all the time, or even later. Terry Moore was a bad hitter until he was 26. Yadi wasn’t a league average hitter until he was 26, and wasn’t good until he was 28. Ozzie was annually a poor hitter until he was 29. With an exceptional defender, the manager owes it to the team to find out if the player will develop as a batter.

——————————-

Summing up. In a season where the importance of every single game is massively magnified, on August 26th a terrific defender with a .945 OPS was benched in favor of a highly touted prospect with a lesser glove and a .501 OPS. Then when the prospect continued to flounder at the plate, he was benched for Tommy Edman and Lane Thomas. If there is no injury explanation, that series of decisions isn’t just incompetent. It’s clinically insane. I’m not saying the manager was insane. Just the decision. Hate the sin, love the sinner.

[Bob Reed]

“I cant condone having a pitcher that is nearing 40 throwing 122 pitches. Makes no sense.”

———————–

Under ordinary circumstances I would very likely agree with you about the pitch count, CC, birthday boy or not. I mean, Adam was dreadful immediately after his 126-pitch effort last season — the only game last year when he threw 110+ pitches. In his next start he was dreadful, and despite having two extra days of rest before that outing.

But in this game, he was rolling at the end. Waino still hit 91 MPH in the 9th inning, and he needed very few pitches over the last 3-4 innings. Moreover, he was twirling in a relatively low-stress environment with a comfy lead over those final frames.

And there’s something else I rarely (basically never) see mentioned by other conservative-minded pitch count trackers like myself. And that is the primacy of pitches-per-inning. I can’t help thinking that 122 pitches spread out over 9 innings and 2 1/2 hours might be less taxing physically than say 110 pitches over 6 innings and 45 fewer minutes.

—————————–

All things considered, I see 122 tosses as a gray area decision on this particular day. At 115 I’d have had zero concern. And at 127 or so I’d have started to get upset.

I apologize if it feels like we’re piling on, CC. In general, I absolutely believe in erring on caution’s side with the pitch counts. (I think Shildt’s sole powerful virtue as a manager is that he feels the same way that we do. Usually.)

[Bob Reed]

Health and wealth to you, Mr. Shore. You will be very hard to replace.

[Bob Reed]

Thanks for the response, Brian. I couldn’t agree more with your assessment — with the caveat of, say, roughly 10 or 12 days before using pitchers as normal. (And it’s already been 5 days since Opening Day II, the sequel.)

And obviously if John Gant was NOT going to be available the next day, it makes using him with a 5-run lead and nobody on base even MORE inexcusable. Really, really inexcusable.

It feels like Shildt honestly believes that Andrew Miller is better than John Gant and Gio Gallegos. And in a sane, smart world there’s no way that should be happening.

[Bob Reed]

“If Shildt is holding firm to no pitching two days in a row, then he needs to spread those three out.”

No use of relievers two days in a row? Is this straight conjecture, jj, or has there been a Redbird public statement to imply this is the case?

Because if there has been such a public statement, that mindset feels entirely backwards to me. Given the unique circumstances of the Cardinal 2020 season, it seems this is the year to be more flexible strategically than ever before — not wedded to narrow pre-determined limits.

John Gant on zero days rest last year? He held batters to a .200 slugging percentage. Not batting average. Slugging.

Gio Gallegos on zero days rest last year (just 22 plate appearances, mind you) limited hitters to a .190 slugging%.

Those guys are pretty clearly the best two arms in the bullpen, and therefore it’s axiomatic that they be deployed in the highest leverage situations possible. Not just when it’s “their turn to pitch.”

As for Shildt and Andrew Miller, I don’t know if that Claude Rains get-up is cutting off the oxygen to our manager’s brain, but someone needs to tell him this is 2020 and not 2017. Andrew Miller isn’t very good any more. He just isn’t.

[Bob Reed]

“I am interested to see how home vs road records are this season compared to others. Will not having fans make a difference?”

I looked at this very topic a couple of days ago, CC! (Not for public consumption, just for fun.)

Last year 24 teams had better home than road records, 5 were worse at home, and one the same.

This year, big difference, It’s 14 better at home, 12 better away, and 4 the same. Of course, we’re talking micro-samples in 2020.

[Bob Reed]

“I Think Shildt saw Miller as the better option with Schwarber and Heyward. But not sure why he let him face Hoerner.”

You’re probably right, Mike. So let’s examine Shildt’s logic.

Miller allowed lefties a .667 OPS last year. Not bad.
Gallegos permitted them a .518 OPS. Spectacular.

So if that was Shildt’s reasoning, it was not defensible in my opinion.

[Bob Reed]

Before today, Gant + Gallegos:

7.2 innings, 1 hit allowed, 1 walk allowed, and 12 strikeouts. Clearly the best two bullpen arms, right?

So who comes into a tied game in the top of the last inning? Andrew “paycheck” Miller.

And finally, after three base hits, NOW the idiot manager brings in Gallegos to try and escape an almost impossible jam. Nice going, Shildt.

Career as Cardinal:
Andrew Miller 58.1 IP and a 4.32 ERA
Gio Gallegos 78 IP and a 2.19 ERA

So how on earth does Miller rate the high-leverage role over Gallegos?

And Gant? Oh yeah, he was used with a 5-run lead and the bases empty in game 1. Mike Shildt couldn’t have done more to lose game 2 if he’d been operating as a Cub-employed double agent.

[Bob Reed]

Thanks, Brian. Been storing my venom.

[Bob Reed]

“Dunno. On the broadcast, they speculated that by getting Gant out of there, maybe be could come back in G2.”

Interesting speculation. But the real question of course, is why on earth waste Gant with a 5-run lead and the bases empty? I’ll bet dollars to doughnuts they’ll wish they had him available for game 2.

And no, we do NOT want to use a reliever in both ends of a doubleheader. Stupid, stupid idea. Particularly with the 3-batter minimum. And most particularly with Gant, who we may recall was overused by Shildt early last year, and so useless in the second half and September that he was left off the playoff roster.

Shildt deserves credit for bringing in Gomber to face Happ very early in the game. Full marks for that move. But his usage of Gant, both today and two days ago verges on managerial malfeasance.

[Author]

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