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It’s the other way around, Minuteman. Edman’s a shortstop by trade.
So far as a minor leaguer, 2,000 innings at short, 600 at second, 200 at the hot corner. Defensive rep is solid, probably not quite as good as Edmundo Sosa at shortstop. But he’s a better asset on the bases by far than Edmundo. Real good speed & instincts for Tommy.
And of course Edman is a switch-hitter, which doesn’t hurt. Very nice prospect right now, edging close to Sosa for top 10 in the organization on my list.
You make some fine points, Pads, about the specifics of John Gant’s season thus far. To this point perhaps one could argue that Gant’s been hard-used, but not quite abused.
But I don’t think I would use Walden to buttress my argument, were I you. (That is, if you’re arguing that Gant could be used frequently now, and be just fine later on.) Through the team’s first 15 games in 2015, Walden was on pace for 119(!) appearances and over 100 innings. He made one more appearance before breaking down, and he hasn’t thrown another MLB inning since.
As for our current closer, young Howitzer Hicks at his most-used juncture last year was on pace for “only” 74 games and 96 IP through April 24, the first 22 games of the season. So never was he at the Gantian usage level we’ve seen this season. (Of course, we could adjust for Hicks’ age or number of pitches thrown relative to Gant, or the off days, etc.. Angels and devils are both in the details.)
“Isn’t is funny that the only pitcher who seems to be able to make it 6 innings consistently is Waino – the old guy?”
Well said, Minuteman. I admit I didn’t and don’t have much faith in Waino logging a quality season as an MLB starting pitcher. Over the winter I wanted Adam and the team to announce his plans to be nothing but a reliever from here on out. After all, he hasn’t thrown 30+ innings with a sub-4.40 ERA since 2014. But as you say, he deserves full marks for eating innings so far.
Thanks very much for all the kind words, you guys.
“I suppose another thing to consider for Shildt is that you’d presume you will have Carlos Martinez and/or Alex Reyes available for some of those later season innings if Gant starts to need more rest or becomes ineffective.”
Agreed, 25. I think it’s not unreasonable to expect two or three eventual good bullpen contributions from among Martinez, Reyes, Ponce, Gomber, Woodford, Helsley, and maybe even fast riser Jesus Cruz. But the real problem right now is…
“…our starting rotation just hasn’t eaten enough innings this year, whether that is poor execution on their part or a quick hook by Shildt or both. By my rough calculations the starting rotation has logged 57% of our innings and the bullpen 43%.”
Yeah, I’d say “both,” gscott. Entering play Wednesday, the Cards were 21st in innings by starters, and 12th by relievers. They’re averaging almost exactly 5 innings per start, and really they need to get to 5.5 or a bit better. Or they’ll burn out more than just John Gant. Especially if they have an extra inning game or two during a protracted stretch without any off days.
I think Shildt’s single greatest managerial strength so far — tactical strength anyway — has been removing his starting pitchers before they go too deep. To paraphrase a famous baseball axiom, it’s better to remove a starting pitcher one inning too soon than one batter too late.
But if Shildt’s cautious approach is to work, you better have a deep pen, and you better get the periodic 7-inning start. I’m concerned that the latter feels unlikely, and the former I just don’t know. I think it’ll depend on the aforementioned potential reinforcements.
Giving up lots of walks and homers at anything like the current rates(s), and NOT getting burned by them just isn’t a repeatable thang, I don’t think. Before today, across all MLB, Redbird relievers were a horrid 10th percentile in homer rate, and only a bit less horrid 20th percentile in walks. That’s a very scary combo. Makes that #4 ranking in bullpen ERA look awfully fragile.
Yelich with my favorite splits of the young season.
Home: 13 HR, 29 RBI
Road: 0 HR, 2 RBIOkay, it’s the second split that’s my favorite of the young season.
Well done, Redbirds, on the sweep!
“Not seeing the logic of letting an overworked Brebbia go 30 pitches with a 4 run lead.”
Just a grey area decision to me, CC.
Brebbia is on pace (before today) for 75 games and 90 innings, which are indeed a lot — but not crazy outlandish (like with Gant for example).
And Brebbia had yesterday off, and won’t pitch tomorrow of course. But the other important thing, his recent pitch counts have been exceptionally modest. He only threw 11 pitches on Monday, and just 12 on Sunday, and only 3 on the Friday before that. So, fairly fresh for someone who’s been used a lot.
If that makes any sense. 🙂
Small silver lining to the Peoria defeat: catcher Ivan Herrera made his 12th start behind the plate, and remained without a passed ball on the season.
This isn’t completely inconsequential, as Ivan had a prohibitive 7 PB’s in just 20 games last year. Herrera was just 17, but still. That’s too many.Young backstops frequently have troubles with passed balls, but one every three games…well, Carlton Fisk had one every three games in the Midwest League over 50 years ago, and that’s the only other guy that bad off the top of my head. (For an eventual great catcher, I mean.)
Mr. Bench was kind of notorious for struggling with PB’s as a youngster, and at age 18 in A-ball he had a PB once every six games. Yadi at 18 played in rookieball, and boxed a pitch once every five games.
So I’m impressed with Ivan so far. And the .972 OPS doesn’t hurt either.Lastly, I loved the young man’s comments, quoted in the TCN Prospect Handbook, about growing as a player and a person. He sounds unusually mature, both emotionally and intellectually. Reminded me of the Carson Kelly quotes I used to read a few years back. Herrera has his head screwed on right.
With tonight’s two-inning stint, Gant is now on pace for 90 appearances and 120 innings — both wildly unacceptable. He likely won’t last through June. But that’s okay. (For the team, if not for John Gant.)
I’m not complaining about Mike Shildt, just as I didn’t complain about Mike Matheny when he road the bullpen hard. It’s ten times smarter than a starter being overworked. Because there might be another good bullpen arm right around the corner in Triple-A. But there are no above average starting MLB pitchers sitting in Memphis.
And the unpleasant truth is that someone on the staff is always going to be overworked by the manager, if every single game matters, from April through September, and the manager is trying his hardest to win every single time.
That’s the difference between the Matheny/Shildt teams and the LaRussa years. There were several seasons when Tony’s Redbirds more or less routed the division by Labor Day. Four times they won the Central by ten games or more, and two other times the margin was six and eight games. And conversely there were also years when the club was nowhere near the playoff race. (Three times under LaRussa they won just 73-78 games.)
So under Tony LaRussa there were many years without the incessant, season-long, vise-like pressure. Without the grinding, constant, day-in, day-out pressure to win every game, month after month after month, all the way to the very end.
Unlike with Mike Matheny. Now, he won as many games per season as LaRussa. More in fact. But the Matheny margins in the standings were quite thin — not most years, but every single year. Even when Matheny’s Cardinals led the majors in wins in 2013 and 2015, the division title still came down to the final week — or weekend. When they won 100 games, the Pirates won 98 and the cubs 97. When the Cards won 97, Pittsburgh won 94. There were no chances to breathe.
Every single year since LaRussa left town, the Cardinal season has hung in the balance right up until game 160 or so. Since Matheny’s tenure began it really has been a constant crucible unlike any in club history. Perhaps unlike any seven year stretch in the history of any team. Not because the Cardinals haven’t been as good as they were under LaRussa. (They’ve been better than under LaRussa. About two wins per year better.)
But the opposition is also better now. So the Cardinals have had to win every single game that they could, over and over and over, for seven-plus seasons. And when you’re doing your darnedest to win every single game, someone (or two) on the pitching staff will be overused eventually. It’s inevitable.
Tonight the Brewers didn’t use Josh Hader. And maybe that’s why they lost. But they know that Hader is a superlative talent — you know, like Andrew Miller used to be — that they must try to protect when they can, because he could be a big part of their team for years to come.
That’s not John Gant. Gant has done a great job. But he is not ever going to be Josh Hader. And neither were Matt Bowman or Seth Maness or even Kevin Siegrist.
Great win, finally beating Milwaukee in a one-run game. Huzzah! All alone in first, thanks in no small part to an excellent performance by erstwhile Redbird Luke Weaver versus the Buccos. Thanks, Luke. (As has been said before, he and Greg Holland were clearly tipping pitches last year. It’s the only thing that makes sense. Why an internet crackpot can figure this out, and the Cardinals couldn’t is beyond me. [And it’s probably part of why Hudson has been lit up this year, as well.])
Anyway, bragging/whining aside, Cards have been out-homered 11-to-3 over their past three games — and are undefeated. Extraordinary.
But I’m fine with tons of singles and doubles, and of course the occasional tater. The .240 hitter with 35 homers is in fact less valuable than the .280 hitter with 20 homers…but it seems like every batter wants to be the former these days, rather than the latter.
And speaking of which, here’s how power-centric hitters have become, just over the past handful of seasons. Entering play today, seven entire teams had an isolated slugging over .200.
Just three years ago the highest ISO in the majors was .188 (Orioles).
Three years before that, the highest team ISO was a mere .171 (also Orioles).
I don’t mind 3 1/2 hour games (when the Cards are winning, anyway). Or even 4 hour games. But what I want is more plays, in the field, by players, and runners. But not Yadi running. Just other people.
The ball is unquestionably juiced this year. Ryan Braun’s homer yesterday convinced me for sure. There was nothing special in that AB. A year ago he may have had a line-drive double, but just as likely the ball goes straight to the RF’er for a running grab. Instead it jumped for old man Braun like it was crushed by prime Pujols or Piazza.
Deaden the ball back to normal. Lower the mound 2-3 inches to cut back slightly on strikeouts. And maybe even enforce the rulebook strikezone, to cut down on walks. (Though I suspect that fewer cheap Braun-like homers will indirectly lead to fewer walks, because pitchers won’t fear throwing strikes when behind in the count.) The aesthetics of the game would improve immeasurably.
“Bobby will be wearing Fowler’s jersey around and have a large poster of Dexter on his bedroom wall, just like we did with Farrah’s poster back in the day, by season’s end.”
Well, don’t bet the rent on that one, Pugs. And I wasn’t a Farrah guy either, red one-piece poster or not. Among the Angels it was either Jaclyn or Cheryl for me.
Sorry if I was too acidic in my comment, Texas. I’ve read so much malarkey lately about what a “great guy” Fowler is, that I just got sick of it. Because there’s nothing great at all about someone who takes zero responsibility for their own actions. My remarks reflected that, as much as my modest expectations for his performance going forward.
As my dear mother told me growing up, “If you can’t say something nice, just go on the internet and say something awful.”
“Give Dexter a little love. He’s now hitting .313. Hopefully he can keep it up. It would be an amazing resurgence.”
After he blamed his terrible 2018 on his teammates, his manager, and everybody but himself? No love from me. I don’t care if he hits .380 and wins the N.L. MVP. I have no respect for the man as a ballplayer. (If he were to loudly & publicly retract his statements about Matheny and his 2018 teammates, I’d certainly amend my low opinion of him. But not before.)
Fowler’s blame-shifting began in October and continued all the way through Spring Training with his nonsensical “I wasn’t given the benefit of the doubt in right field.” He’s the standard-bearer for the modern self-absorbed professional athlete. Even with plenty of time to reflect on his lost 2018 season, months of time, he still pointed fingers everywhere but at the mirror.
I want him to succeed because of the jersey he wears. But I dislike him personally, rather intensely, and I don’t see that ever changing. And for whatever it’s worth, I predicted he would have an OPS 156 points better than last year (on average that’s how much Wong, Piscotty, Voit, Aledmys Diaz, Ozuna, Grichuk, and Pham improved post-Mabry in 2018). That would mean a .732 this year. I’ll stick with that forecast.
On a considerably lighter note, it sure is sweet being in first place — and thumping the Brewers to get there. Yes, they’re tied with the Buccos. But I don’t count Pittsburgh.
“Indeed, Sosa is having a good season so far. He was solid in ’18…”
A very good season so far, and maybe better even than it looks at first glance. Like last year, Edmundo’s numbers appear to be suppressed at least a bit by the pitcher’s park in Memphis.
Sosa’s road game slashline in AAA, combining last year and this: .328/.375/.560
It’s only 136 plate appearances, and I certainly don’t think that a .935 Triple-A OPS is Edmundo’s true talent level right now. But maybe .840 to .860, something of that nature. And that would make him an overall top 150 prospect and keep him ahead of Tommy Edman on my personal list. (Edmundo just turned 23 last month, making him nearly a full year younger than Tommy.)
It’s that power increase that’s kind of exciting with Sosa — recall that he had more extra base hits than strikeouts + singles in Spring Training. Okay, it was a minimicro sample. But it may have foreshadowed a real step forward.
Firstly, big kudos to Miles Mikolas. When you drive in as many runs as you allow, you’ve had a great day at the office. Research project: how many times did Gibson and Wainwright accomplish that feat? Or Forsch maybe?
“When the team is at full strength, I don’t think Martinez should be in the starting lineup. On that triple to right center, he was barely in the picture. I would like to see Thomas get a start in center and move Fowler back to right. Hopefully that would work until Bader is back.”
I also like the idea of Lane Thomas in center for now. His glovework reputation is good, and the metrics back it up. (And an outfield alignment of Ozuna/Fowler/Martinez is asking for trouble. Begging for it, actually.) And heaven knows, even the optimist in me has been pleasantly surprised by some Cardinal prospects in recent years. I never thought Tommy Pham would have a 5-WAR season, or Matt Carpenter a string of 4-WAR campaigns, or that Paul DeJong would do what he’s done over his first 1,000 plate appearances (7+ WAR).
But I do like Martinez in RF when there’s a lefty starter. In Jose’s (admittedly brief) major league career, he’s beaten southpaws like rented mules: .333/.406/.569
Even with the bad defense, that’s just too great a line to leave on the bench. Fowler can start versus righties, sure, while Bader & O’Neill are both suffering ouchies. But Martinez has to be in the lineup for lefties.
Last season, they were .249 (overall) and .295 (runner on 3B, less than two outs). Why can’t hitters put up the same average no matter the situation? Aren’t they trying their hardest in every at-bat?
I know you’re joshin’, Brian. Ya big josher. I would say that the man with the bat and the man on the bump are entered into an involuntary collaboration of sorts, and when the situation places too much pressure on the hurler, he over-cooperates with the batter. Probably what happens a lot is the twirler gets timid, starts to nibble, falls behind, and has to groove one.
At any rate, here are the overall MLB splits for the past 5 years. First, batting average and OPS with bases empty. Then, the same for when there was a man on 3rd and fewer than two outs. (Each year, we’re talking about roughly 100,000 PAs with the bases empty, and 10,000 with a man on 3rd, less than 2 out. So there are no sample size distortions whatsoever here.)
2018
Empty: .241 & .710
3rd/LT 2 out: .318 & .8642017
.250 & .738
.331 & .8892016
.250 & .727
.316 & .8532015
.248 & .704
.316 & .8402014
.245 & .682
.326 & .839So the difference is real, and it’s spectacular. It’s generally 70-75 points of batting, and 140-150 points of OPS. That’s the handicap. The Cards need to do better, for sure.
“After last night’s game I was wondering does anyone know what our team batting average is with a runner on third and less than two outs? Asking for a friend.”
The team is 9-36 with 15 strikeouts and just 3 sacrifice flies. So that’s a .250 average (and a ~.700 OPS).
For context, this year the MLB average is .323 with a .905 OPS. And double the sac fly rate as well.So yes, the Cards have been horrific compared to their peers. (Last year the MLB average was .318 with an .864 OPS, and in 2017 it was .331 and .889.)
Obviously an enormous advantage is to the hitter in that situation. But the Redbird batters (so far, over a very small sample) have been unable to understand/exploit that.
I don’t know Yadi’s protocols well enough to have an opinion, BHC. Could be he does that in a lot of road games — and even some home games. I can’t put it into a meaningful context. Lot of help I am, huh?
Now for the rant.
We’re in an age where the Super Bowl MVP was a PED cheat, thrown passes by the Deflategate cheat, while being coached by the Spygate cheat. Cheaters never prosper? Sure they do. Lately they prosper more than anyone.
Alex Rodriguez gets to broadcast ESPN games every week, and even interview Hank Aaron. I nearly vomited, seeing them in the booth together the other night. Maybe Lance Armstrong can do a guest spot on ESPN this summer, covering the Tour De France.
There are no ethics in sports anymore, and maybe there never really were. But the difference is, now there is no shame. Ryan Braun, none. A-Rod, zero. ESPN, nada. If Bonds or Clemens or A-Rod or Big PEDi get into Cooperstown, I won’t be going back. I’m a relic, I guess. I actually thought that the Golden Rule was the foundation of all ethics. Confucius said it first, then Hillel, then Jesus, then finally Kant. It was THE rule to live by, if you forgot all the others. Now it seems just a minor inconvenience, something to be dodged on the pathway to professional athletic success.
Also, get off my lawn.
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I suppose I should add that many teams no doubt are trying to swipe signs in the “natural” way every game. That is, the players themselves looking for tells. That’s baseball. But once an outsider is introduced into the equation (e.g., Astros, Indians) then it is cheating. In my opinion.
2017 Brewers Home/Road team batting splits:
Home: .251/.322/.438
Road: .248/.322/.4192018 Brewers batting splits:
Home: .247/.322/.431
Road: .257/.323/.418So obviously the Brewers in 2017 and 2018 did not get much of an artificial hitting boost from their home park. Basically none, really. But how about 2019?
This year, before tonight:
Home: .300/.377/.584
Road: .227/.317/.365Now I’m not saying that Milwaukee has someone in centerfield with high-powered binoculars, stealing signs and relaying them to Brewer batters. But I’m saying that if they DID, then this is EXACTLY what their home/road hitting splits would look like.
Maybe it really is just the ballpark, though, somehow. So let’s check Brewer pitchers this year. Well, their pitchers are allowing a batting average just 14 points higher at home this year than on the road (as opposed to 73 points for their hitters), and a slugging percentage 97 points higher, compared to 219 points.
Yeah, the majors are difficult. I get it. But when Dakota Hudson allows 8 homers in nearly 300 career minor league innings, and zero home runs in 33 MLB innings in all other ballparks…but 5 homers in 8 innings at Miller Park this year, something looks more than a little bit fishy. (Hudson didn’t pitch in Miller last year. But then, there was nothing going on last year anyway, as evidenced by the previously-referenced season splits.)
Yes, I’m probably paranoid. And a “hater” when it comes to disgraced PED cheat Ryan Braun and his team. But as the saying goes, even paranoid people have enemies. And as a corollary, even the most hyper-suspicious and cynical baseball fan is right some of the time.
“I always like to see prospect’s better their numbers as they climb through the system. Johan Oviedo is doing just that early on…
By the end of ’18 he was the starter in the Chiefs opening round of the play-offs vs. Quad City. He pitched 6.0 innings of a 3-0 win…
At present Oviedo ranks at +/-#20 in most polls that I’ve seen including #20 on the latest TCN rating. His potential got him there and increasing his performance will no doubt boost him higher.”
Good info, Ny. With Reyes & Hudson graduating from the prospect list, it’ll be interesting to see who inherits the mantle of Top Pitching Prospect in the organization by season’s end. Johan certainly rates as a possibility.
Anyway, to supplement your insights I thought I’d include here some quotes from Kyle Glaser’s Baseball America Redbird prospect chat.
“Evaluators both internally and externally actually liked Oviedo quite a bit even when he wasn’t going so hot, and his second half turnaround really strengthened their belief that he could be a potential back-end starter someday.” (Emphasis mine.)
And better still, this:
“He’ll show you 96 and flash both a plus breaking ball and a plus changeup, but never at the same time.”
So clearly there is talent in the big man, however intermittently expressed. Glaser’s rather lengthy Oviedo remarks conclude with “His 2019 will be very, very interesting to watch, and I think he’s got a chance to really pop.”
I think the same could be said for both Angel Rondon and Jake Woodford, re “a chance to really pop” in 2019. But really, all we’re plausibly hoping for long term is a possible #4/5 starter from one of these guys (or Helsley, or someone else). Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
“Nolan Gorman just led off the Top of the 7th with a solo blast to centerfield. 1-0 Chiefs.”
…and that was indeed the final score, 1-0. Thanks, stormin’ Gorman! On a related note, here’s a fun early season micro-sample comparison.
Ivan Herrera and Nolan Gorman are Peoria Chiefs teammates.
Nolan Gorman is very young. Ivan Herrera is younger
Nolan is homering for 27% of his base hits. Ivan is homering for 33% of his hits.
Gorman is walking once every 13 AB’s, Herrera every 5 AB’s.
Gorman has struck out in 26% of his plate appearances. Herrera has whiffed in 32% of his.Conclusion: Ivan Herrera is more Gormanesque than Gorman himself.
This was not intended as serious analysis, of course. But Ivan — the only minor league backstop in any organization to post a 150 or better wRC+ in both 2017 and 2018 — is to my mind one of the overlooked potential gems of the Redbird system.
How overlooked? Fangraphs had Herrera 33rd in a Cardinal farm that they graded bottom five in baseball even when Reyes & Hudson still had eligibility. I rated the Panamanian 18-year-old roughly 140th among all prospects before the season began, and I feel at least 10% vindicated already due to the early evidence of a Herrera power increase. So far in his brief career he’s hit well enough for any position on the field. And if Ivan Herrera can remain at catcher, the Cards might really have something.
“This is what I call a ‘bench game’ being as the entire bench started the game. I gave them about a 10 percent chance of a win. That will teach me. Shildt figured out a way to get 4 guys two days rest before having to drink Mexican water.”
Yeah, the “bench game” theory. Tony LaRussa did it relatively often, once or twice a month loading the lineup with bench guys, usually on Sundays I believe. For the first 6 or 8 years that he managed the Cards, it drove me nuts. Why not spread the playing time around more, for the backups? Why seriously inhibit your chances to win this given game?!
But then I happened one day to be listening to the radio during a Redbird pre-game show, and TLR was asked by the interviewer about this very topic. And he said something that really resonated — and taught me about how I’m not always as smart as I think I am. Usually I am. Just, not always. 😉
Tony said that by playing all the bench guys together, it created a team esprit de corps that couldn’t be generated any other way. The thinking was, if the “bench team” won the game, it united the bench guys with one another more than before — and united them with the starters, too. But if the team lost the game, well that’s what they were supposed to do anyway. And at least a bunch of starting players got a day of rest.
I’ve probably simplified things a tiny bit, but that’s the gist. And it does make a lot of sense. Whaddayaknow, a first ballot Hall Of Fame manager knew something I didn’t know, about managing a baseball team.
“Now Fowler should never see a lefty again and in many circumstances Martinez should play against righties.”
Couldn’t have said it better myself, booyah.
Starting Fowler against any lefties, while Jose Martinez is available, constitutes managerial negligence.Martinez, career, versus southpaws: .325/.400/.550
And as you insightfully opined, my fellow fan, Dexter should never see certain righties either, i.e., the ones who qualify as “power pitchers” per Baseball-Reference. Fowler’s OPS against such pitchers has plummeted from .806 in 2016 to .635 in 2017, then finally to .443 last year. (Martinez has a career OPS just over .700 when facing said moundsmen. Not world-beating, but vastly superior to Delicate Dexter.)
Obviously the best thing for the organization would simply be to release Fowler and platoon Martinez and Tyler O’Neill in right field for the remainder of the season. Per Fangraphs, since the start of last year Dex is tied for the 4th-worst position player in the majors with a total “value” of minus 1.4 WAR, from a .569 OPS and negative nine runs on defense. Rotten in 2018, rotten in Spring Training, rotten so far in 2019.
Playing him doesn’t save any money. Not a nickel. And releasing him doesn’t cost any meaningful money of course, since he’d promptly be replaced by dirt cheap internal options — but oh the public humiliation for all involved, if Dexter were given those walking papers.
“Then Irving Lopez sends home the hometown fans with a walk-off 2 run blast to right field. Springfield wins their first game, breakout the champagne.”
Even better, Lopez with the rare golden sombrero/walkoff homer exacta. Very glad for him, and the team.
Dylan Carlson with a very Carlson night: 2-4 with a single, double, and base on balls. I’ve personally moved him up from roughly #90 overall prospect to borderline top 50, after seeing his surprising athleticism in Spring Training, coupled with his blistering start to the season. (And of course a handful of guys above him have graduated or been injured.)“I very much doubt that Andrew Miller will run 13%/17.4% K/BB rates for the entire season, nor will Alex Reyes be at the astronomically terrible 5.9%/35.3% K/BB. So even with some BABIP regression, I expect the bullpen overall to be better.”
That’s well put, 25. I’ll somewhat reluctantly accept the proposition that perhaps this year’s and last year’s bullpens are NOT created equal. We’ll see.
In any case, even a bullpen fault-finder like myself can’t complain about today’s dynamite reliever performance. Eight K’s in 5 1/3 innings when the club needed it badly — with no walks and a measly pair of singles. Okay, plus a hit batter that I’ll choose to imagine was for some reason in honor of Bob Gibson.The homestand may have begun with a whimper but it ended with a lovely double comeback bang. How often do you get to win a game wherein you trailed by 3 runs twice?!
“I get the BABIP point, but I am less concerned.
Brebbia is one with a very low .111 BABIP so far. Last season, it was a normal .297 and he still had a good season (0.7 fWAR).
Gant is also at .111 now. Last season, he was at .253. He also had a solid 2018 (1.2 fWAR).”Pretty persuasive rebuttal, Brian.
I’m still right, of course. But I’m grudgingly entertaining the possibility that you are right as well. I’ll endeavor to follow your lead and fret far less.The Cards now have a +15 run differential on the season despite having played one of the toughest schedules around. Redbird opponents are a terrific 25-12 in their non-StL tilts, with an excellent collective +30 run differential of their own. (The Trolleydodgers are 8-2 when not playing Cards, the Pirates 6-2, Pads 6-4, and the Milwaukee Yeliches 5-4.)
That Sobieck dame’s got panache. Nice arm, too.
The StL bullpen 2018: 22nd in MLB in K/9 rate, and 29th in BB/9.
This year’s bullpen: 23rd in MLB in K/9 rate, and 28th in BB/9.So why is the bullpen ERA so much improved? Simple. This year’s relief corps has allowed a .159 average on balls in play. In other words, they’ve so far been by far the luckiest bullpen in the history of the sport.
Last year, the lowest bullpen BABIP was the Athletics at .265; in 2017 the leader was the Yankees at .272; the year before that it was the cubs with a .262 BABIP allowed. You get the idea.
This year’s pitching staff will rise or fall based in large part on AAA callups and July trade acquisitions. And they better get something pretty big from Carlos Martinez, too. Because the current bullpen is built on sand.
Lighter note: great, great rally today. Way to fight back, boys, whatever the eventual outcome.
“Grichuk: He was given many many opportunities to start here and could never seize the opportunity because of his poor OBP. I’m glad we aren’t paying him $52M.”
The following career numbers are from Fangraphs, a couple days back. See if you can guess which one is Cub star Javier Baez and which one is underachieving & undisciplined hitter Randal Grichuk.
Player A is 27 years old and has accrued 9.3 WAR in 1,877 MLB plate appearances.
Player B is 26 and has accumulated a total of 9.9 WAR in 1,940 PA’s.Player A has a lifetime wRC+ of 110, strikes out 29% of the time, and walks 6% of the time.
Player B has a lifetime wRC+ of 103, whiffs 28% of the time, and walks just 5% of the time.The answer of course is that it doesn’t matter much at all which is which, since they’re more or less identical in terms of age and production at the MLB level. (Not saying I wouldn’t rather have Baez — middle infielders are tougher to find than outfielders. But the point is that Grichuk has had a good career so far, and should be good going forward. I think Toronto got a relative bargain.)
“The organization must have the resources to do this, and they are rewarding their tenured players with nice deals as the ride into the sunset in their careers.”
I think we’re debating at cross purposes, BikeMike.
I’m not concerned about whether ownership has sufficient resources to cover the tab. The hazard here isn’t that the club will get a poor return on its investment. That’s not what worries me.
The profound hazard is that there’ll be a yet another repeat of what we’ve seen over the past few years with Fowler, Holland, Cecil, Gregerson, and to a certain extent Wainwright — that a contract commitment dictates who plays and who doesn’t, who starts and who sits on the bench, who remains on the 40-man roster and who gets rightfully released.
If Fowler for example were making $6M a year instead of $16M, not only would he not be starting, he likely wouldn’t even be on the team anymore. He’d have been released last year before Mike Shildt had a chance to inexplicably re-insert him in the starting lineup. Which of course would make this year’s outfield Ozuna, Bader, and Pham, with O’Neill waiting in the wings to take over for Ozuna in 2020. (In other words, with Fowler gone there would’ve been no need to trade Pham last year. Pham was traded to get Bader back into the starting lineup where he belonged, but from which he was pulled by Shildt in deference to Delicate Dexter.)
The terrible hazard with a contract extension like this is that at some point in the future — and for an extended period of time — the team actively hurts itself by using players who are markedly inferior to other available options.
I’ll say it once more. For the first 7-8 years of his tenure, Mo was as shrewd as any GM in the sport. I would not have exchanged him straight-up for anyone. But over the past 2-3 years he’s been a C- or D+ general manager. Maybe straight D, really, if you give him a meaningful demerit for the bizarre and highly idiosyncratic mishandling of Jordan Hicks’ formerly promising career. Of course Mozeliak has gotten some things right in recent years; even a .150 batter gets a hit now and then. But on balance Mo has declined precipitously as a decisionmaker, and this wholly unnecessary and potentially very counterproductive Carpenter contract is the latest in a long line of gaffes.
