700 Clark St.

No Way, José!

April 10th, 2009

First of all, the good news: Carpenter went seven innings of one-hit ball, giving up only one unearned run and picking up his first win in two years. It’s good to have him back, and I hope he keeps it up all year long.

But in the midst of Carpenter’s gem came this little bit of ugly: It’s the bottom of the seventh, bases loaded, one out, the score 2-1 Cards, Colby Rasmus batting, El Hombre on deck. Rasmus hits a fly to right field, an easy fly out, and now José Oquendo has a choice: whether or not to send the runner from third after the catch.

Here are the possibilities:

He doesn’t send the runner. Then there will be two outs, bases loaded, with Pujols up. Pujols: he of the career .426 OBP and .335 batting average. In other words, there’s a better than 42% chance that Albert pushes the runner from third over, and a better than 1 in 3 chance that he’ll do it with a hit, pushing over two or more runs. At worst, Albert gets out, the inning is over, and the score remains 2-1.
He sends the runner and the runner scores. Great. Now it’s 3-1 with two on and Albert up. Not bad, and we probably could use the insurance run. But again, if Oquendo doesn’t send the runner, there’s a great chance Albert drives him in anyway.
He sends the runner and the runner doesn’t score. Now, just like in Strategy #1, the inning is over, score stays 2-1–only this way, Albert leads off the eighth with the bases empty. This is decidedly the worst-case scenario.

If the fly ball is deep and the runner is quick, then it’s worth the risk; otherwise, why try it? Best thing to do is go with Strategy #1, right? Instead, here’s what happened:

The fly? Shallow.
The runner on third? Yadier “swift-footed Achilles” Molina.
Oquendo’s call? Send him!!
The result? Albert leads off the eighth with the bases empty.

As it happened, Pujols grounded out to lead off the eighth anyway. And we did win the game, so it all worked out in the end. But still: it’s not every player that merits a departure from conventional wisdom, but Albert is one of those players. When he’s on deck, we need less aggressive baserunning, not more.

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What’s Albert Thinking?

January 30th, 2009

Saw this on ESPN today:

Albert Pujols is encouraging the St. Louis Cardinals to sign Manny Ramirez….

Pujols passed along Ramirez’s telephone number to St. Louis manager Tony La Russa.

“Maybe St. Louis doesn’t have the money to sign him, but he could give them a discount because St. Louis is a great city that supports its players,” Pujols said.

Albert has no business weighing in on this. As I said to brody, it’s not his job to weigh in on who should or shouldn’t be on the team — that’s up to Mozeliak and, to a lesser degree, LaRussa. Before this, Manny wasn’t even on the Cards’ radar; now, Albert has put the team in an awkward position no matter what they do: if the Cards do sign Manny, it’s going to look like they did it because Pujols told them to, and if they don’t, it’s going to upset a fair number of fans (who, let’s be honest, care more about Albert than they do about Mozeliak). Basically, it doesn’t matter what Albert thinks the team should do — he should keep his opinions private and not discuss them with the press.

FWIW, I love the idea of Manny on the Cards. I’d love to see him bat 5th, with Ankiel sandwiched between him and Albert, forcing opposing managers to burn a LOOGY. Knowing LaRussa, though, the order would probably be more like Ankiel batting 2nd, followed by Albert, Manny, and Ludwick.

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

This is bullsh*t

September 3rd, 2008

I don’t know what else to say, really. The D-Backs just finished ripping the heart of the Cardinals yet again, ruining Lohse’s six-shutout-inning effort by scoring four runs against the bullpen: two in the seventh and another two in the ninth.

You know how everyone used to say about the ‘96-’00 Yankees that they “shortened the game”? That the bullpen was so consistent that they won something like 95% of games in which they had the lead after the sixth inning? Yeah. Those were good times. Good times. For Yankees fans.

I’d like to write something really thoughtful about the Cardinals’ bullpen travails, with exhaustive research and probing analysis, perhaps leading to an insightful conclusion about how to rectify the situation, but y’know what? I just can’t. Not right now. I’m too worn out, too emotionally spent. Too hoarse from cursing at the screen.

Posted in Bullpen | No Comments »

His apple stats say a lot about his oranges.

August 22nd, 2008

In Jayson Stark’s chat today, someone asks about Pujols’ MVP candidacy, and Stark says this:

Albert Pujols is having an amazing year, on every level. One stat I keep checking on Albert is: Percent of pitches thrown to him that are in the strike zone. He’s still under 50 percent — and he’s slugging over .600! No team wants to pitch to him in a big spot, or let him beat them, and he continues to find ways to keep that offense rolling.

Okay, to begin with, two disclaimers: 1) I support Albert’s MVP candidacy whole-heartedly—he’s meant more to his team’s success than any player since the ‘01-’04 Bonds; and 2) his strike percentage is 54%, so I’m not sure what Stark is talking about. But in any case, citing strike percentage vs. slugging percentage as a measure of a hitter’s ability seems bizarre to me. They don’t have anything to do with each other.

Remember that slugging percentage is measured only in reference to a player’s At Bats—which always end in a strike—and not Plate Appearances, which can end in either a strike or a ball. In other words, every time Albert walks, it decreases the percentage of strikes he sees but has no impact at all on his SLG. Moreover, remember that the hitter has some control over how many strikes he sees (if he swings at a ball out of the zone, it’s still recorded as a strike), and that not all strikes are created equal (fouls on two-strike counts, balls put in play, etc.). If anything, Pujols does his part to “keep that offense rolling” by remaining patient and letting the opposing pitcher walk him—these walks often lead to runs later; see my earlier post on the impact of Pujols’ underappreciated walks.

In the broader perspective, I’m not sure that percentage of strikes seen tells us much about a hitter’s ability. As an example, let’s take a look at a game-in-the-life of two hypothetical players A and B, both of whom go 1-3 with a double and a walk.

In his first plate appearance, Player A gets a two-strike count, fouls off a pitch, then strikes out looking. In his second PA, he strikes out on three pitches. In his third PA, he goes 0-2, then lines the next pitch for a double, and in his fourth PA, he walks on a full count.

By contrast, in his first PA, Player B swings on a 3-0 count and pops out. In his second PA, again on a 3-0 count, he grounds into a double play. Swinging on 3-0 yet again, in his third PA he doubles. Finally, he walks on four straight pitches in his last PA.

Here’s how their balls and strikes break down:

Player	PA 1	PA 2	PA 3	PA 4	Total strikes	Total pitches	% of strikes
A	0B/4S	0B/3S	0B/3S	4B/2S	12 strikes	16 pitches	75 %
B	3B/1S	3B/1S	3B/1S	4B/0S	3 strikes	16 pitches	18.75 %

Player A saw 75% strikes, while Player B saw 18.75%—but who had the better day? Sure, Player A was terribly impatient while Player B needs to learn to keep his bat on his shoulder on 3-0 counts, but I think it’s hard to argue either one of them did better than the other.

Now of course, this comparison is deliberately artificial, but I’m just trying to illustrate my point that strike percentage may or may not actually mean much about a hitter’s performance. As another illustration, here are the top-10 Major League OPS leaders this year, together with their strike percentage:

Albert Pujols: 54%
Milton Bradley: 56%
Chipper Jones: 54%
Matt Holliday: 60%
Lance Berkman: 57%
Ryan Ludwick: 62%
Carlos Quentin: 61%
Alex Rodriguez: 61%
Manny Ramirez: 60%
Kevin Youkilis: 63%

As we see, Albert and Chipper lead this group, but not dramatically. So I remain unconvinced that Pujols’ strike percentage is a measure of his (immense) value as a hitter. But I’m open to hearing competing perspectives, so bring ‘em on.

Posted in Albert Pujols, Current Players, Statistical Analysis | 1 Comment »

Why save prudently for tomorrow when you can spend recklessly today?

August 19th, 2008

Ned Yost did not, apparently, pay attention to last season’s C.C. Sabathia vs. Josh Beckett debate and their ensuing playoff performance. To recap: Sabathia and Beckett had very similar numbers last season, with innings pitched their most distinguishing statistic. Sabathia pitched 241 innings while Beckett pitched 200.2, meaning Sabathia threw 20% more innings than Beckett, and this difference likely tipped the Cy Young voting in Sabathia’s favor.

But then the postseason rolled around, those extra 40+ innings took their toll. Sabathia’s ERA went from 3.21 during the regular season to a whopping 8.80 during his three postseason starts; meanwhile, Beckett’s 3.27 regular season ERA paled in comparison to his 1.20 ERA in 4 postseason starts. Are their postseason stats skewed due to small sample size? Sure, to some degree, of course they are. But an 8.80 ERA? It seems clear that by October, Sabathia just didn’t have anything left in the tank, and with his workload, who can blame him?

Okay, so fast-forward to 2008. Sabathia is a Brewer now, and Ned Yost is hoping against hope that he can hold off the mighty, surging Cardinals to deliver Milwaukee’s first playoff appearance in (believe it or not) 26 years (ouch). Sabathia has been nothing short of brilliant, going 8-0 with a 1.60 ERA in nine starts for the Brew Crew. And perhaps even more amazing: of those nine starts, he’s completed five of them. Five! C.C. Sabathia, who’s been in the NL just about a month, already leads the league in complete games. Incidentally, guess who’s second with four CG? Teammate Ben Sheets.

Going into last night’s eighth inning, the Brewers were leading Houston 8-2. Sabathia went on to finish the game (which ended 9-3), needing 130 (!) pitches to do it. So: Why on earth did Yost let him complete the game? Why even let him pitch the eighth? The night before, the Brewer bullpen logged two innings; the night before that, three. Pretty typical for a major league bullpen; it’s not as if they’d played a fourteen inning marathon and needed the rest. With only two innings left to play, did Yost really think a 6-run lead wasn’t safe against Houston, whose offense is currently only good enough for 10th in the NL?

Sabathia has pitched 195+ innings already this season, and it’s only mid-August. He’s on pace for 249. I know the Brewers are trying to win the Wild Card, but this game was, for all practical purposes, in the bag (I mean, if your bullpen can’t hold a 6-run lead going into the eighth… well, perhaps I shouldn’t finish that thought). Maybe just making it to the playoffs is good enough for Yost, but if so, that’s a real shame for Brewers fans: if Sabathia can be his dominant self, along with Sheets pitching second in the rotation, Milwaukee is poised to be a serious threat come October.

Addendum: When I wrote this, I hadn’t yet read this blog post from Buster Olney over at ESPN.com, who makes pretty much exactly the same point. The biggest difference between his post and mine is that he seems to think the decision to finish the game was Sabathia’s, not Yost’s. This doesn’t make sense to me. The manager, obviously, has the responsibility to manage the pitching staff, and he’s got to be thinking both about today’s game as well as the long-term effects on his pitchers. No one volunteers to leave a game; the more honest pitchers will at least admit they’re tired when asked, but Sabathia wasn’t going to bow out of the game unless Yost made him—and that’s exactly Yost’s job.

Posted in Brewers, Other MLB teams, Playoffs | 1 Comment »

Collisions at the Plate

August 19th, 2008

The rules of Major League Baseball allow fielders to block a base from an advancing runner provided that the defending player is either fielding the ball or in possession of the ball. The runner, also with a right to the base path, is then forced to choose between a collision or a crafty approach to the defended station. With so much at stake, these rules lead to collisions. Runners are obliged to break up double plays. First-basemen have a responsibility to field errant throws. Catchers must protect the plate. Injuries are a common by-product of the resulting collisions, not just at the plate, but also at first, second, and, sometimes, third.

I am willing to accept most of the collisions at first, second, or third as unavoidable and, for the most part, fairly harmless. I do not condone high spikes at second or a slide perpendicular to the base path, but, over the years, players and fielders seem to have developed unwritten rules that keep everyone adequately protected. At the plate, however, the rules seem to be different. Catchers step in to receive a throw and runners barrel towards the plate like a wrecking ball into a condemned building. The runner’s goal is to either prevent the catcher from fielding the ball, or, in the event that the catcher already has the ball, to dislodge the ball (and whatever else gets in the way) to safely reach the plate.

I have been pondering plays at the plate since mid-June, when Yadier Molina suffered a concussion after being run over by one of the Philadelphia Phillies. The next day was an off-day and Yadier skipped the following three games, missing four out of the next five while regathering his mental faculties. On the other side of the ball I also grimaced while watching Chris Duncan bowl over opposing catchers around the same time. What really got me thinking about it, though, was the game between China and the USA in this summer’s Olympic Games. Matt LaPorta took out the Chinese catcher at the plate (who left the game with a knee injury) and two innings later LaPorta was plunked in the helmet. I was surprised that this would go on in the Olympic Games, especially given that USA won the game 9-1. I found an interesting quote (see this article) of Joe Girardi from spring training about collisions at the plate:

During the season, I’m all for it. It happens in the season. In spring training, I don’t believe in it.

This suggests that such collisions should be avoided when the run is not meaningful. Yet bravado seems to get the better of most athletes in these situations. I don’t like to see the collisions and I really don’t like the injuries that result. In an age of pitch counts, body armor, and five-man rotations I wonder if it is really in the best interest of a team to risk their catcher on a violent play at the plate with a single run, or even a single game, hanging in the balance.

Posted in Chris Duncan, Collisions, Injuries, Yadier Molina | 2 Comments »

The schedule the rest of the way (August that is) …

August 15th, 2008

As futile as it may be, I am a schedule watcher. There should be support meetings for people like me. “I’m Pete Cerneka. It’s been one month since I looked ahead on the schedule …” It is definitely true that you can pretty much pick any time of the season and make a claim like, “This is the most important stretch,” or “The next two weeks will tell a lot, might even decide the season…” At rare times this practice can be productive.

When the Birds got out to a hot start at the beginning of the year, I was as surprised as everyone else, but I can say that I could see the feasibility of it all. The Cardinals didn’t face a truly grueling stretch in the schedule until the beginning of June (the May Tampa Bay series ended up being a surprise exception, which kind of points to major flaws in putting your faith in schedule watching, but I digress) . So, now that I have sufficiently prefaced my scheduled watching addiction let me just say that this is the most important stretch of the year and the next two weeks will tell a lot, might even decide the season.

The Cardinals are just now finishing arguably the toughest stretch of the year. Starting on July 25 with a game against the Mets in New York, the Birds have played 20 games with only one day off. Only six of the 20 were home games and they were 3-3 in that home stand. Over the entire stretch the Cardinals were 11-9. Now during that time it’s true that we have slipped a bit, but considering all the obstacles we faced and the difficult schedule, being three back in the Wild Card and seven out of first place isn’t too bad and certainly not the end of a season, not by a long shot. In fact, I’m predicting right here and now, on the 700 Clark St. blog that by September 1, the Cardinals will be first in the Wild Card and challenging the Cubs for first place.

How you might ask? Well there are a lot of answers to a question like that, most of which are by no means set in stone, including the quality performances by Adam Wainwright and Chris Perez and the reemergence to the lineup and center field by Rick Ankiel. (But maybe not Chris Carpenter. I just got work that Carpenter has landed on the 15-day DL with a strained shoulder. Based on the last time he pitched, he’ll be coming off the DL in time to face the Brewers in St. Louis on either August 26 or 27. So at best we’ll get one win out of him until September.)

But in addition to the players, the schedule holds some keys.

To begin with, the Birds have four days off over the next two weeks, which should help a fatigued bull pen and an ailing Ankiel. Days off in August are like gold.

Of the 13 games they do play, seven are at home. Now Busch Stadium is not a place the Cardinals have played well enough this season but despite their struggles, the Birds still have a winning record at home (33-28) and all their off-days are centered around their seven-game home stand, which probably makes them more productive days off, if there is such a thing.

While those schedule-intangibles are promising, the teams we play point to even more positive things.

The Cardinals start the stretch on the road tonight with an awful Cincinnati team that is 31-31 at home and that has posted a 3-10 record in the month of August so far despite playing the likes of Washington, Pittsburgh and Houston.

Our home stand is a perfect combination of weak teams and a team we want to play head-to-head. The Birds start with Pittsburgh, then welcome Atlanta (both 5-8 in August) and finally face Milwaukee for a quick two-game set. The good news about the Brewer series is that a win is an automatic gain in the wild-card. The bad news is that based on the Milwaukee rotation, we will probably face C.C. Sabathia the first night and Ben Sheets the second night. While I would rather face Bush or Parra I’m not afraid to face either Sabathia or Sheets. I’d match up our offense with anybody. It’s our pitching and specifically our bullpen that’s held us back, not our offense.

We close out August with a three-game set at Houston, where the Cardinals are 4-2 this year. Now I know the Astro are streaking right now, winners of their last eight. But this will almost for sure change between now and then. Houston plays 10 of their next 13 against teams with wining records, including Arizona and Milwaukee. Maybe more importantly, the Astros only have one day off the rest of the month of August.

Milwaukee has a strikingly similar schedule with some important exceptions. First they have one less day off. And second, they have a three-game set with the first-place and white hot Dodgers in L.A. and then face the before mentioned streaking Astros before they come to St. Louis to lose two straight.

The Cubs have just one day off until September and unfortunately play just two winning teams until then, the Marlins in Florida and the Phillies in Chicago. The rest of the time they will be facing teams like Washington, Pittsburgh and Cincinnati. But, the Cubs have not had a real losing streak all season and we all know that one has to come at some time. Despite the fact that they are the best team in baseball, they are still the Cubs. So I figure this will be the time.

Predictions? The Brewers will go 5-9, with Sabathia and Sheet recording just a win a piece. The Cubs will go 6-10, giving Washington its first series win since John Edwards was a considered a faithful husband. Rich Harden will head to the DL with a hangnail and Kerry Wood’s blister will pop, putting him back on the DL until November. The Birds, on the other hand, will go 11-2, dropping one in Cincinnati and another in Houston, and of course sweeping the Brewers. Perez will settle in as the “go-to-guy” in the pen (notice I did not say “closer” and neither should you). Wainwright will start again and win at least one. Carpenter will also win one, beating either Sabathia or Sheets. Thus (if my math is right) the Cubs will be in first by one game. The Cardinals will be in second with a 3 1/2-game lead in the Wild Card over the Brewers.

What about September? Well, for now I’m going to let sleeping dogs lie. I don’t want to spoil the rest of the season by knowing what’s going to happen.

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Gotta like the NL

August 13th, 2008

I just finished reading this article about Gary Sheffield’s unhappiness as the Designated Hitter for the Detroit Tigers. In the article, Sheffield is quoted as saying:

I can be in the outfield and play every day. I don’t want to DH, I don’t feel like a baseball player when I DH. I don’t know how to be the leader that I am from the bench. I can’t be a vocal leader. I can’t talk to guys from the bench because I don’t feel right about it. I’m in a role now where I don’t know what to do, really. The guys are out there busting their butt for nine innings, they come in and they hit and they grind. I just sit down and hit. That’s all I do, so I can’t be in a leadership role from that position.

I’ve never really thought about what it would be like to play DH day in and day out. Mr. Sheffield makes it sound pretty lame. My recent perspective on the DH comes from the National League, where it allows every day players (like Pujols) to get an occasional day off the field during Interleague Play. Before Interleague Play I thought of the DH solely as a retirement plan for players who could still put the bat on the ball, but were no longer healthy enough to field their position.

Sheffield makes a good point. As a veteran of 21 major league seasons, he should be a leader on his club and I’m sure that, to whatever extent possible, he is. But, how difficult would it be to motivate players on the field when you’re sitting on the bench nursing your favorite sports beverage and polishing your bat for your next plate appearance? Chalk one up for the National League.

Posted in Designated Hitter, Gary Sheffield | 4 Comments »

Closer to a Closer?

August 12th, 2008

Everybody knows that Cardinals have had trouble in the bullpen this year. Everybody knows that Isringhausen and Franklin have accumulated a pile of missed save opportunities along with 10 losses between them. Neither has the ERA of a closer and Isringhausen’s current 5.98 ERA is difficult to align with his career statistics. With the recent recall of Chris Perez, the Cardinals may be closing in on a solution. Since rejoining the club last week, Perez has made three appearances, each scoreless and each of one inning or more. His first appearance saw him pitch an inning and two-thirds of scoreless baseball on just 21 pitches, leading to his first career save. I admit that it is hard to project Perez as the closer based on eleven outs, but with five strikeouts, four ground ball outs, one fly out, and a runner caught stealing against just two walks and one hit, he seems to be pitching the way a closer should. I think it’s prudent to keep the closer-by-committee policy alive, but I like what I’m seeing from Chris Perez.

Posted in Bullpen, Chris Perez, Closer | 1 Comment »

Unrecognized contributions

August 11th, 2008

In last night’s 4-2 victory over the Marlins, Albert Pujols went 0-for-3 with three strikeouts and one walk. Definitely not a great night, and one which hurt him in all of the major rate stats while contributing nothing to almost all of his counting stats (BB being the lone exception).

And yet the numbers don’t tell the whole story. His walk came in the first inning, after Felipe Lopez hit a one-out single. Lopez, now on second, advanced to third on Ryan Ludwick’s fly-out to center and then scored on Rick Ankiel’s infield single. In the box score, then, when distributing credit for contributing to this run, Lopez increased his run total, Ankiel added to his RBI, and Ludwick received recognition for having made a so-called “productive out”.

Pujols receives no credit at all for having contributed to that run, yet his efforts were crucial to its creation. If he had made an out, even if in doing so he advanced Lopez to second, Ludwick’s fly ball would have ended the inning with no runs scored (remember there was one out already when Lopez singled). But let’s even pretend for the moment that Pujols’ plate appearance simply didn’t happen, that the Cardinals somehow skipped over his turn in the order. Then Lopez would still have been on first when Ludwick flew out, in which case it’s very unlikely he (Lopez) would have advanced to second. And even supposing he did advance, he almost certainly would not have scored from second on an infield single, and then Yadier Molina’s pop-out would have ended the inning, again without Lopez scoring. In other words, if Pujols doesn’t walk (or get a hit), Lopez doesn’t score. Yet while Lopez, Ludwick, and Ankiel receive credit for having contributed to creating the run, Pujols gets none.

I need to draw a distinction here between stats which record a player’s purely individual performance and stats which mark his contribution to run-production. In their stat lines, all four players receive their due for their individual performance: Lopez and Ankiel with singles (which are reflected in their Hits, Total Bases, AVG, OBP, and SLG), Ludwick for his fly-out (which affects his AVG, OBP, and SLG), and Pujols with his walk (as shown in his BB and OBP). But these stats—BB, Hits, Total Bases, AVG, OBP, SLG—do not directly address run production. Obviously, they correlate strongly with scoring runs, but not directly; a player can, for example, improve all of them in a game in which his team is shut out. This is by contrast to Runs and RBI, which by definition are credited only when actual runs are scored.

Of course, these are precisely the reasons why sophisticated analysis of an individual player’s performance discards such stats as Runs and RBI, because these stats are so heavily team-dependent. Instead, such analysis focuses exclusively on individual achievements (such as hits, walks, etc.) and then tries to correlate these individual achievements as closely as possible to run creation. Hence such stats as Runs Created, VORP (Value Over Replacement Player), and EqAvg (Equivalent Average).

These measures and others like them are wonderful advances in our understanding of baseball, and I do not in any way mean to malign them. Nevertheless, baseball is, at the end of the day, a team game, and not just a aggregate of individual performances. To the extent that the structure of baseball games allows individual achievement to correlate strongly with team achievement, it lends itself to the statistical analysis of individual performance much more than, say, football does. Yet despite these sophisticated advances, sometimes the contributions and individual makes to his team’s success can still slip beneath our notice.

To be sure, Albert Pujols and his contributions to the Cardinal’s success hardly slip beneath anyone’s notice; he certainly receives plenty of credit, and justly so. Still, in a game like last night’s, when Pujols seems to have done almost nothing but strike out, his lone walk in the first inning contributed vitally to the creation of a run, which in a 4-2 victory, came very close to being the entire margin of victory. I suspect that a closer analysis would reveal that he does even more for the Cardinals than we often recognize.

Posted in Albert Pujols, Current Players, Statistical Analysis | 4 Comments »