MLB 3/4 Review

Well, a couple of teams are 3/4ths of the way through, and one of them is the Cardinals, so that's good enough for me. Amazingly, both the AL and NL have 8 teams above .500. 4 in the AL East, where the Rays still hold the lead over the Red Sox, while the Yankees are struggling just to keep up. I don't think the Yanks have the pitching to make up the gap on either team, so if things hold the way they are now, we'll at least be free of them in the post-season. The White Sox and the Twins are handing first place in the Central back and forth like the proverbial hot potato, and the Tigers have apparently run out of gas, as they just can't seem to crest .500. On a note of personal interest, Anthony Reyes, traded by the Cardinals in July for a minor league reliever, made his first start for the Indians last weekend, and did pretty well. Granted, it was against the punchless Blue Jays' lineup, but he said he feels more comfortable, so I'm glad for him. The Rangers should be very proud of themselves, with their winning record, but I'd say the AL West is settled, and it's the Angels by a landslide. They're scary right now.

The Phillies, Mets, and Marlins are all within 1.5 games of each other. Maybe Willie Randolph really was the problem with the Mets because they seem to be playing on a different level from the first three months right now. Or maybe it's Pedro, though he hasn't pitched very well. Too bad they let themselves fall so far behind to start with. I suppose my rooting interest is with the Marlins - just as soon as this series with StL is over. Both the D'Backs and the Dodgers are over .500, which is good, though not too good, since it's by a combined 3 games. I guess Manny Ramirez can only do so much. As for the NL Central, well the Cubs haven't quite buried the Brewers yet, though that 4 game sweep a couple weeks ago was a good attempt. Milwaukee's still hanging on to the Wild Card lead, 4 ahead of the Cardinals, who are about two games ahead of Philly, and so on. I think the Cardinals are in the same boat as the Yankees; not enough pitching and too far back to make up the ground. They just can't get anything going consistently. They win one, they lose one. They blow late leads (frequently), they stomp on a pitcher in the first three innings, then fail to do anything after that point (like last night's game). They're terribly frustrating.

Rotation: Things have gotten a tad more unreliable lately. Kyle Lohse's August numbers are much closer to his career numbers than what he did the first 4 months, which is troubling. His walks are up, his groundball rate's down, neither of those being good things. Looper was scuffling a bit there in early July, getting smacked around by the Royals, Phillies, and Padres, but his last four starts have served to lower his ERA from 4.6, to 4.2, and he got his K/9IP up to 4.33. All right! His pitching VORP is up to 19.2 (4th among starting pitchers), and he's added another 6.5 runs with his bat. Wellenmeyer's ERA has settled in at about 4, he's still striking out over 6 per 9 innings, and he's kept his walks down to 2.8/9IP, which is probably the important thing for him. Pineiro's struggled quite a bit, as his ERA has risen from 4.33 at the halfway point, to 4.82 currently, and it was over 5 before his last start. Like most of the starters, he's not striking people out (4.36/9), but not walking people either (2.01/9). The general trends seem to be Lohse trending down, Welly and BLoop trending up, and Piniero going down, with occasional upticks. Oh, and other than Lohse, none of them are averaging 6 innings a start, which worries me, especially given the bullpen.

Besides those 4, there have been several other starters, since Wainwright still hasn't come back, and the Cardinals sounded determined to make him the closer until Chris Perez' recent performance. Now they're strecthing him out to put him back in the rotation. Hurrah. Boggs got three more starts, one good one against the Royals, two curb-stompings at the hands of the Mets. Mulder made one embarrassing start, where he couldn't get out of the first before reinjuring himself, and Jaime Garcia made one OK start. Nothing special, but a far sight better than what Boggs or Parisi provided. Then there's Carpenter. Yes, your 2005 Cy Young winner is back! Maybe. He left his third start with a strained triceps muscle (and has gone back to St. Louis to get checked out - great), so who knows what's going to happen there. Be nice if he was OK, and the Cards could have a true front of the rotation guy (no disrespect to Lohse, but he doesn't qualify). His stuff has looked pretty good, just needs to build some stamina. Fingers crossed.

Bullpen: Look, the bullpen is lousy. The positives are when certain players (Flores) get shipped to the minors, or other players (Izzy) get removed from roles (closer) they are not suited for. As long as you keep McClellan out of the 9th, he does pretty well. He's even 4th among all Cards pitchers in VORP (19.9). He strikes batters out (7.35/9), keeps his walks (2.54) fairly low, so he's a bright spot. Franklin (10.8 VORP) and Springer (13.9) have each had their moments, just not in the 9th. The good news is they each got their walk rates down from where they were 41 games ago. Franklin's down to 3.84, from 4.17, and Springer's at 3.08, compared to 3.8. And they both upped their strikeout rates a little as well. Chris Perez might actually be able to do this closing thing. His walk rate is down under 5 per 9 innings, and he's still striking out almost a batter an inning. So it seems he got his control issues a little better resolved (or it's just a really small sample size of 27.3 innings). Villone's still not being terribly useful.

Catcher: Yadier Molina has a .733 OPS. Hot damn! LaRue's at .667, so they've both dropped a little. It's too bad about Yady's offense, because he was at .748 a couple weeks ago, and that would have been the best for a Cards' starting catcher since Darrell Porter in 1983. Molina's VORP (which doesn't include defense) is 12.3; LaRue's is -0.4. Oh well, he is the backup catcher. Yady's been good for 6 Fielding Runs Above Average (FRAA); LaRue's been good for 1.

Infield: Albert has a 1.067 OPS, but lately he's seemed streaky. He'll have a couple multi-hit games, then go hitless for two or three games. I expect that from Glaus, but what makes Albert scary is how eerily consistent he can be, so it's a little troubling. I wonder if his elbow is bothering him (more than usual), or if it's fatigue (I don't think he's sat out any games in the last 41), or if he's been demoralized by the team's lack of moves at the trade deadline (people always speculate that happens, hell if I know whether it's true or not). His VORP is 64.3 (which puts him 20 runs ahead of any other Cardinals, and he's been good for 5 FRAA. Kennedy's still not drawing walks or hitting for power (OPS of .652, VORP of 0.3), but he's somewhat better than Izturis (.624; though a VORP of 1.6, not sure how that works). On the plus side, both of their Range Factors are well above league average for their positions, though Kennedy has a 0 FRAA, and Izturis has only 2. Not sure how to reconcile those results. Glaus finally decided to hit against the Cubs, which was nice. His Range Factor (2.73) is above average (2.59), and he has an FRAA of 3. His OPS sits at .853, and his VORP is 26.5, which is more than double what it was 41 games ago. You might recall that at that point I compared him to Rolen and found them roughly equal. Well, Rolen's VORP is down to 8.5, compared to Troy's 26.5, so I would say things have changed.

As to the backups, Aaron Miles has a .733 OPS, which surprises the hell out of me. It's almost entirely batting average (.309, .348 OBP, .385 SLG) supported, but I take what I can get. He has a 9.6 VORP, but his Range Factor at 2nd is below average (4.49 vs. 4.82), and he has -1 FRAA. Well, no one ever said Miles was a defensive whiz. Brendan Ryan's sporting a 4.71 Range Factor at SS (4.43 league average), though his FRAA is -4. Sadly, his fielding is the good news. His VORP is -3.9, and his OPS is a horrible .585. Yes, his on-base plus slugging is lower than Albert Pujols' slugging. He was recently sent to the minors, and replaced by the recently signed Felipe Lopez, a guy the Washington Nationals released. His stats with the Nats suggest (OPS .619, VORP -8.1, -5 FRAA, 4.68 Range Factor at 2nd, versus league average of 4.82) he's barely an offensive upgrade on Ryan, and a defensive downgrade, so I can't see the logic, especially when his first start was in left field. I am so sick of Tony using middle infielders in the outfield. Danny Sheaffer, Hector Luna, Shawon Dunston, now Felipe Lopez? Christ.

Outfield: Chris Duncan may very well be done, since he had to have surgery on a herniated neck disc. That sucks, though it probably explains some of his difficulties this year. Ankiel got back in the lineup on Monday, first time he started since July 26. He's sitting at a pretty nice 29.7 VORP, with a .889 OPS. Neither of the fielding metrics I found like him. His Range Factor's below average, and his FRAA is -11. Maybe we can chalk that up to inexperience? Schumaker's at a 17.2 VORP, and a .778 OPS, which means his numbers are still dropping, but honestly, I'm still surprised he's done this well. He might have been struggling to fill in for Rick these last couple of weeks, since he might have been making starts against lefty pitchers, which is not good (OPS of .427 against LHP). Rick's gotten his OPS against LHP up to .735. A far cry from his .957 against RHP, but better than he was doing. He's learning, perhaps. Ludwick had a poor June, but he's done much better in July and August. His VORP is up to 44.9, and his OPS is sitting pretty at .991. Bet the Indians wish they still had him.

Brian Barton's been hurt since the first week of July, but he rejoined the team today, since his minor league rehab stints is almost up. That's good. He's been getting regular ABs in Memphis, so I hope he'll be a big help, and maybe he can get some more at-bats with Duncan out. Other than Ludwick, and now perhaps Ankiel, he's the only OF they've got who can hit lefties, since Mather's rocking a .615 against LHP. Still, Mather's been getting the at-bats in his absence, and while he's shown some nice power, with a .495 slugging thus far and 7 HRs in 107 at-bats. He probably needs to work on his plate discipline (OBP of .315), but he and Barton can probably compliment each other. The slugger that does best against righties, and the speedster that prefers righties. One's a lanky white boy, the other's a dreadlocked African-American with a degree in aeronautical engineering! Together they catch flyballs and fight crime!

I need to rant about LaRussa a bit. See Tony's made some moves I just dislike. The idea behind sending Ryan to the minors to get him more at-bats doesn't sound so bad, except he'll be taking ABs from Tyler Greene, who's also a potential SS for the big league squad, pending his results in AAA. So now Ryan's taking ABs from him. And replacing him with a guy who hasn't hit any better, and fields worse? What's the point? And then there's the use of Lopez as your starting leftfielder. That happened because Tony kept insisting that Rick would be ready to start again, that his abdominal injury would clear up any day now, so there's no need to put him on the 15-day DL, and bring up another outfielder. Except that day he'd be ready to go kept getting pushed back, and so the team wasted a roster spot on a guy who could only pinch hit, couldn't even run for himself (witness Saturday's game against the Cubs, where Rick gets a pinch-hit single, and they immediately send Pineiro out to run for him). That's especially poor management when you're using 13 pitchers, and so your bench is only 4 deep. Then you get a situation like Friday's game against the Cubs.

You've got four outfielders. Oops, Rick can't play in the field yet, so better make it three. Oh wait, Lilly is a lefty, better not use Skip. So that leaves Thudwick, Mather, and. . . hmm. No more outfielders. Well, guess I'll just use this middle infielder. Look, I know Bill James says the corner outfield slots are easier defensively than the middle infield slots, but it really seems like poor planning to have to use a MI as a starting outfielder, because you simply don't have enough outfielders you feel you can use, because you're carrying 13 pitchers and a guy who can't play in the field.

I feel much better.