Season In Review - Starting Position Players

So the Cardinals named Matheny their new manager. We'll see how that goes. At least Mozeliak knows he has the power now. Before, LaRussa held the whip hand, since DeWitt basically said LaRussa couldn't/wouldn't be fired. Now, if Mozeliak brings somebody up from the minors to see what he can do, said player might actually get some playing time. Anyway, today is the 8 starting position players.

Yadier Molina: I noted halfway that Molina was hitting for far more power than usual. He not only maintained that in the second half, he improved upon it. His previous best isolated power had been .106 in '05. At the end of June, it was .133. He ended the season at .160. Supposedly he was hitting more fly balls, which would lead to more extra base hits than ground balls, but didn't hurt his average as I would expect (as fly balls rarely turn into hits). Though Molina wouldn't get as many hits off ground balls as the average player, given how slow he is. Anyway, he set a career high for OPS, at .814, the highest mark since Ted Simmons in 1980. So in terms of WAR, this was far and away his best season. Most of his 3.9 WAR is offense, but he did generate 0.7 with his glove, and catcher defense is still tricky. He did only throw out 29% of baserunners, but I don't know whether that's on him, or if it's that pitchers not named Carp and Lohse were lousy at holding runners.

In the postseason his power slumped a bit, but he maintained a .360 OBP, so I'm not going to complain about that.

Albert Pujols: Albert came back from that injured wrist in a little over 2 weeks, and proceeded to hit like he pretty much always has. Really, he did that from the end of May on until the end. He did hit into a lot of double plays, but so did everyone else on the team. I'm not too concerned about his .299 batting average, but the .366 OBP worries me. His walk rate's been dropping, and it seems to be because he's grown more impatient. In 2010, the gap between AVG and OBP was .102, this year, only .067. The two years before that it was .105 and .116, so 2011 is more out of line with past performance than 2010.

So this was his worst year ever, and he was still a 5.4 win player, and 0.9 of that was defense. I'm always happy when he has good defensive stats, because I like him more as a player when he seems like more of a complete player. I'm not a big fan of guys who can only hit home runs, and do nothing else, and fortunately, that isn't Albert. He didn't lead the team in stolen bases this year, but he was 9 out of 10 on his attempts. He's almost certainly too aggressive for how slow he is, and the team probably shouldn't be letting him decide when to take extra bases, in terms of having the best chance to win, but I do like the aggressiveness, from a strict enjoyment standpoint. Too bad the team doesn't have more fast players with that style.

The postseason was very similar to the regular season, though Albert posted an 1.155 OPS in the playoffs. But he seemed very feast or famine. Either he's killing the Brewers and Rangers single-handed, or he's doing nothing whatsoever. He did draw 12 walks in about 70 plate appearances, so that's good, even if several of them were intentional.

Skip Schumaker: Sigh. Skip is now one of only two players to be the starting 2nd baseman for 3 years during LaRussa's tenure with the Cards. The other was Fernando Vina. Sadly, Skip isn't anywhere near as good as Vina was. He did improve on last season, as he was worth 0.6 WAR, up from 0.1 a year ago. Hmm, they must have reevaluated his defense, as it used to be 0.4. Anyway, that's still shitty return for an $2 million+ investment by the team. But supposedly the team loves him, so they still might bring him back this offseason. Crap. They don't need him. There's nothing he does they can't get out of Descalso, Punto, or Adron Chambers, for less money. His power's evaporating, as are his walks, and he's not a good enough defensive player anywhere to make up for that.

Rafael Furcal: Furcal showed up in late July, when the team finally realized (or admitted) Theriot was not the answer. In about 2 months, he was worth 1.4 WAR, and was by some measure slightly above average defensively. By others, not so much. His OBP is a bit lower than I'd like to see in a leadoff hitter, but supposedly some of that was bad luck on balls in play, and if he was hitting better than .255, his OBP would be higher than .315. I was hoping for more of a speed threat, but the 7 HRs were an unexpected bonus.

He really struggled in the postseason, with a .244 OBP and a .325 SLG. Not sure what to attribute that to. Bad luck? Being overwhelmed by the quality of the pitchers? Well, that would only explain struggling against the Phillies. I'm deeply ambivalent about bringing Furcal back. If he wants a two-year contract, pass. He's moving into his mid-30s, and he hasn't shown any consistent ability to stay healthy. I'd rather take my chances with Clint Barmes, or Tyler Greene. Mozeliak's said much the same thing about Greene, though that could just be contract negotiation posturing to try and drive Furcal's demands down.

David Freese: Freese narrowly edged out Descalso as starting 3rd baseman, 674 innings to 666. Which is fine, as Freese rates slightly better than Descalso at third, being about 2 runs better than average, versus Descalso's -5. Course, third is not Descalso's natural position. Even missing 1/3 of the season, Freese was worth 1.8 WAR. Then he stepped it up in the playoffs, hitting .397, with 7 HRs, a slugging of almost .800, and even drawing 7 walks. He only drew 24 the entire regular season, or 1 less than Punto did in 200 fewer PAs.

If he's actually developing some patience, that'd be good, because thus far his OBP has been heavily leaning on his batting average, which has been heavily reliant on good results on balls in play, which might not last. All his power seems to be opposite field, which is odd, but if he can make it work for him, then I guess it's OK. Truthfully, I wouldn't mind trading Freese for a young 2nd baseman or center fielder, because I'd like to see Matt Carpenter and his +.400 AAA OBP in the starting lineup, but I doubt it'll happen. Freese is the playoff hero, and as old as he is, with his injury history, I doubt anyone would sacrifice anything good for him. If only Al Davis were alive, and running a baseball team. You could always count on Al to overpay for guys who had one good game in the Super Bowl. Maybe he'd do the same in baseball.

Matt Holliday: Holliday's string of injuries continued into the second half of the season. Only instead of appendectomies, he was injuring his wrist on practice swings, and having insects get stuck in his ear. As a result, this year wasn't quite as productive as last year, but Holliday was the 3rd most valuable position player, with a 4.1 WAR, and rated as exactly average defensively. He drew a decent number of walks (his gap between OBP and AVG was .092), but struggled a bit when he played in the postseason. His OBP is great (.419), but the power wasn't there (.412 SLG), much like Molina. Except it wasn't that much of a surprise with Yadi, since he'd demonstrated unusual power this season. Holliday's lack of oomph was concerning, but it's probably just the wrist thing, and now he has all offseason to heal up. And since he no longer has an appendix, he won't have to worry about it causing problems. Might want to keep an eye on his gall bladder, though.

Jon Jay: Jay became the starter after Rasmus was traded, though Colby still lead the team in innings in center at the end of the year. Jay had a couple of productive games in the postseason, but overall had an OPS below .500. Ouch. For the season as a whole, he posted a .768 OPS, which is down a little from last year's .780, but still surprisingly close to his AAA .781 OPS. And he really didn't fall off after becoming the starter. He had a poor August (.661 OPS), but no worse than his June (.651), and not too far behind April (.691). he had a .759 in July, and a .793 in September.

He could stand to walk more. In 503 PAs, he collected 28 walks, which is one less than Theriot in 20 more PAs (though Theriot undoubtedly earned some of his from hitting in front of the pitcher). Jay also needs to either improve his base stealing, or stop it entirely. He was only 6 out of 13, this year. Interestingly, he rated below average on defense in both corner spots, but not in center, where he was just barely above average. And center was his primary position, so to the extent the numbers tell us anything, those would be most representative. Not sure what to make of that. At any rate, I haven't heard anything suggesting the Cardinals are against going into next season with Jay in center. I might like someone a little more defensively excellent, preferably with some speed, to offset what looks to be another season of Berkman in right, but I'm not dead set against Jay. If he can keep producing as he has so far, he's an acceptable option, provided the rest of the team does their job. He's not really a difference maker.

Lance Berkman: Well, Berkman sure showed me. I figured last year was the beginning of the end, turns out it was just a injury thing. He was second on the team in WAR with 5.2, and that's with his defense costing him 0.7 WAR. Which isn't ideal, but the Cardinals knew what they were getting into when they put him in right field, and if he produces offensively like he did, it's worth it. He was second on the team amongst qualifiers in batting average, first in on-base percentage, first in slugging, and thus first in OPS. He hit into a third the double plays of Yadi or Holliday (7 vs. 21), and a quarter of the number Albert did. The only thing he didn't do well was steal bases (2 out of 8), and honestly, what the heck are they thinking having Berkman try and steal bases?

He didn't do quite as well in the playoffs. The average went up 12 points, and the OBP held essentially steady, but the slugging fell to .438, an almost 110 point drop. Was he getting tired after a season of roaming the outfield, was it the pitchers, or was it just because it got cold? The ball typically doesn't fly as far in the cold, since it's thicker than it is in hot weather, and it was getting kind of chilly by the end of October in St. Louis. That wouldn't explain the games in Texas or Milwaukee's dome, though, and it wasn't cold every day in St. Louis. Course, we're also talking a very small sample, 18 games and about 70 at-bats, so perhaps just a bad stretch. It was still an awesome season, and like with Yadi and Holliday, I can't complain about the OBP.

Sometime coming up, the bench position players. There's a few guys who didn't play after June, but there are plenty of others to contend with.