Viva El Birdos

Cardinals' Bats Come to Life; Adam Wainwright Dominates Phillies

2012-05-27T21:20:34Z

The Cardinals' bats did their best to make the bullpen irrelevant in today's game. After a pair of singles and a walk, Yadier Molina launched a Roy Halladay fastball into the stands in the first inning for a grand slam. Halladay would exit the game in the third inning due to reported shoulder soreness. Yadier Molina would also exit early after showing signs of dehydration.

Meanwhile, Adam Wainwright put up 6 dominant innings allowing just 1 run. Wainwright succeeded in large part by keeping the ball on the ground with a fastball, curveball combination that had 10 of 13 outs on balls in play on the ground.

The Cardinals offense would continue to produce throughout the game. In the 5th inning, Carlos Beltran launched his 15th home run. That's good for a three way tie for second in home runs in MLB with the White Sox's Adam Dunn and the Blue Jay's Edwin Encarnacion. It remains 5 home runs behind league leader Josh Hamilton of the Texas Rangers.

For the human interest story highlight from today's game comes Matt Adams first major league home run. The owner of the Double A Springfield Cardinals single season home run record hit his first home run in the 6th inning against reliever Chad Qualls. The St. Louis crowd would reward Adams with a standing ovation and a curtain call.

The bullpen was largely a non-issue with Marc Rzepcazynski throwing a 1 strikeout perfect 7th inning. Following that Victor Marte struggled a bit to get through the 8th inning aided by some additional stellar glovework from Rafael Furcal. Newcomer Chuckie Fick was unable to close out the 9th with a 6 run lead necessitating Mitchell Boggs to enter and record the last out of the game and give the Cardinals a 8-3 win avoiding the sweep.

The Cardinals play the Atlanta Braves tomorrow at 12:10 CDT.

Game 48: Philadelphia Phillies at St. Louis Cardinals, May 27, 2012 1:15 PM CDT

2012-05-27T18:00:19Z

Adam Wainwright

#50 / Pitcher / St. Louis Cardinals

Height: 6-7

Weight: 230

Bats: R

Throws: R

Born: Aug 30, 1981

	W-L	G	GS	CG	SHO	SV	BS	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	K	ERA	WHIP
2012 - Adam Wainwright	3-5	9	9	1	1	0	0	52.2	55	31	28	7	17	49	4.78	1.37

Roy Halladay

#34 / Pitcher / Philadelphia Phillies

Height: 6-6

Weight: 230

Bats: R

Throws: R

Born: May 14, 1977

	W-L	G	GS	CG	SHO	SV	BS	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	K	ERA	WHIP
2012 - Roy Halladay	4-4	10	10	0	0	0	0	70.1	65	28	28	5	13	56	3.58	1.11

When Good Bullpens Suffer Bad Results

2012-05-27T13:01:04Z

There seems to be some generalized angst about the bullpen as of late. Losing a string of one run games, some in extra innings, will do that to you, I suppose. The Fernando Salas for Chuckie Fick swap seems to contain elements of that angst given that Salas continued to have strong strikeout rates, though he'd been struggling with control.

In the month of May, the Cardinals have lost 14 games. Of those, 8 have been lost by either 1 run or 2 runs. Generally speaking, these types of 1 run games even out over time. With considerations for home field advantage and a team's true talent, there's nothing particularly predictive or telling about ball clubs that lose games by just a couple runs.

That doesn't mean the losses aren't happening, however. Nor does it exonerate a bullpen that does appear to be part of the problem. Win probability added (WPA) is a measure of how much an individual event moves a team closer towards winning a game. In a context neutral environment, each team should have about a 50% chance to win a game. If a player hits a home run and puts their team ahead in the 1st inning, that event has increased their teams probability of winning game by some incremental amount. By summing all the incremental amounts from individual events over the course of a game, we can get a picture of how much each player contributed to the win (or the loss).

There are issues with WPA -- a homerun in the first is not necessarily as valuable in WPA as a homerun in the 9th or even as a single in the 9th -- but it gives a semblance of a picture about performance. (Remember that since each team starts the game with a 50% chance to win, .500 of WPA is equivalent to a player contributing 1 win on paper to the team.) Take a look at the following.

Player	IP	K/9	BB/9	FIP	WPA
Mitchell Boggs	21.1	8.86	3.80	2.44	.20
Victor Marte	20.1	7.97	2.66	4.18	.13
Kyle McClellan	18.2	5.30	4.34	4.98	-.17
J.C. Romero	8.0	5.63	2.25	7.75	-.23
Marc Rzepczynski	16.1	6.61	2.20	4.65	-.64
Jason Motte	20.0	8.55	1.80	3.65	-.80
Fernando Salas	15.2	12.06	5.17	2.87	-1.09

Setting aside the 7 innings that Eduardo Sanchez, Brandon Dickson and Chuckie Fick have pitched out of the pen, if it feels like the pen hasn't been pitching well, it is because they have been getting very poor results. WPA is a better descriptive tool than it is a predictive one, which is why you see peripherals and FIP listed as well. Fernando Salas and Jason Motte have each cost the team almost 2 wins based on their results in games. When you pitch late innings in close games, individual events are capable of wild swings in win probability. So Motte and Salas are both subject to accumulating significant amounts of WPA in their outings. Regardless, they've seen more bad events happen while on the mound than good ones to date.

WPA doesn't make any attempt to separate luck from those events though. So when Jason Motte allows a string of base hits that find holes in the defense and results in a loss, WPA punishes him heavily. Even if he was pitching well.

Conversely, Kyle McClellan and J.C. Romero were both being marginalized and used in games where the outcome was already mostly decided (read: mop-up duty in blow out games). That reduced their ability to impact games and, based on their peripherals, reduced their accumulation of negative WPA. Their lines could appear much worse.

The take away here is simple: Yes, the bullpen has been losing games. No, that doesn't mean the bullpen is bad.

Both Jason Motte and Mitchell Boggs have been performing well out of the pen -- even if Motte isn't quite the shutdown reliever he was last year. Fernando Salas was more of a mixed bag given the walk rate but clearly something was working as he struck out better than a batter an inning. After those two, Rzepczynski and Marte are both performing reasonably well and their peripherals would indicate that there isn't much to worry about (not that we should be doing too much tea reading off of <20 innings of data).

It's hard to say whether Eduardo Sanchez will be able to translate some of the success he's had in the minors to the majors. There's every indication that his stuff will play up but he's been hampered by some shoulder issues this year and his command has disappeared at times leading to wild spurts. If there's a player that can salve the discomfort right now, Sanchez's electric stuff could do so with a few lights out performances.

On the whole, however, there just isn't a lot of evidence in the statistics that these bullpen losses late in games are going to continue. Reliever performance is notoriously volatile but between Jason Motte, Mitchell Boggs, Eduardo Sanchez and Fernando Salas, the Cardinals should be able to piece together a successful core to handle the close and late innings that games can pivot on.

game 47 - PHL at STL, 5.26.12

2012-05-26T22:43:02Z

jaime garcia

ERA 3.55

FIP 2.50

xFIP 3.44

SIERA 3.58

K% 17.5%

BB% 6.1%

GB% 53.9%

-----------

kyle kendrick

ERA 5.23

FIP 4.94

xFIP 4.65

SIERA 4.51

K% 13.8%

BB% 7.6%

GB% 42.6%

well, if you're going to make ANY headway against the phillies in a four-game series, the game against kyle kendrick seems like as good a chance as any. kendrick has, for reasons unclear, hung on for intermittent and surprisingly long runs as a starting pitcher for the phillies. kendrick is sort of like what kyle mcclellan, long-term starting pitcher might have been for the cardinals. let's do something today, because tomorrow is a roy halla-day. not that we haven't beaten that guy before.

have we hit bottom?

2012-05-26T10:00:19Z

while the last few weeks have been very frustrating, i wonder if we are turning in the right direction.

yesterday, lance berkman had his surgery, and no ACL replacement was indicated. that limits his recovery time to somewhere between 6-10 weeks. which means we'll see him in late July or early August.

in the nearer-term, jon jay and allen craig both seem well on their way to recovery. craig has been taking grounders (at second, of all places!) and batting practice. jon jay has been starting to get ready to return to the lineup, although john mozeliak indicated jay might be held out a couple days beyond his first possible appearance on june 1.

chris carpenter's return seems more speculative, although i have heard mutterings about him taking the mound sometime in june as part of a rehab effort. the other carpenter's injury is too fresh to have news on, but there was nothing so troubling about the oblique tweak that i worry about his return schedule.

the remaining difficulties in the bullpen and the rotation seem fairly transitory.

over the last two weeks, the BABIP-against for our starting rotation has been .388, the worst in baseball. over the last 30 days, it's been .344, the second-worst in baseball.

notwithstanding a 3.05 rotation FIP, the cardinals' starters' ERA sits at 4.70 over the last 14 days. this will pass.

the same thing is true of the bullpen. while some have been quick to compare recent results to last year's meltdown, fernando salas (2012 FIP 2.85) looks nothing like ryan franklin (2011 FIP 6.89); jason motte (2012 3.09 FIP) looks nothing like miguel batista (2012 cardinals FIP 5.17).

just remember, there is a difference between a badly-constructed bullpen that flops because that is what you should expect it to do, and a (reasonably) well-constructed bullpen that flops because sometimes that happens in a sample size of a few weeks.

in april, the rays' bullpen had a 5.80 ERA, a 3.83 FIP, and a 3.82 xFIP. in may, they have a 1.82 ERA, a 3.51 FIP, and 3.19 xFIP. bullpens specialize in small sample sizes, which means good ones look terrible at times.

we've already jettisoned the back end of the bullpen (romero) or lost it to the DL (mcclellan). right now, marte and dickson are holding down the back end, while likely awaiting the arrival of maikel cleto and a left-hander.

cleto is easy to get excited about. in his stint at memphis, he has amassed a THIRTY-THREE PERCENT STRIKEOUT RATE. he has an 8.8% walk rate, indicating he may have his control issues under control.

[late night edit - in a surprise turn of events, chuckie fick - who always makes me think of "ficky-fick" in "Catch-22" - has been promoted from memphis. while fick is a borderline prospect, his promotion is particularly surprising since he got off to a pretty slow start at memphis, with a 10:7 K:BB rate and a 5.39 FIP in his small sample so far. he's pitched almost 20 innings, so it's not a huge sample size; he had a 3.67 FIP over 70 something innings last year. i'm just a little shocked that the club continues not to take notice of a guy throwing 100 mph and striking out every third guy he faces. no word at "press" time (i.e., the time i "press" the publish button) who he's replacing. i do hope the club does not use this opportunity to crush salas for early struggles in a small sample size.]

[late night edit - fun fact about chuckie fick from keith law; his father played the angels' catcher in "Naked Gun," the one who provided the backstop to enrico palazzo's antics.]

while i am not a fan of having a left-hander for the sake of having a left-hander, the mass of four plausible major league relievers at memphis suggests we are preparing for such an eventuality.

the cast of suspects are clay zavada (of mustache fame); barrett browning (pitcher-poet); sam freeman (member of the 40-man roster); and nick greenwood (freese-edmonds throw-in).

zavada has reverse splits both in the minors since 2011 (4.16 FIP v. LHB/3.33 FIP v. RHB) and in a 2009 callup to the majors (5.04 FIP v. LHB/4.03 FIP v. RHB). usually, those reverse splits are a sample size issue. color me kind of meh on zavada.

nick greenwood looks like a bona fide specialist. since 2011, his splits are ridiculous (2.74 FIP v. LHB and 5.29 v. RHB). he is so terrible against RHB, i have some reluctance to see him at the major league level, but he's done well at memphis. with a 4.5 K/BB against lefties, he could be deadly as a specialist, if used sparingly.

barret browning has a strong platoon split as well, with a 3.07 FIP against LHB, to go with a 4.67 FIP against RHB since 2011. he struggles with walking RHB, with an almost 1:1 K:BB ratio against righties. while his split is not as extreme, he is also not as dominant over LHB.

sam freeman looks out-classed by his competitors, logging most of his time at AA and below. he has not looked good overall, with a combined 16:8 K:BB across two levels this year. his split looks more like browning's, with a 3.13 FIP against lefties, to go with a 4.31 FIP against righties. still, he does not look terribly dominant, with a tepid 2.67 K:BB against lefties and 1.67 against righties.

being on the 40-man does make him a kind of course of least resistance, however. with the recent promotions of matt adams and steve hill, the 40-man is full, although shifting chris carpenter to the 60-day DL would be a quick and painless way to make room.

i suppose the other shoe to drop in the bullpen would be the someday-return of scott linebrink, who is, it seems, getting closer to a rehab stint.

anyway, the bullpen seems solidly constructed, and a move or two could make it steadier. i suspect the present frustrations in the bullpen will soon right themselves. with two big offensive boosts likely to return in the immediate future, and the unsustainable problems with batted ball luck for the rotation, there is no particular reason to think our current struggles will continue.

Phillies at Cardinals Open Thread:

2012-05-26T00:10:03Z

Current Series

Phillies lead the series 1-0

Thu 05/24	WP: Raul Valdes (1 - 0) SV: Jonathan Papelbon LP: Fernando Salas (0 - 3)	9 - 10 loss
Philadelphia Phillies The Good Phight @ St. Louis Cardinals Viva El Birdos Friday, May 25, 2012, 8:15 PM EDT Busch Stadium Cliff Lee vs Kyle Lohse Partly cloudy. Winds blowing from right to left field at 10-15 m.p.h. Game time temperature around 90. Complete Coverage >
Sat 05/26		7:15 PM EDT
Sun 05/27		2:15 PM EDT

Yet More Words About The St. Louis Cardinals

2012-05-25T18:00:38Z

Earlier: The St. Louis Cardinals Pitching Meltdown FAQ ~version 1.3a~

It is now the time of the afternoon when I remind you, the viewer, that SB Nation's coverage of the St. Louis Cardinals is not entirely contained by the column you're reading at this very moment. I hope you'll enjoy this sampling of links from our very own FanPosts section—available as its own blog here—as well as from the regional I edit when I'm not checking GameFAQs, SB Nation St. Louis.

SB Nation St. Louis

This week columnist Nathan Grimm takes a look at some peripherals to watch in June from the lines of Adam Wainwright, David Freese, and Tyler Greene.

Meanwhile: You might be interested to know that Nathan Grimm was recruited by Alex Fritz specifically so he could devote less of his time to writing our baseball column and more of his time to making costume dramas with Lego men. This week in Legopiece Theater: Dugout Abbey, Albert and Dee Dee Pujols are visited by a specter while thinking about Lance Berkman (and their own mortality.)

Also, we wrote up a Zapruder-y tweet of the short-shorted man to your left. Meanwhile, Ballpark Village is back, and it's very tiny. (Unfortunately that's not a link to a Legopiece Theater, though I hope that gives Fritz an idea.)

FanPosts

Some interesting stuff in the last week or so. We can hope it isn't necessarily a complete look back at his career, but I liked elidajuiceman's "Lance Berkman: A Ballplayer Through and Through" a lot. And I've seen a lot of brackets, but tmcclure's Age-Bracket Bracket—presently pitting a team of 22-year-olds against a team of 26-year-olds—is new to me. (In a similar slicing-up-baseball-in-strange-ways fanpost, avs18fan finds American League analogs to NL teams.)

Elsewhere, Cards Fan in Chitown checks on the Cardinals statistically as we approach the quarter-season mark; stlfan checks up on his own preseason predictions; and new poster cardinalcorsair takes an unwavering look at his own Albert Pujols schadenfreude, which could be on the rise now that Pujols appears to be hitting again.

If you have some time you really need to waste, I am proud to state that you could do worse than to click on some of these links.

Lance Berkman Injury: Surgery Successful, Out 8-10 Weeks

2012-05-25T16:28:15Z

Puma's Injury Apparently Not a Torn ACL

The St. Louis Cardinals have announced that Lance Berkman underwent right knee surgery today and are projecting that he'll be out for 8-10 weeks:

Lance Berkman underwent right knee surgery today; initial projection for his rehabilitation and recovery is approximately 8-10 weeks.
— St. Louis Cardinals (@Cardinals) May 25, 2012

This indicates, though does not confirm, that Berkman did not tear his ACL despite earlier concerns, because that likely would have put him out for the year, if not his career.

An eight-to-ten-week rehab and recovery schedule would allow Berkman to return around the beginning of August, if all goes well. In the meantime, the Cardinals will have to do with Matt Carpenter and/or rookie Matt Craig at first base. Both of those players have been productive in Berkman’s absence already this season.

Berkman, 36, was hitting .333/.429/.571 with fourteen hits, five doubles, one triple, and one home run while striking out ten times on the season.