[情報] 2009 Preview - St. Louis Cardinals
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Tuesday, April 14, 2009
2009 Preview - St. Louis Cardinals
Last year, I wrote a pretty good (or pretty lucky) Cardinals preview that
took a lot of heat in the comments thread. One person, whose handle was Arva,
went to the trouble to write a counter preview of his own, which looked just
like the ones you find in supermarket magazines with ZIPS projections thrown
in. Among other things, Arva’s preview looked at each position’s starters
and backups, and concluded, based on the projections for the starters, that
the Cards were short of offense, especially in the outfield. Now, while Arva
was a bit more verbally combative than I prefer, he wasn’t stupid, so the
fact that he had no idea what I was doing in my preview led me to realize a
couple of things: It’s been years since I explained why I don’t write
normal preseason previews, and I didn’t even follow my own rules as closely
as I should have. So this year I’m going to expose the format I use and hope
that it makes sense.
First off, I don’t use the standard supermarket mag format ever. Why? Well,
if you have 8 field positions, each with a starter and a backup, you have 16
position players, which means you have only 9 roster slots open for pitchers.
No team carries as few as 9 pitchers. None has for decades. So, if you use
this format, you are starting with a premise that you know is false. Strongly
preferring to start with a premise that might be true, I looked around for
another format about 15 years ago. What I found was that, if I went with what
managers actually did with their rosters, sometimes as opposed to what they
said they were going to do, I could figure out what premise I should actually
use. And it turns out, although each manager has his own personal take, there
is a current style of roster management that pretty much every manager uses.
Here’s how a roster breaks down in the modern format:
The Bat Pool: First Base and the Outfield
The Glove Pool: Second, Short, and Third
The Catcher Pool: The Starting Catcher and his Backup
The Starter Pool: The Five Rotation Starters and the Swing Starter
The Closer Pool: The Closer and Setup Man
The Middle Relief Pool
The Bat and Glove Pools have sets of constraints that they must meet, rather
than individual position starters and backups. The other pools are either
very strict or so fluid that they don’t really even have constraints. So,
here are the six pools, along with descriptions and constraints, with
Cardinal comments for 2009. I’m going to start with the Bat Pool because it
was the primary source of the problems that people had projecting the 2008
Cards.
The Bat Pool: First Base and the Outfield
This pool produces most of the offense in a normal lineup, especially most of
the lefty offense, and really is treated as a pool. For example, referencing
the Cardinals, who is the backup first baseman? Well, the answer is Chris
Duncan, but he’s also the starting left fielder. Very few modern teams carry
two first basemen; they use outfielders to back up the starter. Most teams
carry 6 players in this pool (in the NL): the four starters, the backup
center fielder, and the general backup. This saves them 2 roster spots over
what they would have if they carried 4 starters and 4 backups. NOTE: I admit
to messing this up last year. I divided the positions into infield and
outfield, which was just lazy on my part. I know that Albert belongs with the
outfielders, not the infielders. His backup, when he takes a rare day off, is
generally an outfielder. His main job is to produce offense. He belongs,
obviously, in the bat pool, as do all other first basemen.
Constraints:
- No more than one guy who can only play first base: The Cards have only
Albert Pujols in that category.
- No more than one other guy who can only play first or left field: The Cards
have only Chris Duncan to add to Albert.
- At least 2 guys with enough arm for right field: All the Cards’
outfielders except Duncan have enough arm. Rick Ankiel and Ryan Ludwick have
cannons, while Skip Schumaker, Brian Barton, Joe Mather and Colby Rasmus have
enough, if not much more.
- At least 2 guys who can play center on defense: As with right field, all of
them except Albert, Chris and Mather. This is the big thing that the
preseason touts missed last year. It’s rare. Most teams have nothing like
this flexibility. And it mixed with one other rarity to produce a synergy
that drove the 2008 offense to do what it proved able to do. And it was that
synergy that the preseason touts, tied to the starter/backup structure,
completely missed. I didn’t, which is why my preview turned out pretty good.
The things that I did miss kept it from being better.
This other rarity for the Cards in 2008 was that their Bat Pool projections,
both ZIPS and other systems, were all very close to each other except for
Pujols. That is, the Cards didn’t have three starting outfielders and their
backups. They had six outfielders (Ankiel, Barton, Duncan, Ludwick, Rasmus,
and Schumaker) with about the same offensive projections (Mather was not in
the mix when 2008 began). The standard touts, using the normal structure,
evaluated the outfield offense by just looking at the projections for
whichever three they projected as the starters. Those didn’t look too
imposing, so the touts concluded that the outfield would be an offensive
weakness.
But that’s a fallacy. The Cardinals did not have to start the touts’
projected starters all year. They could use, literally, whichever three of
the six outfield candidates were hitting the best. Because so many could play
both center and right, Tony LaRussa could literally put the six names in a
hat, draw any three out, and have a reasonable defensive outfield. The worst
would have been Duncan, Barton and Schumaker, but even that’s not a lousy
defensive outfield. It’s weak, but not downright bad.
So what I did, but did not expose to last year’s readers, was to ask myself
what the real offensive projection might be for this group of six very close
bats. I realized that I could get a good estimated answer very easily by
remembering that projections aren’t hard numbers. A projection that says
that Chris Duncan should hit .255 with 25 homers isn’t saying that this is
exactly what he will hit. It is saying that this is the mean of a
distribution of seasons that Duncan could have.
By itself, that projection mean is not a great season. But suppose that,
instead of looking at this mean, we think about what a “good” Duncan season
would look like. Let’s say a season anywhere within the top quarter of
seasons that Duncan could have in the distribution of which that projection
is the mean. Well, THAT’s a pretty good offensive season. Anything in the
top quarter is a help. And there was more than one chance of this happening.
There were six candidates, with reasonably even projections, and any trio of
them could start. So, what is the chance that at least three of the six have
seasons in the top quarter of what they could have?
The answer, easy to calculate, is 94%. That is, it was almost a guarantee
that the Cards would end up with three starters having stronger seasons than
any of the players’ individual projections.
And that is exactly what happened. Duncan, Barton, and Rasmus got hurt and/or
had weak years. Ludwick, Ankiel, and Schumaker had good ones; Ludwick and
Schumaker having REAL good ones, compared to their projections. So, once
Duncan’s injury did not improve, Schumaker, who the touts had listed as the
backup right fielder, started in left, with Ankiel in center and Ludwick in
right. And that was a fine outfield that made a real offensive contribution.
Duncan and Barton were fine, considered as backups. Rasmus remained in AAA
ball, injured and trying to adjust his hitting style to that of a leadoff
man.
(NOTE: I got flak for this leadoff man claim last year, too. Sorry guys, you
need to read the local paper. There is no question - none at all - that Tony
LaRussa has ordered Colby Rasmus to train himself as a leadoff man. There are
quotes from both Tony and Colby to prove this. You may not think it’s a good
idea, but it’s what’s happening.)
So, how about 2009? This is supposed to be a 2009 preview, isn’t it? Well,
yes. And most of the above still applies because the same players are still
here. The projections are more spread out, because Ludwick and Schumaker have
moved up and Duncan, Rasmus and Barton have dropped, but it’s still the same
players, and they can still all play right and center, and so the synergy is
the same.
Right now, the Cardinal Bat Pool starters are Albert at first, Duncan in
left, Ankiel in center and Ludwick in right. The backup going into the season
will be Rasmus. At the last minute, Tony decided to keep an extra Glove Pool
member and send Joe Mather, a pleasant 2008 surprise who can play left and
right but not center, down to AAA, a phone call away in case someone gets
hurt. Barton, no longer having to stay on the roster because of Rule 5, will
also start in AAA. Skip Schumaker has been moved to the Glove Pool because
the Bat Pool is in fact too full, not too weak.
The intended lineup slots for these guys are Schumaker leading off, followed
by Ankiel (whose walk percentage is way up this spring), Albert, Duncan and
Ludwick, mixing lefties and righties as much as possible. If Rasmus is in for
Skip or Rick, he will take their batting slot. If he’s in for Ludwick (this
will happen against tough righty pitchers, as Colby hits lefty), he’s
supposed to bat 9th, as Tony’s “second leadoff man” with the pitcher
hitting 8th. But regardless of who actually ends up where, the Cardinal
offense should be fine, even if Troy Glaus doesn’t return all season. At the
very least, it should be 4 deep in good seasons (or “average” Albert Pujols
ones). If Glaus returns at full speed, it’s a VERY good offense.
BTW, the biggest thing that I missed last year was Ryan Ludwick’s upside. He
’d never had a healthy year, and his projections weren’t anything special.
I had no idea that his upside could develop, in one year, into what he did in
2008. I assumed that he was the last outfield option, and that may well have
been true in Tony’s mind as well. Ludwick just played himself into a whole
new level. One guy in the comments thread was a howling Ludwick fan, and I
pretty much dismissed him. If you’re he and you’re reading this, can you
please tell me how you knew Ludwick would be healthy? I’m poor at predicting
injuries. You’re either good or you were lucky.
The Glove Pool: Second, Short, and Third
This pool has heavy defensive needs, and is mostly manned by righties.
Getting offense out of this pool is often the difference between a weak team
and a strong one.
Constraints:
- No more than one guy who can only play second. As of right now, Skip
Schumaker is going to open the season at second. He can’t play anywhere else
in the infield.
- At least two guys who can play shortstop. Right now, that’s Khalil Greene,
Brendan Ryan and Brian Barden (not to be confused with Brian Barton the AAA
outfielder). I thought that only one of those last two would stay on the
roster, but Tony decided to keep both (Ryan has spent a lot of time in the
outfield this spring). Ryan is more flexible; Barden has a better glove at
short.
- At least two guys who have the arm for third. The backup shortstops both
count. In the Cardinals’ case, David Freeze is, as of now, the starting
third baseman, pending the return of Troy Glaus.
The driving force in the current Cardinal Glove Pool is the need for at least
one lefty bat. The fundamental issue is that Albert Pujols is a righty. Most
teams have a lefty at first, and two more in the outfield. The Cards have the
two outfield lefties (Rasmus is in back of Duncan and Ankiel), but Ludwick is
a righty like Albert, so they need a lefty from the Glove Pool, to maintain
lineup balance. This, as much as anything, is what is driving the Cards to
move Skip Schumaker to second base. He hits lefty. It’s also why the Cards
will carry Joe Thurston, who can only play second and third. Thurston hits
lefty, so he’s got a spot as, essentially, Schumaker’s backup and failsafe.
In the lineup, Schumaker is the leadoff man. Greene will probably hit 6th
unless Freeze just outhits him. Freeze will hit 9th unless Rasmus does. If
Schumaker fails at second, Thurston will get the job and there will be a
lefty logjam in the outfield. Of course, everything is up in the air when
Troy Glaus comes back. The lineup will shuffle then, depending on who is
hitting how well. I’m projecting Opening Month here, and I’m projecting
intentions. Remember, Tony has lots of outfield options leading to lots of
different lineups.
Late Note: The Cardinals tried converting Joe Mather to third base this
spring, along with Schumaker to second. Mather promptly stopped hitting,
either from the stress of focusing on third base defense or as the result of
an illness. Tony has stopped the experiment, apparently believing that
working too hard on defense has hobbled Joe’s bat. But Mather remains the
last ditch possibility at third and actually played a few innings there the
day after the decision was made to move him back to the Bat Pool.
The Catcher Pool: The Starting Catcher and his Backup
This is the one pool that still works just like it does in the supermarket
mags. The Cards have Yadier Molina to start and Jason LaRue at backup. If
someone gets hurt, Matt Pagnozzi is lurking in the minors. This Pags has a
hot glove but a lousy bat. He’s just lurking in the minors as, effectively,
the third catcher.
I’m not sure that I really think that Yadier Molina is a .300 hitter. I
expect a drop from last year. But .280 would not surprise me. In any case, he
will very likely hit 7th. If there are real problems with the lineup, Tony
could get away for a while with hitting him 9th. Yadier can’t run, but if he
hits .280, he will get on base enough for 9th. For a while. Overall? It’s a
good, deep pool. It certainly does not have a mid-lineup bat in it, but
Molina and Pagnozzi are Gold Glove types. La Rue is an experienced catcher
who is happy to have a major league job.
The Starter Pool: The Five Rotation Starters and the Swing Starter
Almost any team starts with a defined rotation. The real analysis here is
about what happens if a rotation starter gets hurt. That’s a problem for the
Cards, and it’s not a normal one for a Tony LaRussa team. The front line
rotation is fine unless someone gets hurt. Carpenter. Wainwright. Lohse.
Wellemeyer. Pineiro. That’s fine as long as it’s healthy. But if anyone
gets hurt, the only real option right now is Brad Thompson, the swing man.
Tony LaRussa does not want Brad Thompson starting any significant number of
games, and would probably start shuttling starters in from AAA if he had to.
Normally, Tony has one or two veterans playing out the string in AAA ball,
waiting for someone to get hurt so they can move into the big league
rotation. But those guys aren’t there now, as management isn’t willing to
spend any money on age or injury gambles. Now, if someone does get really
hurt, the purse strings might open. But they aren’t right now. At least Tony
is unlikely to ask for a free agent anywhere except starting pitcher or
closer.
The Closer Pool: The Closer and Setup Man
Essentially, the Closer and what happens if he gets hurt or fails, like Izzy
did last year. This looks bad right now. Izzy is gone. The Cards wanted to
install hot kid Chris Perez as the closer, but his shoulder tightened up, and
he’s down to AAA to open the season and get a lot of work in. His shoulder
seems to have healed, but he’s behind in development. That leaves the young
and inexperienced Jason Motte, meaning that the Cardinal closer right now is
the emergency backup. Motte throws very hard, but seems to have not much
else. Maybe it will be enough for one-inning stints.
If you want to worry, this is what to worry about. The Cards, right now, do
not have a tested closer. The closest they have is veteran Ryan Franklin, who
did have 17 saves last year, but who is really a middle reliever. If he were
a real closer, Tony would have him in there. And Tony will if neither Perez
nor Motte can do the job. If you’re into dreaming, Tony has said that he
would love to have Pedro Martinez try to close ballgames. Pedro said he’d be
willing if the money was right. The money of course, is not there right now.
But if no one can close games and no one signs Pedro....
The Cards will apparently use both Franklin and young Kyle McClellan as setup
men. Franklin currently has the job title, but Tony insists that McClellan
will get plenty of late-inning work. Tony seems perfectly happy with Kyle as
a setup candidate and does not regard him as a closer-in-waiting. Franklin
can handle just about any role, even spot starter. Yes, what I’m saying is
that Ryan Franklin is the secret weapon of the Cardinal staff. Of course, he’
s also turning 36.
The Middle Relief Pool
This is where the supermarket mags fail to see that their structure doesn’t
work. They just discuss the pool as a blob of undistinguished pitchers and
never count them up. Well, if you have 16 position players, 5 starters, a
closer and a setup man, that’s 23 roster slots, leaving two (2) for middle
relief. No one carries as few as 2 of these guys any more; no one carries
fewer than 4. But the mags, since they don’t count roster slots, miss this,
and it throws their whole analysis style off. They never stop to ask
themselves where the extra 2 or 3 roster slots are coming from. Pool analysis
is what answers that question.
How many pitchers will the Cardinals carry? Twelve, to open the season. The
rotation, swing man, setup man and closer are 8 of them. That leaves 4 middle
relievers. Their names are Josh Kinney, Ryan Franklin, Dennys Reyes and
Trever Miller. Reyes and Miller are free agent lefty specialists. They are on
the roster to get dangerous lefty hitters out in pressure situations or late
in games. Tony loves these guys, and was the driving force behind signing two
of them. Actually, it’s three. Royce Ring will be stashed in AAA Memphis,
having accepted the assignment. In addition, the Cards acquired three more
lefty relievers, of undistinguished quality, just to build bulk. The names
are Charlie Manning, Ian Ostlund, and Katsuhiko Maekawa. None will open the
season in the major leagues.
Franklin we’ve already covered. That leaves Josh Kinney, who is the only
true and complete middle reliever on the staff. Kinney is turning 30, but has
only two partial seasons in the major leagues due to a bad injury after a
promising 2006. Essentially, the Cardinals are skimming the cream off of his
peak seasons, which promise to be the only ones worthy of major league work.
So far, he’s pitched pretty well in the bigs, and his role won’t be the
most stressful.
OK, so how do these pools add up to a 25-man roster? Well, Tony will open the
season with 12 pitchers. Five starters, the swing man, the closer, the setup
man, two lefty specialists and two righty middle relievers. He’ll carry two
catchers. He’ll have six men in the Glove Pool: the three starters, two
backup shortstops (who are also, of course, backup second and third basemen)
and Joe Thurston. He’ll have five in the Bat Pool: the four starters and
Rasmus as backup center fielder. 12 + 2 + 6 + 5 = 25. That’s the Opening Day
roster breakdown. The main change will be when Tony decides he needs to have
13 pitchers for a while, which he does a few times a season. When that
happens, either Thurston or Ryan or Barden will go down to AAA, unless
someone is hurt or something.
As for surprises, Brian Barton might get real hot in AAA and make a play for
an outfield job. Chris Perez might get his arm together and pitch his way
into the closer role. Troy Glaus might come back. Rick Ankiel, Chris Duncan
or Ryan Ludwick could get hurt or just have a collapse year, in which case,
Colby Rasmus becomes a starter. (Tony would like to trade fragile Ryan
Ludwick for a pitcher and go with three lefties in the outfield to balance
Pujols. But the team did not get enough of an offer for Ryan.) Other than
that, any substitutions will be acts of need, either to deal with injuries or
to compensate for a failing player (root for Schumaker).
One final note: In reality, Tony LaRussa has about a 30-man roster. How? It’
s the guys in AAA ball. Tony has a third catcher there, two backup
outfielders who are close to as good as the ones on the big club, Royce Ring
as a lefty reliever and Chris Perez as a closer-in-waiting. That comes to 30.
Tony will use them all. He will do one-day callups, especially for pitchers.
He will fill in for injuries and exhaustion. He always has.
This is one of the biggest keys to why Tony keeps winning ballgames. He
understands that the need to carry 12 or more pitchers squeezes the position
player roster. He also understands that he’d like to have 13 or even 14
pitchers. The way to do this is to set up a few men in the minors who are
actually major league backups who take a day to activate, and who have the
options left to allow that.
Not to take a cheap shot at the Cubs, but to offer help, the failure to do
this has hurt the Baby Bears more than once. They use an old-school minor
league approach, where the AAA team is treated as its own roster with its own
pennant to win. The Cards realize that you simply need more than 25 major
leaguers to fill out a season. So they use AAA as a way to stash a few extra
backups. Over the course of the season, that helps. The Cubs always seem to
have more front line than the Cards, but the Cards always seem to overperform
while the Cubs wimp out. The failure to max out AAA usage is one big reason.
So enough of pools. What does the team as a whole look like? How many games
is it likely to win?
Well, it all starts with the starters. I’ve been preaching this since Tony
LaRussa was in Oakland, and I see no reason to quit. Tony lives and dies by
his veteran starting pitching. If he gets three good years out of veteran
starters, he wins. If he gets 2 1/2, he might win. Two, he probably won’t
win. Fewer than 2 hot veteran seasons? He’s toast.
This played out according to premise last year. Lohse and Wellemeyer were
hot. Wainwright was hot but didn’t stay healthy all year. Tony got 2 1/2
seasons of good veteran starting and won 86 games, just under the wild card
line. Normal.
This year is a more intense gamble than last. Last year, the Cards were
hoping that one of their Hurtin’ Three (Carpenter, Mark Mulder and Matt
Clement) would recover and come through. That never happened; instead, they
got lucky with Lohse and Wellemeyer. This year, the Cards are not nearly so
deep in starters, but the ones they have are all healthy right now. If they
stay healthy, the Cards will almost certainly make the playoffs. Their
rotation will be too good to deny. But if they start getting hurt, or
collapsing for some other reason, well, there’s not much depth. At that
point, it will all depend on whether the ownership will open the wallets. The
ownership claims to be having money troubles.
My final prediction? Well, here’s the probable early lineup, barring
last-minute injuries and Tony’s famous predilection for changing his lineup
every other day:
Schumaker L 2b
Ankiel L cf
Pujols R 1b
Duncan L lf
Ludwick R rf (Ludwick and Duncan might switch)
Greene R ss
Molina R c
the pitcher
Freeze R 3b
As you can see, even with Skip at second, it’s not exactly rolling in lefty
bats. Still, I predict 87-92 wins, and a likely trip to the postseason. I
expect the offense to be about the same as last year’s, with Schumaker at
second compensating for the loss of Glaus. I expect that enough of the
starters will stay healthy enough long enough to give Tony those three good
veteran seasons. I expect someone to be able to close games, with the minimum
being Franklin. And I expect all that stashed depth in AAA to pay off when
the weather gets hot and the schedule gets long. In making this prediction, I
’m not counting on Troy Glaus for anything. If he gives the Cards a hot half
season, they might get over 90 wins. Of course, if Albert Pujols finally has
a nagging injury get bad, they’re going to be worse. But if that happens, no
one’s going to blame me for predicting high.
Thanks for plowing through all this. Next year, I promise not to explain
everything I do and just make the evaluations and predictions.
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