***OFFICIAL*** 2013 STL Cardinals Thread

[BigRedChief]

From Bernie's column:

People have asked me why we’re not more emotional,” Matheny said in his office after Sunday’s game. “They say that we look subdued, always intense. That our actions are methodical, robotic at times. That’s what got us here. This isn’t the time to change it.”

It’s hard to argue with the manager’s assessment. The Cardinals finished with 97 victories, most by a Cards team since 2005, and tied with Boston for No. 1 in the majors this year.


Their 54-27 showing at Busch Stadium matches the 1985 team for the best single-season home winning percentage (.667) by the Cardinals since 1944.

A postseason theme has emerged, and it echoes the mantra that surfaced before the start of 2013: remember the fall of 2012. Remember falling to San Francisco in the NLCS.


The Cardinals’ veterans still haven’t forgotten. They still aren’t over it. It’s why Matheny resists GM John Mozeliak’s urgings to smile and put on a happier face.


Here's the most impressive aspect of the Cardinals' division championship: they prevailed over two other outstanding teams, Pittsburgh and Cincinnati.



The 97-win Cardinals were better this year (regular season) than they were in 2011, when they won 90 games, and 2012, when they won 88.
Here are a few numbers that help put the Cardinals' Central title and No. 1 NL seed in perspective:



* Since MLB switched to a three-division format in each league in 1994, this was only the sixth time that a division had three 90-plus win teams. St. Louis won 97, Pittsburgh 94, and Cincinnati 90.
* Since the format change, this was only the second time that an NL division had three 90-win teams. In 2002 the NL West had Arizona (98 wins), San Francisco (95) and Los Angeles (92).
* The 2013 Cardinals faced more esteemed and difficult competition at the top of the division than any of the division-winning teams managed by Tony La Russa.

The Pirates were hardly pushovers; the Cardinals had to work like mad and kick in with a strong finish to put the division away, and didn't clinch until Game No. 160.



The Cardinals went 9-10 against Pittsburgh this season and were 11-8 vs. Cincinnati.


The Cardinals won only three of 10 games at PNC Park in Pittsburgh and split the 10 games at Cincinnati. The Cardinals were 6-3 against both teams at Busch Stadium.


The Cardinals (1st), Pirates (3rd) and Reds (5th) ranked among the top five in wins in the NL. The three teams were among the top 11 in wins in MLB. All three teams finished in the top five in the majors for best overall ERA, and each were in the top five MLB for best starting-pitching ERA.


The original purpose to this piece was to point out that the Cardinals managed to finish with the league's best record while competing in a division that had three 90-win teams for only the second time in the last 19 years of National League baseball.



The Cardinals really earned this.
Thanks for reading ...
— Bernie

[O.city]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

Sounds about right.

He's a pure station to station baserunner and a really abysmal defender. I don't know if he's regressed defensively or if I just didn't notice it last season, but he gets to nothing, he rarely if ever makes a clean stab on a ball and he can't pick balls from the dirt worth a damn. He's a really bad defensive player. The station to station baserunning thing wouldn't be quite as bad if he wasn't prone to making an inexplicable out every week or so.

Combine it with his power outage this season and I've been quite disappointed in Craig's performance so far.

He has a lot more to offer, IMO. Playing like he is, he's a 1.5-2 WAR player. That's not good enough for a cleanup hitter and 1b on one of the best teams in the league.

He's always been a station to station guy, and it's extremely frustrating, especially with the more aggressive approach they're taking this year on the basepaths, Craig not included.

We've really pushed on the paths, going first to third noticably more and generally just being aggressive, which is great, but Craig being on base the amount he is, he needs to be better there.

I'm not really sure I ever see him being a 40 HR guy, but power wise, he hasn't been what you'd like, but he's still driving in runs and getting on base, but you'd like a bit more thud there in that spot. I'm not a huge fan of the "platoon" there having Craig do as I tend to think that might correlate to some of his defensive blunders, but you've got to have Adams in the lineup right now the way he's swinging the bat.

I'd like to see Adams in the 4 hole a little bit to see how that would go.

[duncan_idaho]

Originally Posted by O.city

He's always been a station to station guy, and it's extremely frustrating, especially with the more aggressive approach they're taking this year on the basepaths, Craig not included.

We've really pushed on the paths, going first to third noticably more and generally just being aggressive, which is great, but Craig being on base the amount he is, he needs to be better there.

I'm not really sure I ever see him being a 40 HR guy, but power wise, he hasn't been what you'd like, but he's still driving in runs and getting on base, but you'd like a bit more thud there in that spot. I'm not a huge fan of the "platoon" there having Craig do as I tend to think that might correlate to some of his defensive blunders, but you've got to have Adams in the lineup right now the way he's swinging the bat.

I'd like to see Adams in the 4 hole a little bit to see how that would go.

I imagine it would go with the No. 3 hitter getting pitched around a LOT, until Adams proves himself.

He was pretty bad in May, but has rebounded in June.

Craig, to me, is a perfect No. 5 hitter. Honestly, I'd probably set up the Cardinals lineup like this:

Carpenter
Beltran
Molina
Holliday
Craig
Jay
Freese
Kozma

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by O.city

He's always been a station to station guy, and it's extremely frustrating, especially with the more aggressive approach they're taking this year on the basepaths, Craig not included.

We've really pushed on the paths, going first to third noticably more and generally just being aggressive, which is great, but Craig being on base the amount he is, he needs to be better there.

I'm not really sure I ever see him being a 40 HR guy, but power wise, he hasn't been what you'd like, but he's still driving in runs and getting on base, but you'd like a bit more thud there in that spot. I'm not a huge fan of the "platoon" there having Craig do as I tend to think that might correlate to some of his defensive blunders, but you've got to have Adams in the lineup right now the way he's swinging the bat.

I'd like to see Adams in the 4 hole a little bit to see how that would go.

He can't bat cleanup right now, IMO.

He doesn't have enough power, he's too slow on the bases and really, he's not good enough at getting on base and working pitchers for guys like Molina and Freese behind him.

He has a nice enough OBP, but its largely BA fueled and that BA comes on the strength of a .357 BABIP, which is exclusively luck given the fact that he isn't beating out any infield base hits. If you equalize his BABIP to .300, he loses 13 basehits. Suddenly his BA drops to .259. At that point he's sporting an OBP of barely .300 with nominal power.

He's not actually been very good this year. He's been very lucky. He needs to start drawing walks or hitting for power because expecting him to continue to hit .400 w/ RISP or put up a .360 BABIP is just folly.

[O.city]

Originally Posted by duncan_idaho

I imagine it would go with the No. 3 hitter getting pitched around a LOT, until Adams proves himself.

He was pretty bad in May, but has rebounded in June.

Craig, to me, is a perfect No. 5 hitter. Honestly, I'd probably set up the Cardinals lineup like this:

Carpenter
Beltran
Molina
Holliday
Craig
Jay
Freese
Kozma

Meh, he was hot to start, then had a DL stint that hurt him. He's swinging a pretty hot bat right now as he seems to have adjusted his approach a bit, the book was out on him for a while there.

I think Craig settles as a cleanup guy, he just doesn't seem to have the power this year as normal, but he's driving in runs there and getting on base.

Holliday hit cleanup while Pujols was here, I wasn't a fan of it, as I think Holliday is a prototypical 3 hole hitter at this point.

[O.city]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

He can't bat cleanup right now, IMO.

He doesn't have enough power, he's too slow on the bases and really, he's not good enough at getting on base and working pitchers for guys like Molina and Freese behind him.

He has a nice enough OBP, but its largely BA fueled and that BA comes on the strength of a .357 BABIP, which is exclusively luck given the fact that he isn't beating out any infield base hits. If you equalize his BABIP to .300, he loses 13 basehits. Suddenly his BA drops to .259. At that point he's sporting an OBP of barely .300 with nominal power.

He's not actually been very good this year. He's been very lucky. He needs to start drawing walks or hitting for power because expecting him to continue to hit .400 w/ RISP or put up a .360 BABIP is just folly.

He's obviously going to have to hit for more power, but I like his simple approach coming off the DL. I think he profiles as a cleanup guy, or thought he did, but he's going to have to hit for more power.

[O.city]

I don't trust Jay hitting 6th right now either, but I understand it duncan.

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

He evidently has the best changeup in the organization, what the hell does he need another pitch to neutralize lefties for?

A righty can't have a better weapon in his arsenal against lefties than a good changeup. They trail to the armside and they drop right out of the hitting zone after looking like a hanging fastball as the batter starts his swing. Wacha's all set against lefties with that thing.

Besides, I'm with Duncan, the damn cutter tends to diminish a fastball's effectiveness because pitchers fall in love with them. I don't really need to remind you about Izzy's fascination with that !@#$ing thing, do I? I always loved seeing a guy with a 97 mph fastball and a hammer curve float a ****ing 91 mph cutter right into the center of the plate...

Wacha needs to refine his curveball (which presently sucks, IMO), stay on top of his changeup and work on his fastball command (you can see him guiding it fairly often, causing it to straighten out). Those 3 pitches are more than enough for him to handle any lineup and once he starts dicking around with a cutter, it'll be time he spends on it that has him losing the feel for his best 3 pitches.

Cutters are for guys with fading arms, not for guys that throw 96 with a bugs bunny change already.

Wacha doesn't throw 96 consistently and you know it. That's hyperbole. He sits at 92-3.

I've always believed that pitchers need to be able to move the ball in both directions. That means a pitch that bores in on the hands of batters on both sides of the ball.

Wainwright's repertoire is nearly perfect. He throws a two seamer to get in on the hands of RHB, and a cutter to get in on the LHB. Both can still induce weak contact in batters of the opposite hand, and he obviously still has the curve as an incredibly effective out pitch and the fastball as a dependable "get ahead" pitch without being a melon.

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Craig's flyball distance last year was 287 feet. It is 275 feet this year. That (obviously) suggests a loss of power, which is why his HR/FB rate is half of what it was last year, but he's also hitting the ball to RF more (an average angle of 9 compared to 2 last year. Zero is center, -45 is left line and 45 is right line.

Combine that with the dramatic increase in his LD % and that could suggest that his high BABIP is fueled by line drives and a different hitting approach rather than just mere luck.

[BigRedChief]

Originally Posted by PackerinMo

Any player who takes a whole season off without being physically injured is a huuuuge vag in my book.

uhhhh Freese quit for a year.

[BigRedChief]

Originally Posted by duncan_idaho

I've been poking around some advanced defense and baserunning stats the past few days and came across some interesting information regarding Allen Craig.

Basically, Fangraphs' UBR has Craig rated as the WORST baserunner in baseball this year (it's based on batted ball running attempts, largely dependent on how often and successfully they advance) and one of the worst defenders in baseball.

It's not as vicious on Craig's defensive numbers as Baseball Ref, which has him at an extreme negative number this year, but it's still not pretty.

It surprised me a little because, while I haven't regarded Craig as anything better than a slightly below-average fielder, I never thought he was bottom 10 in runs saved. Same thing with his baserunning.

Thoughts?

You sure there isn't some way we can convince you to be a Cardinals fan?

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by BigRedChief

uhhhh Freese quit for a year.

I've slowly come to the conclusion that Packerin' might be a mouth-breather.

He sometimes neglects to think before he speaks.

[duncan_idaho]

Originally Posted by BigRedChief

You sure there isn't some way we can convince you to be a Cardinals fan?

I like the team and respect the hell out of the organization. I rooted for the Cards growing up.

Just like the Royals more (and get tired of dealing with frontrunner fans... which really aren't present in any of my other fanbases).

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

Wacha doesn't throw 96 consistently and you know it. That's hyperbole. He sits at 92-3.

I've always believed that pitchers need to be able to move the ball in both directions. That means a pitch that bores in on the hands of batters on both sides of the ball.

Wainwright's repertoire is nearly perfect. He throws a two seamer to get in on the hands of RHB, and a cutter to get in on the LHB. Both can still induce weak contact in batters of the opposite hand, and he obviously still has the curve as an incredibly effective out pitch and the fastball as a dependable "get ahead" pitch without being a melon.

A four-seamer coming from directly over the top, as Wacha does, can easily get inside to lefties if it's in the 92 mph range. And Wacha will live or die with fastball command anyway (his breaking stuff is unlikely to ever rate as plus offerings). If he can establish his fastball command, lefties will have to respect the change and he'll be able to jam them to hell and gone by simply reaching back a little more and coming inside at 94. No, he doesn't cruise at that speed, but he won't have to.

If I believed that utilizing a cutter doesn't take away from the effectiveness of a pitchers other pitches, I'd get on board with it. However, I've seen way way too many pitchers that start to lose the feel for their fastball and end up using that cutter as a primary pitch. It does more harm than good for most pitchers, IMO.

[Pepe Silvia]

Miller vs. Gee and the shitty Mets, I like our chances, Go Cards!!!!!!

[Mi_chief_fan]

Originally Posted by BigRedChief

uhhhh Freese quit for a year.

Correct me if I'm wrong: wasn't that in college? If not, I stand corrected.