***Official 2020 STL Cardinals Thread***

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

He gave up fewer homers with fewer ground balls, more walks, and without lowering his hard contact percentage. Last year was most likely an aberration.

As compared to?

His 2019 season was a virtual carbon copy to 2018. His 'under the hood' stats were all easily in line with what he did in '18.

GB rate did decrease somewhat which was partially offset by a slight improvement in his HR/FB rate, but even that wasn't an impossibly low figure. And ultimately is was reflected in a slightly higher ERA, xFIP and FIP.

I mean the bottom line is that he's a 30 yr old reliever with no pedigree to speak of and a late breakout. Every single one of those factors suggests a high degree of volatility, an early peak and a pretty precipitous decline. But he probably had another year of useful relief in him similar to '18 and '19. A mid-3s ERA w/ a K rate near 10 and a 1-1.5 win season wouldn't have been unlikely at all.

He'd have been a nice option as a bridge reliever. It's hard to call last year an 'aberration' when it wasn't appreciably better/worse than what he did in '18. It was likely just another data point that showed an older reliever walking a thin line of relevance who may/may not fall off a cliff at any time.

It's not a major loss either way, but he's someone you'd rather have than not. Teams make trades for guys like that every deadline - they have value.

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

As compared to?

His 2019 season was a virtual carbon copy to 2018. His 'under the hood' stats were all easily in line with what he did in '18.

GB rate did decrease somewhat which was partially offset by a slight improvement in his HR/FB rate, but even that wasn't an impossibly low figure. And ultimately is was reflected in a slightly higher ERA, xFIP and FIP.

I mean the bottom line is that he's a 30 yr old reliever with no pedigree to speak of and a late breakout. Every single one of those factors suggests a high degree of volatility, an early peak and a pretty precipitous decline. But he probably had another year of useful relief in him similar to '18 and '19. A mid-3s ERA w/ a K rate near 10 and a 1-1.5 win season wouldn't have been unlikely at all.

He'd have been a nice option as a bridge reliever. It's hard to call last year an 'aberration' when it wasn't appreciably better/worse than what he did in '18. It was likely just another data point that showed an older reliever walking a thin line of relevance who may/may not fall off a cliff at any time.

It's not a major loss either way, but he's someone you'd rather have than not. Teams make trades for guys like that every deadline - they have value.

Bernie mentioned his fWAR as though he was a valuable arm. It was double his value in 2018, despite having mostly the same stats. Thus, his value was an aberration. He's just a guy

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

Bernie mentioned his fWAR as though he was a valuable arm. It was double his value in 2018, despite having mostly the same stats. Thus, his value was an aberration. He's just a guy

Eh - Bernie's lazy.

In his last 2 seasons he's thrown roughly 120 innings and been worth roughly 2 fwar. A 60 inning, 1 WAR season is a pretty reasonable expectation of him this year as a dead-ass average of his last 2 seasons.

Maybe a little north, maybe a little south.

But also, there are a half dozen or more teams in this league that can't scrape together 2 guys who can give them 60 innings of 1 win relief pitching. There were only about 40 of them last year.

Meanwhile Brebbia's averaged it over the last 2 years and should've been given higher leverage work in 2018 but Matheny is a reerun. Even allowing for an inflated WAR in '19, he was the Cardinals leader in relief WAR in 2018 as well.

That's not exactly a JAG - it's just not an elite reliever. He's a guy you'd rather have healthy than hurt and for a team that's been full of guys who've gotten hurt and the team has been improved for their absence, I think that difference is worth noting.