Following my post on La Russa’s lineups, there was discussion about the Cardinals opposing left-handed pitchers. I decided to take a look at both the frequency and the results of the club when facing lefties during the La Russa era.
Here are the details:
| vs. LHS | Home W | Home L | Home W % | Road W | Road L | Road W % | Total W | Total L | Total W % | % LHS |
| 2008 | 16 | 10 | 61.5% | 11 | 19 | 36.7% | 27 | 29 | 48.2% | 34.6% |
| 2007 | 13 | 13 | 50.0% | 16 | 14 | 53.3% | 29 | 27 | 51.8% | 34.6% |
| 2006 | 14 | 16 | 46.7% | 9 | 18 | 33.3% | 23 | 34 | 40.4% | 35.4% |
| 2005 | 13 | 11 | 54.2% | 19 | 9 | 67.9% | 32 | 20 | 61.5% | 32.1% |
| 2004 | 15 | 7 | 68.2% | 11 | 6 | 64.7% | 26 | 13 | 66.7% | 24.1% |
| 2003 | 12 | 6 | 66.7% | 7 | 11 | 38.9% | 19 | 17 | 52.8% | 22.2% |
| 2002 | 11 | 7 | 61.1% | 10 | 9 | 52.6% | 21 | 16 | 56.8% | 22.8% |
| 2001 | 10 | 5 | 66.7% | 6 | 10 | 37.5% | 16 | 15 | 51.6% | 19.1% |
| 2000 | 11 | 9 | 55.0% | 6 | 14 | 30.0% | 17 | 23 | 42.5% | 24.7% |
| 1999 | 7 | 13 | 35.0% | 10 | 16 | 38.5% | 17 | 29 | 37.0% | 28.6% |
| 1998 | 13 | 13 | 50.0% | 13 | 9 | 59.1% | 26 | 22 | 54.2% | 29.6% |
| 1997 | 12 | 8 | 60.0% | 9 | 9 | 50.0% | 21 | 17 | 55.3% | 23.5% |
| 1996 | 9 | 11 | 45.0% | 9 | 7 | 56.3% | 18 | 18 | 50.0% | 22.2% |
| total | 156 | 129 | 54.7% | 136 | 151 | 47.4% | 292 | 280 | 51.0% | 27.2% |
| average | 12.0 | 9.9 | 10.5 | 11.6 | 22.5 | 21.5 |
On the average over the last 13 years, the Cardinals’ opponents sent out left-handed starters against them just over a quarter of the time, 27.2%. However, that mark has steadily grown such that over the last four years, well over one third of the enemy pitchers threw from that side.
In total, the Cardinals have won 51% of their games against lefties. That improves to almost 55% at home, though there are wild swings from year to year.
For comparison, let’s look at the Cards results against right-handed pitchers.
| vs. RHS | Home W | Home L | Home W % | Road W | Road L | Road W % | Total W | Total L | Total W % |
| 2008 | 30 | 25 | 54.5% | 29 | 22 | 56.9% | 59 | 47 | 55.7% |
| 2007 | 30 | 25 | 54.5% | 19 | 32 | 37.3% | 49 | 57 | 46.2% |
| 2006 | 35 | 15 | 70.0% | 25 | 29 | 46.3% | 60 | 44 | 57.7% |
| 2005 | 37 | 20 | 64.9% | 31 | 22 | 58.5% | 68 | 42 | 61.8% |
| 2004 | 38 | 21 | 64.4% | 41 | 23 | 64.1% | 79 | 44 | 64.2% |
| 2003 | 36 | 27 | 57.1% | 30 | 33 | 47.6% | 66 | 60 | 52.4% |
| 2002 | 41 | 22 | 65.1% | 35 | 27 | 56.5% | 76 | 49 | 60.8% |
| 2001 | 44 | 23 | 65.7% | 33 | 31 | 51.6% | 77 | 54 | 58.8% |
| 2000 | 39 | 22 | 63.9% | 39 | 22 | 63.9% | 78 | 44 | 63.9% |
| 1999 | 31 | 29 | 51.7% | 27 | 28 | 49.1% | 58 | 57 | 50.4% |
| 1998 | 35 | 21 | 62.5% | 22 | 36 | 37.9% | 57 | 57 | 50.0% |
| 1997 | 29 | 32 | 47.5% | 23 | 40 | 36.5% | 52 | 72 | 41.9% |
| 1996 | 39 | 22 | 63.9% | 31 | 34 | 47.7% | 70 | 56 | 55.6% |
| total | 464 | 304 | 60.4% | 385 | 379 | 50.4% | 849 | 683 | 55.4% |
| average | 35.7 | 23.4 | 29.6 | 29.2 | 65.3 | 52.5 |
As one would expect, the club has delivered better results against right-handers overall, with a 55.4% success rate over time, including over 60% at home and still just over 50% on the road.
Now, we’ll put a summary of the results side-by-side.
| LHS | RHS | ||
| % LHS | Total W % | Total W % | |
| 2008 | 34.6% | 48.2% | 55.7% |
| 2007 | 34.6% | 51.8% | 46.2% |
| 2006 | 35.4% | 40.4% | 57.7% |
| 2005 | 32.1% | 61.5% | 61.8% |
| 2004 | 24.1% | 66.7% | 64.2% |
| 2003 | 22.2% | 52.8% | 52.4% |
| 2002 | 22.8% | 56.8% | 60.8% |
| 2001 | 19.1% | 51.6% | 58.8% |
| 2000 | 24.7% | 42.5% | 63.9% |
| 1999 | 28.6% | 37.0% | 50.4% |
| 1998 | 29.6% | 54.2% | 50.0% |
| 1997 | 23.5% | 55.3% | 41.9% |
| 1996 | 22.2% | 50.0% | 55.6% |
| average | 27.2% | 51.0% | 55.4% |
| Years | LHS | RHS | |
| advantage | 5 | 8 | |
| > 50% W | 9 | 11 | |
| > 60% W | 2 | 4 | |
| > 66% W | 1 | 0 |
Interestingly, the success against right-handers isn’t a consistent thing. In five of the 13 seasons in this period, the Cardinals actually had a higher win rate against lefties than they did against righties, including three of the last six seasons.
What do you make of that?
In the National League Central in 2009, current projected rotations for the Cardinals’ five opponents include eight left-handers. That equates to just under one-third (8/25 = 32%). The Pirates lead the way with three, while the Reds, like the Cardinals, have an all right-handed starting staff.
| NL Central | LH starters | ’08 W/L vs. StL | ’08 ERA | Win % | Career vs. StL | Car StL ERA | Win % |
| Houston | Wandy Rodriguez | 1-2 | 1.11 | 2-6 | 4.08 | ||
| Mike Hampton | DNF | 10-8 | 3.71 | ||||
| Milwaukee | Manny Parra | 0-0 | 4.50 | 0-0 | 3.77 | ||
| Chicago | Ted Lilly | 3-0 | 3.06 | 6-2 | 2.99 | ||
| Sean Marshall | 1-0 | 0.82 | 2-1 | 3.38 | |||
| Pittsburgh | Paul Maholm | 2-1 | 3.05 | 3-3 | 2.64 | ||
| Zach Duke | 0-2 | 5.25 | 2-4 | 4.27 | |||
| Tom Gorzelanny | 0-1 | 5.73 | 1-3 | 3.82 | |||
| Cincinnati | none | ||||||
| total | 7-6 | 3.14 | 0.538 | 26-27 | 3.59 | 0.491 |
While their aggregate won-loss record, whether for 2008 or over their careers, against St. Louis is roughly .500, note the solid ERAs. These eight lefties held the Cardinals offense to just over three runs per nine innings last year and slightly more than 3.5 over their careers.
Related articles:
“La Russa’s lineups – a historical view”
“Trends in Cardinals left-handed and switch hitters”
13 years of w/l records times both handedness is an enormous amount of data. here’s an example of how the overview sample can be misleading, because it’s so large. no-one could be expected to continue crunching the data down any farther, and still expect to see the light of day, so no-one does on this scale.
using team w/l records vs sp’s, is not really an accurate indicator of how stl did vs those sp’s by handedness, because it includes what each team did after the sp left. bullpens, offenses, etc.
the 27-29 w/l record in 2008, vs lhsp’s is misleading. in those 56 games started, those lhsp’s accumulated a 14-23 w/l record with 19 no decisions.
from an stl perspective, we were 23-14 vs lhsp’s, which is a huge improvement from the team record of 27-29.
of the 19 no decisions, lhsp’s left ahead 6 times, behind 7 times and tied 6 times (which is a very neutral when they were pulled).
for me, we beat the lhsp’s as a group in 08 (23-14 w/l), with our starter or bullpen producing results of 4-15 w/l in ND vs their pen and offense, resulting in a 27-29 w/l record.
The bullpen impact is harder to measure over time as factors such as inherited runners need to be accounted for as well. My initial reaction is that it may not matter, however. One might assume that the results of the pen would have nothing to do with the handedness of the starting pitcher and a larger sample (such as 13 years of data) should smooth out any short-term oddities. If one suspects that, that it could be removed as a significant differentiator between LHS and RHS results. Thoughts?
To view the effectiveness of a team against southpaws, it might be helpful to look at the results of batters against these pitchers by OPS. W-L records seems a surrogate.
Yes, individual batter vs pitcher matchups would be ideal, but the many combinations make that impractical. While the data presented are surrogates, do note that ERAs are also included, which are better than W-L though far from perfect as bip noted.
Baseball-reference.com offers splits on the team pages. For instance, the 2008 Cards hit .287/.353/.443 vs. righties and .269/.343/.410 against southpaws.
I don’t have time right now to look at the other seasons but the data is there.
DD, I thought about that too, but I didn’t see any break out of data between LH starters vs. LH relievers (or RHP for that matter). As such, it helps answer some questions, but not others. I didn’t attempt to include bullpen LHP here, though it is also a fair question.
I was responding more to Beau’s point about using OPS as a ruler. I agree that it offers a better picture of how the team hits lefties. It also supports the reason why opposing managers stack their rotations with lefties against the Cardinals.
I looked at MLB in total for 2008 and found that all batters hit .264/.332/.416 vs. righties and /264/.336/417 vs. lefties. Going by the numbers I posted above, the Cardinals were about league average vs. southpaws and very strong against right-handers.
So I guess that it doesn’t so much matter that the team is projected to have slightly fewer left handed bats than normal this year. They can already beat righties. They need better right handed bats to face off against lefties.
Khalil Greene has played in the majors as a Padre. He thus has a much higher OPS on the road. He also has a bit higher OPS against southpaws than right-handers (in 2007 I think it was). So if Greene could bounce back to an average season, he should help the lineup against southpaws, representing a helpful upgrade over Izturis.
inherited runners stranded/scored is a very good point too, brian. it will affect a starters w/l results based on his pen support or lack of.
thought of using accumulated avg game score of each lh sp, but that too will have inherited runners affecting the ERA’s.
unless someone knows where to get double situtational splits…..really it sounds like a chore for WPA, splits.
i can pull those from the baseball-ref gamelogs.
Re: K Greene, I read in a San Diego story yesterday that he has been troubled by a sore right shoulder this spring. Didn’t recall seeing that elsewhere. Must not be too bad however, as he is playing today.
lhsp’s produced a -2.14 WPA vs stl/08
all relievers following these starters a +1.75 WPA
BIP, what were right handed starters’ WPA vs. the Cards in 2008?