“Ignore all stats from September and spring training.”
I am sure you’ve seen and heard this axiom many times by now. If you are a full disciple of this credo, feel free to move on quickly.
On the other hand, if you believe there might be value or at least interest in looking at such numbers, hang around a bit.
After all, if September and spring training results are simply to be discarded, then Jason Motte is nothing more than a promising Triple-A reliever with no big-league experience.
If you believe his results to date say something, this is what you get – a dominating line:
| Motte | ERA | IP | BB | K | K:BB | OBA |
| 9/08+ST09 | 1.21 | 22.1 | 4 | 32 | 8:1 | 0.175 |
Motte’s four spring saves are tied for tops in the National League.
In preparation for an upcoming radio appearance, I sat down with the spring stat sheet this morning and here are some of my observations, both good and concerning.
The good
Chris Duncan – Not only is his line .306/.368/.506, but he is tied for the team lead in home runs with four and is first in RBI with 19 (third in the NL). Colby Rasmus may have to scramble for at-bats if Duncan keeps this up.
Khalil Greene – A quiet man hitting a cool .406 (fifth-best in the NL) and tied for third on the team with 17 RBI. I have felt all along that the new shortstop could be a 2009 difference-maker for this team.
Rick Ankiel – Another quiet player batting .341 with 11 walks (.412 OBP) and 13 strikeouts. His 29 hits are tied for second in the League. If he can carry over an improved plate discipline into the regular season, it could be huge.
Skip Schumaker – Still hanging around .300 with eight doubles, just one behind NL-leading Albert Pujols, while learning the most challenging of new positions. Five errors, but they were early on. A most admirable spring under the microscope.
David Freese – Back from the dead, also known as minor league camp, hitting .350 (14-for-40) with the big boys and playing solid defense as expected.
Chris Carpenter – No news is good news. 1.52 ERA and a 17:6 strikeout to walk ratio in 23 2/3 innings. Simply the key to the season.
Joel Pineiro – Arguably the most effective starter in camp with a 1.44 ERA to go with 20 strikeouts and just four walks in 25 innings. If that is it, I hope he remains angry about the Team Puerto Rico “snub” for a long time, though I suspect Dave Duncan might be due for a bit of credit if this continues.
Josh Kinney – Another quiet worker. Has 11 Ks in 10 1/3 innings, but has been a bit wild with four walks and 2 HBPs. Opposing hitters are managing just a .143 average against him.
Brian Barden – While Joe Thurston has received 66 ABs to Barden’s 43, the latter is batting .372 and is the team’s leading pinch-hitter, having gone 3-for-5 in that role. This decision may come down to the wire, with Thurston’s left-handed bat on a team with no switch-hitters perhaps giving him an edge.
Allen Craig and Jon Jay – Though neither should see time in St. Louis this summer, both of these youngsters hit up a storm, with the former batting .444 and the latter .349. With Freese in St. Louis, Craig should receive more time at third base than first with Memphis. In my view, Jay could be caught as a fourth/fifth outfielder with not quite enough glove to play center and not quite enough power to start in the corners. Yet in all fairness, when Jay gets to a ball, it ends up in the leather. He has yet to err in 231 career minor league games.
P.J. Walters – Same as his two Memphis teammates above, but Walters may contribute to the Cardinals 2009 season. Only one earned run given up in nine big-league innings this spring. Watch his Friday start with the major leaguers carefully.
In between
Look at these lines:
| BA | OPS | AB | R | H | TB | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | BB | K | GIDP | |
| Player one | 0.216 | 0.658 | 74 | 9 | 16 | 28 | 6 | 0 | 2 | 18 | 5 | 12 | 3 |
| Player two | 0.216 | 0.614 | 74 | 8 | 16 | 29 | 5 | 1 | 2 | 17 | 2 | 16 | 1 |
Both players are right-handed outfielders, but one is assured of a job while the other is trying to stick. Player one is Ryan Ludwick while player two is Joe Mather. The spring similarities are striking. RBI counts are second and tied for third on the team, respectively. The biggest difference? One is assured of making the team, while two is not.
Colby Rasmus (pictured) – Leads the team in stolen bases, going 4-for-4, double the next best players. He is second in walks with 12, trailing only Albert, who is tied for the NL lead with 15. That translates to a .370 OBP for Colby despite a .275 batting average. The concerning: 23 strikeouts in 80 at-bats and some defensive bumps while learning the corner outfield positions on the fly.
The concerning
Troy Glaus – Zero-for-everything. There is really nothing more to say. Even when he does return, the power may be slow to follow. Think second half and you may not be disappointed again.
Ryan Franklin – He has done nothing to show me he can convert saves in a pinch. A continuing problem is two home runs allowed in 10 1/3 innings and an ERA over five. Scored upon in three of his last four outings. He does have an uncharacteristic 11 strikeouts though.
Kyle Lohse – With $41 million on the way to his bank account, expectations are higher. He has allowed nine home runs this spring, tied for the most in all of the major leagues. Sure, the wind is blowing hard in Florida, but if he can’t keep the ball down and in the park, look out. 10 earned runs given up over his last three starts.
Kyle McClellan – He has been a mess this spring, yet seems destined to work out his problems in major league games out of the pen in April. Eight walks and eight strikeouts, an opposing batting average of .333 and 17 earned runs in 17 innings. You can do the ERA math. Four earned runs over his last four outings is actually showing some slight improvement, but there is still a ways to go.
Brad Thompson – Hasn’t been given much work in the games that count with only 14 MLB innings pitched. 5.14 ERA and a K:BB ratio of 6:5. Had only one scoreless outing in six. Needs improvement to hold off the young bucks challenging from Memphis.
Todd Wellemeyer – His four long balls yielded this spring pale in comparison to Lohse, but that has been in just 22 innings. His K:BB ratio is a solid 14:4, but the bottom line is an ERA of 7.36. Trend is bad with 13 runs allowed in last three starts. I will be watching his results against Florida on Thursday carefully.
On the radio
In a programming note, catch me on KMA Radio 960 in Shenandoah, IA talking Cardinals baseball with Derek Martin this weekend. There will be a five-minute segment run on Friday at 5:50 a.m., 9:15 a.m., 2:45 p.m. and 6:20 p.m. The entire discussion is scheduled at 12:10 p.m. on Saturday. (All times Central)
KMA is a member of the Cardinals Radio Network and stream their signal online at KMA960.com.
In a shocker, Joe Mather is headed to Memphis. Brian Barden keeps his seat warm. I guess Mr. Ryan had better get used to playing left field. I don’t disagree with the move, but I wish a righthanded outfielder had been kept on instead of three bench infielders.
Also–wow! Is third base covered or what? Freese/Barden/Ryan/Thurston. That’s a pretty deep chart for the hot corner.
It looks like Rasmus has one less obstacle to playing time Red. That is a factor here as I have been saying for 5 months. It is also says the Skip will be playing some outfield.
Skip will play outfield as soon as he fails at second, or in the late innings. Until then, the need for the No. 5 outfielder is the ability to hit lefthanded pitchers. Unfortunately, Ryan is the best bench player for that right now. Felipe Lopez would look pretty good in a Cardinal unform right now, huh?
I believe Mather had a hamate injury last year; it can take a while to work back to full strength, after such an operation. When Joe gets up to full strength, he will be on the team.
Congratulations to Barden and Thurston. Finally years of loyal service at AAA are rewarded.
Regarding the “concerning”: I share doubt about McClellan and Thompson. TLR must as well. He is giving them a fair chance to show they deserve to be in the majors, but if they do not improve, he will not have a lot of patience.
Lohse knows how to pitch, so not worried about him.
We may need to be patient with Wellemeyer.
Lohse suggested in the paper yesterday that Duncan needs to review his book on the Mets catcher. He apparently felt he hit his spots, down and in, only to discover a maple board passing by. He sounds like he is in a good mental state.
I am not worried about Ryan Franklin. He knows what he has to do. He’s a tough old boy.
Jumbo, I love you man. I like this team. I like Freeze and Greene. I think we have lots of ammo on the AAA squad to make adjustments. Lets kick some ass.
mather could have helped his case with a better 08 vs lhp’s (.682 ops). w/the correct approach to hitting lefties is toward the opp field (by a rhb), i’m not surprised by the results from a rh pull hitter.
i have colby as an everyday player, capable of starting vs lhp’s. a 4th outfielder role justifies his playing time on a tlr squad for me. his 23 K’s have a very large amount of K’s looking, i like the plate discipline and am not surprised by the obp.
like thurstons D, a lot. barden may be the best partner vs lhp’s w/skip, w/his opp field skills this spring.
duncan has had a good amount of success vs lhp’s this ST. applaud tlr for giving his players the opportunity to improve their poor side splits.
WC: You can, maybe, become popular around here, if you do not overestimate problems or imagine some that do not really exist. Fretting does not help. Lets stay focused on winning some ballgames and let Mo and TLR do our thinking for us. We are paying them to do the thinking, its part of their jobs.
I’m not exactly sure how the focus of fans will help win ball games, and the entire concept of letting people think for you is moderately frightening. If nothing else, discussions around here would be boring if no one had their own thoughts. There are only so many times that someone could chime in, “Yes, I also agree with everything that the Cardinals are doing.”
Nutlaw, TLR and Mo are getting paid millions to exercise their best judgments and make the best possible decisions, under uncertainty and given realistic choices. It would seem a pity if we trusted fans more than actual experts.
As for hearing diverse perspectives, I could agree with everything the team is doing even more strongly than other posters. That would keep things lively and very interesting, IMO.
Finally, we all want to keep WC focused and in earth orbit. No more fearful predictions about releasing Ludwick.
Jumbo, jumbo, juummbboo. You must learn to bare true witness. I would have offed Ludwick in a NY minute. Still would. Jenkins and Sheffield were out there for chump change. I would have taken Keppinger to play second and paid Sheff to com off the bench, then pocketed the extra 2 mill. And had a better team to boot. Thats even more playing time for Rasmus and a right handed second baseman to bat second. Who seeks popularity. Very over rated. My Colby prediction 4 months ago wasn’t a prediction at all. That which you see as chance is really just a projection of influence.
The Phillies and Tigers must have been fed up with Jenkins and Sheff to pay them millions to leave town. We will be better at 2B with Skip and Ryan or Barden.
Jumbo, Tony is grinding over his opening day roster. Against a tough lefty, who will he start? We know that though. What is the batting order? I know he is still searching. Watch what he does in the next two games, he may tip his hand. Do we even have a lefty starter in AAA to work against?
If TLR wanted a right swinging OF right now, he would have selected one. Instead, we have Mather getting steady work at Memphis, plus Robinson, Barton, Stavinoha, and Craig down there. When we need a guy, he will be called up.
Jumbo, he tried Thurston in the outfield just to verify that he could be an emergency backup. Mo has left Tony four, not the other way around. Considering Tony’s recent trend, who is he going to stick in the 4 hole? Ludwick is the obvious RH, but he is fragile. If he uses Ankiel, Albert won’t see a pitch. You can put Duncan on that list. Is it going to be Greene? Should be interesting.
The cleanup hitter will be Ludwick or Ankiel. This is not exactly incredible news. They held the job last season. Dizzy has persuasively tutored you that Pujols will get walks, as all great players do. Its just the way it is.
Greene could bat 5th against lefties, Ankiel 6th.
TLR has been making up lineup cards for decades. Its something he does very well.