Yeah, except it didn't work out the way I expected. Sure, they made the playoffs, and sure, they were successful in them. But, the regular seasons went drastically different than I expected.
This year though? I have little expectations. By that I mean, I literally have no idea if the Cardinals will finish first, second, or third. (I'm going to rule out fourth). It seems a lot of people are penciling the Reds in first this upcoming season, which I found interesting. Anyway, I'm not going to try and factor what the standings will be like, but simply how many wins the average projection has the Cardinals winning.
I'm going to use WAR here for several reasons: it's pretty much the only stat that can attempt to grasp a player's overall value; theoretically, WAR translates to wins; and finally convenience.
For the uninitiated, WAR is wins above replacement level. Simply put, it's how many wins a player is worth over a replacement player. What is a replacement level? I found a definition far more eloquent and better said than I could hope to replicate so I'll just quote Graham MacAree of Looking Landing:
We can define a replacement level player as one who costs no marginal resources to acquire. This is the type of player who would fill in for the starter in case of injuries, slumps, alien abductions, etc.I'll use some Cardinals players as an example: Ryan Jackson, Tyler Greene, Adron Chambers, Sam Freeman, and Barrett Browning. These are players that are mostly in every organization and are virtually worthless in the trade market. They also don't provide much of anything on the field.
The replacement level team last year would have won 43.5 games in a year. Last year, collectively, the Cardinals had 52.3 WAR as a team, which would have landed at 95-96 wins. Needless to say, they underperformed. It makes sense though. Last year, it felt like the Cardinals had a lot of good performances, but for some reason it didn't translate to wins.
So 52.3 WAR is the baseline WAR that we will judge 2013 on. I'm calling the talent of last year's squad a 95 win team. If you're interested in figuring more on WAR, check out this link for calculating WAR for hitters and this link for calculating WAR for pitchers.
So being a 95 talent WAR team, just to be clear, does not make the team a 95 win team. WAR isn't completely accurate in judging wins. However, the Cardinals lost an inordinate amount of one-run games, which is mostly the blame of how such a disparity between wins and WAR happens. (Don't worry, that's mostly luck and does not correlate well year-to-year)
Without a doubt, the Cardinals got worse from 2012, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Well, actually let me make a correction to that statement. Knowing what we know and using player projections for 2013, the Cardinals clearly got worse in 2013. Shelby Miller or Oscar Taveras being MVP candidates could happen, but to assume it will happen is foolhardy.
So I will compare last year's team to this year's team and see what I should expect to happen in 2013.
Starting Rotation
2012 WAR - 17.3
The Cardinals starting pitchers in 2012 combined for 17.3 WAR which placed 4th in the MLB. Almost everything went right last year. Eight pitchers combined for 162 starts, and every single one of them was at least an average pitcher according to WAR. That is extremely unusual. In fact, the top five starters all averaged over 2 WAR, which is the benchmark for an average player. (An average team would win 81 games for reference)
In order, the Cardinals starters finished with the following WAR: Adam Wainwright, 4.4; Kyle Lohse, 3.6; Lance Lynn & Jaime Garcia, 2.9; Jake Westbrook, 2.3; Joe Kelly (as starter), 0.8; Shelby Miller & Chris Carpenter, 0.2
Take away Kyle Lohse and Chris Carpenter for starters to begin analysis for 2013 and you have a loss of 3.8 WAR. Four of the other starters remain and the fifth starter (likely going to Miller) is what we will use to compare to this year's team to last year's - assuming spot starts from Kelly. (For now, Rosenthal will be graded purely as a reliever, although he could start if injuries take their toll.)
I'm using the average of Steamer, Bill James, and zIPS to determine the projected WAR number for 2013. The averages of the starters are as follows: Wainwright, 4.6; Lynn, 2.7 ; Garcia, 3.4; Westbrook, 1.9; Miller, 1.7; Kelly, 1.2.
Collectively, that equals 15.5 WAR as a starting staff. So to the surprise of no one, losing Kyle Lohse and relying on a rookie will produce a slight decline for the rotation. Things could go right to where we either equal or surpass last year's total. Wainwright could have a Cy Young caliber season, Miller could immediately become an ace, etc. (The only plausible arguments I could accept for an increase in WAR)
Bullpen
2012: 1.6 WAR
Well, this is the exact opposite of the starting rotation. Whereas the rotation barely has room for improvement, the bullpen barely has room for decline. The Cardinals finished 27th in WAR for relievers with just 1.6 WAR. While that slightly speaks to how WAR probably undervalues relievers, it also shows how bad the Cardinals bullpen was last year. (The Cardinals had a lot of negative WAR relievers)
Here is the WAR for relievers in 2012: Jason Motte, 1.1; Mitchell Boggs & Edward Mujica, 0.7; Fernando Salas, 0.4; Miller, Kelly, & Rosenthal, 0.2; Lynn, Chuckie Fick, & Sam Freeman, 0.0; Barrett Browning, Brian Fuentes, & Brandon Dickson, -0.1; Kyle McClellan, Victor Marte, & Maikel Cleto, -0.2; JC Romero & Eduardo Sanchez, -0.3; Mark Rzep, -0.4.
If you're counting, that's three relievers who were replacement level and nine relievers who were below replacement level. That's astoundingly bad. Surely, 2013 will only bring improvement?
Well, Motte was the highest valued reliever so naturally, projections expect a slight decline with an average of 0.8 WAR. The rest of the relievers: Boggs, 0.5; Mujica, 0.5; Rosenthal, 0.5; Salas, 0.4; Mark Rzep, 0.3; Randy Choate, 0.2; Cleto, 0.2; Freeman, 0.0; Sanchez, -0.2.
Collectively, the bullpen is projected for 3.2 WAR, an upgrade over last year! It's actually semi-significant as it takes a chunk out of the SP WAR lost.
Catcher
2012 - 6.7 WAR
Well, this likely won't be topped in 2013. Molina had a career year and I don't really see any backup catchers making much of a difference next year. Tony Cruz and Brian Anderson combined for 0.2 WAR so it's not like the bar's high or anything, but it's hard to amass much WAR when Yadier is catching 140 games.
Anyway, expect a slight decline from Molina, at least that's what projections tell you. Molina is projected for 4.5 WAR in 2013. Tony Cruz makes up for some of the difference with 0.7 WAR. I honestly don't expect Molina to drop down that significantly, but I also don't really expect Cruz to put up that WAR either so I feel it's kind of a wash. Moving on.
1B/3B
2012 - 9.0 WAR
I was going to do this position-by-position, but then Matt Carpenter showed up on 1B and I had no idea how to factor his time in so I decided to do corner infield and middle infield as two separate categories.
Allen Craig is factored as a 1B only in this to avoid confusion. Craig and Berkman achieve 3.5 WAR combined, Freese is worth 4.1 WAR, and Carpenter backups them up with a solid 1.6 WAR in 340 PAs.
Projections are very conservative on purpose to account for injuries so I suspect an expected decline here too with Craig and Freese as injury risks. Both players strangely land at an expected WAR of 2.9. Carpenter is expected to get 1.6 WAR again. Matt Adams is expected to make a minor contribution at 0.5 WAR.
And the bad news. Wigginton is projected for -0.1 WAR. So yeah, that signing made a lot of sense. Keep in mind that Spring Training numbers were ignored so his terrible Spring has nothing to do with those projections.
2B/SS
2012 - 3.7
Well, this is unfortunate. The Cardinals' big weakness actually produced quite well thanks to Pete Kozma going all Bo Hart on us. So instead of having a low bar, 3.7 WAR is actually probably not attainable by the group the Cardinals have, unless you believe Kozma is an All-Star.
Furcal, in his limited time, was worth 1.2 WAR. Kozma, in less than 100 PAs, was worth 1.4 WAR, which insane. Kozma is expected to be worth 0.3 WAR for the Cardinals in about 400 PAs, which sounds about right to me given his minor league history and suspect defense.
Dan Descalso provided only 0.5 WAR last year, and is expected to increase on that total this year with an average projection of 1.0 WAR. Schumaker, who provided 1.1 WAR, is now gone. If Ryan Jackson ever gets here, he's projected for about 0.5 WAR.
Here's a strange one. Kolten Wong has high projections, expecting to achieve 1.3 WAR over about 380 PAs. I think that he won't get that many PAs this year, so I'll round that down to 1.0 WAR.
OF
2012 - 14 WAR
WOW! With such a high total, unfortunately, I have little doubt for a decline. Matt Holliday was worth 5.1 WAR last year leading the outfield. His modest projections have him finishing the year at 4.2 WAR.
Jon Jay was the second best outfield believe it or not with 4.1 WAR. His WAR sinks down to 3.1, mostly because career years are followed by worse years.
Carlos Beltran comes in next with 3.6 WAR and surprise, he declines as well. He finishes with an average projection of 2.3 WAR.
It gets worse. Shane Robinson had an unbelievable year (for Shane Robinson) with 1.0 WAR and his WAR drops to 0.4 WAR in 2013 projections. Chambers, if given any time, landed at 0.4 WAR when I decreased his PAs to the amount I expect (instead of almost 400 in the average projection).
Overall
2012 - 52.3
2013 - 44.9
Important things to keep in mind: 1) This is based on projections, which historically a lot of these players have performed better than. 2) The team received an insane amount of "career" years, including Freese, Jay, Craig, Robinson, Molina, and Kozma. Besides Craig maybe, I fully expect all of them to have worse years than last year.
Also, regarding the starting staff, the Cardinals received some luck from their performances. This pitching staff hinges on Adam Wainwright and Shelby Miller really. Will Wainwright go back to pre-Tommy John self? (I expect it personally) Will Miller immediately become a dominant pitcher? (I don't think he will - Look at how he started AAA).
So, as currently constructed, I have the Cardinals as an 88 win team. I haven't done this exercise on the Reds, but I'm fairly certain that would fall below the Reds' projections.
The wild card in all of this is Oscar Taveras, who isn't on the 40 man roster right now so I excluded him. He's expected to come up mid-season, but if he comes up, he's replacing an injured player - either Craig, Jay, Holliday, or Beltran. And while I'm pretty optimistic on him, I'm not expecting him to perform better than any of them immediately so I don't think his possible inclusion warrants a raise in a projection. However, if he comes up in September call-ups and rakes, that could impact it.
Now, I know what to expect from the Cardinals this year - 88 wins. I'm taking the over on that bet personally.
No comments:
Post a Comment