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St Louis Cardinals: Needs for Patience and Urgency
By Paul Layton
Jhonny Peralta: Good overall stats despite slowdown
Dilip Vishwanat/Getty Images North America
Peralta’s first half .298 average and .828 OPS led to several of the 100 wins last year although the last half saw significant decline. Still, his overall 1.7 WAR ranked 9th in the bigs and is only 0.6 points behind Troy Tulowitzki. A team struggling to manufacture runs needed his 3rd rated wRC+ and 4th rated wOBA, both of which measure the value of his hits (instead of treating all of them equally).
We grew accustomed to Jhonny Peralta’s first half performance and expected more. However, his overall 0.275 batting average numbers actually edged out his career numbers (0.269). While we may never know the reason 1st half pop or the decline that followed, his defense remained decent on the balls he reached. Let’s keep some cautious optimism that he will deliver in 2016.