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St. Louis Cardinals: Replacing the lost WAR in 2016
Oct 8, 2015; St. Louis, MO, USA; St. Louis Cardinals owner Bill Dewitt Jr. talks with a member of the media during NLDS workout day prior to game one of the NLDS against the Chicago Cubs at Busch Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jeff Curry-USA TODAY Sports
Now that we know the St. Louis Cardinals’ offseason plans, what can we expect for next season?
I realize it is only December, but the St. Louis Cardinals’ have all but told us that there is not going to be any “dynamic signings” this offseason. The fan base is scrambling, and already have the team finishing behind the Pirates and Cubs next season.
A loss of fWAR is a bit of a concern for the team, as according to Fangraphs, the team has lost 12.7 fWAR this offseason by losing Jason Heyward and John Lackey to the Cubs, and losing Lance Lynn to Tommy John surgery.
Today I want to talk about the fWAR problem the Cardinals have for next season. I plan to discuss all of the internal options the Cardinals have that will help them make up for this fWAR as well as a couple value signings that could get the team over the hump.
The Cardinals have quite a bit of questions remaining for this team, they were beat up most of last year with injuries, had rookies surprise us all, and had a starting rotation that led the league in ERA for an entire season, despite losing their ace.
As we all know, everything finally caught up to them in the postseason when the fresher and younger Cubs got to them and sent them home in four games in the NLDS. So, how can this team improve? How can they overcome the loss of 12.7 fWAR? Will the rookies continue their hot play? These are all things I want to discuss today.
Next: Injured Stars Returning
Apr 5, 2015; Chicago, IL, USA; St. Louis Cardinals starting pitcher Adam Wainwright (50) delivers a pitch during the first inning against the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field. Mandatory Credit: Dennis Wierzbicki-USA TODAY Sports
Injured Stars Returning
Matt Holliday and Adam Wainwright. These two along with Yadier Molina represent the “core leadership” of the St. Louis Cardinals. These two players have been playing together since 2009 and have been through success and disappointment in their time in a Cardinals’ uniform. Last season saw both of them miss over half of the season due to injury. What can we expect out of them?
Things should be better next season, as both players get healthy and prepare to be better next season. Both players were able to come back and attempt to rescue the Cardinals in the playoffs, and while Adam Wainwright looked rejuvenated out of the bullpen, Holliday looked timid at best.
Adam Wainwright
According to Steamer‘s projections, Wainwright projects out to have a 3.7 fWAR next season and Holliday stands to have an unimpressive 2.1 fWAR next season. So, between the two of them they will make up 5.8 of the 12.7 fWAR missing from the three aforementioned players.
My projection is going to be a little different. The way I get this is by looking at their previous seasons and looking at where steamer projects their stats. I strongly believe that Adam Wainwright is not quite in decline mode just yet. So, in looking at his 2013-2014 stats I want to come up with a safe and conservative number that also reflects with how he looked in 2015 to start the season.
Until the injury, Adam Wainwright was off to a flying start in 2015. Through four starts he had an ERA 1.44, with a FIP of 2.05, and a xFIP of 3.00. So, Wainwright was really good and his early success wasn’t at all due to luck or a better than average defense behind him.
Looking into 2016 and looking back at what he has done shows that Wainwright could be right on the same track. So, according to Steamer’s projection of a 3.58 ERA and 3.48 FIP it kind of suggests that Adam Wainwright will regress into an average pitcher. Not happening.
In my opinion, Wainwright is probably good for a 2.75 ERA and a 3.10 FIP. Now I won’t go through the process of actually calculating fWAR based on this projection, because that is just too much math for me. However, I can come with a number based off of what I see in other starters with similar numbers. My two comparables from 2015 are Carlos Martinez (3.01 ERA, 3.21 FIP, 3.4 fWAR) and Jose Quintana (3.36 ERA, 3.18 FIP, 4.8 fWAR).
I would expect with the numbers I am projecting for Wainwright to end up with a fWAR somewhere in between these two. The point exactly in between the two pitcher’s fWAR would be 4.1 fWAR and I think that is a very good spot for a conservative estimate for him.
Matt Holliday
Currently, Steamer has him projected for a wRC+ of 124, and I really don’t have a problem with that at all. That is a really good projection for a full season of Matt Holliday at age 36. The currently have him bringing in 2.1 fWAR next season, which is again a really good conservative estimate for him.
However, based on what we saw out of Holliday before his injury, I think it could be slightly better. Up until his injury on June 8th, Holliday had a really really good OBP of .417. That he kept this up for two solid months shows to me that this wasn’t necessarily a fluke, and could be an expectation of things to come for the LF in 2016. If Holliday comes into next season healthy, he showed at the end of the season that his bat speed was still there, which is important for the aging outfielder.
Another important thing for Holliday is going to be rest, and he will get more of it this year than he has in his career as a Cardinal with Stephen Piscotty, Brandon Moss, Tommy Pham, and Randal Grichuk all capable of moving around to give the big guy some rest. So, projection wise I want to take into effect his OBP from early 2015 and bring it down a notch, somewhere probably close to his 2013 number of .389, a season in which he had a perfect 4.0 fWAR.
Now, I don’t expect Holliday to have a slash of .300/.389/.490, as well as a wRC+ of 147. This means we need to adjust his fWAR to match Steamer’s average (.274) and slugging (.440), which almost matches his numbers from 2014 of .272 and .441. That season Holliday had an fWAR of 3.6. So, I think a fair assessment for Holliday including an OBP of .389 would be a 3.8 fWAR for 2016.
So, when you take Holliday’s 3.8 and Wainwright’s 4.1 fWAR, you get a fair number of 7.9 fWAR between the two of them. This puts us at still needing to come up with a 4.8 fWAR to make up for the losses.
Next: Improving Rookies
Oct 10, 2015; St. Louis, MO, USA; St. Louis Cardinals pinch hitter Randal Grichuk (15) is congratulated by right fielder Stephen Piscotty (55) for hitting a solo home run during the fifth inning in game two of the NLDS against the Chicago Cubs at Busch Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jeff Curry-USA TODAY Sports
Improving Rookies
Currently the Cardinals’ rotation stands to be Wainwright, Carlos Martinez, Michael Wacha, Jaime Garcia, and Tim Cooney/Marco Gonzales. Currently Steamer gives the edge to Marco Gonzales, giving him credit for 22 starts as opposed to Tim Cooney making 11 starts.
The two of them combine for a 1.7 fWAR according to Steamer, which is woefully unimpressive and only brings the Cardinals to a 7.5 fWAR amongst three of the in house replacements for our two free agent departures and Lynn, according to Steamer projections.
This seems to be a fair and conservative assessment for the two players,. I could see one of them take hold of the rotation and earn 2-3 fWAR on their own. Putting us closer to the 12.7 fWAR number we are trying to get to.
However, the Cardinals will hopefully have a full season of Randal Grichuk and Stephen Piscotty. The two of them will likely improve and a full season will ultimately make them better. Steamer projects the two of them to be worth a total of 2.8 fWAR, which is largely based off of them normalizing the two of their BABIP rates.
That is a bit unfair, because when you go and look at another high BABIP NL rookie (Kris Bryant), they populate him still having an abnormally high BABIP and being worth 5.6 fWAR to the Cubs next season. While Piscotty and Grichuk are not at the level of talent of Kris Bryant, you can’t normalize BABIP for one player and not the other, it kind of ruins your point.
So, based on this I would expect a healthy full season Piscotty/Grichuk combo to probably combine for at least 5 fWAR for the Cardinals next season, if not more. Which puts us over the 12.7 fWAR of the missing pieces for next season. This is considering a healthy full season of Randal Grichuk, which at this moment is at least worth considering.
These are the known fixes to the Cardinals’ WAR problem. However, there are some “Wild Cards” that could play a key factor in getting the Cardinals above the hump next season. Let’s get into these.
Next: Wild Cards
Oct 10, 2015; St. Louis, MO, USA; St. Louis Cardinals third baseman Matt Carpenter (13) celebrates after hitting a solo home run during the first inning in game two of the NLDS against the Chicago Cubs at Busch Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jasen Vinlove-USA TODAY Sports
Wild Cards
You may be thinking, “I know all about Matt Carpenter, he’s not a ‘Wild Card'”. However, what I am getting at here is related to the news from Gammons Daily, that Matt Carpenter led the league in called strikes outside of the zone with 157.
I know that many of those led to called strikeouts for Carpenter and it led to him having a career high 151 strikeouts. Steamer does well to project the strikeouts to decrease, but robs him of 12 of his home runs from last season.
Carpenter will be entering his age 30 season, and is still considered in his prime and has had some intriguing seasons the past four years. With his fWAR and wRC+ fluctuating the past four seasons, producing a 6.9 fWAR in his first “full” season as the club’s starting third basemen.
That dropped to a 4.0 in 2014 and went back up to a 5.2 last season. Steamer projects him to finish with a 3.8 fWAR likely dependent on a slightly decreased slash across the board. This simply doesn’t compute.
Carpenter with an increased knowledge of the strike zone will be even better next season. I for one believe that the power was not a fluke for Carpenter and his season could have been better had a certain manager not removed him from the leadoff spot in the middle of his best season yet.
This sent Carpenter into a spell where he was practically robbed of everything that makes him good, he struck out at an alarming rate, and had virtually no power (doubles or home runs). I talked about this at length after the season was over and I believe that this is something the Cardinals have to look at in spring training.
Spring training is when they should start looking into moving him down in the order, not in the middle of the season when he’s hot. Baseball players are creatures of habit and routine and when you suddenly take routine/comfortability away from them, it creates chaos.
Given what we saw from Carpenter in the last two months of the season, I would project at least 20 home runs for Carpenter and way more than the 36 doubles that Steamer projects, which increases the slugging to probably closer to where it was this year at .505.
With this and a likely higher average, if he doesn’t slump for two months I would see a potential for a solid 5.0 or above fWAR. It will be higher if Carpenter clicks in the middle of the order.
I know what you’re thinking, yes he was suspended for 50 games for testing positive for marijuana for a second time. However, Reyes’ path to the big leagues could be accelerated given the Lance Lynn injury and the Cardinals’ potential inability to sign a free agent starting pitcher. Reyes is absolutely the system’s best prospect and one of the best pitching prospects in the entire league.
Reyes will likely get a chance to hone his craft a bit in extended spring training at the beginning of the season and will likely start out in AA Springfield. If he improves and gains further command of that lively fastball, he could very well skip AAA and make his debut in the rotation some time next year.
Steamer has him coming up and making three starts at the major league level and registering a 4.13 FIP and 9.04 K/9. At that level he replaces just a little above replacement value at 0.2, but with a little more success, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Reyes in the 0.5-1.0 fWAR range.
This is truly speculative and is potentially a dream scenario. However, if Walden can join the bullpen in 2015 as a healthy contributor, look out. He is a dangerous weapon in the back end of the bullpen that will serve as an excellent set up to closer Trevor Rosenthal, as is evident by his 0.87 ERA during his 12 games last year.
Walden’s potential health also allows for manager Mike Matheny to use Kevin Siegrist in a way that will allow him to not be overworked. Steamer’s projection leaves some to be desired with a 0.5 fWAR, but if you haven’t gathered that Steamer is conservative by now, then I’ve lost you.
However, that number isn’t bad when you consider he hasn’t gone over 0.8 fWAR since 2011 when he was the Angels’ closer. As a set up man the leverage isn’t as high so the fWAR goes down.
These three guys alone could be key cogs to the Cardinals continuing their run of NL Central dominance. There are more keys to the success of the team but looking at fWAR suggests these are our “wild cards” for next season.
Next: Value Signings
Oct 9, 2015; Kansas City, MO, USA; Houston Astros starting pitcher Scott Kazmir (26) heads back to the dugout after being relieved in the 6th inning against the Kansas City Royals in game two of the ALDS at Kauffman Stadium. Mandatory Credit: John Rieger-USA TODAY Sports
Value Signings
Now don’t get me wrong here, I like what the Cardinals have in house right now. However, I think the Cardinals very well could make a signing or two to make this team even better. Here’s some of those potential signings that I see out there.
Kazmir is by definition a value signing for the Cardinals. He won’t command a whole lot of money and is a traceable asset if a guy like Cooney/Gonzales emerges while filling in for injury. Kazmir had a decent line last year for Oakland and Houston going 7-11 with a 3.10 ERA (3.98 FIP) and netting a 2.4 fWAR.
Currently, Steamer has him projected with a 3.80 FIP and 2.5 fWAR, which isn’t bad considering we don’t know where he will be playing next year. However, in Busch Stadium that number could considerably be better given his success against left-handers and his HR/FB% likely being closer to his numbers in 2014, his only full season with Oakland. So, a 2.7-2.9 fWAR couldn’t be out of the question for Kazmir.
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I am a little concerned about offering a guy like Kazmir at age 31 a three year deal at $14 million per as Fangraphs crowd sourcing puts him. So, I wonder if the Cardinals could convince him to sign an incentive laden one year deal at around $14-15 Million.
I really like the potential here. While there isn’t much room in the outfield, the Cardinals have always lacked that real speed threat, and the tried to have that in Peter Bourjos the past two years and that just didn’t work, Bourjos’ speed never translated on the base paths and he never got his fair shot in the lineup.
Davis is a player that I think would fit well on this Cardinals’ team, he would be an excellent bench player that would give the Cardinals’ a viable option in CF should something happen to Randal Grichuk’s elbow.
My only concern with signing Davis is he’s likely looking for a deal to be a starter or a 4th OF getting starts regularly, as Steamer projects him to collect over 400 plate appearances in just over 90 games played, but coming in right at replacement level with a 0.0 fWAR.
This to me is where the Cardinals can make their pitch, he would be a useful player in the realm of how they used Bourjos most of the time. That would be as a defensive replacement and pinch running specialist. The Cardinals can offer what other teams can not in terms of team success, giving Davis a chance to play in the playoffs, something he has only done once in his career.
It’s hard to really give Davis a fWAR above what Steamer projects, as a role with the Cardinals would probably be in 300 PA area, with his value primarily coming on the bases and in the field as opposed to at the plate.
Next: Cardinals' offseason plans are changing
Due to the signing of Jonathan Broxton, and emergence of Dean Kiekhefer and Sam Tuivailala in AAA, as well as a potential return for Jordan Walden. I don’t see the Cardinals going after another bullpen arm.