St. Louis Cardinals: Opening Day Redbird Rants Mailbag

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The Redbird Rants Mailbag makes its debut to answer your St. Louis Cardinals questions.

St. Louis Cardinals baseball is just around the corner and opening day is just a few days away. Depending on when you’re reading this, it might already be here. Either way, we received some great questions in the Redbird Rants Mailbag for this week, so I’ll jump right in. If I missed any, let me know in the comments and we’ll make sure we hit it next time!

Joe S. (@stlCupofJoe): What is your favorite pitch of the current Cardinals staff and why? And yes, I mean specific pitch, not pitcher.

After reading this question, I immediately turned to Carlos Martinez. Without Alex Reyes, Martinez undeniably has the most electric repertoire on the St. Louis Cardinals. Basing off Joe’s Twitter and his articles on Viva El Birdos, I am certain that he agrees.

As for a specific pitch, I’m a sucker for a good changeup. Martinez has an elite one.

Harry Pavlidis over on Baseball Prospectus studied what makes a good changeup back in 2013. The biggest factors, in no particular order (at least that I’m aware of) are fastball velocity, a velocity gap between the fastball and changeup, vertical and horizontal movement relative to the fastball, and location. The changeup is defined off the fastball, and Carlos Martinez throws a great one of each.

The first part is fastball velocity, and Martinez throws hard. Among all 181 starting pitchers with at least 50 IP in 2016, he had the fourth fastest fourseamer, which clocked in at an average of 96.5 MPH and topped out at 100.9 MPH. His twoseamer (or sinker, if you prefer) wasn’t far off, ranking sixth at an average velocity of 95.0 MPH and topping out at 99.5 MPH.

Pavlidis suggests that the velocity gap between the fastball and changeup starts to produce whiffs at a high rate when it reaches ~10 MPH. As the velocity gap shrinks, a changeup induces more grounders but induces significantly fewer whiffs.

With a changeup averaging 87.0 MPH last year, Martinez had an average 9.5 MPH-gap between the changeup and fourseamer and an average 8.0 MPH-gap between the changeup and twoseamer. That fourseamer-changeup velocity differential ranked in the top 15% of the 126 pitchers with 50+ innings last year.

By movement, Martinez changeup is clearly one of the best. Among those same 126 pitchers, he gets the eighth most sink on his changeup (top 7%) and the 19^th most arm side movement (top 15%). The only other pitcher to get that kind of action? Max Scherzer.

Defining movement and velocity off the fastball, Martinez ranks in the top 20% for velocity and zMov differential, and in the top 40% for xMov differential. Only Carlos Rodon and Scott Kazmir generated that much velocity and movement differential, and both of their changeups were rated among the best in baseball by FanGraphs pitching guru, Eno Sarris.

Before I get into location, I want to talk a little bit about pitch tunneling, introduced by Baseball Prospectus. The tunneling concept suggests that pitchers can deceive hitters by throwing pitches that look almost the same at the point where the hitter must decide to swing, and that break substantially enough after to induce weak contact or miss the bat entirely.

So how does that apply to the Carlos Martinez changeup?

The red trail follows a fourseamer (the eight pitch of this at-bat), and the blue trail follows the next pitch, a 3-2 changeup for the strikeout. I’ve watch this GIF probably almost a hundred times, and I can barely tell the difference. Yet, you can see the pitches fades down to Yadier Molina’s knee, while the fastball stays up at Molina’s shoulder. The difference by the time they cross the plate is approximately twelve inches.

Here, the movement differential is more pronounced. The red trail follows the first pitch in the at-bat, while the blue trail follows the changeup for the punchout. The pitches come from an identical release point and follow the same path for more than half the pitch flight. Yet, they end up more than fifteen inches apart.

Another thing that stands out in both GIFs is the nearly identical release points between the fastball and changeup. He’s able to repeat the exact same delivery with both pitches every single time.

By matching his release points, hitters are less able to distinguish between the fastball and changeup out of his hand. Instead, they’re left to guess against one of most talented pitchers in the game.

If there’s anything really to work on, it would be location. Below are Carlos Martinez 2016 changeup heatmaps vs. RHH (on right) and LHH (on left).

Martinez doesn’t have any problems throwing the changeup for a strike against RHHs or LHHs. When he misses, he misses away from lefties and down to right-handed hitters. If you were picking places to miss, you couldn’t pick better spots.

Against lefties, Martinez changeup location is already really good. He has a tight core low-and-away, he rarely misses over the plate, and he rarely misses in. He threw more than 75% of his changeups to lefties, so the majority of the time the pitch was almost perfect by location.

Against righties, he allowed the pitch to leak over the heart of the plate more often, though he still generated a core on the low-outside corner.

It’s really easy to love Carlos Martinez. He deserves recognition as one of the best pitchers in the MLB, and his changeup deserves to be recognized among the best right now.

Credit to Brooks Baseball and Baseball Savant for the data used here. The GIFs come courtesy of @cardinalsgifs, who you need to follow on Twitter.

Evaluating the St. Louis Cardinals based on contact quality and plate discipline.

Maq (elmaquino): Does asking for a straight up dump of x stats for every St. Louis Cardinals starting player and pitcher count as a question?

Yes, it does. I’ll include the 2016 expected versus actual stats. Additionally, I’ll show my 2017 projections for the St. Louis Cardinals with a comparison to ZiPS and Steamer.

So here we go. First up, a little bit of an explanation. Feel free to skip down to the tables if you don’t care about the methodology.

I started working with my xSTATS models a little while back. Today, I have a model for starting pitchers, relievers, and position players for each of the last two seasons, and a projection for the 2017 season. Each model focuses on batted ball data sets to judge contact quality and plate discipline statistics. The goal is to isolate player performance independent of defense, both for pitchers and hitters.

I’ve found that exit velocity and launch angle for hitters are highly correlated year-to-year, which suggests they are the consequence of a repeatable skill. Exit velocity and launch angle allowed is less correlated for pitchers, but still has a strong enough relationship year-to-year. We also know using Pull%, Cent%, and Oppo% that hitters have some control over where they hit the ball horizontally.

Thus, I use exit velocity, launch angle, and spray angle to determine an “expected” number of hits for batters, and an “expected” number of hits allowed for pitchers. To get expected walks and strikeouts, I ran regressions to determine significant plate discipline variables. Sacrifices, HBPs, and IBBs are assigned at a league average rate. From there, I work toward expected numbers for wOBA for hitters and ERA and FIP for pitchers.

Below are the St. Louis Cardinals pitchers. I’ve included their actual 2016 statistics as well for comparison to my xSTATS.

Overall, this is a mixed bag. One noticeable standout is Michael Wacha, who my model shows was really unlucky last year on batted balls. While his pFIP was lower than his actual FIP, I had his xERA nearly a full run lower than his actual ERA.

Additionally, I had Lynn’s expected results from 2015 as significantly worse than his actuals. Being that he’s returning from Tommy John, I honestly don’t know if either his expected stats or actual stats apply to next year, but I figured it’d be interesting to include them nonetheless.

With regards to relievers, there’s not a whole lot that sticks out. Seung-Hwan Oh was fantastic at suppressing contact quality, but how he fares after a full offseason of scouting will be the key for his 2017.

Next up, the position players who I think will be the main contributors this year.

First, the bad news. Dexter Fowler and Aledmys Diaz probably overachieved last season, most notably in xwOBA vs. wOBA. Fowler’s expected line basically matches his career averages, though, which isn’t a bad sign. Diaz, on the other hand, has some issues in his batted ball profile that I’ll get to in another question.

The model had higher expected stats than actuals for Jhonny Peralta and Randal Grichuk. I’ve talked previously about Peralta’s 2016 season and why the narrative that he was impacted by the thumb injury while on the field needs to stop – he didn’t hit the ball poorly last year, he hit into bad luck. Based on that, there’s reason to expect both players to bounce back.

Next up, here are my projections for the St. Louis Cardinals in 2017. I’ll compare them to the average of ZiPS and Steamer projections. I’m not projecting Lance Lynn, because I don’t think his data and statistics from 2015 will reliably predict how he performs post-injury. I have some concerns that my projection model favors hitters, but not terribly so.

For the starting pitchers, I’m a little less optimistic about three of the four, excluding Lance Lynn. While I have the staff managing contact better than ZiPS and Steamer project, I’m predicting worse strikeout and walk rates.

For relievers, I’m right in line with the other projection systems for Brett Cecil, Kevin Siegrist, and Trevor Rosenthal. For Seung-Hwan Oh, my model is not regressing his contact management ability back toward the mean, so I’m quite a bit higher on him than ZiPS and Steamer.

Now, for the position players.

The story here is similar to that of 2016. I expect Jhonny Peralta to rebound in a big way from last year, and the model projects he’ll be the St. Louis Cardinals second best hitter. Additionally, the xSTATS model really buys into Matt Carpenter. I have him at 29 home runs, and he will have the chance to rack up 100 RBI hitting behind Fowler and Diaz. If he hits like I’m projecting, he’ll be square in the NL MVP conversation.

Brendan D. (B_Dooby): Do you have any thoughts/worries/concerns about sophomore slumps from Aledmys Diaz and Oh for the St. Louis Cardinals?

In short, yes. I’ve wrote before about my concerns with Diaz and changes I’d like to see here. Basically, he doesn’t have the contact profile of a high BABIP hitter. Among the 268 players with 300 or more plate appearances, Diaz had the highest infield hit rate (IFH%) of 15.8%. For a right-handed hitter without blazing speed, I don’t think that’s repeatable.

Additionally, among those same hitters, he had the 41^st highest infield fly ball rate (IFFB%), which was in the 85^th percentile. Those batted balls are pop-ups that are almost always outs.

Lastly, he had the third lowest line drive rate among those 268 players. Line drives are the type of batted ball most likely to go for hits, and he simply didn’t hit a lot of them.

Put it all together, and you get a low BABIP contact profile. Unless he improves in those areas, I don’t expect him to keep up the .312 BABIP he had last year or the .300 BABIP in his projections. I see something closer to .270.

In that scenario, with his low strikeout rate and high isolated slugging percentage (ISO), he’s probably still about a league average hitter. However, being a league average hitter would fall short of expectations set after his rookie year.

I talked about Oh in one of the following questions, so I won’t say much on him here. It’s worth noting, though, that elite relief pitcher seasons are extremely hard to replicate. I expect Oh will still be a very good bullpen piece for the Cardinals, but I don’t think he dominates like he did last year (even though my xSTATS model believes in him).

Feb 14, 2017; Jupiter, FL, USA; St. Louis Cardinals relief pitcher Seung Hwan Oh (26) throws during Spring Training workouts at Roger Dean Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Steve Mitchell-USA TODAY Sports /

Darren S.: Why did the St. Louis Cardinals not get a contract extension done this offseason or during Spring Training with Seung-Hwan Oh? His contract is up after this season.

According to Derrick Goold, Oh is the St. Louis Cardinals next priority after Yadier Molina’s contract situation is figured out. While extending players often happens during the offseason, it is very likely that Oh’s contract negotiations will be pushed to the season. This shouldn’t be a huge distraction, since the negotiations are primarily between the front office and the player’s agent.

That said, I wouldn’t expect the St. Louis Cardinals to hurry into an extension. Oh had a fantastic year, which has brought with it high expectations for this season. Relief pitchers are already extremely volatile, and efforts like his 2016 campaign are difficult to repeat. Additionally, teams now have a full year of video on Oh. The Cardinals probably want to see how he responds this year before committing longer term.

There is also a rumor floating around (though I haven’t found a link) that Oh might want to see more of the country. His original two year contract guaranteed he’d be able to test free agency. If he really does want to spend future seasons in a different city, then it’s unlikely the Cardinals will retain him beyond 2017.

@sol_paco: If they extend Yadi, should they consider moving Carson Kelly if that’s what it takes in July to get a difference maker like Jose Quintana?

There are a few assumptions at work here, most importantly that the St. Louis Cardinals are in position to buy near the trade deadline. I expect that to be the case, but there’s plenty of situations where the season goes down the wrong path. Notably, the starting pitching has plenty of injury concerns, and dipping too deep into starting pitching depth generally isn’t ideal for success.

Back to the question, though. They definitely should consider moving Kelly (or Alex Reyes, or Luke Weaver) if that’s what it takes to land someone who makes a difference down the stretch. While it’s significantly harder to win the World Series as a Wild Card team, anything can happen once you’re in the playoffs.

Catching prospects like Kelly don’t come around too often, which is why he’s on many fans’ “untouchables” list. He’s been groomed by the organization to take over for Molina, though that transition is still probably at least two years away.

But if he was the centerpiece to get Quintana? I’d work to get that deal done. Quintana has quietly been the 8^th best pitcher over the last three years, accumulating 14.6 fWAR. He’s averaged more than two hundred innings per season with a 3.29 ERA and 3.19 FIP. Further, he’s under a team friendly contract through 2020.

The St. Louis Cardinals roster is in a sort of transitional period, but it is still built to win now. Jose Quintana heading the staff alongside Carlos Martinez makes the rotation one of the best in the National League.

I wouldn’t trade Kelly for a half-year rental, and I might not trade him for 1.5 years of a starter. I would, at the very least, consider moving Kelly for 2+ seasons of a top thirty starting pitcher.

Mar 31, 2016; Tampa, FL, USA; St. Louis Cardinals second baseman Kolten Wong (16) at George M. Steinbrenner Field. Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports /

Zac and Liz H.: Wong needs to stay with the St. Louis Cardinals. Why should he leave?

Kolten Wong caused a stir this weekend when he said he’d rather be traded from the St. Louis Cardinals than platooned, though he later clarified those comments. It’s hard to expect an MLB player to be content not playing every day, so it’s no surprise that he’s frustrated.

From Wong’s perspective, a fresh start might be what he needs. He’s certainly been mismanaged in his time in St. Louis, and the resulting relationship between him and Mike Matheny likely won’t help his play.

From the team’s perspective, though, there’s really no reason to move him unless the consequences from his comments this weekend linger and cause problems in the clubhouse. Kolten Wong is an average MLB player, putting up 2.3 fWAR per 600 plate appearances during the last three years. Average MLB players with All-Star potential don’t grow on trees, and Wong is not particularly expensive.

Dan G. (@GiffordDs): If Wong starts off slow at the plate, does Mike Matheny have any choice but to ride it out with DeWitt’s and Mozeliak’s vote of confidence?

The St. Louis Cardinals front office stated a commitment to Kolten Wong this offseason. A horrible spring training for Wong appears to have changed that stance. Matheny has acted against the front office’s wishes in the past, though, most notably with Wong, Allen Craig, and Randal Grichuk, so I doubt he’s completely bought into the plan articulated in the offseason.

Even with Wong’s recent comments and slumping bat, I think he starts the season getting most of the plate appearances available at second base. He’s the team’s best defensive option at the position, and his range should also help Matt Carpenter as he transitions to first.

If Matheny does start Jedd Gyorko more often at the beginning of the season, particularly against left-handed pitching, I don’t see it lasting long. Gyorko is a notoriously slow starter, with a career .193 average and 56 wRC+ in April. He’ll have more than his fair share of terrible games at the plate, and Matheny’s reliance on small sample sizes will push Wong back in the lineup. Whoever starts to hit first will stick.

Troy Byers (@shortfusecle): How much money do you think the new 30 dollars a month deal will bring the St. Louis Cardinals? I love the idea of it, think it will bring big $.

This season, the St. Louis Cardinals are introducing the Cardinals Ballpark Pass. For $30 per month, you can get standing room tickets to every home game, excluding opening day and any potential postseason games.

Honestly, I don’t really know what to think of the deal. It’s more convenient than single game tickets, but you probably have to go to a few games each month to get your money’s worth, at least in comparison to the cheapest seats. It’s a cool idea, but I don’t think it will be a significant percentage of the team’s ticket revenue.