St. Louis Cardinals: Base path problems still plague the Birds

YIPPIE! The St. Louis Cardinals are just short of .500 ball with their 9-10 record but not all things are to be celebrated as they continue to make blunders on the base paths.

The St. Louis Cardinals seem to be turning things around. Will this stick? Perhaps it will should the team continue to manufacture offense, control their defense, and put up fundamentally strong pitching. Aren’t these the standard corner stones of baseball?

While many things seem to be improving, the St. Louis Cardinals continue to make boneheaded base running mistakes. The most damaging of these being when players such as Matt Carpenter or Stephen Piscotty allow themselves to be picked off of a base– something that happened far too frequently in the Brewers series.

Let me dig into this. The St. Louis Cardinals have for a few seasons lacked speed on the bags with no real threat to steal. This continues this year too and now the Birds have entered the dangerous zone of being easily picked off.

The 2017 St. Louis Cardinals, in case you are wondering, rank thirteenth in the MLB with a team speed rating of 4.2 according to Fangraphs. The fastest team in 2017 is the Reds at a rating of 6.1, some 1.8 points north of the Cardinals.

The Reds rating puts them as the fastest in the NL-Central. Coming in second place in the NLC is the Brewers (who the Cardinals just swept) with a speed rating of 5.1 (fifth overall). Third in speed in the NLC is the Cubs at a rating of 5.0. The media darlings are followed by the Cardinals who are followed by the Pirates (speed rating of 4.1).

The Cardinals aren’t the slowest in the MLB. This role is played this season by the Baltimore Orioles. They own a team speed rating of 2.7.

The middle-of-the-line St. Louis Cardinals have some speedsters on their team despite the overall team slow speed. These speedsters include Dexter Fowler (7.3 speed), Kolten Wong (7.1 speed), and Jedd Gyorko (7.0 speed). Gyorko?! Really?

Fowler has one swiped bag this season with the Cardinals but has 128 stolen bases in his ten-year career while having been caught only fifty-six times in his career. Wong has two stolen bases this season with the Cardinals and has forty-seven swiped bags in his five-year career while having been caught only twelve times.

So, Gyorko? In his five-year career, Gyorko has swiped only five bases. And yet he is awarded a fast speed rating. Why then isn’t he a base thief? This is a great question but is likely due to his slow take-off speed and inability to read a pitcher.

That aside, let’s look at the culprits who have been picked off this season. These include Carpenter, Piscotty, Wong, Aledmys Diaz, and Randal Grichuk. Diaz, by the way, has a speed rating of 4.7 and Grichuk has a speed rating of 4.4.

Before going any farther, let me tell you that Billy Hamilton (of the Reds) has a speed rating of 8.9 and that Keon Buxton (of the Brewers) has a speed rating of 8.1. These are the two fastest ball players in the majors.

The Cubs have Jon Jay leading their pack with a speed of 8.3. Addison Russell has a speed rating of 7.3. These two- and the two from the Brewers- show why the Cardinals are ranked in their current slot overall in the MLB.

So back to the pick-off culprits. This season, Carpenter has been picked off twice this season already. He has a speed rating of 1.9 and has been picked off the most of any other player in the majors this season. With that speed rating, why is he even threatening to steal?

Diaz is tied for third most in the majors with being picked off at once. He is joined at that ranking by Wong with one pick off to his credit.