St. Louis Cardinals: Redbird Roundup Week 3

Week 3 Game Results (4-3 in the week, 7-9 overall)

• 4/10: St. Louis Cardinals 4 - Colorado Rockies 7
• 4/11: St. Louis Cardinals 9 - Colorado Rockies 6
• 4/12: St. Louis Cardinals 7 - Colorado Rockies 4
• 4/13: Pittsburgh Pirates 5 - St. Louis Cardinals 0
• 4/14: Pittsburgh Pirates 0 - St. Louis Cardinals 3
• 4/15: Pittsburgh Pirates 6 - St. Louis Cardinals 3
• 4/16: Pittsburgh Pirates 4 - St. Louis Cardinals 5

Cardinals Week 3 MVP: Nolan Gorman

Is it safe to say Nolan Gorman has made the jump? For the second time in three weeks, Nolan Gorman is the most valuable player of the week. The 22-year-old is slashing .333/.421/1.088 on the year and Cardinal fans will enjoy this: Gorman ranks in the 85th percentile in all of baseball for Chase Rate. As Gorman continues to develop into a key piece of the Cardinals lineup, he has also stepped up with some clutch moments:

• Go-ahead 414-foot HR in the Top of the 9th Inning to lead the Cardinals to a 9-6 victory Tuesday in Denver
• Go-ahead 2-run HR in the Top of the 8th Inning to complete the series win against the Rockies on Wednesday
• Drove in 2 of the Cardinals 3 runs in Friday's win over Pittsburgh
• Hit a game-tying ground-rule double in the Bottom of the 10th Inning as the Cardinals battled back to split the series with the Pirates

NL Central Standings

1. Milwaukee Brewers (11-5)
2. Chicago Cubs (8-6)
3. Pittsburgh Pirates (9-7)
4. St. Louis Cardinals (7-9)
5. Cincinnati Reds (6-9)

Division, Pennant, and World Series Odds (via FanDuel Sportsbook)

To win NL Central: +150 ($100 wager wins $150)

To win NL Pennant: +1000 ($100 wager wins $1,000)

To win World Series: +2100 ($100 wager wins $2,100)

Injuries and Transactions

News: OF Alec Burleson left Sunday's game against Pittsburgh with a right shin contusion. He is listed as day-to-day.

Activated: OF Lars Nootbaar was activated off the 10-day IL on Saturday, the corresponding move was optioning Juan Yepez back to AAA Memphis.

Rehab: RHP Adam Wainwright expects to make a rehab start for AA Springfield this upcoming Tuesday (April 18th).

10-day / 15-day IL: RHP Adam Wainwright, LHP Packy Naughton, INF Paul DeJong, RHP Wilking Rodriguez, C Tres Barrera, and INF Jose Fermin

Prospect Watch

• SS Masyn Winn (#2 Ranked Cardinals Prospect) picked up his first Home Run of 2023 on April 12th
• LHP Matthew Liberatore (#5 Ranked Cardinals Prospect) continued his strong start to the year last Wednesday. Liberatore struck out 10 batters over 7 IP bringing his season ERA to 1.06 through three starts.
• OF Victor Scott II (#27 Ranked Cardinals Prospect) has game-changing speed and put on quite a show this week. The left-handed outfielder has 7 SBs on the year and made an incredible Grand-Slam-Saving catch in CF on Saturday (linked below)

Statistic Explanation: wOBA (Weighted On-Base Average)

The third statistic that I will attempt to explain in plain English is wOBA or Weighted On-Base Average. In the first two editions of the Redbird Roundup, I looked at wRC+ and FIP, respectively. Think of wOBA as an iteration of a player's OBP which acknowledges the fact that a Single and a Home Run provide vastly different levels of value to a team in terms of creating runs, but look the same to the simple OBP statistic.

The formula for wOBA is: (unintentional BB factor x unintentional BB + HBP factor x HBP + 1B factor x 1B + 2B factor x 2B + 3B factor x 3B + HR factor x HR)/(AB + unintentional BB + SF + HBP)

The "factor" in the equation above contextualizes the event within the season (ex. a single in one season is not worth the same as a single in a different season). In the 2022 season, a BB was worth .689 times on base, a 1B was worth .884 times on base, a 2B was worth 1.261 times on base, a 3B was worth 1.601 times on base, and a home run was worth 2.072 times on base (these are the "factors" that were mentioned above).

Here are the 2022 MLB Leaders in wOBA (in a couple more weeks I will use 2023 data for these visuals but I feel as though the sample is still a bit too small):

1. Aaron Judge (.458 wOBA) - American League MVP

2. Yordan Alvarez (.427 wOBA) - 3rd Place in American League MVP Voting

3. Paul Goldschmidt (.419 wOBA) - National League MVP

4. Jose Altuve (.397 wOBA) - 5th Place in American League MVP Voting

5. Freddie Freeman (.393 wOBA) - 4th Place in National League MVP Voting

If you have ideas for items that you would like to be included in the weekly Redbird Roundup do not hesitate to reach out! Leave a comment or DM @HenryFitz16 on Twitter - any and all feedback is welcome.

Game odds refresh periodically and are subject to change.