Why are the Cardinals still bunting?

Remember earlier when I said that Matheny hasn’t made many wise moves?  This is the sort of thing I’m talking about.

7th inning and you’re up a run, 0 out and a runner at first (David Freese for the record).  The Dodgers go to a lefty to counteract Skip Schumaker and Daniel Descalso coming up.  Matheny pinch hits Pete Kozma for Skip Schumaker.  Kozma, for the record, was a very reviled and derided first round pick in 2007.  He plays SS and fields his position well, and was probably going to replace Skip for defensive purposes later in the game anyways.  He’s not a great hitter by any stretch, but he’s on a decent streak right now (7/20 for the month), and he is probably a safer bet against the lefty coming in than Schumaker.

However...

He tries to drop down a bunt.  Not once, but twice.  Fouls both off.  Winds up lining into a DP.  While I’m not nearly as upset at the end result as you’d think, I’m just upset at the methods that it came to.  I have a few reasons why.  Care to indulge me?  Why thank you!  You’re so sweet.  Remind me to buy you chocolates for your next birthday.  Anyways, here we go:

1) If you’re going to pinch hit, you should go up there to hit.  Not burn an out intentionally.  If you were going to do that, why not let Skip try there?  It changes nothing really, both ways are close to wasting an out, and Skip probably would have hit it on the ground (if he did at all) and potentially at least would have resulted in a runner on base somewhere.

2) If you were planning to waste an out, at least put Beltran up in that spot.  He has some power and his bat looks lately like it is returning to life.  If Beltran could have put you in a position to score multiple runs with the one AB he is probably going to get, might as well do it when you first get the chance.

3) The pitcher is fresh into the game and I think you’re more likely to get at a reliever when he is first inserted and trying to find the strike zone and gauge his stuff, especially early in the count.

4) The team as a whole, position players and pitchers included, have looked terrible at bunting this year, and I don’t think this is the time to be trying to bunt often.  If they want to bunt, they need to do a lot more bunting drills.  I would rather that time be used to increase their ability to hit for power, but if Mike is going to pull an Ozzie Guillen and try for small ball all the time, at least practice it more.

It wouldn’t be as bad if it was the first time in the same game that he tried something like this.  First two men reach in the 6th (score was tied at this point), Matt Carpenter facing a tiring Joe Blanton.  Matt Carpenter is a left handed hitter, who in utility plus play (not really an everyday guy but not a bench rider either) is hitting 303/368/496 for a tidy 135 OPS+ entering play.  He doesn’t make an out at a very good 36.8% of the time.  And, in a big spot with Holliday and Craig coming up behind him, he calls for the bunt TWICE.  Again, both failed and Carpenter ended up striking out.  Holliday hit into a forceout, so now with 2 outs and 2 on (only one in scoring position), Craig had to come through with a hit to score.  Of course he did because Allen Craig is an awesome hitter, but trying to take the bat out of Carpenter’s hands like that seemed to be a bad idea from the go.  In 310 PA in the bigs, Carpenter has never had a sac hit.  This didn’t seem like a good time to get his first.

All in all, two spots in a crucial game against the Dodgers that could have been used to set up for a big inning were ruined because Matheny had to play small ball.  It’s called small for a reason, you don’t score many runs.  I really hope they start swinging the bats like they should soon.  This team is too talented on offense to be relying on those tactics.

Molina's Mistake

Yadier Molina is my favorite catcher.  No joke, I think he’s great.  I’ve never seen someone fire missiles like he can from behind the plate.  And, over the past few years he has turned into a decent hitter and is having his best year currently with the stick.  I rarely can find fault with a catcher providing tremendous defense and hitting 313/366/490 with a wRC+ of 138.

But...

Top of the 9th in San Diego, NO ONE OUT, runner at second, he drops down a sacrifice bunt.  Good old fashioned NL style smart ball right?  Right?

No.  It isn’t smart or the right play in that situation.  Why?  Well I’m glad you asked.  Here’s the situation:

1) You’re on the road down by one.  You can’t play to tie on the road, you have to play to take the lead.  Especially with as poor and leaky as the Cardinals’ pen has been this year.  If you get a chance to take a lead, you go for it, but not taking the chance to tie.

2) The runner is already at second base, so getting him to third with one out is stupid.  With no outs and a runner at second, the run expectancy is 1.170.  You’re almost guaranteed to score more than one run.  With a runner at third and one out, the expectancy is 0.989, meaning that you are most likely but not nearly guaranteed to score the one run, but a big inning isn’t nearly as likely.  So, you’re wasting a precious out, one of three remaining mind you, for...nothing.

3) Adron Chambers came in to pinch run for Allen Craig following his leadoff double.  That means that even if the game gets tied, you’re down a big run producing bat in Craig which will make it way too difficult to take the lead in the later innings.

4) Molina is one of the best hitters on the team, and it’s a team that is struggling to score runs lately.  Taking the bat out of his hands is like telling one of your great pilots in the air force to become a Kamikaze bomber.  Or like taking the sword out of your best knight and tell him to protect a lesser knight with his chest.

Following the game, Molina and Matheny said that the bunt call was Molina’s.  Matheny said that he has earned that right.  Ugh.  Look, Yaddy, buddy, you haven’t earned that right.  Albert Pujols had earned the right to call plays on his own because he is a no doubt first ballot hall of fame player and hits the ball hard and well.  He has done that for the better part of 12 years now.  You, my squatting friend, have been a good hitter for only 4 or 5 years now.  You have NOT earned that right.  But with the boneheaded moves that Mike Matheny has made this year (might do a post on that later), I can see why you would do that.  But please, grow a brain and never do it again.  I’m begging you.  I still love you, but I might have to divorce you if you ever try something like that again.

Ryan Ludwick

For anyone out there that is reading and wants to know where my affiliations lie (ie "What team does VofL root for?"), I'm a Cardinals fan, which is why my first post was about Mike Matheny.  And now this one, also, will be about Matheny.  I love the guy and know he's a rookie manager and will make mistakes, but some of these just leave me asking "What are you thinking?".  In today's afternoon loss (that is NOT why I'm posting this, but it does add extra motivation) to the Reds, with no one out in the 9th inning he elects to walk Ryan Ludwick intentionally.  I have a copy of Baseball Between The Numbers by Baseball Prospectus with me as I type this and they do a detailed study of why you should (almost) never intentionally walk a batter.  There needs to be huge drop-offs in OBP and/or SLG for it to be worth it and they detail this with a lot of charts and graphs and analysis of Run Expectancies (see my first post for the whole chart).  Ryan Ludwick in his career has a 237/316/435 line versus LHP (and it was Marc Rzepcynski pitching), and the run expectancy jumped with him on base from 1.102 to 1.476.  Not a huge jump, but big enough to almost ensure that the run would be scored.  Jay Bruce followed him and struck out and then the next batter hit a single to win the game.

When Ryan Ludwick was a Cardinal, I loved to watch him hit because it seemed like he was good.  And, indeed, he was.  In his 3 or 4 years with the Cards, he had an 857 OPS.  Now, he's pretty much a shell of his former self.  Or rather, he's returned to Earth.  I'm gonna lose brownie points in Cardinal Nation for this, but Ludwick, besides his years with the Cards, was not a valuable major league hitter. His career OBP is just about league average, and when he was with the Cards he had his one big year in 2008 where it was soaring high above league average.  His slugging was usually pretty good (career 40 points higher than league average), and that was his saving grace.  But if you can't get on base better than league average, that power isn't as useful or valuable.  Advanced stats back that up.  His BtRuns (a measure of how many runs above or below league average you provide based on linear weights) for his career is 36.6.  His career year of 2008 was 39.9, so beyond that year he has cost his team more runs than he provided.  And his career OPS+ is only 110 (which, just throwing it out there, is higher than Jack Morris' career ERA+ and people clamor for him to be inducted into the Hall of Fame--can't wait to get those articles this winter!) He shouldn't ever be walked intentionally.

Hopefully, with the Cardinals off tomorrow I can find someone else to blog about besides Mike Matheny.  Like I said, I love the guy, but this was just a nutty thing to do.

A quickie to get started

First post, not gonna be long.  Last night, Cardinals @ Reds game.  The Cards have a 4-0 lead in the top of the 5th.  Homer Bailey just walked Carlos Beltran with one out on 6 pitches.  That brings up Matt Holliday, who hit a HR earlier in the game mind you, and he works the count full, including missing on the last 2 pitches (both fastballs).  Mike Matheny, what do you do?  You put the hit and run on.  What happens?  Holliday swings through a curveball and Beltran is thrown out at second base.  Inning over, 2 outs wasted.

Look, I fully understand wanting to keep out of the GIDP there.  But the hit and run is a terrible call when the guy at the plate has hit a ton of HR in his career, including one earlier that night, and just worked the count full by taking the last 2 pitches.  Luckily, the lead was already high and it didn't come back to bite them, but that play was still stupid.  Lance Berkman and David Freese were due up next and they are pretty good hitters themselves, so if Holliday takes that curveball for ball 4, you've got 2 on with 1 out for Berkman and a chance to drive the lead up (which is what you want to do with Jake Westbrook and his career 1.393 WHIP starting). Not to mention the fact that your run expectancy nearly doubles in that situation (from .504 to .902).

You should never force Matt Holliday, a man with a career line of 315/387/541 (137 OPS+) to swing the bat or alter his approach.  I think he knows what he's doing up there.

I'm not posting this to bash Matheny (Joe Girardi did it with A-Rod at the plate and two runners on and Jeter was caught stealing third on the same night), but I just hate seeing people run into outs like that.