Isolated power and the Cardinals' sudden surge

Lots of the talk about the Cardinals this young season has focused on the starting pitching rotation, especially the performance of guys not named Wainwright or Carpenter. Deservedly so, as the Lohse/Garcia/Westbrook/Lynn cadre has helped the club to a 2.61 team ERA, second in baseball. But the recent struggles of the leader in that category, the Nationals, show that strong pitching can be rendered moot without adequate offensive support.

However, in a development more surprising than the emergence of their arms, the Cardinals have delivered hitting in spades, especially for power. Even with the departure of Albert Pujols, the recent absence of Lance Berkman and Matt Holliday still struggling, St. Louis has a team batting average of .280, tied for second in the MLB with Boston. They also stand eighth in the MLB at isolated power, a figure derived from subtracting a team's batting average from their slugging percentage. Their current number is .163, up from .151 in 2011. The table I'm currently looking at doesn't include last night's games, but the Cardinals didn't play anyway, so referring to it is still pretty safe. 

I find that last stat especially intriguing. The teams ahead the Cards are as listed in descending order: Yankees, Brewers, Rangers, Orioles, Red Sox, Rays, Rockies. When you think about it, this assortment of teams is completely expected. Look at their home stadiums - Yankees, Rangers, Orioles, Red Sox: all play in noted hitters parks. The Rockies play in Denver and stick their baseballs in a humidor in an attempt to make them moist enough so routine infield pop-ups don't turn into 400-foot bombs. The Rays and Brewers are surprises, but their figures can easily be traced to their total home runs, as Milwaukee is fourth in the MLB with 29 and Tampa Bay is sixth with 28. The Cardinals are a bit further down, at eighth with 24. And again, this is largely sans the power Berkman and Holliday were expected to provide this season. Busch Stadium is also, according to ESPN's 2011 MLB Park Factors, a pitcher's park. These rankings compared teams' offensive stats at home to their offensive stats on the road and calibrated them on a scale of one (1). A final figure more than one means a stadium was a hitter's park and less than one meant it was a pitcher's park. Busch Stadium was #25 on these rankings at 0.896. So what I'm saying is that their home stadium having particularly friendly confines isn't really a factor here. 

Chris Lee/St. Louis Post-Dispatch

What is, though, is a number of players putting a charge into the ball with alarming regularity. David Freese's ISO is .227, up from .144 in 2011. Matt Carpenter's is .200, significantly more than the .164 he put up in AAA Memphis last year. Carlos Beltran's .205 is actually lower than his .225 mark from last season (which was actually sensational for him, we might get to that later) but is still well above the league average, which usually stands around .145. And Yadier Molina has suddenly turned into Mike Piazza. His .276 ISO leads the team by a large margin and puts him at sixth in the National League. Freese, Carpenter and Beltran are also in the top 20 in the NL. MLB-wide, Molina's figure places him above names like David Ortiz and Chris Davis. This means you can sabermetrically postulate that Yadier Molina has been a better power hitter than one of the most feared sluggers of the last decade, as well as a guy who almost hit the warehouse beyond Camden Yards' right field fence. Of course, .276 is well, well above Molina's career ISO (more than twice as big, in fact), but it is still undeniably impressive. 

So will this power surge last for the Cardinals? For each individual player, probably not. It's just statistically inconceivable that Molina will maintain his current pace, as his ZiPS(U) is projecting him at .151 for the season. Freese is striking out at an alarming rate of 27.5% and his BABIP (.417) is far above his average (.333), so he's due for a drop-off as soon as his hits start finding more gloves. Carpenter's slugging percentage, .467, is also a good deal more than his projected number of .385. But for the team, there's a good chance it could. Allen Craig is due for a call-up, and he's been tearing it up lately in AAA. Lance Berkman was hitting quite well before he got injured and will most likely maintain a pace close to that upon his return. So if each player avoids a catastrophic drop-off, the forthcoming reinforcements do their job and everybody else just makes sure not to hit like Jeff Mathis, the team could basically cancel out the offensive hole Pujols left. And that would be the sweetest revenge.

Note: stats from Fangraphs.com and MLB.com