The Final Border War: a mini-preview

The Border War has come down to this. With Kansas' upset win over Texas A&M tonight, they advance to Saturday's Big 12 Tournament semifinal to face Missouri. Because of the tourney's double-elimination format and the Tigers' perfect record so far, Tim Jamieson's squad will have two chances to top the Jayhawks. Though overall regular season records and stats seem to favor Missouri, Kansas took two of three in the regular season series between the teams in Lawrence. That series belied Missouri's inconsistency this season and further clouds predicting the coming game(s). 

Brett Graves                  KBIA Sports Extra

Brett Graves seems like the logical choice to start Saturday for the Tigers. The freshman righty has shown this season that, well, he's a freshman. He has big-time stuff - a fastball hitting the low-mid 90s and a big curveball - but also a history of control problems and a strange propensity for hitting batters, plunking nine in 45.2 innings. Whomever starts isn't really a concern for Missouri, though, as Rob Zastrzyny's 8.1 innings Wednesday and Blake Holovach and Jeff Emens taking care of the Aggies Thursday leaves the Tiger bullpen very fresh and ready for use. If Graves struggles, Missouri could just plug Ryan Yuengel, who's been very impressive this season, in his spot. Emens only threw three and two thirds innings Thursday, so he's also available. John Miles is another capable arm that has remained unused in the tournament. In fact, Miles could also start, but his rough outing against the Jayhawks May 18 makes Graves the more likely choice. 


The point is that the Tiger bullpen is in a great spot right now. However, Kansas' pen is too. Thomas Taylor threw an absolutely herculean complete game to beat the Aggies, hurling more than 150 pitches over nine innings. With Taylor spent, Kansas has used up its top three starters but has also limited itself to three relievers over three games. 

Missouri's offense in the tournament so far has been good, but not great, scoring five runs in each of their past two games (though they have had to face two high-round MLB Draft prospects in Texas' Corey Knebel and Texas A&M's Michael Wacha). So while there is a possibility that the Tiger bats will unload on Kansas' pitching, whose ERA was second-to-last in the Big 12 this season, I'm predicting that this game (or two) will be decided by arms. And what better way for a notoriously acrimonious rivalry, flush with history, to end than a good old pitchers' duel?

Thoughts after tonight's game: Adam Wainwright's mastery and the Cardinals' need for offense

After they got their first series sweep of the season in Phoenix, the Cardinals' West Coast swing took a dive straight off a cliff. They lost their last game in San Francisco in a blunder-filled outing and got swept by the Dodgers. The series-ending 6-5 loss at Dodger Stadium was about as low as the Cardinals could get; Marc Rzepczynski capped off an awful series by grooving the hell out of a 3-0 fastball - with a lefty coming up next - and coughing up a go-ahead homer. I was so fed up with the skidding bullpen that I just turned off the TV after Jesus Guzman's 2-run double in Monday's game. But Tyler Greene hit a walk-off homer, the Cardinals won and things have been better since. 

They were good tonight, especially Adam Wainwright. I'm not going to say he looked like "old Adam Wainwright," because that's a stupid expression, as old Adam Wainwright didn't throw a shutout and strike out 9 guys every night. He was "very, very, very good Adam Wainwright." That's a new persona I'm making up. Wainwright was actually pretty close to not getting a shutout or a complete game when he walked Yonder Alonso to put two on in the ninth but he got Jesus Guzman to ground out. Very, very, very good Wainwright had every pitch working tonight. The fastball was nicely fast, the cutter cut, the curveball curved quite a bit and was at a nice low-70s velocity, its change in speed from Wainwright's other pitches adding an extra factor to its nastiness. The curve's always been an out pitch, but he could throw it for strikes, too, sometimes on the first pitch. But sometimes he threw it in the dirt because he could. Anyway, Wainwright's goofy smile after the last out told the whole story.

The Cards weren't exactly the offensive juggernaut tonight that they've been all year - one run came when San Diego's John Buck missed a tag at home plate and another on a botched tailor-made double play to short where Tyler Greene could reach - but they were good enough. With their pitching on a bit of a slide and an astounding trend of injuries ravaging the lineup, "good enough" will probably become the norm. Adron Chambers looked seriously shaky defensively, but he hit two balls hard back up the box and got a walk. His previous experience in the bigs should help, too, and hopefully he'll turn into a decent fit in Mike Matheny's lineup. Carlos Beltran and Matt Holliday both had good games; those two are going to need to start carrying the lineup with the absences of Lance Berkman, Allen Craig, Jon Jay and (maybe) Matt Carpenter. And unless the whole pitching staff starts hurling like Wainwright did tonight, the need for improvement is urgent - the last time the Cardinals scored more than five runs in a game was a week ago. 

David Freese and a tale of splits

David Freese started this season on an absolute tear befitting his performance in the World Series last fall. He hit .333 in April with five homers and twenty RBIs. He also had 22 strikeouts, but that can be overlooked. But after today's hellish two-GIDP performance, you might be thinking "this guy has sucked lately." And you'd be right. In May, Freese has experienced quite a severe drop-off. And one of the most striking parts of his statistical profile is his ineptitude at Busch Stadium. Freese's season so far is one of disparate splits.

Getty Images

You would think that Freese would feel most comfortable at home, due to his status as a native St. Louisan and his mythic game six performance. And he might, but his production does not show that at all. Freese home average is a paltry .196 as opposed to .324 on the road. His BABIP* is .250 versus .373. Freese's hits just don't seem to be finding the holes that they do on the road. One thing he does have going for him at Busch is plate discipline; his BB/K rate is .58* at home and .28 on the road. That has allowed Freese's weighted runs created and weighted on base average to stay at serviceable levels. Another telling stat is Freese' batted ball rates. He is actually hitting a much higher percentage of line drives at Busch, 26.5%* of batted balls, than on the road, with just 16.1%. These figures seem to point to parts Freese's performance resembling Matt Holliday's early-season slump - hard-hit balls not finding gaps. So I guess we can take consolation in that. Either way, Busch has not been a friendly confine for Freese. 

Since the Cardinals have been at home for the majority of this month, those difficulties have been reflected in his overall performance in May. The bad has gotten worse for Freese - with a .180 average and .360 slugging percentage, he has seriously struggled to spark the Cardinals offense past the recently shaky pitching. His situational hitting this month has been appalling, as he has grounded into five double plays - including two today and an absolutely infuriating one in the May 11 game against the Braves, when, with the game tied, the bases loaded and one out in the 10th, Freese weakly grounded an 1-0 pitch that probably wasn't even a strike to short for a twin killing. It was awful and made me want to punch the TV. Again, Freese had doubled his walk total from the previous month despite playing six fewer games and he isn't striking out much either, so not everything has gone off a cliff for him. And looking at his pitch and spray charts on texasleaguers.com, Freese seems be having a tough time turning on inside pitches, resulting in his a large amount of fieldable grounders to the left side of the infield. It could be linked to lasting effects from his finger injury he suffered earlier this season or he has just lost a step. By comparing his pitch charts from April and May, one can see that he's been getting fewer inside pitches (his takes skew heavily to the outside of the plate) and he hasn't been converting the ones he has seen. 

Because this year's lineup is so deep, Freese hasn't been pressured to be a cornerstone and do everything himself. Lance Berkman's return will also soften the blow. If he doesn't pick his production up soon, though, he could very well see himself be platooned. Mike Matheny has set the precedent of being very open to tinkering with the lineup and wouldn't be afraid to utilize every inch of his depth chart.

*stats not current to May 16 due to fangraphs.com and baseballreference.com not being updated

Matt Moore and his recent struggles

David E. Klutho/SI

One of my favorite parts of baseball is following young prospects. I wrote about Dylan Bundy in an earlier post, I am an avid MLB draft follower and one of my favorite parts about covering Mizzou's baseball team for the student newspaper (shameless plug) is watching young talent and trying to project where they'll land professionally. This is because baseball is monotonous, slow and frankly boring sometimes, and injections of youth, potential and possibility can seem exciting. Which brings me to Matt Moore. Seeing the Rays' young lefty dominate the Yankees last year in the playoffs last year was pretty incredible. 15 strikeouts in 9.1 innings against a lineup like the one he faced was certainly reason for enthusiasm.

The Rays shared my excitement, obviously. Moore has had a spot in Tampa Bay's rotation this year, but the results haven't been what I expected nor what his pedigree would suggest. A 1-3 record and 5.31 ERA only scratches the surface. A 5.08 BB/9 rate indicates control problems. A .279 BAA and .325 opponent BABIP says he's getting hit hard. Another troubling development is Moore's transformation into a fly ball pitcher. 49.2% of batted balls against him have been flies and 17.8% have been liners. A 33.1% ground ball rate isn't going to get anyone far in the AL East, a division filled with murderers' row lineups and bandbox ballparks. Moore's problems have been basically everywhere, and they seem to be spanning his arsenal of pitches, too. His only one with a positive PITCHf/x pitch type linear weight/100 pitches has been his changeup, which is at 2.17 while his four-seamer is -1.43, two-seamer is -0.55 and his slider is -1.79. Oddly enough, the movement on Moore's pitches isn't radically worse anywhere, and the small differences can be attributed to the difference in effort between starting and coming out of the bullpen.

Other than simply not throwing enough strikes, I can't find any blatantly obvious reasons for Moore's struggles, but I think pitch location is a significant factor. The pages on texasleaguers.com and the full-size pics can be found here and here.

 In 2011, Moore was able to distribute his pitches all over the plate, keeping batters off-balance and preventing them from cheating. There is an especially good balance of outside and inside fastballs and his changeup lived low and on both sides of the strike zone.

This season, though, Moore seems to be leaving his pitches up an inordinate amount, which has almost certainly been a large factor for his ballooning fly ball rate. He has gravitated to the inside part of the plate for right-handed hitters, too. That might be an advisable strategy if Moore threw in the upper-90s, or even consistently sat in the mid-90s, but his average four-seamer this season has been about 94. And again, this is the AL East, the division with the MLB lead in offense per capita. Moore needs to keep the ball down more, that's for sure. He's been locating his changeup very well, though, and following that example for the rest of his pitches would be very beneficial.

The Rays have a multitude of reasons to maintain optimism about Moore. He's still young, has a great pitching coach in Jim Hickey and his struggles are mainly based on control, meaning his stuff is still there. Moore is still one of the top young prospects in baseball, another reason for Rays fans to feel excited about this young season.

Jaime Garcia is a changed man...but for the better?

Dilip Vishwanat/Getty Images

When the Cardinals are lighting up opposing pitchers like Bryce Harper in high school (see: recent series vs. Arizona), their own pitching is under a little bit less scrutiny. So far, there's no reason for it to be, as the staff has the second in the MLB in ERA. However, something's been a little bit different this year. Jaime Garcia has been an extremely solid left-handed for the Cardinals the since 2010, providing excellent depth behind the bigger names of Chris Carpenter and Adam Wainwright. In my opinion, he would be the ace of many other MLB teams, having shown sparkling control and an uncanny ability to keep the ball down. But, while he has been far from "bad," with a 3.76 ERA, Garcia's numbers show a starkly different pitcher in 2012.

First is the K/9 rate. Garcia's number this year is 5.17, a sharp drop from 7.21 in 2011 and 7.27 in 2010. His BAA and opponent BABIP are also higher than they were in the last two seasons. Garcia's FIP is almost a full point lower than his xFIP, which can be attributed to his weirdly low HR/FB rate of 2.9%. I'm going to just chalk that up to good luck and expect that number to rise later in the season, because batters certainly aren't hitting the ball any less hard against him. The numbers indicate that Garcia's stuff just isn't as sharp this year. That's true for the most part(observe the differences in pitch movement between 2011 and 2012). His curveball is less sharp, and while his changeup has developed into an out pitch, his fastball's movement and velocity have dulled and his sinker has less speed and sink. That could certainly account for part of his decreased strikeout rate, but I found another difference in Garcia's form exacerbating his pitches' diminished bite. 

Compare the two pictures below.

These are charts visualizing Garcia's release point from the catcher's perspective. The first one applies to 2011 and the second to the current season. Both show little variation in Garcia's delivery, an attribute that has been a crucial part of his control. Notice the difference in the general location of the plots, though. The upper chart shows Garcia having a very over-the-top motion releasing the ball at a high point. He's no giant, but letting go of the ball that high can make Garcia's 6'2" frame seem a lot taller from the batter's perspective and the enhanced downward plane can spice up his 12-6 curve and make his sinker heavier. However, this year shows a pattern of release points more to the side and a bit lower.  While this change hasn't had a huge effect on Garcia's control, it has manifested itself in the diminishing  effectiveness of his pitches. Reverting his release point back to where it was in 2011 isn't a difficult change to make, and I think if Garcia can do it he'll see marked improvement in his performance. I can only hope that Derek Lilliquist frequents the blog. 

Jon Jay and benefits of plate discipline

The Cardinals are hitting the crap out of the ball this year and they're hitting it a long way, too. I talked about this in a previous post, so go there if you want a more in-depth discussion of that, but offense is old news. What's new, however, is Jon Jay. Lots of the "power" talk centered around Carlos Beltran, David Freese and Yadier Molina, but not really Jay, the unassuming-looking center fielder who throws funny. He's not really the one who comes to mind when discussing the Cardinals' Backyard Baseball-style numbers (especially May 7) this year. But look at the MLB league leaders in batting average and sitting at fourth is The Chief Justice himself, hitting at a .381 clip. Due to his shoulder injury from running into the center field wall like the balls-out player he is, Jay has only played in 22 games, a little bit less than the other league leaders, but still enough to qualify for the leaderboard. 

Ed Andrieski/AP

He hasn't experienced a sudden transformation to slugger like Brian Roberts did in 2005, either: Jay has only hit two home runs and has an ISO of .095. His .476 slugging percentage is largely a product of his average. So clearly, something has changed in his approach. This is true on multiple fronts. For one, Jay is swinging and missing considerably less this year. He has made contact on 89.7% of his swings, considerably higher than 83.2% in 2011. This higher contact rate is a result of Jay being more selective in what he swings at. He has swung at 42.1% of pitches he's seen this year, a drop-off from 47.0% in 2011. Jay's plate discipline has improved. It hasn't improved in the more common sense of him taking more walks, as his BB% of 6.4% is right on line with his career number, but he's clearly become more adept at choosing his swings. This selectiveness has manifested itself in how Jay has hit the ball. He's hitting more line drives[1] and fewer fly balls[2] and more of those flies are leaving the yard.[3] He’s hitting the ball harder because he’s saving his hacks for better pitches. And that point can also be proven when we look at his PITCHf/x charts from Texasleaguers.com.

Looking at the pitches Jay swung at in 2011, it’s easy to see where all those choppers to the left side of the infield came from. Pitchers pounded the low and outside portion of the zone and while he did take many of those pitches, they also comprised most of Jay’s swings. Notwithstanding the smaller sample size, he has been much more selective this season. While he has fished for some pitches on the lower outside corner, the general distribution is more centered and evenly distributed. His chart showing where he has taken pitches indicates his ability to hold off on balls to the outside and avoid weakly pulling pitches on the ground. Due to this improved discipline, Jay has been spraying pitches all over the field with a shockingly even distribution.

With basically everyone in the Cardinals’ lineup hitting well, Mike Matheny will have to wrangle with the order when Lance Berkman returns to give at-bats to the people who deserve them. If Jay keeps hitting the way he has been, he won’t be making Matheny’s job any easier.  

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[1] 28.9% of batted balls, up from 22.5% last year

[2] 19.7%, down from 23.3%

[3] 13.3% HR/FB rate, up from 11.5%. 

Inconsistency and why the Cardinals' brooms remain in the closet

When I was sitting in my dorm lounge today watching the Cardinals game, one of my friends mentioned, with palpable distress, how inconsistent the Cardinals have been this season. My immediate response, given their 3.5 lead in the division and possession of the third-best record, being the second-best team batting average, the third-best team ERA the best run differential (an astounding +62) in the MLB, was something like this. But after some thought and careful deliberation, I'm feeling more like this.

There is one thing the Cardinals haven't done, something that other, clearly inferior teams, such as the Indians, Marlins and Mariners, have. They have yet to sweep a series. The Cardinals have only lost one, a dubious set in Chicago where they dropped two of three to the Cubs, but have won all the others. However, they have yet to string together three wins against one team. As discussed previously in this excellent post on Viva El Birdos, the Cardinals' run differential suggests a far better record than they actually possess, and with their current differential even vaster than the one in the article, I suspect their third order record is even more lopsided now. But their actual record, the only one that matters, is still 16-9, still tied for second-best in the National League despite a run differential 52 runs better than the Dodgers, owners of the league's best record. That defies baseball logic.

The Cardinals will look to capitalize on Allen Craig's return.
Jeff Curry/US Presswire

With their hitting, pitching and fielding (.988, best percentage in the NL) all discounted, the reason for the Cardinals disparity between run differential and record can be narrowed down to inconsistency. Due to their general success and propensity for blowout wins, this inconsistency stays under the radar and out of the public mind, unlike teams such as the 2011 Red Sox. But it's still there: the Cardinals clobbered the Brewers in their division-opening series by scores of 11-5 and 9-3, but their offense seemed to disappear in a 6-0 loss. They put up 10 and 12 runs in the first two games of their just-completed series against the Pirates, then were stymied for three runs in the 6-3 series finale loss. They carried two ninth-inning leads against the Cubs but lost both to late rallies/untimely bullpen blowups. That series, despite being the only one the Cardinals have lost, has been their best chance for a sweep so far.

The hitting has been there, the pitching has been there (especially with Adam Wainwright improving) and therefore, the wins have been there. But those qualities seem to fluctuate quite wildly for the Cardinals, with the peaks giving them their winning record and impressive run differential and the valleys giving them some baffling losses and preventing series sweeps. There have been more peaks than valleys, keeping the fans happy and the media occupied. For the Cardinals to have a truly excellent record and and completely fulfill the potential they've shown so far, they're going to need to string together some impressive streaks and start sweeping series, as those are without a doubt the best ways to gain momentum. Allen Craig's return is definitely going to help, as is Lance Berkman's when he eventually comes back. Simply playing more games will allow the team to adjust to the Greene-Descalso-Schumaker carousel at second base and get used to Craig's presence in the lineup, and with greater familiarity can come greater consistency. That is what I believe is the key for this team - once the roster is straightened out after this season's myriad injuries, comebacks, send-downs and call-ups, the Cardinals can find their groove and take off.

Matt Kemp and the dangers of painting the outside corner

This is Matt Kemp's spray chart. This is also absolutely unbelievable. By my un-precise count done basically by looking at the chart and counting the dots, Matt Kemp has 14 hits to the opposite field, right field in this case, and eight of those hits ended up over the fence. It seems like this leaves pitchers with two options: throw the ball inside and risk him turning on it or throw it outside, letting him wait and crank it out anyways. His PITCHf/x chart for takes from Texasleaguers.com shows that pitchers are going with the latter option, and he's making them pay. While this spray chart actually provides an illustration of the objective of that strategy - making Kemp pull grounders to the left side of the infield - it also shows that when Kemp stays back on the ball, the results are invariably catastrophic. Clearly, the man's seeing the ball incredibly well, so if he can make adjustments to pitching strategies such as this, he could put together a truly historical season.