93 and 69
ok, time to get down to it. the cards will finish 93-69 this year, which will likely (but not surely) get them into the playoffs for the fifth time in six years. a great big cloud of triumphalism has billowed up among the cardinal faithful this spring, particularly during the last week or so of camp, and it seems to me badly misplaced; i think this is going to be a rockier ride than anybody wants.
i base the forecast on the following considerations, presented in no particular order:
history. the vast majority of 100-win teams win fewer than 100 for an encore. that goes for even the most dominant teams of the past generation. the ’84 tigers (104 wins), ’86 mets (108), ’88 a’s (104), and ’95 indians (100-44 in strike-shortened year) all failed to reach 100 the following year, as did the two winningest teams of all time, the ’98 yankees (114 wins) and ’01 mariners (116). so 90-something wins almost surely it will be. that conclusion is reinforced by the glances i took this winter at 100-win teams, runaway division winners, dual league leaders in runs for and runs against, and the four teams with profiles most similar to the 2004-05 cardinals.
leading indicators. in one of the abstracts, bill james enumerated seven "leading indicators" to distinguish teams on the rise from teams on the decline. i can’t remember all seven, but i know the list included three that augur ill for the cards in ’05:
1) differential betw actual w-l and pythagorean w-l: the cards were +5 in ’04, ie they were a 100-win team masquerading as a 105-winner. even if all else stays the same, luck alone will likely shave at least five games off the cards’ win total
2) age: old teams tend to decline; young teams tend to improve. the cards are old.
3) previous-year improvement/decline: the cards improved by 20 games in ’04. a bounce that large tends to be followed by a bounce in the opposite direction the following season.
career years. a lot of cardinals played at the top of their games last season, and hence may be due for a bit of a letdown in ’05. how widespread was this happy syndrome last year? here’s a list of career bests established by cardinal players in 2004:
womack — ba, oba, slg, ops, ops+
rolen — hr, ba, oba, slg, ops, ops+
edmonds — hr (t), rbi, slg, ops, ops+
mabry — hr (t), oba, slg, ops, ops+
pujols — hr, walks
matheney — rbi
marquis — w, ip, gs, so
suppan — w, h/ip
carp’ter — w, h/ip, wh/ip, k/ip, era (1.13 below career avg), era+
king — w, g, h/ip, wh/ip, era, era+
tavarez — era (2.00 below career average)*, h/ip
kline — era, h/ip
so let’s see: the three-four-five hitters all set or tied career highs in homers, and two of those three also set new standards in slugging and ops. the leadoff man set a career mark for oba. three starting pitchers set career highs in wins. and perhaps most incredible of all, the entire setup corps (king tavarez kline and calero) set career lows in both era and hits per inning. . . . . the sabermetricians have a stat for this sort of thing: they call it Flurry of Lucky, Unprecedented Creer Events, or FLUCES. (ok, so they can't spell . . . . they're sabrmetricians.) no need to tell you that the cardinals led the majors in it last year by a wide margin. some of last year’s stalwarts are going to have lesser years in ’05, and one or two may flat-out suck. the cards led the league in both runs scored and runs prevented last year; i don’t believe they’ll lead in either this season. still in the upper echelon, but not on the throne.
the bullpen in particular seems primed for a busted bubble. tavarez’s 2.38 era was two runs below his career average; he won’t have calero to take the heat off him this season and strikes me as rather liable to get exposed. king’s career year in ’04 wasn’t quite as far out of line with his norms, but he pitched in 86 games and reported some arm stiffness this spring . . . . duh. even if fat ray stays limber, he will need support from two scrubs (pulsipher and flores) who might have struggled to make the staff out here in denver. the rh setup corps — tavarez eldred and al reyes — will not scare anyone. if king hits the dl and tavarez reverts to form . . . . well just keep yer fingers crossed.
so much for what concerns me about the team. . . . . actually i could go on, but the point has been made. what’s to like about the 2005 cards?
the starting pitching. the cardinals’ two best pitchers, mulder and morris, are both due to rebound from subpar years. bad shoulder and all, morris fanned 6 guys per 9 innings, had a whip of 1.29, and won 15 games last season; that’s one of the best "bad" pitching lines in franchise history. he returns healthy, slightly pissed off, and pitching for a new contract — he could win 20. carpenter is the new woody williams — in and out of arm trouble, but in command and good for 15 wins. suppan is a known quantity, marquis just the opposite — might win 15 again, or might pitch his way out of the rotation by the all-star break.
that brings us to mulder, the great x-file. rarely has an offseason acquisition been burdened with such portent as this one. if he’s on, mulder goes 21-5 and the cardinals return to the series. if he’s off, he spends more time on the d.l. and the sports psychologist’s couch than on the mound, and st louis labors to 86 victories. if the former, jocketty supplants billy beane as baseball’s reigning front-office genius; if the latter, he supplants john depodesta as the reigning front-office schmuck.
i’m betting that jocketty knows what he’s doing.
they can still hit. as long as albert stays healthy, they’ll put up enough runs.
the division stinks. the astros and cubs both remain dangerous (more so than we might like to admit), but we’d all be a lot more worried if they both hadn’t trimmed strong-armed starters and rbi men from their rosters.
they have trade depth and payroll flexibility. even with haren’s departure, the cards still have attractive pitching prospects — enough to fetch a setup man, a lefthanded bat, a middle infielder, or whatever other fortification(s) they might need come july. nobody shops more wisely at the midseason flea market than jocketty.
if it sounds like i don’t think much of this team . . . . well how could you not be concerned? the cardinals brought in castoffs to play second and short, topped off the bullpen with journeymen and reclamation projects, and have staked nearly all on a guy who basically pitched his team out of the playoffs last september. ev’yone else has holes, sure, but the cards are far from invincible . . . . . with the league (especially the central) so far down, though, i don’t know that anyone will vince them. the cubs? for sure, if their aces hold up and their bullpen holds leads. houston? sorry, don’t think so. pittsburgh? not ready. cincinnati? c’mon . . . .
the wild card will probably come out of the nl east this year, where florida phila and atlanta will be vying. the cubs are sloppy and stupid, but they sure can pitch. i foresee a tense summer in st louis.
predicted runs scored: 830, 3d in league (behind phila and fla)
predicted runs allowed: 700, 6th in league (behind fla la chi nym and atl)
predicted finish: 93-69, 1st place by 1 game over chicago
nl east champ: florida
nl central champ: st louis
nl west champ: san francisco
nl wild card: philadelphia
al east champ: new york
al central: minnesota
al west: anaheim
al wild card: oakland
pennant winners: st louis, new york
series: st louis
i base the forecast on the following considerations, presented in no particular order:
history. the vast majority of 100-win teams win fewer than 100 for an encore. that goes for even the most dominant teams of the past generation. the ’84 tigers (104 wins), ’86 mets (108), ’88 a’s (104), and ’95 indians (100-44 in strike-shortened year) all failed to reach 100 the following year, as did the two winningest teams of all time, the ’98 yankees (114 wins) and ’01 mariners (116). so 90-something wins almost surely it will be. that conclusion is reinforced by the glances i took this winter at 100-win teams, runaway division winners, dual league leaders in runs for and runs against, and the four teams with profiles most similar to the 2004-05 cardinals.
leading indicators. in one of the abstracts, bill james enumerated seven "leading indicators" to distinguish teams on the rise from teams on the decline. i can’t remember all seven, but i know the list included three that augur ill for the cards in ’05:
1) differential betw actual w-l and pythagorean w-l: the cards were +5 in ’04, ie they were a 100-win team masquerading as a 105-winner. even if all else stays the same, luck alone will likely shave at least five games off the cards’ win total
2) age: old teams tend to decline; young teams tend to improve. the cards are old.
3) previous-year improvement/decline: the cards improved by 20 games in ’04. a bounce that large tends to be followed by a bounce in the opposite direction the following season.
career years. a lot of cardinals played at the top of their games last season, and hence may be due for a bit of a letdown in ’05. how widespread was this happy syndrome last year? here’s a list of career bests established by cardinal players in 2004:
womack — ba, oba, slg, ops, ops+
rolen — hr, ba, oba, slg, ops, ops+
edmonds — hr (t), rbi, slg, ops, ops+
mabry — hr (t), oba, slg, ops, ops+
pujols — hr, walks
matheney — rbi
marquis — w, ip, gs, so
suppan — w, h/ip
carp’ter — w, h/ip, wh/ip, k/ip, era (1.13 below career avg), era+
king — w, g, h/ip, wh/ip, era, era+
tavarez — era (2.00 below career average)*, h/ip
kline — era, h/ip
so let’s see: the three-four-five hitters all set or tied career highs in homers, and two of those three also set new standards in slugging and ops. the leadoff man set a career mark for oba. three starting pitchers set career highs in wins. and perhaps most incredible of all, the entire setup corps (king tavarez kline and calero) set career lows in both era and hits per inning. . . . . the sabermetricians have a stat for this sort of thing: they call it Flurry of Lucky, Unprecedented Creer Events, or FLUCES. (ok, so they can't spell . . . . they're sabrmetricians.) no need to tell you that the cardinals led the majors in it last year by a wide margin. some of last year’s stalwarts are going to have lesser years in ’05, and one or two may flat-out suck. the cards led the league in both runs scored and runs prevented last year; i don’t believe they’ll lead in either this season. still in the upper echelon, but not on the throne.
the bullpen in particular seems primed for a busted bubble. tavarez’s 2.38 era was two runs below his career average; he won’t have calero to take the heat off him this season and strikes me as rather liable to get exposed. king’s career year in ’04 wasn’t quite as far out of line with his norms, but he pitched in 86 games and reported some arm stiffness this spring . . . . duh. even if fat ray stays limber, he will need support from two scrubs (pulsipher and flores) who might have struggled to make the staff out here in denver. the rh setup corps — tavarez eldred and al reyes — will not scare anyone. if king hits the dl and tavarez reverts to form . . . . well just keep yer fingers crossed.
so much for what concerns me about the team. . . . . actually i could go on, but the point has been made. what’s to like about the 2005 cards?
the starting pitching. the cardinals’ two best pitchers, mulder and morris, are both due to rebound from subpar years. bad shoulder and all, morris fanned 6 guys per 9 innings, had a whip of 1.29, and won 15 games last season; that’s one of the best "bad" pitching lines in franchise history. he returns healthy, slightly pissed off, and pitching for a new contract — he could win 20. carpenter is the new woody williams — in and out of arm trouble, but in command and good for 15 wins. suppan is a known quantity, marquis just the opposite — might win 15 again, or might pitch his way out of the rotation by the all-star break.
that brings us to mulder, the great x-file. rarely has an offseason acquisition been burdened with such portent as this one. if he’s on, mulder goes 21-5 and the cardinals return to the series. if he’s off, he spends more time on the d.l. and the sports psychologist’s couch than on the mound, and st louis labors to 86 victories. if the former, jocketty supplants billy beane as baseball’s reigning front-office genius; if the latter, he supplants john depodesta as the reigning front-office schmuck.
i’m betting that jocketty knows what he’s doing.
they can still hit. as long as albert stays healthy, they’ll put up enough runs.
the division stinks. the astros and cubs both remain dangerous (more so than we might like to admit), but we’d all be a lot more worried if they both hadn’t trimmed strong-armed starters and rbi men from their rosters.
they have trade depth and payroll flexibility. even with haren’s departure, the cards still have attractive pitching prospects — enough to fetch a setup man, a lefthanded bat, a middle infielder, or whatever other fortification(s) they might need come july. nobody shops more wisely at the midseason flea market than jocketty.
if it sounds like i don’t think much of this team . . . . well how could you not be concerned? the cardinals brought in castoffs to play second and short, topped off the bullpen with journeymen and reclamation projects, and have staked nearly all on a guy who basically pitched his team out of the playoffs last september. ev’yone else has holes, sure, but the cards are far from invincible . . . . . with the league (especially the central) so far down, though, i don’t know that anyone will vince them. the cubs? for sure, if their aces hold up and their bullpen holds leads. houston? sorry, don’t think so. pittsburgh? not ready. cincinnati? c’mon . . . .
the wild card will probably come out of the nl east this year, where florida phila and atlanta will be vying. the cubs are sloppy and stupid, but they sure can pitch. i foresee a tense summer in st louis.
predicted runs scored: 830, 3d in league (behind phila and fla)
predicted runs allowed: 700, 6th in league (behind fla la chi nym and atl)
predicted finish: 93-69, 1st place by 1 game over chicago
nl east champ: florida
nl central champ: st louis
nl west champ: san francisco
nl wild card: philadelphia
al east champ: new york
al central: minnesota
al west: anaheim
al wild card: oakland
pennant winners: st louis, new york
series: st louis
posted by L Boros at 9:07 AM
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