The Cardinals face possible elimination today at the hands of the Pirates. It has been a wild year for the National League Central. One could make an argument that, this season at least, the National League Central was right up there with the American League East as the best division in baseball. The Cardinals won that division and tied the Red Sox for the best record in baseball.

But it could all end for St. Louis today. Although I personally do not have a rooting interest in this series (yeah, it would be fun to see the Pirates advance, but that is not the same as being a fan of either team), it would be too bad to see the Cardinals’ Matt-heavy lineup depart. It has Matt Carpenter, a legitimate MVP candidate in his first year of full-time major league play, Matt Holliday, who overcame a relatively slow start to have another very good season, and Matt Adams, a rookie who is starting the place of the injured Allen Craig, and who managed to whack 17 home runs in part-time action.

With my own semi-vested interest in Matts, and with the Matt-loaded Cardinals playing perhaps their last game of 2013 today, a bit of trivia is in order: the best-hitting Matts in playoff history.

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Sure, Game 163 is looming, and it counts as part of the regular season, but aside from some tweaks, the numbers are pretty much in for the 2013 season. We are close enough for at least some simple retrospectives on certain numerical accomplishments from the almost finished season. Some of the metrics involved are more meaningful or useful than others, but this post will not focus on analysis. As long as one does not confuse the listing of some metric below with an endorsement — or a criticism, for that matter — of its value, it is fine to simply take pleasure these accomplishments..

Some of these achievements have more historical resonance than others (and to a certain extent that is in the eye of the beholder). This is not presented as an exhaustive list, either. To begin, though, we do have two all-time marks set by relief pitchers this season.

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Analytically-focused baseball hobbyists are not supposed to fall for the temptation of round-numbered accomplishments. Sure, round numbers are easy to remember (40-40 is easier to remember than, say, 34-41 or something), but over time they can appear to have a meaning or value beyond simply being an arbitrary, if memorable, landmark.

That is all a qualification to this post. When looking into top recent single-season bunts for hits numbers, I ran across many of the usual suspects — Juan Pierre, Willy Taveras, and the like. Actually, it started when I was checking out Starling Marte’s season. It has been a weird one for the Pirates’ left fielder. He has been a key element in the Pirates’ run to the playoffs this year despite not having the typical left field offensive profile. He relies heavily on getting drilled to get on base. But even if one has serious doubts about his defensive numbers, he has had a nice year at the plate (.282/.343/.447, 122 wRC+).

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Andy Pettitte is going to announce his (second) retirement this afternoon. Much will be written (again) about Pettitte’s career and, of course, his Hall of Fame prospects. Others are better at the history and biography stuff, and, well, at pretty much all of the other stuff, too. Personally, I am not interested in predicting whether a player will get into the Hall of Fame. Analyzing players is one thing. Sociological and psychological evaluations of the Hall of Fame’s voters is another (that is not a commentary on the voters, just on my interests). When it comes to stuff like this, I prefer to focus on a player’s worthiness, that is, whether he should get into the Hall of Fame.

Much will be written regarding Pettitte’s Hall of Fame contributions now and in the off-season, just as much was written about his post-2010 retirement. I am not going to cover every angle or offer a final verdict. Rather, I want to to discuss two or three tough angles for the sabermetric evaluation of Pettitte’s case that make it an intriguing topic.

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Platoon splits are real, and they matter. The trouble comes in when people put too much emphasis on individual platoon performance over a short period of time. It is understandable, of course, and as fans, we have a right to overreact to things. But when it comes to getting to the truth of things, it gets a bit more complicated. One can read about the general principles of thinking about observed platoon performance versus true talent elsewhere. What can be instructive is looking at some concrete cases of unusual or standout performances of certain players. For today, let’s take a look at the platoon histories of a couple of left-handed hitters: Alex Gordon and Robinson Cano.

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Who knew Yan Gomes was the key to playoff contention? When he and Mike Aviles were traded from Toronto to Cleveland for Esmil Rogers, the Jays were in the midst of a massive off-season makeover that was supposed to make them American League East contenders. They were sending two redundant bench pieces away to Cleveland — a team unlikely to chase down Detroit for the AL Central title — for a bit of pitching upside. Fast forward to today: the Jays have been out of realistic contention for months, while Cleveland currently has 20 or 30 percent chance of making the playoffs, depending on which set of odds one consults. Gomes has hit .302/.353/.513 (140 wRC+) with good defense this year, while Toronto’s J.P. Arencibia has hit .205/.241/.382 (65 wRC+) with terrible defense.
Clearly, the trade has been the difference.

Jokes aside, Gomes has played surprisingly well this season, and lately has even supplanted Carlos Santana (who has been getting starts at first and DH) as Cleveland’s primary catcher. Part of that has to do with Santana’s struggles behind the plate this year, but Gomes’ good play has also been a factor. It would be easy to say Cleveland got lucky, but every team has its share of unexpected good and bad performances.

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Remember when a seven-year, $126 million deal seemed pretty crazy? Sure, Jayson Werth’s similar contract (signed prior to the 2011 season) does not exactly seem great (although he is having a nice year) these days, either, but back during the 2006-2007 off-season, when Barry Zito signed with the Giants, it seemed utterly insane. It was not simply that it was, at the time, the biggest contract ever signed by a pitcher. Prices go up — hot dogs cost more now than ever before, and I do not see any moral panic about that phenomenon. It was that Zito seemed like a poor choice for such a deal. Sure, he was a three-time All-Star and the 2004 American League Cy Young winner. He was durable, as he had pitched more than 210 innings six seasons in a row for the As. However, Zito was going to be 29 in 2007, and his strikeout and walk rates, which had never been all that impressive, seemed to be getting worse. It looked like it was going to be an albatross.

It was. Although he has had his moments over the last seven seasons, as a final cherry on top (insert a joke about the 2014 option here), Zito’s 2013 season has been one more blow to the contract year theory of player performance. In the last season of his notorious contract, Zito has had the worst year of his career. He lost his rotation spot in August (although he received another shot in the rotation for a few starts later). Zito’s time with the Giants is drawing to a close, and he is not going to get a ceremonial final start at home, if that was something someone wanted. This is not meant as a career retrospective. Instead, I want to look at something that Zito seemed to have in Oakland, something that probably played a big part in the Giants’ willingness to give him the contract, something which seemed to depart after he made the move: his ability to outperform DIPS metrics.

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The Pirates are (probably) going to the playoffs for the first time since 1992. According to the various versions of playoff odds now available at FanGraphs, Pittsburgh currently has at least a 95 percent change of making the playoffs. Their chances of winning the National League Central are much lower, so that throws them into the single-game playoff mix, but getting in is getting in.

The team is not resting on their laurels, though. Having already acquired Marlon Byrd and John Buck from the Mets, the Pirates are now rumored to be trying to get Justin Morneau from the Twins. The Pirates have mostly utilized a first base platoon with Garrett Jones and Gaby Sanchez and are still positioned to reach the postseason. So, how much of an improvement would the ghost of Morneau provide?

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There probably were some analysts who liked Jayson Werth’s seven-year, $126 million contract for the Nationals when it was signed prior to the 2011 season, but no names spring to mind. It was not that Werth had been a bad player. There was actually an argument to be made that the contract was market value for a player of Werth’s projected value, but it was an open question as to whether a team in Washington’s situation should have been paying market value at that point, as Dave Cameron noted at the time.

The last point was based on the question of whether or not the Nationals would be good enough during the first part of the contract to justify making such an aggressive move. After a near-.500 2011 season, the Nationals held up their end of the deal in 2012, going 98-64 and winning the Natinal League East. They lost to the Cardinals in NL Division Series, but given the excellent young talent they seemed primed to make a few more runs with Werth still is his decent years.

But Werth was not really holding up his end. In 2011, he did not hit that well, and in 2012, he missed about half the season due to injury. This season, the Nationals are having an extremely disappointing season given the expectations raised by 2012. Many things have gone wrong for Washington this year, but Werth is not one of them.

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It is tough to criticize the Texas Rangers’ decisions. If the current standings hold up, they will win the American League Westfor the third time in four years. Even if Oakland catches up, the Rangers will still probably make the playoffs for the fourth season in a row. They went to the World Series in 2010 and 2011. No team has a spotless record when it comes to personnel decisions either at the time or in hindsight. Every team enjoys some good luck and suffers some bad luck. These days, no team has a lineup full of superstars or even above-average players. Most teams have to get by with at least one or two mediocre players, usually to save money so that it can be spent elsewhere.

Thus, it is not completely strange that Rangers are making do with Mitch Moreland as their primary first baseman once again. Moreland got off to a hot start this season, but came back to earth with a current seasonal line of .244/.306/.446 (98 wRC+). He is is even starting to lose playing time in a semi-platoon with journeyman Jeff Baker. Moreland was only a bit better last season, which he finished with a 105 wRC+ after splitting first base duties with Michael Young and Mike Napoli. Moreland is pretty much a league average bat, which does not cut it as a first baseman, even if it does not kill the Rangers given their other strengths. As written above, few teams are without a weak spot on the diamond.

Nonetheless, the Rangers would obviously like to be better at first base. From that perspective, it is interesting to see the talented first baseman that came up with Texas over the last decade or so and have since moved on.

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