Matt Holliday is not having a great year. It would be hard to say he is having a bad year, exactly, since he has hit .281/.362/.446 (128 wRC+) for the Cardinals, who are still within striking distance of the Pirates for first place in the Central, and as of today would be the top National League Wildcard team.

Holliday is clearly not playing up to his past standard, though. His 128 wRC+ is his worst since 2005, and his power, in particular, has dropped off, as he has only a a .165 ISO — the worst of his career. While some defensive metrics (somewhat controversially) used to see him as a good left fielder, the last couple of seasons even those that used to like his fielding have seen him as decidedly poor. Holliday has also missed more games than usual this year due to nagging injuries. He is also grounding into double plays at a rather frightening, Billy-Butler-in-2010 rate.

Still, all of that in itself would not necessarily be a problem for Holliday given his bat. The issue is that Holliday is 33, is making $17 million this year, and is guaranteed that same amount every season through 2016. Some of that money is deferred, but that is still a lot of money for a declining outfielder in his thirties.

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It is a certain treat to be able to watch baseball players not know what they’re doing. It’s not something you hope for all of the time, because then you’re just watching the Astros, but on occasion, it’s a little spice that can go a long way. A little bit of absurdity to season what might otherwise be a relatively unwatchable game. So often, we marvel at how these players are extraordinary at what they do. We watch them because we can’t be them. We appreciate, then, the moments at which they’re most like us.

The most popular and highly-anticipated example is the case of the position player taking the mound. Position players are trained to be position players and not pitchers, but sometimes they have to pitch, either because it’s a blowout or because extra innings won’t end. They’ve all, of course, pitched in the past, but they aren’t trained major leaguers, so they’re basically us + talent. Another, less-discussed example is the case of the relief pitcher batting. Relief pitchers are trained to be pitchers and not batters, but sometimes they bat, either because it’s a blowout or the situation is desperate. They’ve all, of course, batted in the past, but they aren’t trained major leaguers, so they’re basically us + talent.

It’s fun to watch position players pitch. It’s fun to watch relief pitchers bat. Wednesday night in St. Louis, in a game between the Dodgers and the Cardinals, fans witnessed them both. And they witnessed them both happen at the same time.

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St. Louis Cardinals outfielder Carlos Beltran!

I would say congratulations, but this probably isn’t the kind of award you want to win. So, let’s just skip the festivities and skip right to the recap, shall we?

In last night’s game between the Dodgers and Cardinals, Los Angeles held a 3-1 lead heading into the bottom of the 7th inning. Zack Greinke was pitching well, but he’d thrown 93 pitches and after facing a pinch-hitter for Adam Wainwright, was going to have to roll through the top of the batting order for the fourth time. This is danger territory, the type of spot where rallies are frequent and leads are often blown. Pitchers are less effective as they get deeper into the game and hitters perform better against a pitcher they’ve faced multiple times that day. The recipe for a comeback was in place.

And Greinke really hurt himself by walking the light-hitting Adron Chambers, who had pinch-hit for Wainwright leading off the inning. That walk took six pitches, and ended with Greinke throwing three straight out of the zone to put Chambers on first base. This brought up Matt Carpenter, the Cardinals All-Star second baseman, and the beginning of the best part of St. Louis’ offensive attack.

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The Indians traded for Marc Rzepczynski. They traded Juan Herrera to get him. Tuesday is the day before the MLB non-waiver trade deadline, and so far this is Tuesday’s only trade to take place. Despite all the rumors involving bigger names, only these players have been swapped, and most baseball fans probably literally couldn’t care any less. It’s a trade of one non-prospect for a reliever who’s spent most of the year in Triple-A. But being that it’s a move involving a contending team — the Indians! — we might as well talk about it a little bit.

The Indians have been in the market for a lefty reliever, and Rzepczynski is a lefty reliever. To date the Indians’ lefty relievers have been Rich Hill and, sometimes, Nick Hagadone. They asked about better relievers than Rzepczynski, but they didn’t like the prices, so they picked up Rzepczynski for the cost of a body and a paycheck. He’ll go right into the bullpen, and he’ll be looked to to pitch to good lefty hitters in the later innings. He’s one of them very minor additions that could feel like a very major addition in a close, important game.

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Hitting triples is pretty hard. At the height of triple-icity, they only comprised six percent of all the hits in the majors in any given season, and that was back in the first Dead Ball era. Today that figure hovers around two percent. Back in Stan Musial’s day it wasn’t a great deal higher — 3.3 percent during the seasons of his career (1941-1963, with 1945 excepted). And yet, Musial, a power hitter, hit the heck out of some triples.

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One of the most remarkable things about the Cardinals’ clutch hitting — aside from the reality of the Cardinals’ clutch hitting — is the way it refuses to regress the way we’d expect it to. From a Cardinals game recap over the weekend:

At the end of April, the team was batting .327 with runners in scoring position. A month later, the average was up to .333. Three months in, it sat at .335. And after going 2-for-5 with runners in scoring position on Sunday, the Cardinals now boast a mark of .338. No team in baseball history has even come close to maintaining such a pace.

The Cardinals came out of the gate hitting well with runners in scoring position. At least by batting average, every month they’ve only gotten better. That’s not what regression looks like. That’s the polar opposite of what regression looks like. It’s been enough to make some people wonder. Just what are the Cardinals doing, and how are the Cardinals doing it?

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Allen Craig’s a really good player, mostly because he’s a really good hitter. He just ranked No. 40 in Dave’s Trade Value series. Allen Craig has a lot of good things going on, and here’s one of them: he’s been the league’s best hitter with runners in scoring position. According to Baseball-Reference, 334 active players have at least 250 career plate appearances with runners in scoring position. By batting average in the split, Joe Mauer is third, at .338. Joey Votto is second, at .347. Allen Craig is first, at .396. Not only is Craig in first; to drop into a tie with Votto, he’d have to go hitless in his next 43 such at-bats. I’m not claiming that Craig is unusually clutch, but so far, he’s hit at the right times, and his category lead is remarkable.

So we have to acknowledge that Craig is good. We have to do this, before discussing a way in which he’s been bad. A way in which he’s been worse than everyone else. Allen Craig is a league leader in multiple categories, and the one explored below isn’t something Craig is going to want to hear about.

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The last time I wrote about Edge% it was in the context of the Tampa Bay Rays using it to get their pitchers into more favorable counts on 1-1. But now I want to take that topic and drill a little deeper to understand how often edge pitches are taken for called strikes.

Overall, pitches taken on the edge are called strikes 69% of the time. But that aggregate measure hides some pretty substantial differences. Going further on that idea, I wanted to see how the count impacts the likelihood of a pitch on the edge being called a strike.

Here are the results:

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Imagine, for a second, that Major League Baseball had an automated strike zone, and there weren’t any bugs in the system. Imagine that the zone were specifically defined, changing consistently for each hitter, such that there couldn’t ever be any dispute. The zone would be perfect, and any given pitch would be either a definite strike or a definite ball. What you have imagined doesn’t exist. Instead, we have human brains doing everything, and sometimes human brains fall for magic tricks and infomercials. Umpires make mistakes, and because of that, any pitch could conceivably be called either way. There’s always some probability, however small, that a bad pitch might be called a strike, or that a good pitch might be called a ball. This is the way it is, and for now the rate of mistakes is low enough that we haven’t had a bloody revolt.

Because there are mistakes, there is a spectrum of mistakes, with some being the most understandable and some being the most wrong. The most wrong strike-zone call would be a call with the greatest difference between the actual call and what the call should’ve been. Imagine a fastball down the middle. If it’s taken, and called a ball, that would be a big mistake on the umpire’s part. With all this in mind, the month of June is over, so I thought we’d take a look at the month’s most wrong ball call. In part out of curiosity; in part to see what we can learn. Get ready for a little Edwin Jackson.

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I don’t know if you can really understand until he’s yours. You might’ve forgotten, but Cliff Lee pitched for the Mariners once, and while I knew Lee was an ace starter beforehand, it wasn’t until I watched him every five days that I really “got” it. Lee was perfect. He wasn’t and isn’t the best starting pitcher in the world, but he’s close, and he does everything perfectly, just like you’d want him to. He’s always pitching in the strike zone, so he doesn’t get himself in trouble. He works quickly, which is refreshing, and his command is as good as anyone’s. Because of the zone work, Lee doesn’t issue walks, and because of the command and the quality of the stuff, Lee manages to rack up the strikeouts. Lee’s quick and always ahead in the count, and if you’ve had the chance to watch him and root for him, you know the way that I feel. When Lee isn’t pitching, you wish that he were.

Lee, then, is a superior form, a rare form, and he shouldn’t be the subject of many comparisons. Certainly, you wouldn’t expect to see his name linked to that of a right-handed young starter with basically two pitches. In terms of scouting reports, Cliff Lee and Shelby Miller don’t have a whole lot in common, aside from the fact that they throw baseballs at guys in equipment. But when you look at the processes, when you look at the results, Miller’s following in the right footsteps from a very young age.

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