With a two-out, two-run walk-off single off St. Louis closer Jason Motte, the Cubs’ Joe Mather became Monday night’s unlikeliest hero. But all you had to do was ask him — before the traditional shaving cream pie to the face, of course — and he’d tell you (as he told WGN after the game) the man truly responsible for the Cubs’ ninth-inning rally was Bryan LaHair. The 29-year-old Cubs project worked a 12-pitch walk off Motte with one out, fouling off six consecutive offerings on a 3-2 count. Motte would eventually blow the save on his 31st pitch of the night. Only one other time has Motte thrown over 31 pitches in a single-inning appearance — July 16, 2010 against Los Angeles — and he gave up two runs in that outing as well.

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Calculations!

Every year, some players start hot, others start cold. In the past, when a player had a high BABIP to start the season, we said, “Oh, well he’s lucky. His numbers will come down.” But now we can say with greater certainty, using Fielding Independent wOBA (or FI wOBA), what a player’s wOBA would actually regress to, given their performance in other areas.

Let’s look at the top five BABIPs in the league with FI wOBA regressed to career BABIP rates (or CaB-FIw for Career BABIP FI wOBA).

David Wright: .536 BABIP, .503 wOBA, .424 CaB-FIw

Even if/when Wright’s BABIP comes back to his career .342 BABIP, his peripherals are off the charts. He is on pace for 30 homers, which is nothing miraculous for Wright, but he is also walking and striking out at a 12.5% rate.

Will that kind of patience continue? Eh, probably not to that extreme, but it certainly means Wright is seeing the ball well right now and could be poised for a really good year.

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Opening Day 1.5 featured a one-game series with the defending world champs, the St. Louis Cardinals, and the league’s latest makeover recipient, the Miami Marlins. Righty Kyle Lohse earned the Opening Day honors for the Cardinals on the merit of being not recently or presently injured, and much to the surprise of many, Lohse took a perfect game no hitter into the 7th inning.

His line from the game:

7.1 IP, 1 ER, 3 K, 0 BB, 8 GB, 10 FB, 2 LD

All told, that comes to a 1.23 ERA, 1.49 FIP, 2.94 xFIP, and… a 4.22 SIERA…

Everything but that SIERA number suggests Lohse had a great start. Let’s find out why.
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Read the methodology behind the ratings here. Remember that the grading scale is 20-80, with 50 representing league average.

2012 Organizational Rankings

#30 – Baltimore
#29 – Houston
#28 – Oakland
#27 – Pittsburgh
#26 – San Diego
#25 – Minnesota
#24 – Chicago White Sox
#23 – Seattle
#22 – Kansas City
#21 – Cleveland
#20 – New York Mets
#19 – Los Angeles Dodgers
#18 – Colorado
#17 — Miami
#16 — Diamondbacks
#15 — Cincinnati
#14 — Cubs
#13 — Milwaukee
#12 — San Francisco
#11 — Washington
#10 — Tampa Bay
#9 – Toronto
#8 – Atlanta
#7 – Detroit

St. Louis’s 2011 Ranking: 13th

2012 Outlook – 60 (8th)

One down, 161 to go, right?

I think the assumption around baseball was if Albert Pujols left the Cardinals, he would leave a husk of a team behind him. If his teammates didn’t prove their worth enough throughout their playoff run in 2011, they’ll get ample chance to do so in 2012. They should be up to the challenge, as this roster was especially well suited to replacing a departing first baseman. With Lance Berkman moving in from right field to a more suiting first base and Carlos Beltran filling the hole left by Pujols, the Cardinals’ offense has a chance to repeat as the best in the National League (as measured by both runs scored and wRC+).

Throw in more games from David Freese (just 97 last year), Rafael Furcal (and therefore less Ryan Theriot) and Allen Craig (either off the bench or as an intriguing second base option) and one can make a good argument that the Cardinals can replace Pujols’s sheer star power with depth in the lineup that is unrivaled in the National League. It is a team that is solid defensively across the board as well, particularly with Daniel Descalso at second base instead of Craig.

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I’m currently in Jupiter, Florida, as a guest both of (a) my 91-year-old grandfather and (a) the Miami Marlins of Florida. Today was the third and final day on the backfields here, and what follows represents the third and final installment of mediocre analysis on same. (Read Day 1 and Day 2.)

Today, I watched mostly the Double-A game between the Cardinals and Marlins — or, alternately, the Springfield Cardinals and Jacksonville Suns of the Texas and Southern Leagues, respectively.

On Michael Blazek
Right-hander Michael Blazek, 23, pitched for the Cardinals, and is probably the most polished pitcher of any that I saw this week — if not always in terms of command, then at least in his ability to repeat the same shape and velocity on all his pitches. Blazek doesn’t have what you’d call “pedigree”: he appears neither on our Marc Hulet’s top-15 prospect list for the Cardinals, nor on Baseball America’s top-30 list (from their Handbook), nor on John Sickels’ top-20 list, nor on Kevin Goldstein’s top-20 list. There are probably a number of reasons for why his (i.e. Blazek’s) name is omitted from so many lists. The easiest one to which we can point is velocity: at no point did Blazek hit as high as even 92 mph on the radar gun. And it’s a fact that there’s a real correlation between fastball velocity and run prevention.

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I’m currently in Jupiter, Florida, as a guest both of (a) my 91-year-old grandfather and (a) the Miami Marlins of Florida. Today was Day 1 of 3 of my time here. I’ll be spending time on the backfields, watching some minor-league games and providing mediocre analysis on same.

Today, I watched mostly the High-A game between the Marlins and Cardinals — or, alternately, the Jupiter Hammerheads and Palm Beach Cardinals, of the Sally and Florida State League, respectively.

Regarding Grant Dayton
Left-hander Grant Dayton, 24, pitched for Miami and was generally excellent — although, perhaps, less excellent in consideration of his age. He threw what appeared to be four or five pitches, depending on how all the breaking balls are split up: a fastball at 88-91 mph, a cutter at ca. 85 mph, a slider at around 80 mph, and a change at 82-83 mph. There were a couple of breaking balls in the high 70s, too, so it’s possible that he was throwing a curve. In any case, the shape of the pitch was pretty similar to the slider.

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The depth within the minor league system is still not where it needs to be for the organization to be considered among the best in baseball. However the club has infused some exciting talent into the mix in recent years. The Cardinals minor league system is definitely one to watch in the years ahead as it boasts some high-ceiling talent and a plethora of hard-throwing relief arms.

1. Shelby Miller, RHP
BORN: Oct. 19, 1990
EXPERIENCE: 3 seasons
ACQUIRED: 2009 1st round, Texas HS
2010-11 TOP 10 RANKING: 1st

One of the top arms available in the 2009 draft, the hard-throwing Texan can fire his heat up into the mid-to-high 90s and it has excellent movement. Miller’s fastball is so effective that he has to be encouraged to use his secondary pitches, both of which show flashes of brilliance: a curveball and changeup. Although they have potential, Miller needs to command them better. His plus velocity allows him to safely work in the upper half of the strike zone but it would be nice to see the fly-ball pitcher generate a few more ground-ball outs. After splitting 2011 between high-A and double-A, the right-hander should move up to triple-A where he’ll face a stiff challenge by facing an increased number of strong fastball hitters. Miller has the ceiling of a No. 1 starter and he could be pitching in St. Louis by the end of the ’12 season.

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With disabled list information available going back 10 years, I have decided to examine some league wide and team trends.

League Trends

To begin with, here are the league values for trips, days and average days lost to the DL over the past 10 years.

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Yadier Molina is one of my favorite players in the sport. His combination of elite defensive skills and developing offense gives him a real argument to be considered the best catcher in the sport, and he’s one of the main reasons the Cardinals have been a contending team since he took over as their regular catcher in 2005. And, beyond just his on field value, Molina is remarkably entertaining to watch, as his footwork and arm strength allow him to do things that most catchers can’t even dream of.

However, as much as I love Molina, I figured his contract extension talks with the Cardinals would end with him re-signing for something like $40 million over four years with some sort of vesting option at the end of the deal. Instead, he’s reportedly agreed to a five year contract with St. Louis worth between $70 and $75 million, per Ken Rosenthal, which would be the third richest deal for a catcher in the history of the game – only Joe Mauer ($184 million) and Mike Piazza ($91 million) made more in a single contract. Given the enormous gap between what I thought Molina would sign for and what he actually got from St. Louis, my initial reaction is that this was an overpay by the Cardinals. Even as good as Molina’s defense is – and as limited as our abilities are to accurately value catcher defense right now – they’re still signing up for the age 30-34 seasons of a catcher who has carried a pretty heavy workload up to this point in his career. At $14 million per year, Molina is going to have to remain one of the game’s best catchers in order to justify the salary. What are the odds that he’ll still be an elite player in 2017?

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Our braintrust is hard at work identifying the game’s best pitches for all of your February needs. Now it’s time to uncover some of the worst pitches in the game — with as little snark as possible. Because even the worst pitch in the big leagues is way, way better than most of us can manage. And if a pitcher owns a pitch on this list, they must be doing something else right in order to remain in the big leagues. Either that, or they’re not long for the bigs.

At least identifying poor pitches can be a useful and enjoyable exercise. And you’re supposed to do thirty minutes of that every day, so that’s an extra benefit for us.

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