Wednesday, March 29, 2006
Cards 2006 quick look
Ok, new season is upon us, I'm going to try to write on here a minimum of three times a week, even if it's just random gibberish about the previous series or something.
This off season the Cardinals didn't do much, to be perfectly honest, but to be honest not much was needed to be done. For the record the Cardinals effectively lost one outfielder in Larry Walker/ Reggie Sanders. Encarnacion is the replacement there, no one expects him to perform to the level that Larry Sanders played at, or even the level that Encarnacion himself played at last year. (OPS+ for Larry Sanders was approximately 130) Encarnacion posted 113 last year, that is probably better than reasonably expected, I would settle for around 105-110 ops+. On the opposite side, we are expecting a slight performance upgrade with the other outfield spot. Last year we had an effective platoon of Taguchi, Mabry and Jrod patrolling the outfield, Jrod probably performed better than expected, but Mabry wasn't that good Bigbie probably will outperform him, and even playing at a lower level than last year, Jrod will still be an improvement offensively over taguchi last year. On the whole I imagine that when it's all said and done our outfield offense will net out to be as good as it was last season.
The infield should also be a net wash, even if Spivey never figures out how to hit again, the addition of Rolen for a full season should offset any offensive loss and even defensive loss we get from having Spivey play a full season. Personally I think offensively Spivey will end up being better than Grudz, but defensively should be worse so at second base alone it should be a wash, Rolen of course will be a tremendous upgrade, I mean going from roughly 84 ops+ which is what we got from third base last year to a minimum of 120 from him this year. Cub fans are all giddy about dumping patterson for Pierre, yet the swing difference between those two is actually about the same, yet somehow the addition of Pierre for Patterson is a big coup for the cubs, addition of Rolen for Nunez is a net even? and then the funnier thing is that Pierre is a horrible defender, while Corey is a very good defender so that makes up some of the difference, Nunez was an adequate defender while Rolen is elite....Oh well Cub fans, and typical experts are funny when they look at these things.
as it stands offensively the Cardinals should have a small overall offensive improvement(I've estimated about 30 runs-being conservative to be honest, rolen alone should be about 35 run improvement)
Pitching wise we lost Matt Morris, who was effectively an average pitcher last season, I would estimate that Ponson will start off well, eventually the league will catch up to him by that time Wainwright or Reyes should have proven they can pitch at this level (my money is on Wainwright) and TLR will flip them into the rotation. Carpenter should have some decline, and so should Suppan. Marquis should respond better than he has done lately as I feel that it's his free agent year and hate to go with the cliche but players do perform better in their free agent seasons. Mulder should be a wash with a slight potential of a great season.(not likely)
Bullpen wise it's a lot tougher to judge, we got some real good performances out of unexpected sources last year, true that is the hallmark of a duncan/tlr team, but we lost a few of those guys, most notably Al Reyes, but even Tavarez. I fully expect Looper to at least equal out to Tavarez. Beyond that though our bullpen is going to be hard press to match what we got last year out of them. Even trusting TLR and Duncan to do the best job possible, it is going to take some luck for our bullpen to match their great season last year, I would expect almost half of the runs that we should gain offensively to be lost by the pen. I'll probably go into greater detail on this later, but basically when it's all said and done the cardinals should perform about the same as they did last year, with a weaker division 95 games isn't out of the question.
This off season the Cardinals didn't do much, to be perfectly honest, but to be honest not much was needed to be done. For the record the Cardinals effectively lost one outfielder in Larry Walker/ Reggie Sanders. Encarnacion is the replacement there, no one expects him to perform to the level that Larry Sanders played at, or even the level that Encarnacion himself played at last year. (OPS+ for Larry Sanders was approximately 130) Encarnacion posted 113 last year, that is probably better than reasonably expected, I would settle for around 105-110 ops+. On the opposite side, we are expecting a slight performance upgrade with the other outfield spot. Last year we had an effective platoon of Taguchi, Mabry and Jrod patrolling the outfield, Jrod probably performed better than expected, but Mabry wasn't that good Bigbie probably will outperform him, and even playing at a lower level than last year, Jrod will still be an improvement offensively over taguchi last year. On the whole I imagine that when it's all said and done our outfield offense will net out to be as good as it was last season.
The infield should also be a net wash, even if Spivey never figures out how to hit again, the addition of Rolen for a full season should offset any offensive loss and even defensive loss we get from having Spivey play a full season. Personally I think offensively Spivey will end up being better than Grudz, but defensively should be worse so at second base alone it should be a wash, Rolen of course will be a tremendous upgrade, I mean going from roughly 84 ops+ which is what we got from third base last year to a minimum of 120 from him this year. Cub fans are all giddy about dumping patterson for Pierre, yet the swing difference between those two is actually about the same, yet somehow the addition of Pierre for Patterson is a big coup for the cubs, addition of Rolen for Nunez is a net even? and then the funnier thing is that Pierre is a horrible defender, while Corey is a very good defender so that makes up some of the difference, Nunez was an adequate defender while Rolen is elite....Oh well Cub fans, and typical experts are funny when they look at these things.
as it stands offensively the Cardinals should have a small overall offensive improvement(I've estimated about 30 runs-being conservative to be honest, rolen alone should be about 35 run improvement)
Pitching wise we lost Matt Morris, who was effectively an average pitcher last season, I would estimate that Ponson will start off well, eventually the league will catch up to him by that time Wainwright or Reyes should have proven they can pitch at this level (my money is on Wainwright) and TLR will flip them into the rotation. Carpenter should have some decline, and so should Suppan. Marquis should respond better than he has done lately as I feel that it's his free agent year and hate to go with the cliche but players do perform better in their free agent seasons. Mulder should be a wash with a slight potential of a great season.(not likely)
Bullpen wise it's a lot tougher to judge, we got some real good performances out of unexpected sources last year, true that is the hallmark of a duncan/tlr team, but we lost a few of those guys, most notably Al Reyes, but even Tavarez. I fully expect Looper to at least equal out to Tavarez. Beyond that though our bullpen is going to be hard press to match what we got last year out of them. Even trusting TLR and Duncan to do the best job possible, it is going to take some luck for our bullpen to match their great season last year, I would expect almost half of the runs that we should gain offensively to be lost by the pen. I'll probably go into greater detail on this later, but basically when it's all said and done the cardinals should perform about the same as they did last year, with a weaker division 95 games isn't out of the question.
