Sorting out the Red Sox position players

According to my untrained observation, the Boston Red Sox have eleven Major League starting players for eight positions on the field. Then there is David Ortiz who is as designated a designated hitter as there is in baseball. So after signing and anchoring Pablo Sandoval and Hanley Ramirez to third and left field with free agent signings, what happens to everyone else? What should happen to everyone else?

Judging from the question marks surrounding the starting rotation, you would figure that some of the excess will be traded for pitching. But what if the Red Sox round out their rotation with free agent signings? You still have to deal with a logjam on the roster.

And I am not even including here guys like Garin Cecchini, who I am convinced is the next Wade Boggs if given a chance. With Sandoval at third for five years, what happens to him? We already know that Will Middlebrooks has fallen out of favor with everyone except Jenny Dell. So he will either be traded or designated. With his power potential in a power bereft MLB, traded seems more likely.

I am also not including catchers here. With David Ross gone, two young unprovens (Christian Vazquez and Dan Butler) are projected for the 25-man roster, so then we have eleven fighting for seven spots.

Perhaps we should list out what we know. Dustin Pedroia will (of course) be the second baseman. There has to be worry about his recent surgery though. Xander Bogaerts will be the shortstop. There is no way the Red Sox are going to give up on him yet. You have Sandoval at third, Ramirez in left, Mookie Betts will get the first crack at center field and David Ortiz will be the DH.

Over at first, you have one year remaining on Mike Napoli's contract. His face has been wired shut all winter with his weird operation, but the guy was worth 3.2 rWAR in only 119 games last season. It would appear that he would be your first baseman with perhaps Sandoval taking over in 2016?

Right field is interesting. There is Yoenis Cespedes, Shane Victorino, Allen Craig and Daniel Nava. Baseball-Prospectus has Victorino projected as the starter. But I'm not on that train. He might be healthier now that he has had a back operation, but I wouldn't count on him being a productive player again. And even if he is healthy, you can't risk him in center field.

Allen Craig forgot how to hit last year, which is weird because he was fantastic in prior years. His ankle has to have been a factor. Is that chronic moving forward?

I think you can count Nava out, which is sad because Jerry Remy won't be able to say, "Nahver." anymore. Cespedes has to be your guy, right? After all, he was the big chip in the big trade last year. Rumors are out there that the Red Sox hate the guy. Who knows. Despite his lack of on-base skills, Cespedes makes a lineup deeper just with the threat of him.

Nava is out of options so he can't be sent down without losing him. Craig is too talented to give up on. Perhaps Craig is your swing guy with time at first and right with hopes of getting him 400 PAs. Or perhaps you just trade both Nava and Craig.

Brock Holt is your most likely utility guy. He played seven different positions last season and despite a fade in September, was productive at the plate. If he isn't overexposed, he is the perfect utility option.  I don't like him at short though, so Deven Marrero or Jemile Weeks (who is out of minor league options) make sense as a roster spot.

If we recap here, we have the following extra players or trade prospects, if you will. They would be Middlebrooks, Craig, Cecchini, Nava and one of Victorino or Cespedes. My gut is telling me that the Red Sox will trade Cespedes if the rumors are true. But we'll see.

I have always heard it said that there is no such thing as too many pitchers. And I agree with that. Pitchers are remarkably fragile. But what about position players? It seems that the Red Sox have too many Major League ready guys for too few positions. You hate to see guys with offensive talent like Craig and Cecchini go to waste. If they do not have a position on the team, then trading them makes the most sense. Cecchini might be the next Jeff Bagwell, though, as the one that got away.

P.S. I haven't forgotten about Rusney Castillo. Baseball-Prospectus has him projected as the starting center fielder. But we'll see what the spring brings.

The Second Annual Dan Meyer Awards

During Major League Baseball's award season, the best of the best are featured (maybe not always with the Gold Gloves). And we should celebrate the best. But there is always a flip side. For every best, there was a worst. Saying that does understand that even the worst MLB players in a particular year are among the best players in the world. MLB players are an elite group of talent. So keep that in mind.

Baseball will award its most valuable player. The Flagrant Fan awards what my friend, Mike Hllywa of Off Base Percentage, likes to call the LVPs. These players did not have good seasons. These players were, in most cases, worse than replacement level. These players made fans look at GMs and ask, "What were you thinking?"  Some of these players have big contracts that now look like albatrosses. Like I said, you celebrate the best? You also have to celebrate the worst.

Why are they called the Dan Meyer Awards? That's a long explanation and I will save myself some typing by referring you to last year's award post.  Suffice it to say that Dan Meyer played twelve Major League seasons and compiled -6.5 fWAR and -5.5 rWAR. That was a lot of negative value for that long of a career!

To qualify, each positional player had to have at least 450 plate appearances except for catchers that only needed 350. Here are your 2014 Dan Meyer Awards for the LVPs (h/t to Mike) for each position. We will consider the pitchers in a later post:

Catcher: This one was easy. A.J. Pierzynski was the only catcher in baseball with more than 350 plate appearances that scored in the negative numbers on offense, defense and base running. Quite a few were in the negative for two of the categories, but only AJP nailed the three-fer. The Red Sox released him and then blasted him in the press (anonymously, of course) and then the Cardinals signed him and the guy actually played in the post season. AJP only walked 3.9 percent of the time and had a wOBA of .277.  With positional points because of the importance of catching, it is very difficult to score a negative WAR as a catcher. AJP nailed it.

First Base: This is quite interesting that the first two positions winning this award feature players who played for both the Cardinals and the Red Sox in 2014. And I hate to pick Allen Craig here as it feels like I am piling on. Mr. Craig had a brutal season in 2014 after being feted as the world's best clutch hitter in the years leading up to 2014. Injury probably played a part. Either way, he fell out of favor in St. Louis by a fan base that became enamored with Matt Adams and Craig became part of the trade that brought John Lackey to Cards. Hopefully, the season was an outlier for Craig as his 66 OPS+ for 2014 was half of what it was in the prior two seasons. Craig played a lot in the outfield too in 2014, but we will just limp it all together here. Honorable mention goes to Ryan Howard, but that is another story entirely.

Second Base: Alberto Callaspo had a fairly brutal season for the Oakland A's. His .580 OPS was awful and a hundred and twenty points below his career average. Plus, for the first time in his career, he scored in the negative for his fielding. He is a second baseman who turned 31 in 2014. The early thirties for second basemen is like the age of 27 for rock stars. Careers seem to die quickly at the position. Perhaps Callaspo will rebound. He will need to because his season was one of the rare misses of the Oakland front office. Oh, and Callaspo grounded into 18 double plays too. Ouch.

Shortstop: Yes, all you haters, Derek Jeter wins the Dan Meyer Award at shortstop for 2014. He was 20th in defense (there were worse, believe it or not) and he was next to last in offensive value. Obviously, his age caught up to him and his offense could not make up for his defense. But the commercials were cool and he will be in the HOF in five years. So there you go.

Third Base: This was another easy call. How about a 63 wRC+ and a .260 wOBA? How about being almost two wins below replacement level? How about doing that while not fielding well and not running well? And, he still came to the plate 607 times. Our hero here is Matt Dominguez of the Houston Astros. The former first round pick simply hasn't found himself in the Majors. Dominguez doesn't walk and he doesn't hit. That is a deadly combination combined with not fielding well and not running the bases well.

Left Field: It is safe to say that this is another easy pick. No left fielder has a poorer season than Domonic Brown and like Dominguez of the Astros, the Phillies have hoped against hope that this prospect ship would come in and it foundered instead. Brown was absolutely brutal in 2014. Like Dominguez, Brown had almost two wins below replacement. He had a 75 wRC+ and a .280 wOBA to go along with having a poor season in the field. Either Brown needs a change of scenery or he simply is never going to live up to the hype. Interestingly, Dayan Viciedo was the runner up for the second year in a row. That's hard to do.

Center Field: Fangraphs.com did not have any center fielders with a negative fWAR because of the position importance. Their two lowest ranking CF guys were tied at 0.4 and they were Michael Bourn and B.J. Upton. But Upton gets the nod because he had more plate appearances AND because baseball-reference.com DID rank him in negative territory. Poor Upton has become such a symbol of this new pitching age that he cannot seem to get beyond the mire he has found himself in the last two seasons. New glasses might have helped in the second half. But he still finished with a wRC+ of 74 and he struck out just shy of 30% of the time. Ouch. Fortunately, he is still capable in center field and can still go get the ball because his offense has been an Atlanta nightmare.

Right Field: What in the world happened to Jay Bruce? His OPS dropped a hundred and fifty-three points in 2014 from 2013. He batted his weight and his ISO dropped sixty points. His wins above replacement fell off five wins from the season before on both major stat sites. And while fielding statistics still have their flaws, they tell a story of a guy who fell down in his fielding as well. One big difference became his success against left-handed pitching. His OPS dropped against them by a hundred and eighty points from 2013 to 2014! I suspect that infield shifts hurt him as his BABIP fell to .269. Whatever the case, Bruce went from a very useful and valuable player to terrible in one fell swoop. Let's hope that it was a fluke season and he'll bounce back.

We could probably throw the DH in there too which would be Billy Butler. But he got to the World Series, so he can smile about it now. Adam Dunn was in the building, but at least he hit some dingers, a marketable skill set nowadays.

Thus is the list of Dan Meyer Award winners for 2014. God willing, come back this same time next year for the 2015 awards. And remember that the pitchers are not forgotten. The Kyle Davies Award winners will be announced soon.

Too quick to bandwagon Matt Adams

Matt Adams came to Spring Training in 2014 with a slimmer physique and then quickly jumped out of the gate swinging for the St. Louis Cardinals. His success led to a semi-controversy between who should get playing time between Adams, Allen Craig and Oscar Taveras. Between Adams' early jump on the season, Taveras' growing pains and Craig's horrendous start to the 2014 season, Adams became the guy who had to have the playing time. The fans and most writers were trumpeting Adams entry into stardom. Was it too early?

The issue was solved with the Cardinals shipping Craig to the Red Sox as part of the Lackey deal. Adams was the guy who won the job and got the playing time. I have to admit here that I am still a big-time believer in Allen Craig and feel that his struggles this year are due to lingering issues with his wheels. If he can get his legs under him again, 2014 will be the fluke and not the two previous seasons.

Making that admission, perhaps it is fair to say that I am looking for flaws in Matt Adams' game. I certainly am not "glad" that he has struggled in the second half (as we will see in a moment). But it is fair to state that my initial assessment of the situation appears to be the correct one.

A player's season and success or lack of it should represent the entire season. If you look at the entire pizza, Adams' numbers look pretty savory. He has a healthy 125 wRC+ to go along with his triple slash line of .303/.333/.481.

However, you expect offense from your first baseman and Adams ranks a solid 14th among 23 qualifying first basemen in offensive runs. He is tenth of the 23 in fWAR because his defense has been solid.

The bulk of Matt Adams' runs credited to him result from the early part of the season. In his last 35 games, his triple slash line is: .241/.307/.370. He has hit only two homers in those 35 games and partly as a result, the Cardinals continue not to have any kind of consistency with their offense.

Increased playing time has not improved Matt Adams' success against left-handed pitching. He has a .607 OPS against lefties this season which is just seven points over his career .600 mark against southpaws. If Adams is your stud in the middle of the lineup, he is vulnerable to lefty match-ups late in the game with the game on the line. That could be a major factor in why he has a .647 OPS in "late and close" situations.

Another thing that is puzzling is that Matt Adams is pretty terrible in road games. And this has gone on his whole career. It's not like he is playing in Coors Field. His road OPS for his career is .720 while at Busch Stadium he has compiled an .892 OPS. This year, that split is even more dramatic. In road games, Adams has a .695 OPS and at home, it is .933. Thus, in half of the Cardinals' games, he is often a non-factor.

The other thing that concerns me about Matt Adams is his lack of plate discipline. Throughout his minor league days and into the early part of his MLB playing time, his walk percentage was weak at around 7% or so. This year, that rate has sunk to 4%.

Adams' rate of swinging at pitches out of the strike zone (O-rate) is 42.7%. That is the highest among first basemen and fourth highest among all qualifying players no matter their position. It is easily the highest of his three year career and defeats gains made in that area last season.

Adams also has the highest line drive rate of his career and that is a good thing. But you wonder if that is a blip and if that is what you want from what is supposed to be your bopper where fly balls would better serve his power.

I admit my bias for Allen Craig. If he can get his wheels back healthy again, the Red Sox are going to have a steal. I believe he is a much better and more patient hitter than Matt Adams and could potentially have just as high or higher a slugging percentage. I do not believe that Craig's season in 2014 show a guy as he is. He did that in 2012 and 2013.

The Cardinals put their stock in Matt Adams. While that may have been the right call for 2014, we will have to see how it plays out over the next several seasons.

Some really bad starts to the season

After the first week of the season, we are all smart enough to know not to make a big deal out of extremes in performance both up or down. Batters and pitchers will start the season hot or cold and generally will end up somewhere around where they usually do. Perhaps you can see a trend after only a week. But doing so should be with the utmost caution. 

Here are some players who have really started the season in a bad, bad way. 

Zack Cozart. Cozart has walked to the plate twenty times thus far. He has one successful sacrifice bunt. That is the entire sum of his offense. He has hit four ground balls, seven fly balls, three line drives and all have led to outs. He struck out the other five times. He has not walked. He is the only regular player who has no average, no on-base percentage and no slugging. 

Raul Ibanez. Old Raul does have a homer and has driven in four runs. Compared to Cozart, he looks giddy with his .211 batting average. But his BABIP is .375. It's a good thing, because in his twenty plate appearances, he has struck out ten times. In twenty plate appearances, Ibanez has put seven balls in play. Fortunately for him, four of them landed safely somewhere.

   

Mike Moustakas. The Royals were hoping that this was the year that Moustakas started to come on as a player. It could still happen, but is off to a really bad start. In seventeen plate appearances, he has walked twice...and that's it. He has only struck out twice, so he is the opposite of Ibanez. Moustakas has put thirteen balls in play and none of them found a happy home and all turned into outs. He has not yet hit a line drive. Oh, and he's made two errors already. 

Allen Craig. Somewhere, George Harrison is singing, "Roll over Beethoven." Craig has come to the dish 24 times. He has struck out three times and walked once. So he has put the ball in play twenty times. Seventeen of those have been ground balls. Naturally, only two of them have gone through for hits. 

Ryan Flaherty. Flaherty notched his first hit last night in nineteen plate appearances. His strike zone awareness is a problem. He has swung at only 43.3% of pitches IN the strike zone and 40.9% of pitches OUT of the strike zone. 

Ian Desmond. Desmond's numbers do not look too bad. How he got there is a little strange. He leads the Majors in swinging at pitches out of the strike zone at 52.8% and is second overall in total swing percentage. He is not getting cheated up there. He also leads the Majors in swinging strike percentage. Settle down, young fellow. And how can we forget.

B.J. Upton. The poor guy seems just as lost as last year. His contact percentage on swings is the lowest in baseball at only 56%. He just can't seem to get the bat on the ball.

Allen Craig and his slugging percentage

There is a world of numbers available to the baseball writer and the ardent fan of the game of baseball. While this is a very good thing, the numbers can also make us restless and under-appreciate the great offensive game of some of the players we write about and root for. You see this with Votto in Cincinnati with people screaming that he takes too many walks and does not drive in enough runs. And you see it with Allen Craig and people talking about his power numbers for the St. Louis Cardinals.

Craig slugged .555 and .522 in 2011 and 2012. He hit 33 homers in his first 733 plate appearances during those two seasons. He only hit 13 of them in 563 plate appearances in 2013. So what happened?

There are a combinations of things that lowered his home run total. The two main culprits are that he had less chances to hit them and on the chances where he did have the opportunity, those batted balls did not go over the fence as often. Let's break this down a bit.

Allen Craig hit more ground balls and line drives in 2013 than he has in any other season. And correspondingly, the percentages were higher on both. Of his batted balls, 297 of his 413 batted balls were either ground balls (45%) or line drives (26.9%). Obviously, ground balls are not going to go flying over the fence. And generally, line drives do not either. Of Craig's 199 line drives over the last two seasons, only five of them have gone for homers.

Having less of a percentage of his batted balls being fly balls means less of a chance for a possible home run. His percentage of fly balls went from 37% in 2011 to 33.3% in 2012 to 28.1% in 2013. The three years do seem to show a trend. His rate of ground balls and line drives have gone up in each of the three years as well.

Having less of an opportunity to hit a home run due to less fly balls can then be combined with less of those fly balls actually clearing the fences. Just like the other trends listed previously in the last paragraph, there is a three year downward trend for Craig's fly balls going for homers. That number was 18.3% in 2011 and went down to 17.1% in 2012 and then sank drastically to 11.2% in 2013.

Fortunately, Craig is very successful with his ground balls and line drives. His BABIP on ground balls was .279 in 2013, much higher than the league average. And his line drive BABIP and overall OPS with them are off the charts. And a 26.9% line drive rate is elite and right up there with Votto and some of the other great hitters.

When you have a great hitter like Allen Craig, you most often see a guy who is not pull conscious. And Craig is not a big pull hitter. Most of his batted balls are hit up the middle. He only pulled the ball 110 times in 2013. Center field and the gaps are the furthest distances to have to hit a fly ball for a homer.

But Craig is also doing less with the balls he pulls as far as power goes. In 2012, eight of his 108 pulled batted balls went over the fence. That number dropped to 4 in 110 plate appearances in 2013.

To tie up a little of what we have talked about so far, the data seems to indicate that there is a three year trend in Allen Craig hitting less fly balls and having less of those fly balls going over the fence. The numbers also indicate that Craig is not overly prone to pull the ball and when he has, less of those batted balls are going over the fence.

Add up this information and you have a recipe for a first baseman/outfielder with less and less power as the last three years have progressed. That doesn't mean that Craig is any less of a great hitter. But he is less of a slugging threat than he was when he first arrived on the scene.

Trends are more apt to continue or taper off than they are to reverse. The prognosis for Craig as a power threat is not good. To be sure, this has implications in the fantasy baseball world, but it also affects a bit on how often the Cardinals score and their willingness to play Matt Adams more at first because Adams hits more homers.

This need for more power by the Cardinals weakens the Cardinals' defense. Craig is a better first baseman than Adams and most outfielders are better outfielders than Allen Craig. The Cardinals' need for power due to less provided by Craig means less defense to play them both.

All of this sounds like criticism and it is not. Allen Craig is an elite hitter who, according to the numbers, seems to perform really well in the clutch. But unless trends are undone and Craig changes his approach, the trend for Craig is to hit with less power while his efficiency increases. More power would be nice, but most fans around the country would agree that having Allen Craig on their team's lineup would be mighty tasty.

Allen Craig, Dan Uggla and fWAR

I want to be accepted as a modern baseball writer. As such, I have made a conscious decision years ago to be as much of a student of modern baseball statistics as possible with an unfortunately limited brain. It is not in me to create calculations and amazing charts and do all those things possible to build a case. But, at least I have made an effort not to stick in the past and accept the old batting average and runs batted in way of valuing players. All that said, when it comes to valuations of players, I still struggle. Allen Craig of the Cardinals and Dan Uggla of the Braves are one crystallization of that dilemma.

According to Fangraphs.com, so far this season, Dan Uggla has been worth $6.4 million with his play considering all facets of his game. Allen Craig has been valued by that same site as worth $10.4 million with his. That means that Allen Craig has been valued over Dan Uggla by a factor of 1.625. Or to look at it another way, Uggla has been worth about 61.5 percent of what Allen Craig is worth.

On the short side of things, this seems correct as Craig is having a better year (obviously). But when thinking about it more deeply, it seems that Craig is worth three times what Uggla is worth. I see this reflected better at baseball-reference.com which has Craig at 1.8 rWAR and Uggla at only 0.1. That seems to be a much more accurate assessment.

Let's compare the two with some statistics:

• Uggla:  .193/.310/.409 for a .719 OPS, a .319 wOBA and a 2.4 UZR in the field and a minus 2.4 on the bases.
• Craig:  .321/.369/.472 for a .841 OPS, a .366 wOBA and a 0.0 UZR in the field and a minus 5.5 on the bases.

That does not seem close does it? Well, yes, Craig is a snail on the base paths (although Jeff Sullivan has some thoughts about this as well). We will not get into some of the ephemeral data such as Craig's average with men in scoring position, etc. But by just looking at the numbers above, you get the idea that Dan Uggla is pretty bad this season as a baseball player and Allen Craig is pretty darned good.

And here is where I begin to have a few problems with the entire thing. Dan Uggla "plays" second base. Craig plays first or left field or right field. Craig's positions are considered of little value in the grand scheme of valuations. In fact, first base is given a negative value as a positional adjustment. So Uggla's position has a lot to do with his positive valuation.

If you break down Fangraphs' valuation, they go like this for Uggla: 1.3 for his batting (Again, how when he is hitting so poorly? The answer, his walks and home runs), -2.4 for fielding, -2.4 for base running, a +12.4 replacement value and a +1.5 for the position he plays. The positives outweigh the negative and he has a fWAR in the positive numbers.

Craig, on the other hand, gets a +12.9 replacement value but a -6.7 positional value. Craig plays positions that are considered a negative in value. I do not get that. Some day, somebody is going to prove my theory that a good first baseman is worth much more to this team than a bad one. And yet they all get the same negative positional value. I do not know Allen Craig's scoop value, which is a new statistic. But I do know he has only made one error all season no matter where he has played. That's right. One.

Uggla is one ugly second baseman. I have maintained that for years and his fielding numbers bear that out. But he still gets a higher overall fielding score (fielding plus positional) than Craig and it is not even close. Uggla has a Fld + Pos of -0.9. Craig's same number for that stat is, -6.8. That is more than a half a win difference. I do not get it.

Uggla does hit more homers and he has much better plate discipline. I get that. But Uggla has been on base near 30 times less than Craig and Craig has 42 more total bases.

I want to be a hip writer. I really do. I want to be considered knowledgeable and credible. But these things baffle me. And the fact that Uggla is valued so close to Craig will defeat my street cred every time. To me, to the bedeviling of my writing credibility, Dan Uggla does not add anything of value to the Braves and Craig is a major cog in the Cardinals rolling machine.

Cardinals making the most of their base runners

After watching the Yankees most of the season (nearly every game), it was eye-opening watching the St. Louis Cardinals dismantle the Reds yesterday in the Reds' backyard. And what had me drooling with envy was the approach the Cardinals had with runners on base. As I have written this week for It's About the Money, Stupid, the Yankees are so pull happy that they often fail with runners on base and in scoring position because pitchers can take advantage of that proclivity. But not the Cardinals. They are more than happy to take that outside pitch up the middle or to the opposite field, particularly their right-hand hitting bats. The numbers are pretty astounding.

Obviously, the Cardinals are really doing everything well except for their relief pitching. The starting rotation has been fabulous with a bunch of home grown talent supporting Adam Wainwright. As a team, the Cardinals have the best ERA in the National League, give up the fewest homers and give up the second fewest amount of walks. As scary for the rest of the league as that is, the Cardinals also have the best batting average and on-base percentage in the National League. If you are the best pitching staff and the best offense, you are going to win some games. It is no secret why they are the first Major League team to forty victories.

But their offense has some secrets that are pretty amazing to discover. For example: As a team, the Cardinals have a batting average on balls in play (BABIP) of .381 with runners on base. The league average is .303. With runners in scoring position, the Cardinals have a BABIP of .401 compared to the league average of .300. That is pretty astounding. While that kind of pace would seem to be impossible to maintain, there is a reason the Cardinals are so successful--they hit the ball up the middle and the other way.

While the Cardinals do lead the NL in batting average and on-base percentage, the numbers are not that staggering. Other teams in history have hit much higher. And their slugging percentage is only five points higher than the league average. What makes them special right now is that when runners are on base, they make the most of those opportunities.

Here are some numbers to back up what I am talking about. In all of baseball, when batters hit line drives good things happen. In the majors as a whole, when the batter hits a line drive, a run will score at least 23.9 percent of the time as a result of that batted ball. With the Cardinals, that number jumps to 25.6 percent of the time. And that is just the tip of the iceberg.

When all batters in baseball hit the ball to the opposite field, the percentage of runs batted in per batted ball is 13.4 percent. With the Cardinals, opposite field batted balls result in runs batted in 16.6 percent of the time.  That is impressive.

Some of this shows up in their ground ball stats. While the Cardinals OPS on ground balls is 26 points higher than the entire Major League average (.520 versus .494), the ground balls score more runs for the Cardinals than the rest of the league. When the league hits a ground ball, those lead to runs batted in only 6.7 percent of the time. When the Cardinals hit ground balls, those lead to runs batted in 9.8 percent of the time.

While some of this is accounted for by having more runners on base than anyone else (highest OBP, right?), a good part of it is the willingness and ability to hit the ball where it is pitched. And this is almost strictly a right-handed batting phenomenon for the Cardinals.

Cardinals' left-handed batters actually pull the ball more than league average and have a lower percentage of batted balls up the middle and opposite field than the rest of baseball. But the right-handed bats more than make up for it.

The league average (and when I say, "League" here, I mean all of baseball) for the percentage of pulled batted balls by right-handed batters is 26.7 percent. The Cardinals' right-handed batters pull the ball only 23.8 percent of the time. The MLB average for right-handed bats going up the middle is 55.8 percent. The Cardinals' right-handed bats go up the middle 57.3 percent of the time leaving their percentage of pulling the ball 1.6 percentage points lower than the league average.

It is this ability to be dynamic and use all fields that allows the Cardinals to develop rallies and keep them going.

Allen Craig, the Cardinals' most prolific RBI guy leads the way. He hits the ball to the opposite field 24.8 percent of the time. That beats the league average by 7.5 percentage points. He is batting .381 with men on base and a .412 batting average with men in scoring position. And 29 of his 43 runs batted in have been either up the middle or to the opposite field.

Matt Holliday has hit 32.4 percent of his batted balls to the opposite field! That almost doubles the league average. As a result, 24 of his 33 runs batted in have been up the middle or to the opposite field. He is batting .354 with men on base and .346 with runners in scoring position.

Yadier Molina came up as a great fielding and throwing catcher. He has become a great hitter by going the other way. Of his batted balls, 30.7 percent of them go to the opposite field and 22 of his 30 runs batted in have gone up the middle or to the opposite field. He is hitting .410 with runners on base and .377 with men in scoring position.

Among their star hitters, only Carlos Beltran is a pull hitter, especially from the right side of the plate. But he is their legitimate home run threat and is batting an incredible .478 with runners in scoring position.

The thing about this approach at the plate is that it is more slump proof than a pull-happy approach. Pitchers have to be honest and cannot simply live on the outside part of the plate with the Cardinals. I do not know how the Cardinals will hold up as the season progresses. But as of right now, they have the most versatile and resilient offense in baseball.

Allen Craig and his projections

I have been writing a series of posts that seem to take issues with how projection systems predict certain players over the course of the 2013 season. It may seem like I have an issue with projection systems. The fact is that I do not. When you put all of their projections together, the margin for error is quite small. All of them pretty much work the same way. You plug in the numbers that have been compiled to date and run the algorithms a few thousand times and see what spits out. Of course, I have no idea what I'm talking about, but that is my weak and general understanding of them. But there are cases where the projections do not seem to make sense. Either they are too pessimistic or too optimistic. One of those for me is Allen Craig of the St. Louis Cardinals.

Let me cover my bases here a bit and admit that I am a bit obsessed with Allen Craig. And it is quite complicated an obsession. Part of it is a deep-rooted dislike for Albert Pujols and the deep-seated hope that Craig can replace Pujols' value to the Cardinals. I admit that none of this is particularly sane. But just because I write about baseball an insane amount of time does not mean that I am an impartial metronome of players. There will always be this Fan screaming for a place like the human emotion in Spock or something. These obsessions do not always work out well. I had obsessions with Reid Brignac and Micah Owings. Those didn't exactly pan out. Though, Owings did hit a grand slam today.

But I think this one with Craig has a chance. The guy now has 857 plate appearances under his belt and has a cool triple slash line of .300/.348/.515. He has compiled 5.6 fWAR in about a year and a half of playing and has a wOBA of .370 and a wRC+ of 135. That's pretty impressive. So I am a bit flummoxed that his projections predict his numbers will go down instead of up. How could that be?

In case you want to see what I am talking about, Fangraphs.com lists the projection systems on each player's page. I'd throw in the BaseballProspectus.com projection (PECOTA) too but I need to renew my subscription and haven't yet.

First, the projection systems have him only playing anywhere from 117 to 140 games. This apparently takes into account the injury Craig suffered before the season last year. But that was last year and he is playing first base, one of the safer places on the diamond. I think he'll play 155 games. But the pessimism goes on from there. What follows are Craig's 2012 numbers followed by the average projection number for that stat (add them all together and divide). Here we go:

• Batting Average: .307 / .291
• On-base Percentage: .354 / .348
• Slugging Percentage:  .522 / .501
• wOBA:  .374 / .364
• ISO:  .215 / .210
• fWAR: 3.1 / 2.8

Are you getting the picture here? And remember, those average projections are averages and there are some that are significantly lower. ZiPS is the most pessimistic. Three of the five projections predict his strikeout rate will rise despite the fact that his swing and miss rate has gone down three years running. Two of the five predict his homer total will be less and two of the five predict his doubles total will be less. Allen Craig has a career BABIP of .329. None of the projection systems think it will be that high in 2013. 

Okay, perhaps you are saying, "Okay, smartypants, what are your predictions for Allen Craig since YOU know so much?" Well, first off, I don't know diddly. But my prediction for Allen Craig (barring injury) would be: .315/.364/.540 with 30 homers, 28 doubles, a wOBA of .384 and an fWAR of 5.0. Those are as dumbed-down a set of predictions you are going to find anywhere. There are no spreadsheets or computer readouts. But those are my numbers. And just remember, I can beat the computer at Hearts 81% of the time.

Six things you might not know about Allen Craig

Allen Craig of the St. Louis Cardinals has done nothing but hit ever since he's had a chance to see Major League pitching on a regular basis. He did struggle in his first brief playing stint in 2010 for 44 games, but he also was asked to play five different positions and has played six different positions since he arrived in St. Louis. In his last 669 at bats, Craig has 207 hits, 33 homers, 50 doubles and has driven in 132 runs. And after a devastating injury cost him the first 43 games of last season, it appears that he has settled into being the Cardinals first baseman for the foreseeable future. Let's dig a bit deeper into Craig and see if we can find six things you might not have known about him.

1. Allen Craig has had a healthy home run to fly ball rate in his last two seasons. His rate of 18.3% of 2011 fell a bit to 17.1% in 2012, but that is still a very healthy power sustaining rate. However, his percentage of batted balls hit into the air have tumbled with each of his three seasons where it went from 39.3% in 2010 to 37% in 2011 to only 33.3% in 2012. It will remain to be seen if his more or less full season in 2012 shows more of who he really is as a hitter than his two previous partial seasons. Craig does hit line drives prodigiously but for the Cardinals to reap more of his power, he needs to get the ball in the air more.

2. Craig was more or less wasted for two seasons in the Cardinals organization at the Triple-A level. It is pretty obvious from looking at his 2009 and 2010 seasons at Memphis that he had nothing to gain by being there. He did get into 44 games at the big league level in 2010, but Craig finds himself heading into the 2013 season as a 28 year old looking for his first complete season thanks to his late start and injury history.

3. The longer Allen Craig sees major league pitching, the better his plate discipline gets. In his brief 2010 season, Craig swung at 33.5% of pitches out of the strike zone. That came down to 29.2% in 2011 and then down again to 28.6% in 2012. If he can learn just a little more patience, he will be an even more elite hitter in the national league as his low walk total holds him back a bit.

4. While Craig's plate discipline gets better as we have seen in #3 above, he is also swinging and missing at less pitches. Craig swung and missed at 10.2% of pitches in 2010. That came down to 8.1% in 2011 and was down again to only 6.9% in 2012. That was a lower swing and miss rate than Albert Pujols had in 2012 (7.0%). That's pretty impressive.

5. Even though Craig missed 43 games in 2012, he still came in 27th in the majors in WPA. He seems to be very good at being productive with runners in scoring position. That, folks, was an understatement. In 255 plate appearances with runners in scoring position, Craig has an OPS of 1.055. Yes, that will do some damage. When there are two outs with runners in scoring position, his OPS was .992. However, Craig falls down a bit in late and close games in which he dries up a bit and that results in Fangraphs giving him a negative clutch score.

6. Allen Craig is not discriminatory on what he hits. He has positive scores against every pitch type except the change up. He has a healthy OPS against power pitchers and finesse pitchers, ground ball pitchers and fly ball pitchers and hits the ball well to all fields. Perhaps this is sneaking Numbers 7, 8 and 9 in here, but Craig really isn't a pull hitter, but when he does pull the ball, his OPS is a mashing 1.358 for his career.

It appears that Allen Craig is going to be one of the league's elite hitters the next couple of seasons if he stays healthy. He seems to have found his permanent home for the Cardinals at first base. But to offset the position value there, he will have to reverse his trend of less fly balls and hit for some more power. But Craig does have a career .515 slugging percentage so that is nothing to sneeze at. The two projections for Craig in 2013 seen so far are bullish for him and there is no reason why Craig can't continue to develop his plate discipline to add to what is already a pretty fantastic offensive arsenal.

Cards Need to Find Allen Craig an Every Day Home

The St. Louis Cardinals were robbed a bit of their glory. They won the World Series for crying out loud, but soon after Tony LaRussa retired and speculation about a new manager and the ever present story of what Albert Pujols will do have all taken over the spotlight. Baseball readers never really got to sit in the gravis of what we just witnessed. Certainly, the managerial situation and Pujols are huge stories. And now that Mike Methaney has been hired as manager, that story has been magnified. But again, wasn't the post season run of the Cardinals somehow forgotten in the wake?

History will remember the 2011 World Series for David Freese and rightly so. His heroics in Game Six of the World Series will be rightly featured for years to come. But it was just as much a post season for other heroes like Lance Berkman, Albert Pujols (for one game anyway), Chris Carpenter and Allen Craig. The two biggest surprise stars of Freese and Craig should only be one surprise. Freese is a very good player when healthy (which hasn't been often) but we know what he's about. There is a certain sample size to his career. So the way he came up big was a surprise. But the Allen Craig display shouldn't be a surprise at all. He's been playing like that for quite a long while.

A long while? Why yes. Though he just burst on the major league scene, Craig is going to be 27 in 2012. Only an eighth round draft choice in 2006, Craig put in 517 games over six seasons in the minor leagues. To this writer's mind, that was 150 games too many. Craig was a killer in the minors. After ripping up Double A, Craig played 219 games in Triple A and put together this slash line: .320/.379/.545.

Craig was given a limited chance in 2010. He did manage to get into 44 big league games good for 124 plate appearances. But it really wasn't much of a shot. And so he was given more time in Triple A to start the 2011 season. Once he got the call back to the majors in 2011, he showed what he can do. He got into 75 games in 2011 good for 219 plate appearances and put up the following slash line: .315/.362/.555. Look familiar? Look at the last paragraph. So it really was no surprise that he put up a 1.005 OPS during the entire post season.

But he's still a player without a position. One of this author's favorite writers, Daniel Shoptaw, over at C70 Baseball indicates that Daniel Descalso is going to be given the second base position. So where does that leave Craig? The Cardinals already have Clank and Clank (Berkman and Holliday) starting at the outfield corners. You swallow hard when the ball is hit to them, but they are such good offensive players and are making so much money that you have to play them there (assuming Pujols is resigned). Allen Craig has shown some versatility in his playing positions, but he's not a center fielder. Besides, John Jay has shown he can handle that position and can hold his own offensively. Freese is established at third. So what about Craig?

May this author suggest that one of two scenarios works quite well. Craig held his own in brief appearances at second base. Well, at least baseball-reference.com thought he did. Fangraphs disagrees. Craig's numbers in brief appearances in center are fine but he lacks range and with those two corner positions already manned by sloths, you have to have a center fielder with range in the middle of them. But if the Cardinals could live for years with Skip Schumaker at second, can't they with Craig?

So what's the second scenario? Um...dare the Fan say it? Sure, why not. Let Pujols walk, put Berkman at first and Craig in right field. There. There, the Fan said it. What was Albert Pujols' fWAR in 2011? 5.1. What was Craig's in less than half the playing time? 2.6. Wouldn't it be reasonable for Craig to project over five in WAR over a full season? His splits are fine, so that's not a problem. And he'd be just a bit cheaper. It certainly possible for Pujols to come back with another monster year. But it's just as possible for Craig to do so too. The most it could cost the Cardinals is two wins. Plus, without having to pay Pujols, you could get Jimmy Rollins to play short. Wouldn't that be cool?

All this writer knows is that Allen Craig needs to be in the Cardinal line up every day. Somehow. His time has come and he is a unique talent that needs to be showcased...every single day.