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.

Cardinals Severely Overpay Holliday

The Cardinals had to have Matt Holliday. There seems to be no doubt about that. Hitting behind Albert Pujols seemed to lift Holliday into the stratosphere as a hitter and he afforded protection to the Cardinals' and baseball's best hitter. But that protection came at a steep price. The figures being bandied around come to $120 million over seven years with an option year for the eighth.

According to PECOTA projections, Holliday will be worth around $38 million for those seven years. He isn't a very good fielder and doesn't figure to be getting much better in left field now that he's 30 years old. So the Cardinals basically paid Holliday three times what he is worth. Ouch.

Perhaps Holliday has found the sweet spot in St. Louis. Perhaps his second half there wasn't a fluke. But even if that lifts his valuation over the next seven years, he still won't come close to being worth what he is going to be paid.

So what is Pujols going to be worth for the next seven years? Again, according to PECOTA, that figure will be around $143 million. Which isn't that much more than what Holliday is making. So when Pujols' current contract is up and the Cardinals paid a $38 million player $120 million, what should Pujols ask for? The Fan's guess would be oh, around $420 million or so.

Heltoning it on the Head

A player has now, at the age of 34, amassed 2086 career hits, 321 homers, 504 doubles, 1181 RBI, a lifetime .328 batting average and has a lifetime OPS of .997. Future member of the Hall of Fame? The player is Todd Helton and his problem is his home field. Helton has played his entire career for the Colorado Rockies and unfortunately, his career is hard to take seriously because of it. Is that fair?

Well, one thing is certain: If he had a few more years like last year, it would have been a moot conversation. He had a .777 OPS last year and only hit .264. He became a forgotten man after that. But he is at the center of the Rockies resurgence this year and is batting .329 with an OPS of .919. So it is safe to assume that last year was an anomaly based on injuries or something.

But since he is back, the debate again comes up because, as this year proves, if Helton can put a few more decent seasons together, he's going to have a lot of good career numbers. The debate will rage around where he plays his home games and proof will be sought after by his career home/away splits. So let's look at them.

Home: .362/.469/.647
Away: .304/.394/.492

That's a pretty big difference. The BA is still very good as is the OBP. But the slugging certainly suffers. Is this a knock only on Todd Helton. Is his home playing field a singular event for just him? Are there others in history that are similar? Certainly Hank Aaron is a prime example of a true superstar. His stats at home and away are so similar over his storied career that they are within percentage points. Mickey Mantle suffered some in the home/away splits but still slugged .548 on the road during his career.

Here are a couple of Hall of Fame splits. The Fan will reveal the players after:

Player 1:

Home: .290/.349/.538
Away: .258/.311/.461

Quite a difference there.

Player 2:

Home: .354/.443/.491
Away: .302/.387/.395

Big difference there too.

Player 3:

Home: .320/.383/.506
Away: .290/.356/.469

All three of the above are in the Hall of Fame and all three have fairly significant number differences home and away. There could be more examples, but home and away splits are unavailable (at least on www.baseball-reference.com) before 1973. The players? Ernie Banks, Wade Boggs and George Brett.

So, there you have it. Three players have all gotten into the Hall of Fame despite significant differences in their home and away splits. But where the Rockies play their home games (whatever they call it now!) seems to have an even more biased history than other former hitters' parks. That is so much the case that Helton's unbelievable numbers in 2000 and 2001 are always blamed on his home field without a hint of steroids. Name any other player where that would be the case?

Steps have been taken in Denver to change some of the advantage the hitters have. The Humidor (whatever that is) is one example. One doesn't hear as much about pitchers not being able to succeed there now as there was in the past. Perhaps that will work in Helton's favor if he stays with the Rockies over his career.

Matt Holliday certainly heard the same whispers and his time in Oakland seemed to cement them as the truth. But now that Holliday is with the Cardinals and again whopping the ball, perhaps that will die down too.

What is a shame, perhaps, is that nobody really knows how good Todd Helton really was or is. As long as his past and present is tied up with the Rockies, his Hall of Fame resume will be debated for a long, long time.

Spending the Hollidays in St. Louis

Manny helped the Dodgers last year. Teixeira helped the Angels. And now Holliday is going to help the Cardinals. We all knew it was coming. Speculation concerning Holliday and Halladay have been swirling for weeks. Certainly his teammates weren't surprised. The Cardinals, who though imperfect, were already on track to win the division. But recent surges by the Astros and more life in the Cubs (and Milwaukee isn't out of it) seemed to give more impetus to getting a bat to hit behind and protect Albert Pujols. Holliday should fill that spot perfectly.

And the Cardinals are getting Holliday at just the right time. Holliday really struggled early in the year. It seems that he spent some time in the off season working with Mark McGwire, who got Holliday to do away with his leg kick with his front leg as he was driving into the ball. McGwire seems like a great guy and players are drawn to him, but once Holliday went back to the leg kick, his whole season went into a leg kick.

The first three months of the season, Holliday's Slugging Percentage showed: .360, .456 and .440. His Slugging Percentage has skyrocketed in July to .574. And something else is impressive about Holliday. Most guys who get traded seem to take a couple to three days to get to their new team. Holliday hopped on a plane immediately and was in the Cardinals' lineup tonight. How did he do? He went four for five with a double, a run scored and an RBI. Not a bad start. He also stole a base.

The Cardinals' other new player, Julio Lugo, abandoned by the Red Sox and needing a new home to possibly ressurrect his career, went two for five with a homer, two runs scored and an RBI. The Cardinals seem to have enough pitching (Pineiro was great again tonight), but their offense was really struggling. Eight runs tonight against a pitcher who was 7-0, seems (sure, it's only one game) to show that they have fixed that problem.

Give the Cardinals credit. They made the right moves and rented Holliday for a few months to get them where they need to go. Oakland, on the other hand, though they are happy for their now ex-teammate, have to be bumming. And it showed in their game against the Yankees.

Against the Yankees, the A's looked flat and listless. They only managed three hits against Joba and allowed two runs to score on a throwing error. Johnny Damon drove in two runs with ground outs. And this was a team, who with Holliday, that overcame a ten run deficit earlier in the week against the Twins and just pummeled that team from Minnesota.

But that's the way it goes. When you're in last place, you're going to lose your spare parts, especially with Billy Beane who will always trade what he has for young prospects. It's the way of the world. The A's have to live through the rest of the year with a patchwork offense with hopes for the future. The Cardinals are delighted to have Holliday (and Lugo) and seem poised to be the best team in their division.