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Get ready Cardinals fans Your team wont be the World Series
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ST. LOUIS The Cardinals will cruise past the 100-win mark this season.
They're the only team on paceto reach triple digits, and if they maintain their current season winning percentage of .652, in fact, theyll get to 105 wins. Since Cincinnatis Big Red Machine won 108 way back in 1975, the Mets in 1986, the Yankees in 1998, the Mariners in 2001 and the Cardinals in 2004.
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It will be an incredibly impre sive feat, and theyll be the overwhelming favorites to win the World Series after that performance, right?
Nope.
OK, so maybe not overwhelming but at least the favorites, right?
Nope.
At least the clear favorites to make it out of the National League?
Not really.
Get ready for a wave of yeah, but type of predictions that will surely infuriate the best fans in baseball Erick Aybar Jersey (thats trademarked, right?) when October rolls around.
Theyve already started, actually. A couple days after the July 31 non-waiver trade deadline, sports book Bovada sent out updated World Series odds that had the Cardinals third, at 8-1, behind the ALs Royals (9-2) and the NLs Dodgers (7-1). At the time, St. Louis record was 4.5 games better than Kansas Citys record and seven games better than the Dodgers mark.
In the middle of August, Bovada had the Blue Jays up top, at 4-1, and the Royals second, at 5-1. The Cardinals were tied with the Dodgers, at 8-1, with the Mets right behind at 9-1. Again, St. Louis had a record that was at least five games clear of every single MLB team.(Let's acknowledge here that many, many factors go into the decision-making proce s for bookmakers, including liability Josh Donaldson Jersey and interest in a team, and odds aren't a straight predictive tool.)
And its not just the one sports book. , odds Monday at the Westgate Las Vegas SuperBookhad the Royals (7-2) first, the Blue Jays (5-1) second and the Mets and Cardinals tied for third, at 6-1. Again, the Cardinals were four games clear of the field when that day started.
So ... why? At least partially, because its hard to put a finger on exactly why this team is winning games at a historic pace. Look at Tuesday's come-from-behind win against the Nationals as an example.
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This happened
The Cardinals have mounted another two-out "rally" tonight ... on a single, a walk, a walk, a walk and a HBP. Now 4-3 Nationals.
Ryan Fagan (@ryanfagan)
And this
Cardinals score twice to tie the game, 5-5 on this sequence: single, hit by pitch, E1, intentional walk, double play. No, really.
Ryan Fagan (@ryanfagan)
And then this
The Cardinals won this game b/c, with two outs in the ninth, Cody Stanley doubled, Tommy Pham walked and Brandon Mo s homered. Yep.
Ryan Fagan (@ryanfagan)
On one hand, those types of rallies are emblematic of the Cardinals succe s this season, the ability to force other teams into mistakes and squeeze the most out of every opportunity. On the other hand, its hard to use rallies and wins like Kennys Vargas Jersey Tuesday nights as reason to pick a team to win the World Series.
isnt a predictive statistic, basic or sabermetric, no matter how real it might seem at times.
Lets look at their offensive production in 2015. They dont have a single position player who will receive even one top-five MVP vote, and they might only account for a smattering of random top-10 votes. Jorge Polanco Jersey As a team, theyre 11th in the majors in team average, 22nd in home runs, 20th in stolen bases and 18th in runs scored. Looking at advanced statistics, theyre 16th in team wOBA, 13th in wRC+, 16th in OPS and 21st in ISO.
With runners in scoring position, the Cardinals are 19th in the majors with a .253 batting average and 23rd in OPS, at .712. Mediocre, at best.
And these are the performances against regular-season pitching. When October rolls around and an offense thats been mostly mediocre all season faces playoff-caliber pitching, runs figure to be harder to come by, right? That makes sense.
Point is, its pretty po sible to poke holes in thisteams succe s. And when smart baseball folks are trying to predict what might happen in October, they try to figure out strengths and weakne ses and reasons for succe s and gue s as to whether those reasons will translate into postseason succe s.
And yet were in September and this team is STILL on pace to win 105 games. Teams dont fluke their way through five full months of a season. Smoke and mirrors baseball has a lifespan, and that lifespan is never five months long. St. Louis is40 games over .500.
The Cardinals excel in run prevention. Even though they dont have a single pitcher who will receive a top-three Cy Young vote (and maybe not even a top-five vote because there are lots of starters for other teams having outstanding individual seasons), they have the best top-to-bottom rotation in baseball.
St. Louis four rotation workhorses (Michael Wacha, Lance Lynn, John Lackey and Carlos Martinez) have ERAs of 2.69, 2.80, 2.87, 2.91. Jaime Garcia has made 14 starts in between stints on the DL, with a 2.03 ERA. Hes healthy right now.
Cardinals starters have a collective ERA of 2.82, which is easily tops in baseball (the Dodgers are next, at 3.13). Cardinals relievers have a collective ERA of 2.34, which is tied with Kansas City for the best mark in baseball.
Closer Trevor Rosenthal has a 1.49 ERA. Setup man Kevin Siegrist has a 2.23 ERA. Midseason trade acquisitions Taylor Rogers Jersey Steve Cishek and Jonathan Broxton have combined for 25 innings, 23 strikeouts and a 1.08 ERA with the club.
The defense is solid, too. As a team, the Cardinals are sixth in DRS (defensive runs saved) with 19 on the year. Add that glove work to the pitching succe s and you come up with this not-surprising stat: Opponents have only scored 397 runs against them this year, which is by far the best in baseball. The Dodgers are next, at 469.
Another reason for that jaw-droppingly low runs-allowedtotal is Justin Morneau Jersey their pitching performance with runners in scoring position. Since MLB expanded its schedule to 162 games for the 1961 season, the lowest batting average allowed by a pitching staff with RISP is .210, set by the Mariners last season. The Cardinals are at .199. It's a comical number, so low it doesn't seem sustainable.
And yet ... it's September.
From the Cardinals' perspective, obviously, they don't care what outside folks will predict. They do as good of a job as any team in baseball at insulating themselves from outside influences. Their fans, though? They probably won't take so kindly to what's going to come.
Those fanscan, however, take a bit of
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