The idea of this post is to project the number of runs the Cardinals, as the rosters are currently constructed, will both allow and score in 2009. I first will use the lineup toy from Baseball Musings to project runs scored. Then, I will simply use ERAs for each pitcher on the staff over X innings to determine runs allowed. Finally, I’ll use the, albeit flawed, pythagorean expectancy formula to estimate the Cardinals’ record. I will use each of the Bill James and Marcel projections and I will also do a projection of my own. This is going to be a lot of numbers with tons of room for nitpicking. Hope you enjoy.

First off we need to look at the accuracy of the lineup toy.  Here I've put in the OBPs and SLGs for each spot in the Cardinals' order from 2008.  You can find these numbers on Baseball Reference.  The toy says last years' lineup should have scored 5.268 runs per game, or 853 total runs.  In actuality, the Cardinals scored 779 runs.  That's a difference of -74 runs.  In 2007, the difference was only -34 runs.  I'll call the difference -50 runs from the toy's projection to actual performance for analysis purposes.  Now the Cardinals' pythagorean records (W^2 / (L^2 + W^2) in 2007 and 2008 were 70-92 and 87-75, respectively, while the actual records were 78-84 and 86-76.  Basically, this shows that the pythagorean records are not by any means exact, but they should be a decent estimate for most cases.  Now comes the fun part.

I need to decide who will be on the Cardinals' 25 man roster, and I'm doing the projections based on the same 25 guys being on the team the whole year.  The outfield is a logjam, so I'm going to stick with our best guys but leave Mather in AAA instead of Barton. My reasoning for this is if Ankiel gets traded, then Mather would be the one who would be most likely to replicate his production.  Here goes nothing:

C - Molina, LaRue

1B - Pujols

2B - Kennedy, Miles

3B - Glaus, Freese(!)

SS - Greene

OF - Ludwick, Ankiel, Schumaker, Rasmus, Barton

SP - Carpenter, Wainwright, Wellemeyer, Lohse, Pineiro

RP - Perez, Motte, Franklin, Kinney, McClellan, Miller, Thompson

            That's my idea of what the roster may look like as of now.  The Carpenter pick doesn't mean for a full season, I have him down for 100 innings.  I put Miles in there because who knows who our utility infielder will be at this point.  I'm not saying this roster is what I want, just what I think it may be, except for the Freese pick, but it's my fanpost so I'll do what I want! ;)

            First I'm going to talk about the pitching because those stats are much simpler.  When the IP totals didn't match last year's totals I added in "replacement" innings with a 5.00 ERA.  I'm not sure what the generally accepted replacement-level ERA is, but because there are so many innings left in some cases, I thought a 5.00 ERA would work.  These innings should be covered by another starter yet to be acquired or Mitch Boggs/Brad Thompson who should all be capable of a 5 ERA or (hopefully) better.  For the unearned runs total I used 60.  Last year's total was 48 and the defense shouldn't be too much worse this year.  This goal of this portion of the exercise is to find to total runs allowed.  Without further ado:

            Next, I have constructed a table with each of three projection systems that include OBP, SLG, and PAs.  Bill James uses ABs so I changed the table accordingly.  W. PAs represents "weighted plate appearances."  I used the projected Marcel totals and compared them to last year's PA totals.  I then used a percentage to weight the projections so that they totaled up to the same number as last year.  Both the Bill James and my own predictions already equaled the same total as last year (with a little tinkering of course).

*Exact science of guessing used (no projections)

**Bill James/Marcel numbers used rather than guessing

***For pitcher #s I used the 2008 data

^Also 2008 totals

            Now here is where the real fun begins.  I took each player and made a vague attempt to guess how many PAs they would get in each spot in the lineup.  As you will notice, it's really not accurate, but I think that it is good enough.  There was no way I would have been able to predict all of LaRussa's lineup madness.  I'm leaving out the table with all of the PA numbers because I think it's unnecessary for you to read.  I took the individual player PAs divided by the total per each spot in the lineup (2008 data) to figure a percentage.  Here they are:

            Having fun with the numbers yet?  At this point my head (and calculator) were about to explode.  Finally I took the percentages and multiplied them by each player's OBP and SLG.  I added each of them up to come up with the total for each position (listed in table above).  These values are what I used to calculate runs per game on the lineup toy at Baseball Musings.  I took off 50 from each total based on the fact that the lineup toy has overrated the offense the past couple of years.  Here are the results:

Marcel 794 runs scored - 50 = 744

Bill James 825 runs scored - 50 = 775

thegodfather 843 runs scored - 50 = 793

            Once I had the runs scored, I used Bill James' pythagorean formula to figure out the estimated W-L totals.  Warning: they aren't pretty.

Marcel 78-84

Bill James 82-80

thegodfather 89-73

            Now it's time to reflect.  These results are obviously just rough guesses.  There are a million things that I could have done differently (that you are more than welcome to point out).  What this does tell us, however, is that the Cardinals, as currently constructed, are not a 90+ win team.  Sure, if there are no injuries, Carpenter comes back, and everybody puts up career numbers, they will easily be a 90 win team.  Honestly, we all know that's not all going to happen.

            So what can be done to improve the team?  If you look at the projections for our bullpen, it looks like it could be a strength.  Let me rephrase that, our bullpen could easily be a strength without adding a "proven closer."  The starting rotation, on the other hand, is weak.  Based on the numbers, a starter is what the team needs.

            Sorry this post was so long but I wanted to show you all of my information.  Thanks to RunninRedbird for helping me with my own pitcher and hitter projections.  They are optimistic but I don't believe too much so.  Hope you found this interesting.

References: Baseball-Reference, Fangraphs, Baseball Musings