Holy Smokes, Batsmen!

by clank on Jul 22, 2011 3:35 PM EDT

Freese's recent fluctuations in BABIP had me thinking about the changes throughout the team as the season's progressed, and the cause/effect nature of many of the batting stats.
So without further discussion, here's the basic stats for the Cardinals' regular contributors at the plate:

[Month | BABIP | AVG/OBP/SLG | wOBA], all stats through 24 July and courtesy of FanGraphs.

Yadier Molina

April | .309 | .289/.337/.408 | .321
May | .346 | .330/.376/.495 | .361
June | .239 | .215/.271/.304 | .254
July | .239 | .275/.302/.510 | .348
2011 | .290 | .279/.326/.424 | .320

Albert Pujols

April | .211 | .245/.305/.453 | .332
May | .303 | .288/.365/.387 | .342
June | .231 | .317/.419/.778 | .497
July | .208 | .263/.306/.579 | .377
2011 | .246 | .276/.347/.513 | .374

Skip Schumaker

April | .255 | .241/.305/.370 | .293
June | .328 | .299/.309/.377 | .299
July | .391 | .346/.424/.423 | .381
2011 | .314 | .281/.327/.369 | .308

David Freese

April | .468 | .365/.396/.482 | .386
July | .250 | .234/.306/.359 | .297
2011 | .376 | .313/.360/.429 | .349

Ryan Theriot

April | .349 | .316/.369/.358 | .336
May | .307 | .281/.317/.323 | .289
June | .301 | .283/.347/.370 | .303
July | .189 | .172/.186/.241 | .189
2011 | .297 | .273/.319/.331 | .290

Matt Holliday

April | .483 | .408/.511/.618 | .485
May | .311 | .278/.352/.468 | .354
June | .229 | .267/.411/.600 | .432
July | .288 | .268/.338/.507 | .366
2011 | .340 | .310/.405/.542 | .409

Colby Rasmus

April | .364 | .301/.392/.476 | .383
May | .319 | .253/.370/.407 | .351
June | .227 | .213/.268/.416 | .296
July | .167 | .163/.226/.286 | .215
2011 | .286 | .244/.331/.413 | .328

Lance Berkman

April | .397 | .393/.455/.753 | .501
May | .275 | .262/.463/.415 | .377
June | .167 | .221/.299/.558 | .363
July | .205 | .258/.378/.629 | .427
2011 | .269 | .288/.400/.599 | .417

Daniel Descalso

April | .286 | .235/.268/.373 | .260
May | .250 | .224/.305/.329 | .280
June | .378 | .293/.373/.379 | .327
July | .448 | .351/.467/.432 | .395
2011 | .319 | .264/.342/.368 | .308

Jon Jay

April | .240 | .226/.368/.323 | .313
May | .459 | .397/.427/.590 | .444
June | .313 | .262/.289/.369 | .295
July | .333 | .310/.385/.414 | .342
2011 | .353 | .311/.364/.442 | .352

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Comments

It's almost like there's a correlation between BABIP and wOBA!

Of all sad words of tongue or pen; the saddest are these: 'It might have been!' -- Whittier
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by mysterui on Jul 22, 2011 3:40 PM EDT reply actions

Thanks for putting this together

Berkman’s June and July really stand out to me.

by Merry CRasmus on Jul 22, 2011 3:50 PM EDT reply actions

Albert had a .497 wOBA with a .231 BABIP?

Holy shit

Hit me up on Google+

by jd is legend on Jul 22, 2011 4:18 PM EDT reply actions

check out Berkman's BABIP the last 2 months

HOLY SHIT

FIRE TONY RASMUS

by Cards Fan in Chitown on Jul 24, 2011 9:32 PM EDT up reply actions

I'm more impressed with the .171 BABIP getting a .415 wOBA

They’re close though.

"And a boring game for boring people. Did you ever watch golf on television? It's like watching flies FUCK. Think of the intellect it must take to draw pleasure from this activity: hitting a ball with a crooked stick and then WALKING AFTER IT" -George Carlin
President of the Tyler Greene fan club - In need of Secretary and Public Speaker

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by stlcardsfan4 on Jul 24, 2011 9:39 PM EDT up reply actions

David Freese better start hitting for some power.

by Willie McGee's Twin on Jul 22, 2011 5:32 PM EDT reply actions

It's unsettling that Jay is hitting for more power than everyone but Holliday, Albert, and Berkman.

Still not a werewolf.

by clank on Jul 22, 2011 5:40 PM EDT up reply actions

Yeah, I'd probably say Colby is hitting for more power (ISO is higher)

but Jay has been our fourth best hitter.

Freese is just a singles hitter at this point. His ISO is below Yadi’s for chrissakes.

by Willie McGee's Twin on Jul 22, 2011 5:56 PM EDT up reply actions

Lance Fucking Berkman

by vivaelpujols on Jul 23, 2011 1:52 AM EDT reply actions

We have some alright hitters this year

Albert Pujols- .231 BABIP/1.197 OPS/ .497 wOBA
Matt Holliday- .229 BABIP/1.011 OPS/ ..432 wOBA
Lance Berkman- Ridiculous

1.) I can’t believe Berkman has maintained production for two months with a BABIP under Mendoza
2.) I really hope we get to see all three of these guys have a peak month together (in October)

by RasmustheRipper on Jul 23, 2011 5:44 AM EDT reply actions

also...

Berkman started April slumping

by RasmustheRipper on Jul 23, 2011 5:45 AM EDT up reply actions

aren't HR excluded in BABIP?

so wouldn’t this account for AP, Berk, and Holliday’s lower #s?

by gocards62 on Jul 23, 2011 9:16 AM EDT up reply actions

why put a ball in play when you can just put it out of play?

Johnny Gomes could not be reached for comment
"There is not a better feeling in the whole world than knowing that you are the best team in both leagues."- Bob Forsch on winning the 1982 World Series.

by MaytheForschbewithyou on Jul 23, 2011 9:41 AM EDT up reply actions

the shit really hit the fan in July

by beer me on Jul 23, 2011 9:13 AM EDT reply actions

Should it worry me

that Jay and Freese are respectively only hitting .311 and .301 with BABIP of .354 and .368?

"I'm gonna throw the nastiest curveball I have ever thrown...if he hits it, I'll tip my cap, but if not we're going to the Series."

--Adam Wainwright on the final pitch of the 2006 NLCS

by bgh on Jul 23, 2011 12:38 PM EDT reply actions

Yes.

Freese worries me the most; I have higher expectations for him than I do Jay. Last night helped Freese out a little.
Maybe I’ll update it, but that sets a precedent I’m not interested in maintaining.

Still not a werewolf.

by clank on Jul 23, 2011 12:57 PM EDT up reply actions

That's why I'm not high on Colby

Last year he had a BABIP of .354, and only managed to hit .276.

If he puts up a more normal BABIP of .300, he’s probably only going to be around .250 or so. If he walks a lot, that’s still good enough for a CF, but I don’t think the Cardinals will probably encourage his ability to to walk, thanks to TLR’s insistence that hitters be aggressive.

by DiscoJer on Jul 23, 2011 9:30 PM EDT up reply actions

he'll be fine, eventually. Hopefully.

problem is, we pissed away ~3 years of club control for very little. And may have crippled his development. Probably not, but we lost the advantage that we had, in terms of leverage etc.

"Now that they've come out with that great stat, 'innings pitched per inning'-- is there anything they don't have a stat for these days?" -Al Hraboski, 3 Jun 11

by SleepyCA on Jul 24, 2011 3:17 AM EDT up reply actions

what does that mean?

should have kept him in minors?

Just win

by The Duke on Jul 24, 2011 8:47 AM EDT up reply actions

I think he's saying that we should have played rasmus more

But he’s had over 500 ABs the past two years.

They say that it's never too late, but you don't get any younger...

by Valatan on Jul 24, 2011 1:40 PM EDT up reply actions

Yes, we should have kept him down until at least ASB, 2009.

As it stands, he’ll have 3 years of service after this year, be arb-eligible, and be a free agent after 2014 (age-27). if we had kept him in the minors for a month of 2009, he’d be a free agent in 2015 instead. And if we had waited until the mid-2009 to bring him up, he wouldn’t hit arbitration until next year.

if his AAA performance was as mediocre as his MLB performance was in 2009, we could have either brought him up in may 2010 and controlled him through the end of his age-29 season (huge difference!), or brokered a Longoria-type deal to bring him up early. Instead, we got the worst of both worlds- we brought a guy up who wasn’t ready for the big leagues, burned service time, AND have little chance of extending him.

That’s the programmatics- the comment on development was that he is dealing with learning things in MLB that he should have learned in AAA.

"Now that they've come out with that great stat, 'innings pitched per inning'-- is there anything they don't have a stat for these days?" -Al Hraboski, 3 Jun 11

by SleepyCA on Jul 24, 2011 8:39 PM EDT up reply actions

A regression of his BABIP would be mitigated by a regression of his K-rate

Of all sad words of tongue or pen; the saddest are these: 'It might have been!' -- Whittier
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by mysterui on Jul 25, 2011 12:37 PM EDT up reply actions

there are some very weird numbers there

look at Skip’s wOBA for July.

Berkman doesn’t give an f about BABIP. it just pisses him off

Pujols and (to a lesser extent) Rasmus are having extremely unlucky seasons

Freese’s .386 wOBA in April is fanfreakintastic. but he has not regained his stroke after returning from the broken hand

Jay seems to be about a .350 wOBA hitter going forward. maybe only .340

Matt Holliday is worth the dough

I wonder what Jon Jay did in May. it seemed to be magic

Yadi’s hitting in May is starting to fade away into memory

FIRE TONY RASMUS

by Cards Fan in Chitown on Jul 24, 2011 9:39 PM EDT reply actions

Not sure why you think Jay's a .350 wOBA hitter.

That is his wOBA RIGHT NOW with an Ichiro-esque BABIP so I’d put him closer to .330 than .350.

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by stlcardsfan4 on Jul 24, 2011 9:41 PM EDT up reply actions

ok

my “maybe only .340” addendum was more accurate. wOBA is still a bit nebulous in my head. it’s weird that you see a number of players over .400. which makes a .360 wOBA hitter seem not that special. but they are still great hitters. there must be sort of an exponential curve happening once you get really good at hitting. I saw that when I did my stat… once players got really good their ratings went up higher like on a bell curve or something like that. (forgive my not so focused mathematical evaluations)

FIRE TONY RASMUS

by Cards Fan in Chitown on Jul 24, 2011 9:48 PM EDT up reply actions

RYAN THERIOT SHOULD NOT BE PLAYING MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL. He literally takes more off the field than he brings to it. Cut his ass. Now. (Does anyone still want to argue this? If so, what is your argument now: He runs a shelter for lost puppies? He makes excellent chocolate chip cookies that put everyone in the clubhouse is a good mood?)
Descalso’s numbers look to be BABIP driven. That said, he’s a very good defensive 2B/3B and he’s passable at SS — therefore we should ride that lightning until the storm is over.
Ditto, Skip Schumaker, with the exception of the “good defense” part. He makes one good play….and two seconds later boots a 3 hopper.
Jay should probably be playing every day. Gotta give it to Tony on that one. Or at least until those ground balls stop finding holes in the infield. He’s a good defender and his wOBA is good enough to even start him in a corner spot on most teams.
Rasmus. God. Awful. He’s either hurt or he’s mentally incapacitated to an Ankiel-esque level in the batter’s box. We can argue this all we want, but there’s literally NO ARGUMENT against playing Jon Jay every day right now. There just isn’t.

Can Colby round out our new MV3?

by fourstick on Jul 25, 2011 9:20 AM EDT reply actions 2 recs