Viva El Birdos - All Posts

On Shelby Miller and the St. Louis Cardinals losing to Jason Marquis

2013-05-21T12:00:15Z

Jason Marquis has spent his entire career on life support. He's finished a season with his ERA over six twice and under four twice; he's was 33-years-old before he pushed his K:BB ratio over two for the first time in his career. He's a sinkerballer who allowed 1.3 home runs per nine innings while pitching for Dave Duncan. Baseball Reference says he's worth six wins above replacement as a pitcher (in 1852 innings) and four as a hitter (in 679 plate appearances.)

For a while I was surprised—every time I saw him in a new uniform—that Jason Marquis was still playing baseball. Eventually the surprise turned on itself, ate its own tail, and on my deathbed, now, I think I'll be surprised when someone tells me he isn't stashed somewhere in the back of the Raleigh-Durham BattleKatzz's bullpen.

For all that, he's now 118-111 in a career that looked like it could have been over before he turned 30.

Shelby Miller will probably never catch Marquis as a hitter, but at the rate he's going he might have already matched the best pitching season of Marquis's career, per rWAR. That distinction is one of the reasons replacement level made intuitive sense to me in the first place—it explains how the shape of Marquis's value is different from, say, Kyle Lohse's or Shelby Miller's.

You don't want to end up with Jason Marquis in your rotation all year. He's replaceable, and the players you can replace him with are usually more pleasant to watch on the mound, if not at the plate. But he'll soak up innings, and every so often he'll turn in an above-soaked performance. There's value there—he's a major-league baseball player—it's just not value you want to draw on.

The St. Louis Cardinals have dug up nearly all of their front-line prospects—which is why it's a little weird that whether the Cardinals should bring up the last one, Michael Wacha, has become such a flashpoint. Now we're into the prospects for which Cy Young Awards are not the 90th-percentile projection.

Tyler Lyons and John Gast—and Joe Kelly—can all hope for better individual seasons than Jason Marquis ever had, at least if you're starting from his peripherals. But Jason Marquis is going to cross 2000 innings pitched in his career, and now he's beaten the Cardinals six times. All of them could certainly do worse.

Game 40 Open Thread: St. Louis Cardinals @ San Diego Padres

2013-05-21T01:55:03Z

SHELBY MILLER STATS (2013)

GS

IP

K

K%

BB

BB%

HR/9

HR/FB

LOB%

BABIP

ERA

FIP

xFIP

fWAR

8

51.1

57

29.1%

12

6.1%

0.53

6.0%

86.5%

.246

1.40

2.39

3.03

1.5

The Thing About Ryan Jackson

2013-05-20T18:00:07Z

First, Ryan Jackson was the best defensive infielder in the Cardinals' farm system. Then he was exiled when Pete Kozma, who was behind Jackson on Memphis' depth chart, surpassed him on St. Louis' depth chart, presumably because Kozma had a short-lived career as a warlock. But now that the date on the bottle of Pete Kozma's magic potion has expired, people are clamoring for Ryan Jackson again.

Keith Law may have had something to do with this:

#FreeRyanJackson
— keithlaw (@keithlaw) May 12, 2013

I'm all for Ryan Jackson getting another chance, but I get the sense that his promotion is being demanded for all of the wrong reasons. Jackson's batting average (.384), on-base percentage (.465), and slugging percentage (.518) are unrecognizable from previous seasons. It's easy to get excited when a player suddenly starts performing at a higher level, but we need to look beyond those numbers for confirmation that what we're seeing is really as impressive as it seems. Often, it isn't.

The more impressive numbers that differ so much from Ryan Jackson's minor league career to date quickly gain perspective when we consider how fortunate he has been on balls in play. Sure, Jackson has created some of his own luck by generating an impressive amount of line drives (23%) but even that cannot explain nearly half of his balls in play falling for base hits.

Isolated power (ISO), a statistic that basically removes singles from the equation, is actually a few points lower this season than it has been in Jackson's minor league career. That Jackson's isolated power has remained unchanged since 2011 (his year in double-A) exposes him as a player who is relying on a ton of singles to inflate his offensive value. His numbers will take a hit once more of those singles start finding gloves.

That's not to say Jackson will be worthless offensively. According to FanGraphs' wRC+, he was an average batsman (99 wRC+) in 2011 for Springfield and slightly worse (89 wRC+) in his first year playing for Memphis in 2012. Translating that sort of performance to St. Louis would make him an adequate shortstop, especially considering his defensive reputation.

Some pundits remain high on Ryan Jackson's defense. At Minor League Ball, John Sickels wrote the following in January:

He's got a solid defensive reputation, featuring decent range and arm strength, excellent instincts, and outstanding reliabiilty: he made just 12 errors in 102 games at shortstop for Memphis and zero errors in 13 games at second base. Although he doesn't have super-amazing range, he makes the plays he needs to make and there's no doubt about his ability to play shortstop regularly from a defensive perspective.

I don't mean to completely disregard Ryan Jackson's surprising start to 2013. He deserves some credit for making better contact (23% line drives) and walking more often (11%), especially when considering how he could have reacted after being displaced on the depth chart by Pete Kozma and possibly Greg Garcia. Billed as Memphis utility infielder to start the season, Jackson has appeared at shortstop in almost half of Memphis' games and could get even more playing time there with Greg Garcia landing on the disabled list on May 11th.

So go ahead and ask for Ryan Jackson. I'm with you. Just realize that an argument for Jackson has more to do with his glove and less to do with offensive potential. Objectively, I'm wondering if he shouldn't be more of a threat to Daniel Descalso than Pete Kozma. Descalso can't really play shortstop and has only been out-hitting Ty Wigginton, Tony Cruz, and the pitchers. And then again, even having to engage in this conversation might just be Ty Wigginton's fault, as Dan reminded us on Saturday.

Probable Pitchers - Monday, May 20th

2013-05-20T15:00:11Z

Memphis @ Salt Lake, 7:35pm - Boone Whiting

Springfield @ Arkansas, 7:10pm - Richard Castillo

Palm Beach @ Brevard County, 5:35pm - Travis Miller

Peoria vs. Clinton, 11:00am - Joe Cuda

Tyler Lyons, Chris Carpenter, & the Future 2013 St. Louis Cardinals Starting Rotation

2013-05-20T12:00:12Z

After losing Chris Carpenter before the season began, the St. Louis Cardinals starting rotation nonetheless carried the club through the season's opening weeks. The group included veteran sinkerballer Jake Westbrook and southpaw Jaime Garcia, who might have the best repertoire of the entire of the lot. Injuries have seen both groundballers land on the disabled list. Westbrook seems likely to return to big-league action in the near-to-medium future. Garcia, on the hand, appears likely to undergo surgery. Fittingly, Carpenter may return to fill a newly formed hole in the starting five.

The Departed

Garcia suffered a shoulder injury during the 2012 season that limited the lefthander to only 20 starts totaling 121 2/3 innings. Baseball Prospectus labels the injury a "labrum and partial rotator cuff tear." Despite this diagnosis, Garcia returned for the club's Wild Card push and started NLDS Game 2 against Washington. In that game, the injury again reared its ugly head, forcing manager Mike Matheny to pull Garcia after just two innings.

The offseason prognosis was not heartening. Garcia saw three doctors--Robert Altcheck, Lewis Yocum, and George Paletta--and they all recommend Garcia undergo a surgical procedure that involved shoulder debridement. Garcia sought the opinion of Dr. James Andrews, who recommended rehabilitation.

Garcia rehabed and reported to spring training in good shape. He made nine starts for the Redbirds this season before his balky shoulder drove him to the DL. Here is the production the Cards received during Garcia's nine starts this 2013 season.

JAIME GARCIA STATS (2013)

GS

IP

K%

BB%

HR/9

HR/FB

LOB%

ERA

FIP

xFIP

fWAR

9

55.1

18.4%

6.4%

0.98

15.4%

72.3%

3.58

3.70

3.31

0.6

Garcia gave the Cardinals solid production this season. The southpaw's 3.58 ERA is a bit above average, coming in at a 96 ERA-. His 3.70 FIP also rates out as above average, equalling a 97 FIP-.

Garcia's shoulder injury has returned with a vengeance. The port-sider described the pain in his throwing shoulder as worse than it was at any point in 2012. Depending on what Dr. Andrews finds during his examination of Garcia, the lefty may be headed for a lengthy disabled list stint.

The Near-Term Replacement

The Redbirds' immediate replacement for the injured Garcia will be Triple-A lefthander Tyler Lyons.

The 2010 ninth-round pick will be called upon to make his big-league debut, starting for the injured Garcia. Lyons is listed as 6-foot-4 and 200 pounds. The lanky lefty relies more on guile than stuff. While his breaking ball generally receives good grades, there isn't much else in his repertoire to write the front office about.

The following chart show Lyons's minor-league stats to date.

TYLER LYONS CAREER MiLB STATS (2011-2013)

Year

Level

G

GS

IP

K%

BB%

HR/9

LOB%

ERA

FIP

2011

R

7

7

29.2

23.7%

5.9%

1.21

65.8%

4.85

3.87

2011

A+

33

12

94.0

19.7%

7.2%

0.77

65.4%

4.50

3.68

2012

AA

12

12

64.1

19.7%

6.9%

0.84

69.9%

3.92

3.67

2012

AAA

15

15

88.1

24.3%

4.9%

0.92

68.9%

4.28

3.19

2013

AAA

8

8

46.1

19.0%

4.5%

0.58

68.4%

4.47

3.31

That the Cards decided to purchase the contract of Lyons instead of Michael Wacha has been the subject of some debate. It appears that the Cardinals went with Lyons because they only need a single start in replacement of the injured Garcia. This is because Jake Westbrook is expected to be activated from the DL soon.

The Near-Medium-Term Replacement

Righthander Westbrook landed on the DL last week with what has been labeled "inflammation" of the elbow in his throwing arm. Whereas general manager John Mozeliak has openly expressed concern regarding Garcia's shoulder, he has never been anything but upbeat about Westbrook's return. Even though the veteran has suffered a setback of sorts.

MLB.com's Jenifer Langosch reports:

Three days after receiving a cortisone injection to target a buildup of scar tissue around his right elbow, Jake Westbrook was cleared to begin his throwing program.

Westbrook made about 25 throws from a distance of 60 feet on Sunday, saying afterward that "it went well" and that his elbow "feels a lot better." Westbrook, who will travel to California with the club after Sunday's game, expects to play catch again on Monday.

The Cardinals are still hopeful that Westbrook, who was placed on the disabled list retroactive to May 9, will miss only three starts.

If Westbrook is able to return in the near-medium term, he would likely bump Lyons back to the Memphis rotation and John Gast would stay on as Starter No. 5 until Carp strikes back.

The Medium-Long-Term Replacement

Chris Carpenter's career isn't yet over. The curly-haired righty has again started throwing a baseball. So far, the results have been positive.

Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that it remains to be seen whether the veteran will return as a reliever or starter.

"I'm going to prepare myself to be extended," Carpenter said. "Right now, they don't even have a need for me. So I'll prepare just in case something happens. ...

"Bottom line is I'll do whatever it takes. We'll find out when I start to stretch myself out if I can do that or not. Ultimately I might start my rehab and get to five innings and I can't make it. Then the decision gets easy."

After Saturday's throwing session, Langosch writes the following:

Chris Carpenter said that his arm responded well enough to throwing three simulated innings on Saturday that he'll continue to move forward with his throwing program as scheduled. That means he will throw a short side session on Monday before throwing four simulated innings on Thursday.

Now that the Cardinals have a need for Carp, there will nonetheless be no effect on his rehabilitation program. Goold Sulia'd the following quote from the the injured righty:

"It's not fair to them, the team or myself if I'm not ready to go," said Carpenter, who has one more extended bullpen session scheduled before he advances to facing hitters. "I'm not going to push myself back. I'm going to make sure that I'm healthy and that I know everything is going to work and that I can go out there and take that grind of the amount of pitches and innings it takes to go the rest of the year."

The Cardinals currently possess the best starting rotation ERA in all of baseball. At 2.62, it was over 40 points lower than the second-best team entering play on Sunday. Their 2.88 FIP is also excellent and falls second behind only the Tigers starters this season. LIkewise, el Birdos' 3.31 starters' xFIP is also quite good. The Cardinals were unlikely to maintain their excellent pace even before Westbrook and Garcia hit the DL. Gast and Lyons are crafty Triple-A lefties that are fine stop-gaps even if they're unlikely to be much more than cromulent. The current need in the rotation makes Carpenter's potential return all the more intriguing.

Daily Farm Report - 5/19/13

2013-05-20T03:53:24Z

Memphis 5, Tacoma 6

Brock Peterson was 2-for-4 with a homerun.
Jamie Romak was 2-for-4 with a double.
Maikel Cleto struck out 5 in 5 innings of work. He allowed 5 runs on 5 hits and 3 walks. Cleto was notably bit by the home run ball, which accounted for 3 of the 5 runs.
Eduardo Sanchez allowed 1 hit in a scoreless frame.
Eric Fornataro struck out 1 and allowed 1 hit.
Jorge Rondon took the loss allowing a walk off solo home run to Carlos Trunifel.

Springfield 3, Arkansas 5

Mike O'Neill was 2-for-4. O'Neill is batting a ridiculous .348/.476/.422 on the season.
It would appear that Arkansas's catcher doesn't have much of an arm. The Cardinals stole 5 bases off of Mark Fleury across two different pitchers.
Seth Blair had a great outing striking out 6 in 6 innings. He allowed 3 runs on 6 hits.

Palm Beach 0, Jupiter 1

Jonathan Rodriguez was 3-for-4 with a double.
Jonathan Cornelius struck out 1 and walked 1 across 7 innings. He allowed 2 hits.
Heath Wyatt was the unlucky loser. He pitched 2 innings allowing one unearned run (on his own error). Wyatt walked 1, struck out 1 and allowed 2 hits.

Peoria 2, Clinton 5

Jacob Wilson was 2-for-4.
Patrick Wisdom was 0-for-2 with a pair of walks.
Gerwuins Velazco was 0-for-1 with a pair of walks.
Josh Lucas allowed 10 hits and 5 runs in 6.1 innings. He struck out 3 and walked 1.
Mike Aldrete allowed 1 hit and struck out 2 in 2.2 innings.

Good News/Bad News

2013-05-19T11:00:07Z

I'm watching Edward Mujica in the 9th inning. He's recorded two outs and allowed a single that should have been an out had Allen Craig not been so concerned that fist base was going to walk off of its own accord. I was not particularly enamored of Mujica when the Cardinals acquired him from the Marlins. A control artist with solid strikeout rates, he seemed a good solution for the problem of the 7th inning that had been particularly plaguing in 2012.

But a solution to the particularly plaguing 9th inning for the Cardinals in 2013? That seems to be a bit more of a stretch.

And yet, here we are. I'm inclined to quote poet-philosopher Ryan Theriot when he said, "It is what it is."

But it isn't what it was. More specifically, Edward Mujica is having a different season then he's had previously and there appears to be a measurable change in approach. Take a look at pitch selection from 2012 compared to 2013:

	2012	2013
Fastball	45.3%	35.4%
Slider	9.5%	0.5%
Split Finger	45.2%	64.2%

Mujica has ditched the slider entirely and scaled back. For all intents and purposes, he's doubled down on the split finger and it has paid off. Mujica has seen his strikeout rate tick up and is also benefiting from even better than usual control. To wit:

	2012	2013
Strikeout%	18.2%	26.7%
Walk%	4.7%	1.7%

There's good reason to wonder if these are sustainable rates. It would be the best strikeout rate of his career (equaled in 2010 with the Padres) and the lowest walk rate since he broke into the majors in 2006.

Mujica's stuff, especially given the fireballers currently in the pen like Trevor Rosenthal and Carlos Martinez, is unlikely to become known as a "stuff" guy. His fastball sits in the low nineties (averaging around 92mph) and, despite the impressive results of his split finger, he lacks the eyeball popping breaking ball like an Adam Wainwright curve or a Mitchell Boggs slider.

But it would be a mistake to conflate Mujica with the most recent Cardinals closer by default, Ryan Franklin. In a similar way, Franklin earned the role after others failed their way out of it. He was reliable in the sense that you knew what you were getting from Franklin even if what you were getting wasn't very good. Franklin was like a microwaved salmon patty from the store: arguably nutritious, hinting at flavor and suffering from a systemic case of freezer burn. And yet, still filling.

Franklin never eclipsed a 20% strikeout rate. His best walk rate was twice what Edward Mujica's current walk rate is. The question of sustainability is a prudent one to keep asking when a reliever overperforms expectations in a small sample size but Mujica's process looks different than in past and his results look better. This isn't smoke and mirrors. There's legitimate fire in the Edward Mujica as closer role.

* * *

You twist your ankle doing your typical day job activities one day. Your options are to take some time off and try to rest it or to have surgery. Tests indicate that there appears to be a significant problem to your foot but doctors reasonably caution you that tests of this nature (e.g. MRIs) are not full proof.

Rather than undergo surgery, which has a host of inherent risks unrelated to your specific injury, you opt for rest and rehab. Things go reasonably well until they ... well, stop going reasonably well.

There's going to be a lot of second guessing of bot Jaime Garcia and the St. Louis Cardinals in the wake of his trip to the DL and what sounds an awful lot like portents of season ending surgery. The Cardinals earned some of this with past incidents involving Mark Mulder and Scott Rolen.

The reality is more nuanced than any one event and a conservative approach to injuries is warranted in general. It's worth noting that Jaime Garcia was really fucking good over the last few weeks. He had a 3.69 FIP with a 63% groundball rate.

Perhaps a more interesting question about Jaime Garcia is not whether he should have had surgery last year but whether his mechanics are conducive to being healthy in general. Has Garcia seen a shift in mechanical stress from his elbow to his shoulder post-Tommy John surgery? That's a question that doesn't have an answer with any significant degree of certainty but it's the kind of question that biomechanical analysis of players tries to explore.

The Cardinals will look to their bullpen to replace Garcia after calling up Mitchell Boggs from the minors. Given Rosenthal, Martinez and Joe Kelly's involvement in Saturday's game, the smart money looks to be on Seth Maness for the next Garcia start. The Cardinals rotation now includes Adam Wainwright, Lance Lynn and three rookies. If anyone wondered why the Cardinals refrained from a trade of their many pitching prospects, this is it.

Whether it works out or is a question for another day but this is the front office trying to mitigate and manage risk. They've had several risks come to fruition that were already of a high probability (Chris Carpenter, Jaime Garcia) and one that would seem to be more of a surprise (Jake Westbrook). Still, it's another sign that the farm system isn't just for show and has plenty to offer in the face of challenges to the big league team.

Daily Farm Report - 5/18/13

2013-05-19T05:27:09Z

The system goes 2-2 W-L overall. A rarity that you'll find southpaws starting in each game on each level on one night the system had just that. Two of the southpaws Nick Addition from Memphis and Tim Cooney from Springfield had impressive starts and racking up the strikeouts.

Memphis 3, Tacoma 4

Memphis is still without Kolten Wong and Oscar Taveras.

Brock Peterson only hit was a double.

Jamie Romak was 1-2 with 2 walks.

Justin Christian the minor league vet was 1-2 with an RBI double and also had base on base.

Vance Albitz made up most of Memphis's offense by going 2-4 with 2 RBI's and a double.

Nick Addition pitched 6 solid innings allowing 4 hits on 3 earned runs, walked 1, and struck out 9 batters.

Marc Rzepczynski pitched a scoreless inning but struggled finding his control as he walked 3 batters.

Sam Freeman gave up 3 hits on 1 earned run in an inning of work.

Springfield 7, Arkansas 0

*Mike O'Neill has two major abilities getting on base at a superior rate and consistently putting the ball in play using the entire field as did by going 4-5 with a triple, double, and 2 singles. Using the entire field is one of O'Neill biggest assets.

*James Ramsey was hitless but walked twice.

*Ruben Gotay had a 3-hit game walked once.

*Chris Swauger was 3-5 with an RBI.

*Xavier Scruggs continues to mash at Springfield just begging to get promotion to Memphis. He went 2-4 with a home run and 5 RBI's. Scruggs now has a slash line of .283/.414/.655 and has slugged 12 home runs with 33 RBI's in only 36 games.

*Tim Cooney had the most impressive night as he pitched 6 shutout innings giving up 5 hits only walking 1 and striking out 7 batters. Nice to see Cooney having immediate success at Springfield.

Palm Beach 2, Jupiter 5

*Switch hitter Collin Walsh was 1-2 with 2 walks with a stolen base his 4th of the season. Walsh's power may have died in the FSL but at least he's still showing patience at the plate. As he's kept an excellent walk rate of 12.2% but his strikeouts are up by nearly 5 points from last year which suggest he's having a tough time adjusting to facing more advanced pitching.

*Stephen Piscotty singled his only knock.

*Danny Stienstra continues to be productive for Palm Beach as he hit an RBI single.

*Tyler Melling pitched 5 scoreless innings giving up 3 hits, walked 1, and struck out 5

Peoria 7, Clinton 10

Peoria's bullpen imploded in the top of the 9th giving up 5 runs.

*Breyvic Valera was a perfect 4-4 with an RBI and single. Nice to see Valera starting to hit again. People got to remember he led the NY-Penn-League in total hits last year.

*Ildemaro Vargas was 3-5 with a double.

*Patrick Wisdom was 1-5 with an RBI triple.

*Carson Kelly continues to hold his own by singling twice.

*Kyle Helisiek gave up 11 hits on 5 unearned, 3 earned in 6 innings pitched.

*Sam Tuivailala was roughed up allowing 5 runs although only 4 of the runs were earned in a 1/3 of an inning.

GS	IP	K	K%	BB	BB%	HR/9	HR/FB	LOB%	BABIP	ERA	FIP	xFIP	fWAR
8	51.1	57	29.1%	12	6.1%	0.53	6.0%	86.5%	.246	1.40	2.39	3.03	1.5

Year	Level	G	GS	IP	K%	BB%	HR/9	LOB%	ERA	FIP
2011	R	7	7	29.2	23.7%	5.9%	1.21	65.8%	4.85	3.87
2011	A+	33	12	94.0	19.7%	7.2%	0.77	65.4%	4.50	3.68
2012	AA	12	12	64.1	19.7%	6.9%	0.84	69.9%	3.92	3.67
2012	AAA	15	15	88.1	24.3%	4.9%	0.92	68.9%	4.28	3.19
2013	AAA	8	8	46.1	19.0%	4.5%	0.58	68.4%	4.47	3.31