At the season's halfway point, how have the St. Louis Cardinals performed relative to their preseason VEB Community projections?

By Ben Humphrey Jul 6, 2015, 9:00am EDT

Every year, various publications, websites, and sabermetricians put out preseason projections for the forthcoming MLB season. They often are based upon complex formulas with many inputs. At VEB we've started an annual tradition of injecting the human element into projections. Rather than use a specific formula, we ask our readership to submit their predictions for Cardinals players. To view the preseason VEB Community projections in greater detail and see how they compare to the spreadsheet forecasts, you can click here.

Throughout the season we check in periodically to see how the Cardinals are performing relative to the VEB Community projections. At the conclusion of the season, we'll see how the Cardinals' individual 2015 stats measure up to their preseason projections, including those of the VEB Community. With St. Louis having played their 81st game of the 2015 campaign on Sunday, the Cardinals have reached the mathematical halfway point of the season, so I thought it would be fun to take a look at how the various players are producing compared to their preseason VEB Community projections.

You may notice that some players are not shown in this post. I excluded players who are likely out of the remainder of the regular season (i.e., Adam Wainwright and Matt Adams). We also did not do projections for relievers other than closer Trevor Rosenthal (who is the first reliever projections we've ever done) or bench players. Consequently, Randal Grichuk, Peter Bourjos, Pete Kozma, etc. are not featured.

Position Players

Yadier Molina

	PA	R	HR	RBI	SB	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	wOBA
VEB	514	60	12	68	4	.291	.343	.424	.767	.347
2015	292	21	2	27	0	.292	.333	.373	.706	.309
% or Diff.	56.8%	35%	16.7%	39.7%	0%	+.001	-.010	-.051	-.061	-.038

Kolten Wong

	PA	R	HR	RBI	SB	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	wOBA
VEB	564	74	15	63	24	.276	.330	.423	.753	.339
2015	329	42	9	36	7	.279	.337	.443	.780	.338
% or Diff.	58.3%	56.8%	60%	57.1%	29.2%	+.003	+.007	+.020	+.027	-.001

Matt Carpenter

	PA	R	HR	RBI	SB	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	wOBA
VEB	642	104	11	67	6	.294	.381	.427	.808	.371
2015	326	45	8	39	1	.274	.374	.444	.818	.357
% or Diff	50.8%	43.3%	72.7%	58.2%	16.7%	-.020	-.007	+.017	+.010	-.014

Jhonny Peralta

	PA	R	HR	RBI	SB	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	wOBA
VEB	594	64	18	75	2	.271	.334	.438	.772	.347
2015	334	34	11	42	1	.297	.350	.469	.819	.353
% or Diff	56.2%	53.1%	61.1%	56%	50%	+.026	+.016	+.031	+.047	+.008

Matt Holliday

	PA	R	HR	RBI	SB	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	wOBA
VEB	593	90	21	91	3	.286	.367	.464	.831	.375
2015	218	20	3	26	2	.303	.417	.421	.839	.366
% or Diff	36.8%	22.2%	14.3%	28.6%	66.7%	+.017	+.050	-.043	+.008	-.009

Jon Jay

	PA	R	HR	RBI	SB	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	wOBA
VEB	480	59	4	45	7	.283	.339	.370	.709	.315
2015	191	19	1	10	0	.223	.311	.265	.576	.256
% or Diff.	39.8%	32.2%	25%	22.2%	0%	-.060	-.028	-.105	-.133	-.059

Jason Heyward

	PA	R	HR	RBI	SB	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	wOBA
VEB	609	91	20	82	19	.283	.367	.452	.819	.364
2015	302	38	9	29	8	.281	.331	.439	.770	.334
% or Diff	49.6%	41.8%	45%	35.4%	42.1%	-.002	-.036	-.013	-.049	-.030

Pitchers

Lance Lynn

	IP	K/9	BB/9	ERA	FIP	W	L
VEB	201	8.17	2.91	3.19	3.34	16	9
2015	92.1	9.45	3.02	2.53	2.73	6	4
% or Diff	45.9%	+1.28	+.009	-0.66	-0.61	37.5%	44.4%

Michael Wacha

	IP	K/9	BB/9	ERA	FIP	W	L
VEB	160	8.18	2.61	3.16	3.17	13	7
2015	101.1	7.11	2.04	2.66	3.17	10	3
% or Diff	63.3%	-1.07	-0.57	-0.50	+/- 0	76.9%	42.9%

Carlos Martinez

	IP	K/9	BB/9	ERA	FIP	W	L
VEB	147	8.66	3.22	3.47	3.31	11	7
2015	100	9.45	3.69	2.70	3.58	9	3
% or Diff	68%	+0.79	+0.47	-0.77	+0.27	81.8%	42.9%

John Lackey

	IP	K/9	BB/9	ERA	FIP	W	L
VEB	182	7.06	2.49	3.79	3.84	13	9
2015	103.2	6.68	2.26	3.30	3.44	6	5
% or Diff	60%	-0.38	-0.23	-0.49	-0.40	46.2%	55.6%

Jaime Garcia

	IP	K/9	BB/9	ERA	FIP	W	L
VEB	96	7.25	2.50	3.46	3.44	7	4
2015	48	6.00	1.31	1.69	3.00	3	3
% or Diff	50%	-1.25	-1.19	-1.77	-0.44	42.9%	75%

Trevor Rosenthal

	G	IP	K/9	BB/9	ERA	FIP	SV
VEB	70	69	10.89	3.55	2.89	2.79	42
2015	37	38.1	9.86	3.05	0.70	2.25	24
% or Diff	52.9%	55.6%	-1.03	-0.50	-2.19	-0.54	57.1%

FanDuel

SBN and FanDuel have entered into an exclusive partnership with respect to daily fantasy baseball this 2015 season. With a collective 84 wRC+ entering play on Sunday, the Mets have one of the worst offenses in the NL. They are in the midst of a west-coast road trip and play the Giants tonight. I like Chris Heston in pitcher-friendly AT&T Park. Play FanDuel here.