A Carpenter Shall Lead You

May 29, 2009 | mriehn | Comments 1

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by Michael Riehn
Whiteyball Staff

Photo courtesy of Elsa/ Getty Images

The Cardinals surged into first place Wednesday with a 28-19 record, and the second best winning percentage in the major leagues.  They have posted a 7-2 mark after limping out of the home series with Milwaukee.  Would you have thought this was possible a week ago?  It’s funny what a week can do to your perspective.

The pitching staff deserves most of the credit, as they have completed a historic stretch of dominant games.  Getting a Cy Young caliber pitcher back from the disabled list can do wonders for a team’s psyche.  Chris Carpenter’s effect on the rest of the staff has been nothing short of amazing.

The Redbird pitchers lead all of baseball with a 3.58 ERA (a full 0.20 ahead of the Dodgers) and they are not doing it with smoke and mirrors.  Obviously they aren’t this good, but they are pitching  well in a definable way that can be quantified and repeated.  How has the pitching staff accomplished their feat?  They have limiting walks (3rd in baseball), are getting groundballs (1st in baseball in ground ball vs. fly ball at 1.41) and are not allowing home runs (4th at 0.73 per 9 innings).  These attributes are what a Dave Duncan staff focuses on, and a great blueprint for success.

When the starting pitchers get into the 7th or 8th innings, it keeps the bullpen fresh, and allows La Russa to use their strengths to the fullest. Mitchell Boggs sported a nifty 3.22 ERA while starting in place of Carpenter, but the 4-5 inning outings were taxing the bullpen, and thus caused a cascade effect on the entire staff.   When pitchers are fresh, and used in the right way, they perform better.

Chris Carpenter has looked absolutely filthy in his return from the disabled list, and hasn’t allowed an earned run in the regular season.  He’s taken 2 no hitters into the 6th inning and made batters look silly swinging at his assortment of mid nineties fastballs and knee buckling off speed stuff.  You can quantify this by utilizing the Fangraph website’s O-Swing%.  This is an advanced metric that shows how many times a batter swings at a pitch outside of the strikezone.  If Carpenter had enough innings pitched to qualify, he’d be 6th in the majors in getting batters to swing outside of the strikezone (30.5%).  This is a really good tool to show how much he is fooling hitters.

Carpenter started spring training the same dominant way he has started the regular season and only allowed his few runs of the exhibition season late.    It total, he has accumulated 46 2/3 IP (counting spring training) this year and given up 4 ER.   This run of excellence has given him a 0.77 ERA, and would even make Bob Gibson blush.

Thanks to Carpenter, Boggs, Wainwright and the bullpen, the staff is even in the top half of the league in strikeouts per 9 innings.  This is not something a Dave Duncan pitching staffs is usually noted for, but another great way to get outs (actually it is the best way, but a lot harder to obtain).

The hitting has decidedly not been good and has kept the Cardinal record from being even better.  While the pitching has been phenomenal, there is another reason for the Cardinals increased record.  They have been fielding MUCH better and have surged from one of the worst teams with the glove in April to one of the better teams in May.

Taking Khalil Greene out of the lineup has worked out well because both Brendan Ryan and Tyler Greene are phenomenal fielders.  When combined with Yadier Molina and Colby Rasmus, they make a fierce up the middle defense.  Even Schumaker has improved dramatically on his UZR numbers (Ultimate Zone Rating) and is looking more like a success every day at second base.

I will leave you with a quick trivia question.  Knowing that batting average is a misleading stat (on base percentage and slugging percentage are MUCH better).  Would you consider these 2 players similar?

Player A:  .353 OBP/ .439 SLG
Player B:  .353 OBP/.404 SLG

Before I tell you the answer, I must admit that I have a bias toward Player B and never would have thought his numbers would be close to Player A.  They can both play the same position (Player B plays it better), but one of them is hitting 54 points lower in batting average than the other player.  This is why batting average can be so misleading.  99% of the time, a walk is as good as a hit.

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Filed Under: Baseball

Tags: Chris Carpenter • defense • Joe Thurston • O-Swing% • Skip Schumaker