PostCards: Blowing in the Win
TOWER GROVE - The bountiful stats Ryan Ludwick put up this season, the career-high wins for pitchers like Kyle Lohse and even the radar readouts from rookie Jason Motte – as big as those numbers were, the digits that continue to define the Cardinals 2008 season are these: 31.
Everyone knows what that number is.
The first question of the Return of PostCards forces us to discuss what that number means. The Cardinals blew 31 saves this season, but a blown save does not always mean a loss and it does not always come in the ninth inning. It’s a superficial statistic, one that’s usage outweighs its importance. That is explored in the first question. There is also an inquiry about how Ludwick’s breakout could mean an MV3 Revival, how it’s possible the Cubs keep spending money, and what it would be like to have Manny Ramirez wearing the Birds.
Think about that for a moment.
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Q: The Cardinals blew about 30 saves this season; don’t have the exact number at hand. How many of those games did they go on to lose?
– Larry Harnly, Springfield, Ill.
DG: Excellent and germane question. Leave it to Larry to steer me toward research that is important to have at my fingers this winter. The Cardinals blew 31 saves this season. This much we know by heart. That total led the National League, and it came three shy of tying Colorado’s record for blown saves in a season since 1969.
But how did those 31 saves show up in the standings?
The Cardinals lost 19 of those 31 games and were 12-19 in the games with a blown save. The pitchers tagged with the blown save were 5-12 with 14 no decisions. Nine different relievers had at least one blown save this season for the Cardinals, led by Ryan Franklin’s eight. (Note: One of his blown saves came in a game that no runner he was responsible for scored or changed the outcome of the game. As a statistic, blown saves have their faults.) But Franklin didn’t have the most losses tethered to his blown saves.
Keep in mind when a pitcher throws - seventh inning, eighth inning, etc. - is going to skew these because a blown save, unlike a save, can go to anyone who throws in a save situation, be it in the sixth inning or the 11th inning. How the blown saves break down, reliever by reliever, and the team’s record in the blown saves:
Ryan Franklin … 8 blown saves … Team: 4-4 … Player: 2-3
Jason Isringhausen … 7 blown saves … Team: 2-5 … Player: 1-4
Kyle McClellan … 5 blown saves … Team: 1-4 … Player: 0-3
Chris Perez … 4 blown saves … Team: 0-4 … Player: 0-2
Russ Springer … 2 blown saves … Team: 1-1 … Player: 0-0
Randy Flores … 2 blown saves … Team: 1-1 … Player: 1-0
Ron Villone … 1 blown save … Team: 1-0 … Player: 0-0
Mark Mulder … 1 blown save … Team: 0-1 … Player: 0-0
Brad Thompson … 1 blown save … Team; 1-0 … Player: 1-0
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Q: I thought you, with your statistical bent, might enjoy this oddity. I was following a Cardinal game in September via MLB.com, and the Cards had the bases loaded. When I checked the scores of other games, I was surprised to see that EVERY ONE of the games in play at that moment had the bases loaded! A screen shot (in a Word document) is attached.
- Bill
DG: Good catch. Check the outbreak of freckles - each red dot represents a base runner - at the top of the screen capture that Bill sent along with his email.
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Q: I was wondering what your thoughts are on the Cubs payroll. According to Cot’s baseball contracts they were at almost $120 million this year. With contract increases (all of those big contracts are catching up) this goes to $140 million. Plus, they still want to keep Kerry Wood, Ryan Dempster, and get a bat. How is that possible?!
– Kevin Weber
DG: The Cubs will be, arguably, the most fascinating team this offseason — not only because of their latest flameout in the playoffs, but because of that For Sale sign in their front yard. The buyer of the Tribune Co. is taking bids on the Cubs and plans to spin the franchise off to the highest/best bidder (one of the finalists is NBA maverick Mark Cuban). How much the Cubs can do with uncertain ownership is an unknown. General manager Jim Hendry, as The Chicago Tribune recently pointed out, has a one-year option for the 2009 season and he must exercise it before the end of the year. It’s unlikely that the Cubs will have a new owner in place by then, so he’ll be leaping into a void. He’s done well enough at Wrigley to possible entertain a more secure offer elsewhere.
The Cubs have already started spending for 2009. They exercised the $7-million option on Rich Harden. Kerry Wood will likely return for a fair offer, and there’s been some speculation that the Cubs will do a rich, one-year deal to bridge the transition to Carlos Marmol as closer by 2010. Ryan Dempster will have to agree to a hometown discount, an I-love-ivy deal for the Cubs to keep him. Because really, what the Cubs need is not easy to find and it is expensive: a lefthanded threat to play right field. Heck, a bona fide bat to play right field. The Cubs lineup needs a lefthanded presence - the Dodgers showed everybody that - and the Cubs would like that presence to come at the expense of at-bats for Kosuke Fukudome. (Or, at least, Cubs’ fans would.) They may have to find that bat via trade, dangling at least shortstop Ronny Cedeno.
There are, obviously, two ways the Cubs could go without a known owner. They could pull a Blues and shed their Chris Prongers and shy away from signing any other Chris Prongers. Or, they could spend like sailors, beef up on back-loaded contracts (see: Alfonso Soriano) and let the next owner dig out from the mess.
If it ain’t their money, anything is possible.
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Q: The Cards got a wonderful year out of Ryan Ludwick and a good year out of Rick Ankiel (until he got hurt). But, Ludwick did strike out quite a bit (the ONLY blemish I can find) and Ankiel still swings at too many slow pitches out of the strike zone. Given that both are still fairly young in terms of major-league at bats, what’s your (or the Cards) take on how much upside remains for each as an offensive player? Do they (along with Albert Pujols) potentially represent a new MV3?
– Ray
DG: Step away from the keyboard. Catch your breath. The Cardinals have a perennial All-Era hitter in Pujols, and that’s … well, that’s where the description ends. They are now a team with an MVP, not MV3. There is every likelihood that Ryan Ludwick could improve on his breakout year and not match this year’s production. His improvement would be in consistency across a season, not in raw totals. His slugging percentage could jog up a bit, but it could climb by doubles, not with a 40-homer season. Rick Ankiel has to show he can stay healthy for a whole season before he gets the tag of being a 35-homer guy. Is he capable of hitting 30? You betcha. Are all three? Pujols is a given. The other two are not. Ludwick and Ankiel are intriguing talents for 2009 - certainly capable of driving in 100 runs or cracking 35 homers. But track record is a tool. Hyperventilating about Ludwick improving on his 2008 or Ankiel staying hot for an entire season is just that … hyperventilating … until they do it and do it again.
The Cardinals don’t need an MV3 to contend.
They need the MVD - more viable depth.
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Q: I liked the ‘what if’ articles you did recently and was wondering your thoughts on this one: What if … The Cardinals had traded for Manny? How different would the season have turned out? Who would we have traded, could we have matched what the Dodgers sent?
– Chris
DG: If Manny Mania came to Mound City, the Cardinals would have had two of this generations best three righthanded hitters back-to-back in the lineup. Tony La Russa would have his impact bat. Pujols would have seen more pitches to hit. So Taguchi’s legacy as The No. 99 would be in jeopardy. And fans would have really seen what it’s like to have an adventure in left field. In short, we would have had plenty to write about.
We probably would have been writing into October, too.
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Powered by questions, every week during postseason, Post-Dispatch baseball writer Derrick Goold will answer fans’ emails in a mailbag blog called PostCards, a spin-off of Bird Land. To comment and discuss the mailbag visit the PostCards blog on StlToday.com. To submit questions write PostCards@post-dispatch.com or file them as a comment on this blog. With all questions please include your name and hometown.
Questions can also be asked at Bird Land @ Facebook, or over at my “bird feed” on Twitter.
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Derrick Goold said he was going to Mizzou for capital-J journalism, but after growing up in the Time Zone Baseball Forgot he was really drawn to MU sitting between two major-league cities. Goold joined the Post-Dispatch in 2001 after working for The Times-Picayune and Rocky Mountain News, covering sports from LSU to NHL and every level of baseball in between. 
I think the Cards need to listen to trade offers for Ankiel. As you mentioned, DG, he hasn’t shown that he can stay healthy and produce over the course of a 162 game season. Could he bring in more value if he was traded, than if he was with the Cards in 2009? He is 29 years old, and he is most likely a .270 hitter at best. He played 120 games this season and struckout 100 times. What does his strikeout total project to if he played a full 162 games season? We’ve seen his bat heat up, and carry the Cards for a couple weeks, but he has been inconsistent since his arrival as an OF last season. What is the value of Ank?
What does that leave for the 2009 OF? Luddy/Schu/Mather? While looking at the OF, it brings to mind this question: How much of a shot at making the team in spring training does Colby Rasmus have? Great post, DG.
thanks, DG. one minor clarification on ludwick. i agree with the statement that he could “improve on his breakout year and not match this year’s production.” but i don’t think “his improvement would be in consistency across a season.” i’m not aware of any benefit from getting the same overall production with less variability. where i could see performance improvement with less resulting production would be if, for example, he improves his line drive rate (it was 26.3% this yr…2nd in all of baseball) yet still sees a reduction in BABIP (batting average on balls in play; it was .349 this yr…10th in all of baseball). in other words, “production” is subject to good and bad luck, a concept that is widely underappreciated by fans.
Re-”‘production’ is subject to good and bad luck.” I would love to see all Card players have the WORK ETHIC that we hear that Pujols has - how he’s constantly trying to improve, constantly figuring out the opposition, constantly making adjustments to their adjustments to him.
Isn’t it interesting that some guys just seem to “make” their good luck! There are players - and you know who they are - who you know are going to get the key hit. We all cringe when they come up to bat against the Birds. They will always seem to find the gap between fielders or they’ll go to the opposite field or they’ll do something! I believe it’s what Tony calls “playing a hard nine.”
Then there’s the whole issue of “clutch hitting.” How about improving the numbers with Runners in Scoring Position? Luddy, Ank and everybody else has to get the guys in when they’re on.
I remember the disaster in Pittsburgh, in which the team blew a 10-4 lead and blew two save opportunities: one by McClennan in the 9th (after Izzy gave up the three-run bomb to McLouth), and one by Perez in the 10th. So that game involved two blown saves, meaning they should have only had 30 games with blown saves. I do not recall any other games with two blown saves, but it’s possible that there was one.
But thank you for pointing out the (often overlooked) fact that not all blown saves lead to losses, and not all blown saves come in the 9th inning.
Also worth noting is that Izzy palmed off several potential blown saves onto other pitchers: one on Thompson (against the Padres), one of Franklin (against the Dodgers), and to a lesser extent, the one on McClennan (the above-mentioned game against the Pirates). These pitchers were forced to come in and clean up after he had begun to melt down and then got yanked by La Russa.
Izzy was hands down the main culprit this year (after an excellent ‘08).
Whoops, I meant “after an excellent ‘07.” Izzy was great in ‘07, making his downturn this year almost impossible to anticipate. It made his ‘06 look like this year’s Brad Lidge in comparison.
One more post, this time regarding the “freckles outbreak.” I remember seeing that when I was following the games that night, but every time I switched to another game, the bases were never loaded, and were often totally empty.
It would be interesting (and highly coincidental) if it actually happened, but it was really just another one of many glitches over at MLB.com (which seemed to have a few new ones every week, whether it involved Gameday, Gameday Audio, or MLB TV).
Great questions and equally interesting answers. Only….. X… days until pitchers and catchers report.
I’ll start with the last one first. I’ve been watching the dreadlocked other Dominican… and thinking about what it could mean to have him with the bats on his chest. Manny would be an undeniable presence in the lineup. Tony would just be giddy- Ala Bash Brothers again. Sir Albert could be brought into a role to keep Manny from being the lazy Manny too. I actually think it could work. Then comes the thoughts about price. If Mr. DeWitt could just possibly be persuaded…
Cubs I am not worried about. all of the HUGE money teams seem to self-implode (ala NY). Beating teams like the PIRATES…. now that is a challenge it seems and a Mystery… WE play some ‘lesser’ teams so poorly.
The Ludwick, Ramirez, and a center fielder to be named later would be an adventure. From Ank to Schu to Raz- That would be the position in question. MV3 would be Manny, Albert and Ryan or Troy filling in… imagine if Mr Wallace’s bat ignites… If the Dodgers fail to advance to the WS, which looks likely now, then the Dodgers will be disassembled. Lowe, Furcal and Ramirez COULD become Cardinals. They would all have different results here because of teh atmosphere. I think each could thrive. And by the way, If Tony leaves in a few years Joe Torre should be aggressively pursued to return.
Ok time for a second cup of coffee - got to clear those dreams out…
On the blown save: Not every save opportunity results in a save or a blown save. The rest of them earn a Hold; holds do not officially count toward the total of Save Opportunities (like a starter’s no decision). Also, it is possible for one reliever to come in with a potential save opportunity, and be relieved by a pitcher who does not have a save opportunity without blowing the lead–either his team has scored too many runs behind him, or the 3-inning option has expired. A pitcher who comes in with any lead and pitches 3 innings effectively is eligible for a save; I saw Gene Nelson come in with a 6-run lead in a 1986 Sox game in Milwaukee and pitch 3 innings for the save (I had to check Retrosheet to remember his name).
Interesting thought…you know who makes perfect sense for the Cubs? Skip Schumaker…left-handed bat that is a good hitter, good outfielder, good arm, and can’t hit the broad-side of a left-handed barn = part-time player at a cheap price that can lead-off against righties and bump Soriano to the 2-hole…and…with the gluttany of outfielders, he’s likely to be available for the right price/reliever(s)…but I doubt the Cubs/Cards work anything out.
Mark Cuban financed a movie (Redacted) critical of US servicemen. The movie is shown all over the world as propoganda against the US. Shouldn’t that be cause enough to prevent Cuban from buying the Cubies?
tom