GatewayRedbirds.com

Is this serious?

Reaction time, swing speed to different areas of the zone, swing angles to different areas, tendencies, what to avoid, etc. etc. etc. They literally have cameras on the batters for Statcast, etc. to analyze their tendencies for every kind of pitch and pitcher.

Have you not seen how products like Zepp improve swings constantly?

Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. Read it.

This is seriously an obnoxious response to a question about an interesting topic.

Responding to people with a condescending tone is just kind of BAS' thing.

Audio interview with the Cardinals hitting coach

Jeff Albert explains how he treats BP differently for Cards hitters

True

Wonder when he shows up for the gig?

Good article on VEB about just how far ranging the poor performance has been so far for the Cards.
https://www.vivaelbirdos.com/2019/6/26/ ... -the-board

Hitters -- only two hitters are over-performing their ZIPS projections - Ozuna and DeJong. Of those two, Ozuna is really only over-performing by a marginal amount. 8 points of OPS+ (the article's measurement tool) is not really enough for me to consider a "career year". DeJong, obviously, is dramatically exceeding expectations. The lone bright spot on the entire roster so far, imo. Two additional player are hitting their projections. The problem with them both is that the projections they are hitting are still disappointing. Bader and Fowler -- 89 and 98 OPS+ respectively -- are not providing much offense and I think many of us would have hoped and probably expected a bit more from each. So, while they are "on track", they are really just on track to be disappointing. The rest of the starters - 5 additional hitters - are under-performing expectations by 6 - 40 OPS+ points. Considering that projections like ZiPS are notoriously conservative to begin with, this represents a colossal loss of production from the team.

Pitchers -- the situation with the pitchers is about the same. Hudson is the only one exceeding projections, and he by a lot. But, overall, the impact of his performance really hasn't been felt as his overall production doesn't align with the ERA+ the article cites. Hudson has been good -- by ERA. But, he's been marginal overall, which is why he's overperforming ERA+ by 30-40 points and tracking toward a 1.2 WAR season. Mikolas, Flaherty, and Wacha -- arguably the three guys we were counting on the most (since we never really had Martinez in the rotatation) -- are all under-performing by over 10 points of ERA+, and while a deeper look into their performance can show promise (particularly for Flaherty and to some extent Mikolas), you are what you have done.

What do we make of all this? Well, lots and lots of chatter about front office decisions and talent acquisition. I get that. But, the bottom line here is that over 50% of our starting players are underperforming by 10% of more. IF the players were simply performing as they should -- not even as we hope they will -- then it's a completely different season. If you play a little loose and dirty with run differential -- adding 5% to hitting and subtracting it from pitching -- then we would be projecting toward a 90 run differential - or 90 wins. Good teams -- championship contending teams -- don't usually just get mediocre performances from their core players. They get good to great performances from guys in key roster spots. If any additional key players -- Goldschmidt, Carpenter, Flaherty, Mikolas -- were overperforming projects (even a little) while the rest hit their projections (or close to) we would be a legit championship contender - just start adding wins for each player who performed above normal.

We can talk about roster mistakes and signing players over 30, etc. but the projection systems factor those age ranges into their formulas. The math has said all along that this team should be good. It could be good. It is not good because the players aren't performing even close to norms. That's the crux of the issue this season.

Rehire Mabry so he can be fired again.