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Throw in that we got another 973 PA appearances from Yadi (lifetime 81 OPS+) and Ryan (OPS+ in high 70s before this year) and it starts to make sense why this team wasn't one of the better offensive ball clubs. That's roughly half of our ABs from guys that were either OPSing at or below 80 or were less than 80 heading into the year.

JL21 wrote:

Faceman wrote:This is what I've never understood about "replacement level", being it VORP or OPS, etc.

We seem to have many guys under replacement level, who you would think would actually be the replacements if it came to that.

Not sure that makes sense.

Are you asking "How can actual replacement be below replacement level"?

yeah I guess something like that - although not exact. More like "how can it seem like everyone who should be replacement level be in fact below replacement?"

Who would be a good example of a guy who came in and was exactly "replacement level" ?

Radio63 wrote:I hate to be the one to bring this up, but even with all those terrible PA by all those terrible hitters, the team walked away with the division. And those terrible hitters barely hit in the division series, where the team scored six runs in three games. I'm just not seeing how replacing the bench makes the middle of the lineup actually drive in a run.

We won the division easily because the 2nd place team won all of 83 games, and was 68-67 on September 6. 91 wins in any non-central division (AL or NL) and we miss the playoffs.

This team was slightly above average in R/G thanks largely to Holliday (they were slightly below league average before the acquisition). Outside of AP and IBM, our lineup was a collection of hitters who were league average at best.

A deeper bench gives you a deeper lineup by giving you more platoon possibilities with better matchups. Rasmus had a nice series, but neither him nor Ankiel was a viable option against Wolf or the Dodgers' pen lefties. Lugo was our only real platoon option against lefties. Our PH's during the series--Glaus, Ankiel, LaRue, Thurston, and Lugo--were a combined 0 for 6 with a walk. By pitching around Pujols and having some luck with Holliday, the Dodgers exposed the Cardinal lineup for what it was: an unbalanced attack dependent upon two players that was very susceptible to lefties.

Radio63 wrote: I'm just not seeing how replacing the bench makes the middle of the lineup actually drive in a run.

It may help take some of the pressure off of our 3 & 4 guys to do everything. Albert wasn't going to get an important AB so that left it up to Holliday. Generalizing a bit, of course, but you get the point.

haltz wrote:I agree with pornstache21, but I also find myself saying something like this every offseason and wonder what the ~1,000 worst ABs look like for any given club, and if we aren't just as likely to lose something positive as something negative.

That was my first thought, as well. Perhaps we had an unusually high number this season, but every season you're going to have a lot of plate appearances going to really weak hitters. And a lot of innings from pitchers who pitch their way out of the big leagues.

withAloe wrote:

haltz wrote:I agree with pornstache21, but I also find myself saying something like this every offseason and wonder what the ~1,000 worst ABs look like for any given club, and if we aren't just as likely to lose something positive as something negative.

That was my first thought, as well. Perhaps we had an unusually high number this season, but every season you're going to have a lot of plate appearances going to really weak hitters. And a lot of innings from pitchers who pitch their way out of the big leagues.

Had I not been so busy with actual work, I was going to make a post about this the other day. We have the same complaints every year. What year was it everyone was up in arms about Miles playing over Luna. I was no exception, but how big a deal was that. And every team has to have some chaff with the wheat. Seems like there's always at least one player who everyone wonders how they keep a job in the big leagues. Miles, Thurston, Juan Pierre, etc....

A good bench seems like a double edged sword of sorts, unless your lefty right splits work out really well. Maybe you want the bench players to be clearly not at the level of your "regulars." So you don't have a situation where Ronnie Belliard plays instead of Orlando Hudson.

Seems like we may be discussing a couple different things here. There's the complaint that our bench wasn't that good. Honestly, while that's obviously not a desirable thing, it shouldn't be something to complain extensively about as no one should really expect great players on the bench.

The other complaint, the one I was addressing, is the number of plate appearances by bench guys. In my opinion, this isn't much up for debate. It appears to be a pretty real fact that the Cardinals give many more plate appearances to backups than most teams and far more than the other 3 NL post season teams. The Dodgers pretty much had 8 regulars other than Manny missing all of those games. Without his being out, there likely would have been far fewer bench ABs. From the top (PA by bench players) you've got Jaun Pierre with 425, then down to 204, 121, 107 and then down to double digits. With the Phillies, top bench guy got only 169, then 130, 129, 118, 104 and 104. The Rockies only have 4 bench guys with more than 69 PA, once regular Atkins with 399, 393 from lifetime 100 OPS+ Spilborghs, 317 from 122 OPS+ Gonzalez and 242 from somewhat regular catcher Torrealba. The Cardinals, as I mentioned before (with OPS+ in parenthesis) 404 (76), 307 (72), 304 (83), 193 (63), 170 (107), 116 (57), 114 (75) and 112 (63).

the obvious solution is to raise payroll to $300 million and put together a team with 25 allstars. n

Jmodene wrote:the obvious solution is to raise payroll to $300 million and put together a team with 25 allstars. n

An even better solution would be to let your starters play, I don't know, most of the time and limit your horrible hitting (low paid) bench guys to pinch hitting, the occasional get-away day start or step in in case of injury. Look at the history. LaRussa gives between 100 to 450 PA every season to 7 or 8 backups. Apparently, with very little regard to results.

Jmodene wrote:the obvious solution is to raise payroll to $300 million and put together a team with 25 allstars. n

I disagree. I think the best option will be to post strawmen arguments that nobody has proposed and piss all over everybody's intelligent discussion. Everybody else good with this?