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Why not dream big? With one notable exception (Rolen), 2005 was one of those rare seasons when everything went right for the Cards. What if that happens in '11? I thought a position by position comparison between the '05 Cards and the '11 Cards should be pretty interesting and help take our mind off the Pujols stuff...

1b: Pujols vs. Pujols
8.2 WAR in 2005. Can Pujols get back to that high of a total? He'll likely be in that ballpark.
Advantage: Push

2b: Grudzielanek vs. Skip
Sticking Grudz in at 2nd in '05 was one of the smartest short-term moves the Cards have made in recent memory. His 3.6 WAR was huge for us. I know a lot of people are down on Skip, but lets give him the benefit of the doubt and say he replicates his '09 season of 1.5 WAR
Advantage: 2005, +2 WAR

SS: Eckstein vs. Theriot
I think the Cards are hopeful that Theriot can do for the Cards what Eckstein did. Well, '05 was a special year for Eck, coming in at a whopping 4.2 WAR. Theriot? What could we hope for here? I would say that 1.8 WAR is about all we could dream of.
Advantage: 2005, + 2.4 WAR

3B: Nunez vs. Freese
Nunez is something of a legend for the Cards and rightfully so. He gave us a shocking 2.0 WAR after being above replacement in just 2 other seasons in his career. We’re being optimistic here, remember, so let’s project Freese’s ’10 for a full 500 pa’s.
Advantage: 2011, +1.4 WAR

C: Molina vs. Molina
Here’s where 2011 should gain some ground back, right? A 22 year old Molina vs. the in-his-prime version of himself? Easy win for the current Molina who set a career high in WAR last year. Yes, you read that correctly.
Advantage: 2011, + 1.8 WAR

LF: Reggie Sanders vs. Matt Holliday
This one’s not even worth commenting on. Straight to the results. 1.3 for the flopper. 5.5 for 2012’s face of the Cards…
Advantage: 2011, + 4.2 WAR

CF: Jimmy Ballgame vs. Colby Rasmus
Before you keep reading, what’s your gut reaction? Edmonds in a landslide? Well, yes, that’s pretty much correct. 6.8 WAR to 2.9 WAR. Colby could make up some ground defensively, but not yet.
Advantage: 2005, + 3.1 WAR

RF: Walker vs. Berkman
This is the question that inspired the research. Less than 400 pa’s of Walker was just 2.9 WAR. 550 pa’s of Berkman? I’m going to go with his ’09 numbers and give him 3.1 WAR. That’s pretty much a push.
Advantage: push

Rotation:
2005: Carpenter (4.8 WAR), Mulder (2.1 WAR), Morris (.1 WAR), Marquis (0 WAR), Suppan (.9 WAR) = 7.9 WAR
2011: Wainwright (5.7 WAR), Carpenter (3.0 WAR), Westbrook (2.5 WAR), Garcia (2.8 WAR), Lohse (0 WAR) = 14 WAR
I’m not kind to Lohse here, but only to balance out what I feel are surprisingly low WAR values for that ’05 rotation. The numbers are what they are, though, so the 2011 staff has a clear and decisive advantage over 2005 in rotation production.
Advantage: 2011, +6.1 WAR

Bullpen and Bench: I’m not going to bother here. There was no super performer in ’05 that would deserve a big bump over the ’11 alternative. The ’05 bullpen was excellent, but even Izzy’s career season only best’s Franklin’s by less than half a win. The bench and pen can prove critical if either area falters big time, but we’re being optimistic here, so we assume success for ’11 and know we had it in ’05.
Advantage: push

Totals, position by position:
2005 gets +7.5
2011 gets +13.1

That’s an overall advantage for 2011 of 6 WAR. Do you think the ’11 Cards could be 6 wins better than an ’05 Cards team that won 100? It’s comical to think about, but if that doesn’t put you in a better mood about the club, then I don’t know what else will.

Go Cards! We’re going to win 106 games!

Despite those WAR numbers, that '05 rotation was unbelievably solid. Wondering how much pitcher's WAR takes a hit when you're on a team that scores a lot of runs. I know, questionable correlation, but I've always noticed a natural tendency to give up more runs when your team scores a lot of runs. I'd be very happy if we approached the kind of starting rotation consistency we saw in '04/'05. Beyond that, I think a lot of the questions marks (Freese, Berkman, Theriot, and to a lesser extent, Rasmus) will play a major factor in determining if we're a mid 80s or mid 90s (or mid 100s ) win team.

I think this team is good enough to win 100 games at your most optimistic.

Being wildly homer, everyone has a career year optimisim, i'd say each players ceiling is like this:

C: Molina - 3.0 WAR
1b: Pujols - 8.0
2b: Skip - 2.0
SS: Theriot - 2.0
3b: Freese - 4.0
OF: Holliday - 6.0
OF: Rasmus - 4.0
OF: Berkman - 4.0 (6.7 in his age 32 season, if only eh?)

Bench: 5 war

SP: Wainwright - 6.0
SP: Carpenter - 5.0
SP: Garcia - 3.5
SP: Westbrook - 4.0
SP: Lohse - 2.5

RP: 5 war


That comes out to 64 war.

The 2001 Seattle Mariners had 66.6 WAR (Bret Boone had a 9.3 WAR that season NINE POINT THREE!!!!).

Richie Allen wrote:Despite those WAR numbers, that '05 rotation was unbelievably solid. Wondering how much pitcher's WAR takes a hit when you're on a team that scores a lot of runs. I know, questionable correlation, but I've always noticed a natural tendency to give up more runs when your team scores a lot of runs. I'd be very happy if we approached the kind of starting rotation consistency we saw in '04/'05. Beyond that, I think a lot of the questions marks (Freese, Berkman, Theriot, and to a lesser extent, Rasmus) will play a major factor in determining if we're a mid 80s or mid 90s (or mid 100s ) win team.

It's almost like BR is saying that in '05 a league average pitcher playing in front of our defense was just over replacement. That makes sense, considering the WAR values of our offensive players. Eck, Grudz, Molina, Nunez, Pujols, Edmonds, Walker... those were elite defenders that season.

I wonder how many players we would have considered a question mark going into '05. Eck had just been non-tendered after posting a 79 ops+. Grudz was considered a question but shouldn't have been. We didn't know what would happen to Rolen, but that ended up being a disaster,even though Nunez was much better than expected.

Really, they had a lot fewer question marks than we have no. This is definitely a best case scenario.

The team UZR actually was around the middle of the pack that year. The staff FIP was good, their ERA was outstanding, the bullpen and defense weren't exceptional. It appears to be a simple fluke. They somehow just managed to spread out the hits all season long.

cpebbles wrote:The team UZR actually was around the middle of the pack that year. The staff FIP was good, their ERA was outstanding, the bullpen and defense weren't exceptional. It appears to be a simple fluke. They somehow just managed to spread out the hits all season long.

I watched all but one game that season. In addition to being a pretty great team playing pretty consistently great, there was that feeling that they were always going to do what it took to win. The kind of feeling, at least among the fans, that we like to call chemistry, winning attitude or something along those lines. It was a pretty magical year, until October. Anyway, it's part of what makes this game interesting that we can optimistically go into a season thinking we may be able to match the success of another team, with the very real chance that we'll finish in the neighborhood of 20 games, or more, short of that.

cpebbles wrote:The team UZR actually was around the middle of the pack that year. The staff FIP was good, their ERA was outstanding, the bullpen and defense weren't exceptional. It appears to be a simple fluke. They somehow just managed to spread out the hits all season long.

The pitching staff had a GB% of 50.7%, which is exceptional. Next closest was 47%. I'm on the way to bed and don't really want to look, but I would bet there have not been many other teams if any to have a GB% as an entire team that went over 50% in the last half-decade. Even with Eckstein playing sub-par D at SS, that many GB is a pretty good way to see your ERA outperform your FIP by a half-run. Walks and singles are a lot more likely to turn into GIDP, and it's tough to give up a cheap HR even at a normal HR/FB rate if you don't give up many FB.

themiddle54 wrote:

cpebbles wrote:The team UZR actually was around the middle of the pack that year. The staff FIP was good, their ERA was outstanding, the bullpen and defense weren't exceptional. It appears to be a simple fluke. They somehow just managed to spread out the hits all season long.

The pitching staff had a GB% of 50.7%, which is exceptional. Next closest was 47%. I'm on the way to bed and don't really want to look, but I would bet there have not been many other teams if any to have a GB% as an entire team that went over 50% in the last half-decade. Even with Eckstein playing sub-par D at SS, that many GB is a pretty good way to see your ERA outperform your FIP by a half-run. Walks and singles are a lot more likely to turn into GIDP, and it's tough to give up a cheap HR even at a normal HR/FB rate if you don't give up many FB.

Eck obviously didn't have the range or the strong arm but you certainly felt that if he got to the ball it was pretty much automatic from there. And his throws, as awkward as they appeared, always seemed to get there just in time.

The thing that was so unusual about that season...you know how you feel good about those two or three starts at the top of the typical solid rotation...it felt like that every game. You had Cy Carp, former ace Matt Morris still dealing, 27 year old ace Mark Mulder who had done nothing but win 2 out of every three games since joining the league and was considered one of the top LHers in the game, Jeff Suppan at the top of his game (even if he did do it with mirrors) and a 25 year old Jason Marquis, coming off a great season and was thought to be top of the rotation potential. And none of them missed a single start. Add to that pretty close to a shutdown closer and a bullpen with an ERA+ of at least 150 and you start to get an idea why it might be extremely wishful thinking to assume that our potential advantage in pitching WAR probably doesn't translate into anywhere near as good of performance to the '05 pitching staff. Or '04, for that matter.

Um...duplicate post.

[expletive] triplicate post...