Trever Miller Sighting

Lefty Trever Miller is returning to the NL Central, this time as a member of the St. Louis Cardinals. In his career, beginning in 1996, Miller has now been a member of 9 organizations. Those include: the White Sox, Astros, Phillies, Red Sox, Dodgers, Reds, Blue Jays, Rays, and now the Cardinals. Overall I like this signing quite a bit. His numbers last year weren't overly impressive:

4.15 ERA, 107 ERA+, 1.36 WHIP, 43.3 IP, 20 BB, 44 K

but, the important thing to remember here is that we didn't get him to be the type of bullpen pitcher to come out and face any batter at any time, like he was sometimes asked to do last year with the Rays. We signed him to be a LOOGY. Thus, when you break down his numbers vs. lefties, especially in comparison to the other lefties we've been linked to (namely Arthur Rhodes, Will Ohman, Joe Beimel, and Jeremy Affeldt), he stacks up quite nicely. First, we'll take a look at their 2008 slash stats:

Affeldt: .269/.301/.444

Beimel: .278/.330/.311

Miller: .209/.305/.308

Ohman: .200/.257/.314

Rhodes: .157/.253/.200

Not bad. Lefties clearly struggled against him and he was one of the better names on that list (and we'll have to wait for salary figures, but I'd bet he was cheaper than the rest). Another important stat is the number (or percent) of inherited runners that he allowed to score. This is important for two reasons. First, it's something that isn't reflected in his ERA but is reflected on the other team's scoreboard. And second, he will probably often be called on with RISP and a lefty at the plate (i.e. Fielder or Howard) in a situation where we need to shut them down. Again comparing him to the other lefties previously mentioned, here's how he stacks up:

Affeldt: 33% (12 of 36)

Beimel: 33% (20 of 60)

Miller: 16% (6 of 37)

Ohman: 17% (6 of 35)

Rhodes: 18% (8 of 45)

He leads the field in this stat, as we can see. In fact, if you go over the last 3 years he's allowed 19% of inherited runners to score (24 of 125). I think this is a plus signing. He's clearly an upgrade over Flores, and his slash stats compare favorably vs. lefties to Villone last year (Villone's were .176/.306/.318). The big difference between Villone and Miller is that Miller walked less people in a similar number of innings (20 for Miller in 43.3 IP vs. 37 for Villone in 50.0 IP), giving him a significantly lower WHIP (1.36 vs. 1.64), which is always good as a reliever.

My expectations are that we'll find one more lefty to be our number 1 lefty out of the pen and use Miller primarily as a LOOGY. If that is our strategy (not to mention that we probably saved money on this deal vs. other options), then we're heading in a great direction for next year.

Keep 'em coming Mo.


-kotheb

Other News

Things I forgot from my previous post.

• Pujols joined a team to try and bring an MLS team to St. Louis. Props to him for the effort, but I have to wonder when it's going to become clear to people that soccer will never catch on in America.

• Glaus finished 2nd in the Gold Glove voting and Pujols finished 3rd. Glaus isn't too surprising, he played fantastic but he's not as slick at 3rd as David Wright. But for Pujols, not winning was enough of an insult - but to have two people voted ahead of you? Something is wrong.

• Rick Hummel wonders if the Cardinals still have a shot at landing Peavy. I think that if enough teams bow out, the market price for him may come down a bit and then it would be worth looking into again. I'm still not entirely convinced on his out-of-PetCo splits and his injury history.

• The Mariners made their managerial hire, and it was not Jose Oquendo. One has to wonder if he's next in line to manage the Cardinals when Tony leaves.

-kotheb

Random Tidbits for the Day

So instead of doing things I like today (blogging, checking out Cardinals baseball news, gloating to everyone about Pujols winning the MVP, etc) I've been studying. Yep, it's oh so fun to still be in school (for those who don't know, I'm in medical school). So I finally found time to take a much needed break and thus you find my writing today. Searching around the internet, here's what has caught my eye.

• Is there a move pending for the Cardinals? I hate to be the one to work off of such vague posts that are discovered in a forum, but this is Bernie M. we're talking about and even though I don't particularly like the guy, he's got more of an inside scoop that I do. Here's the quote:
  
  "He should have one of the needs filled tomorrow...
  
  -B"
  
  Hopefully this means tomorrow brings some good news.

• I still can't believe this guy. Phil Sheridan writes in Philadelphia, so his point is expected (he says Howard should've gotten the MVP). For those of you who haven't read the article - do at your own peril. The guy makes zero case for Howard and succeeds only in sounding like an idiot. I had a tribute to FJM post prepared where I ripped into his article, but then I realized I'm nowhere near as funny as those guys and decided to quit while I was ahead.

• Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinal should be fired and banned from ever writing about baseball again, even on a blog. He's even worse than Sheridan. For those of you who read my post a few days ago after Pujols won the MVP, I noted that one voter had given Pujols the nod in 7th place. It was him.
  
  The funny thing is that his justification for voting the way he did was because of teams making the playoffs. Yet, he voted Carlos Delgado 4th. SERIOUSLY?! If you are going to make an argument for your votes, stick to it! He, instead, violated his argument so badly by putting Delgado 3 places higher than Pujols that he only succeeded in making us wonder why someone like him is even allowed to vote. Delgado's batting average was .271 and OPS+ was 127 compared to Pujols' .357 and 190 - not to mention Pujols led in EVERY OTHER STAT except HRs - which he was only 1 shy. And let's not even get into the discussion about the other players that he voted for ahead of Pujols (anyone notice the extreme bias of these sports writers? Something needs to be done about this. Haudricourt put TWO Brewers AHEAD of Pujols - and one of them is the bowling-ball turned vegetarian. Someone else needs to vote for this award so we can quit giving face time to people like this man).

More if I find out about it.


-kotheb

Albert the Great

Finally, some justice in the world.

Jose Alberto Pujols is your 2008 National League Most Valuable Player.

Took long enough for him to get number 2, didn't it? And I don't mean that as a slight to Pujols. Far from it. I mean it as a slight to the BBWAA (Baseball Writers' Association of America - the people who vote on the award). It was getting to the point where the award was nearing comedy. It was almost meaningless. Take 2006, for example. Howard shouldn't have won, and that's not even using the argument that the Cardinals made the playoffs and the Phillies didn't. No, that's using the argument that Howard's slash stats were:

.313/.425/.659/1.084, 167 OPS+

Compared to Pujols:

.331/.431/.671/1.102, 178 OPS+

Anyone else see the difference? Not only did we make the playoffs that year, but still Pujols was better. At least this year you could use the playoff argument against Pujols, but even then he was so much better this year than Howard (think ADD 13 points to Pujols' 2006 OPS and SUBTRACT 202 points from Howard's) that there was no need to really debate.

Or, how about Jimmy Rollins winning it last year with his 118 OPS+. Seriously? I understand SS is a "value" position, but he was so much worse than Pujols and Holliday last year that it was comical.

But here's some more sad news. Check out the voting breakdown for the award this year.

Player	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th
Pujols	18	10	2	1
Howard	12	8	6		1	1

7th	8th	9th	10th	Total
1				369
2			1	308

That's right. It was actually somewhat close. 12 of the 32 first place votes (37.5%) went to Howard (the remaining 2 votes went to Brad Lidge). And some moron actually gave Pujols a 7th place vote. 7th Place! Can you believe the injustice? At least Howard got a 10th place vote, which is where he belongs considering he wasn't even the most valuable player on his own team (would anyone not take Chase Utley - who not only rakes but plays spectacular defense - or Brad Lidge - who didn't blow a save all year and is a bigger part of the reason the Phillies made the playoffs - over Howard?). Even though they got things right, they still never cease to amaze me. "Sexy statistics" like homeruns and RBI are the ones that many people look at, along with teams that make the playoffs. RBI is a tainted statistic (i.e. can't truly be controlled by the player because it means he has to have players on base in the first place to drive in any runs) and getting into the playoffs is overrated because one player can only do so much to influence a team.

Congratulations Albert. You proved that you can be fantastic and be rewarded even when the odds are against you.

Now, let's just hope that one of these days the BBWAA takes their heads out and actually gets this thing right entirely.


-kotheb

Assessing the Potential of Mitch Boggs

So one of the things I was pondering recently was our starting pitching situation. We've got 3 solid starters penciled in for sure: Adam Wainwright, Kyle Lohse, and Todd Wellemeyer. We've got one that will be there despite what most of us say: Joel Pineiro. And we've got one that could be thrown into the mix if he can get healthy and ready in time: Chris Carpenter (and for the record I think he'll be effective next year). Thus, we've got 5 potentially, but in my mind should prepare as if we have 3. Realistically, we'll prepare as if we have 4 because Mo wants to include Pineiro in the mix given that we're paying $7.5 million for his inadequacies.

Now, our free agent situation goes like this. We need a middle infield. We need help from the left side of the bullpen. I think that's where we should pony up our cash. Then, if we have money leftover, it would be nice to sign a starter, but the only decent one I see being in our range is Looper at that point and I would still need some convincing for that (unless they plan on him replacing Pineiro, which I'm all for). Thus, I brought it upon myself to try and figure out the future potential of arguably our top pitching prospect in terms of potential and MLB-readiness, Mitch Boggs. Now, I know his debut wasn't so hot last year. But, it was also a very small sample size. Here are his major league stats from last year (in 34 IP):

3-2, 7.41 ERA, 57 ERA+, 1.88 WHIP

Now, I know of no sane GM who would offer someone like that a contract, even at league minimum. But, this was his rookie attempt, and many a pitcher have gone through growing pains similar to this (you don't believe me? Check out the first year stats for Johan Santana. Not quite as bad ERA or ERA+ wise, but close in WHIP and he threw 86 innings). So, I got into looking at Boggs' stats in the minors and trying to figure where he might be in the future in the majors. There are a few things I'm going to look at mainly - his strikeout rate, his walk rate, RA9 (which is how many runs he'll allow over 9 innings, including unearned runs), ground ball percentage, and FIP (an estimate of ERA that discounts defensive effort). There is good news and some bad news in looking at these, but I think there's promise.

Strikeout Percentage

First I'll start with his strikeout rate. Boggs has been clocked with a relatively high velocity fastball (upwards of 97 mph sometimes, but as a starter more in the 92-94 mph range) that has movement on it, but he doesn't quite have that reliable out pitch yet. If he can find himself a better changeup and curveball, we could expect this number to improve. From year to year, here are his strikeout rates per level:

Level	K/ PA
A-	19.6%
A+	19.9%
AA	17.0%
AAA	15.9%

From this we can take away one major concept - it's been decreasing as he's gone up from level to level (and it was 7.9% in his brief sting in St. Louis last year). This obviously isn't what you want, but it's not something that should surprise us quite yet as it, of course, it's harder the higher you go up the chain. In AAA, his 15.9% strikeout rate led him to averaging 5.8 K / 9 innings (81 Ks in 125.1 innings). Not actually too bad when you look at it. However, as mentioned above, he needs to develop more of an out pitch in order to stop the rate from falling even more and/or to possibly raise it back to the levels he saw in A-/A+ ball.

Walk Percentage

Next comes the walk rate. This is really one of the more important ones in my mind. Yes, strikeouts can be a powerful and useful tool, but if you can maintain command of the strike zone and keep from walking hitters, you have a much higher probability of success. Here are Boggs' walk percentages in the minors:

Level	BB / PA
A-	7.7%
A+	8.0%
AA	9.0%
AAA	9.1%

Again, not necessarily something we want to see, but this number of course will be influenced by the stiffer competition and the more watchful eye as you progress up the chain in the minors. The jump in walk percentage from A+ to AA is somewhat disturbing, but the good news is that it stayed the same from AA to AAA, indicating that he may have found a certain level of control. His walk percentage last year at AAA translated into 3.3 BB / 9 innings (46 BB in 125.1 innings), which is relatively high. Fortunately though, Todd Wellemeyer had similar troubles before last year (4.09 BB / 9 innings in 63.2 innings with the Cardinals in 2007, 4.5 BB / 9 innings overall in 2007 between the Royals and Cardinals) and has begun to get it under control under the tutelage of Dave Duncan (brought his rate down to 2.9 BB / 9 innings in 2008, and we all know how much more effective he was this year - he went from averaging 4.4 innings per start in 2007 to 5.99 innings per start in 2008 - much of which can be attributed to less walks and thus lower pitch counts early in the game). If Duncan can produce similar results with Boggs, he could become a much more effective pitcher just based on the fact that he's putting less people on base.

RA9

Next comes RA9. This, as mentioned above, is a stat that accounts for how many runs a pitcher would allow over 9 innings, whether or not they were earned or unearned (which may be a better way to judge a pitcher's worth, given that errors can be subjective). Here is Boggs' ERA and RA9 at each level of the minor leagues:

Level	ERA	RA9
A-	3.89	4.77
A+	3.41	4.28
AA	3.84	5.08
AAA	3.45	3.73

So, what can we take away from this? First off, his ERA has remained relatively similar with jumps from level to level, which is a good sign. However, you can see that in some cases, his RA9 was quite a bit higher than his ERA. Now, this could be attributed to a number of factors including poor defense behind him, allowing runners to score who got on via error, etc. The good news, however, is that he RA9 last year was very close to his ERA. Why is this good news? Because it may be reflective of the defense he had behind him at Memphis. The more solid the defense, the more the chances that the only runs that score will be earned, thus the ERA becomes a more predictive statistic. This is also good news because St. Louis has been built recently around good defense. It's part of the reason that ground-ball oriented pitchers have had so much success here, and part of the reason that our pitching staff improved last year from the year before (our defense was ranked 28th in fielding percentage in 2007 with the 3rd most errors, but in 2008 was ranked 2nd in fielding percentage with the 5th fewest errors). Thus, the more Boggs can harness his control and rely on his defense, the better off he will be in the big leagues.

Groundball Percentage

Next comes groundball percentage (which, as alluded to above, could very well play a part in his RA9 along with the defense that plays behind him). Let's check out his groundball percentages over his minor league career:

Level	GB %
A-	N/A
A+	46%
AA	51%
AAA	49%

These percentages are very solid. Take, for example, someone who pitcher here recently as has been regarded as a groundball pitcher - Braden Looper. It was always my impression when watching him that he would be successful when he was keeping the ball on the ground and not so successful when the ball was up in the air. Here are his groundball percentages over the past few years:

Level	GB %
2006	54%
2007	45%
2008	48%

Boggs' number are very similar. Over the past three years Looper has posted groundball-to-flyball ratios of 1.72, 1.25, and 1.53, which correlate very well with success when backed up by the type of defense that St. Louis like to put on the field.

FIP

Finally, let's look at Boggs' FIP numbers in the minors. FIP is an estimate of a pitcher's ERA that takes into account things that the defense can't influence - things like strikeouts, walks, and homeruns. Here are the numbers:

Level	FIP
A-	N / A
A+	3.32
AA	4.38
AAA	4.51

Unfortunately, this number has continued to creep up, which is not something you like to see. This could mean any number of things, such as an increased walk rate (which has happened), a decreased strikout rate (which has happened), and a increased homerun rate (which hasn't happened, at least from AA to AAA). To keep with our comparison, here's the FIP numbers for Looper the past few years.

Level	FIP
2006	3.39
2007	4.76
2008	4.50

Again, fairly similar. This is good news. It shows that a pitcher can be successful in St. Louis with these kinds of numbers.

Outlook

Here's my opinion after looking through all the numbers. He has things he needs to work on. He needs to gain some control to decrease his walk rate and it would be nice to see him find an out pitch (i.e. work on his changeup and curveball) to increase his strikeout rate. He's decreased the BABIP (batting average on balls in play) against him throughout his minor league career, which could mean that it's becoming harder to hit off of him, which is obviously a good thing. Plus, through all of this, we can't forget that he's got the stuff and the build to succeed. He's 6'3" 195 pounds (though he looks a bit heavier than that) and can throw some heat. I see him being a pitcher that can be quite similar to Braden Looper in terms of groundball rate and success, but I think he can even be better given that he has the stuff to strikeout more batters. I would put him in the category of the type of pitcher who can put up a low to mid 4's ERA, walk 3 batters a game, strike out 6 a game (a number that could easily increase with a better curve and change), and be a solid 4/5 pitcher in the near future. If he works on some of the things I've mentioned, he may even be better than that.


-kotheb