Earlier, I compared the Baseball Prospectus PECOTA numbers and the community projections by Viva El Birdos and CardsClubhouse to the actual stats of some of the Cardinals. The ones in the previous post were players that had already been shut down for the year. With the season well over now, it’s time to reflect on the others that we projected before the season began.
Jim Edmonds
| Source | AB | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | BB | BA | OBP | SLG |
| CCH | 427 | 73 | 117 | 25 | 1 | 24 | 82 | 64 | .274 | .369 | .506 |
| VEB | 425 | 79 | 116 | 21 | 1 | 25 | 86 | 69 | .273 | .375 | .504 |
| PECOTA | 62 | 19 | 1 | 21 | 65 | 59 | .253 | .358 | .482 | ||
| Actual | 365 | 39 | 92 | 15 | 2 | 12 | 53 | 41 | .252 | .325 | .403 |
Edmonds, like most every player on the Cardinals, battled injuries throughout the year. The extent of his offseason surgery was probably underplayed in the minds of the Cardinal projectors, as Edmonds never quite got his groove on in 2007.
Edmonds is the only hitter that was left (surprisingly, we didn’t do Mr. Pujols, probably figuring it was too easy!), but there are three pitchers left to examine.
Kip Wells
| Source | IP | H | BB | K | HR | W | L | ER | ERA | WHIP |
| CCH | 165.0 | 162 | 72 | 115 | 18 | 12 | 10 | 82 | 4.47 | 1.42 |
| VEB | 171.0 | 173 | 68 | 121 | 19 | 12 | 10 | 4.45 | 1.41 | |
| PECOTA | 104.1 | 110 | 46 | 66 | 12 | 5 | 7 | 4.78 | 1.50 | |
| Actual | 162.2 | 186 | 78 | 122 | 19 | 7 | 17 | 103 | 5.70 | 1.62 |
Anyone that’s read this blog for very long knows that, at least for a while, Wells was not as bad as these numbers suggest. The middle of the season was pretty good for him. The beginning and end, well, not so much. Wells’s gamble on signing a one-year contract to build up his value didn’t really pan out and he should be elsewhere come next April.
Jason Isringhausen
| Source | IP | H | BB | K | HR | W | L | SV | BS | ER | ERA | WHIP |
| CCH | 58.2 | 45 | 27 | 56 | 5 | 2 | 3 | 36 | 6 | 19 | 2.91 | 1.23 |
| PECOTA | 58.1 | 52 | 30 | 49 | 6 | 3 | 4 | 20 | 3.77 | 1.39 | ||
| Actual | 65.1 | 42 | 28 | 54 | 4 | 4 | 0 | 32 | 2 | 18 | 2.48 | 1.07 |
One of the unheralded stories of the 2007 season was the return to form of Jason Isringhausen. After an ‘06 so bad that people booed him and his season ended early (meaning that Adam Wainwright was the last pitcher to throw a pitch last year), he bounced back better than most anyone expected. If the team hadn’t played so many blowout games (whether wins or losses), his save totals might have been a bit higher. Picking up his option this offseason was really a no-brainer.
Adam Wainwright
| Source | IP | H | BB | K | HR | W | L | SV | BS | ER | ERA | WHIP |
| CCH | 169.0 | 160 | 65 | 148 | 19 | 13 | 10 | 1 | 0 | 78 | 4.15 | 1.33 |
| VEB | 172.0 | 168 | 56 | 142 | 18 | 13 | 8 | 4.06 | 1.30 | |||
| PECOTA | 148.2 | 151 | 50 | 119 | 19 | 9 | 9 | 0 | 4.44 | 1.35 | ||
| Actual | 202.0 | 212 | 70 | 136 | 13 | 14 | 12 | 83 | 3.70 | 1.40 |
As bad as 2006 was, it would have been so much worse if Wainwright hadn’t stepped into the ace role. Walt gets slammed for the Haren trade often, but he’s got to get some credit for getting a young pitcher like this into the organization.
October 26, 2007 at 11:08 pm
Interesting stuff. Good point about Walt not getting credit for the Wainwright deal. You’ve got to figure that we got Adam, Marquis, King ( who turned into Miles and Bigbie ). The Cards won on that trade.
I’d also like to hear if you could sum up these stats. It sort of seems like CCH and VEB weren’t even close on the first two. What’s your conclusion?
October 26, 2007 at 11:13 pm
Well, Edmonds’s injury situation was much worse than anyone took into account. I mean, everyone figured that he’d miss some time, slow down some, but the extent of the offseason surgery and its impact on him was really not expected.
Wells, heck, who knows. I know we all expected that Dave Duncan would work wonders with him, and for a time he did. It really does seem to be more of a mental thing with him. He seemed to do well out of the pen, so that might be his future from now on.
We didn’t do too terribly bad on Wainwright. Of course, the numbers are a bit skewed by the two or three that thought he’d be back in the bullpen somewhere along the way, but he probably was the one that was closest to expectations on the whole.
November 4, 2007 at 10:40 am
I didn’t see this post until it was referenced at VEB, but I’m surprised that nobody has noticed that the Actual line given for Kip Wells is really that achieved by Anthony Reyes.
November 4, 2007 at 10:42 pm
Whoops! Thanks for the catch, 2nd edition. I’ve edited it to put the actual numbers in.
Something I found while looking them up: Wells had a 2.31 ERA as a reliever. I’d guess that’s where people are going to try him next year.
November 5, 2007 at 12:03 pm
I get so tired of hearing how Walt messed the Haren for Mulder deal up. That trade could come up 100 times and I’d make that deal 7 out of 10 times. It was right for that particular point in time. There are a great deal of critics who are playing Monday Morning Quarterback with Mulder. Everyone’s a genious in hindsight.
November 5, 2007 at 2:33 pm
A lot of the criticism is second-guessing and you are right, often that would have worked out. I agree, it was not a terrible deal at the time, and that’s when you have to judge it.
The most troubling aspects of that trade, though, have come out recently, the fact that Duncan was adamantly against it and that Mulder may have been hurt at the time. Those should have raised red flags for Walt.
I will maintain, though, that if Haren was a lefty, he’d still be in St. Louis. I think they really wanted a left handed starter in the rotation and that’s why they pulled the trigger.