Bernie’s Bird Bytes: Noteworthy Observations, Information, And Miscellaneous Nonsense.

BIRD BYTES

Hello again on this pleasant Friday. How about some easy-reading Bird Bytes from Bernie?

1) The Cardinals can’t have another bad homestand. They’ll have the Nationals for three, followed by the Rangers for three, and then it’s onto Wrigley Field for four. Washington (24-29) and Texas (22-29) each have losing road records this season. The Cardinals can’t have another letdown. Urgency, men.

2) The NL wild-card race features some hot teams, and some cold teams. The Cardinals are in the latter group. Here’s a rundown of recent records by the wild-card wranglers:

• The Mets have the NL’s best record (14-7) in July and are 12-4 in the last 16.
• Padres: they’ve won five in a row.
• The Diamondbacks have won eight of their last 11 games and are 12-6 in the last 18.
• The Pirates have won eight of their last 10 games and are 9-3 in the last 12.
• The Braves have lost five straight games and are 8-11 in July.
• The Cardinals are 5-7 in the last 12 games and are 10-9 in July.

It’s time to giddyup, Cardinals.

Giddyup.

3) Pinch-hitting? No, more like no hitting. I didn’t realize this until I had a strangely curious moment and decided to look it up. Did you know that the Cardinals are 7 for 63 this season in pinch-hit at bats? And there’s a 30 percent strikeout rate to go with that .111 batting average. The team has only three pinch-hit RBIs this season. Extra-base hits? None.

4) As for individual pinch-hitters, the star of the class is Dylan Carlson with three hits in 11 at-bats for a .273 average. Nolan Gorman is 1 for 3. But then it gets ugly: Jose Fermin 1 for 15. Ivan Herrera and Brandon Crawford are combined 0 for 8. Alec Burleson and Matt Carpenter are a combined 2 for 17. And Carpenter has struck out in four of his eight pinch-hit ABs.

5) The St. Louis bench? Not good. Not good at all. I guess it could be worse; in the pandemic-shortened 2020, the Cardinals were 1 for 29 in pinch-hitting turns at the plate. But it’s incomprehensible to think that the St. Louis front office would reach the deadline without acquiring a hitter that can come off the bench and produce.

6) Matthew Liberatore could be a helluva reliever if the Cardinals would just leave him alone. The spot-starter thing needs to stop. The Cardinals continue to mishandle Liberatore’s career, and this lefty still struggles when facing right-handed batters. This season his one effective pitch against RH batters is a slider that’s limited right-side swingers to a .243 average and .324 slug. And it’s the one swing-miis pitch in his arsenal, with a 38.4% whiff rate vs. RH batters. But Liberatore doesn’t throw it enough.

7) This is a bad time for the Cardinals to be getting so little out of Liberatore. Lefty JoJo Romero doesn’t have the swing-miss nastiness and has struck out only two of his last 43 batters faced. Manager OIi Marmol has to cultivate Liberatore as his No. 1 or No. 2 lefty reliever, to partner with John King.

8) There’s some talk of the Cardinals pursuing Oakland strongman Brent Rooker, a right-handed bat who bullies lefty pitchers. This season Rooker has eight homers and a .671 slugging percentage in 70 at-bats vs. LHP. Overall he’s batting .289 with 24 homers, 70 RBIs and a .578 slug in 329 at-bats.

9) More stuff on Rooker: (a) he’ll enter the salary-arbitration cycle next season but can’t become a free agent until 2028; (b) he has a 31 percent strikeout rate but also has a 10.4% walk rate; (c) he struggled defensively and has started only 13 games in the corner outfield this season; (d) so you’re looking at an almost full-time DH; (e) for his career, Rooker is 4 for 23 (.174) with no extra-base hits and nine strikeouts as a pinch-hitter. There’s a lot of trade interest in Rookie because of his power, low salary this season, and team contract control for three more seasons after this one.

10) I liked Dayn Perry’s idea of acquiring right-handed reliever Yimi Garcia from Toronto. Dude has a 36.5 percent strikeout rate. Only concern: Garcia dominated RH batters but has gotten cudgeled by LH batters. Update: alas, it no longer matters because Garcia was dealt to Seattle late Friday afternoon. By the way, you should subscribe to Perry’s Birdy Work blog at Substack.

11) Erick Fedde, Nathan Eovaldi, Yusei Kikuchi, Tyler Anderson, Chris Bassitt … whatever. I don’t think the Cardinals will be in throw-down bid for starting pitchers that would cost them a lot in the trade exchange. The Redbirds will want to keep their best prospects. That’s how they go about these things. So I don’t have unrealistic expectations. They need starting-pitching depth. They need a right-handed bat. They need a high-leverage reliever. The rest is up to them.

12) Speaking of starting pitchers, does Tink Hence actually exist? And if so, do we think it’s possible we’ll see him this evergreen prospect up in here with the big club by, say, 2029? I’m exaggerating on purpose, but sometimes I feel like I’ve been writing about Hence since he was in the same rotation with historically overhyped Cardinals pitching prospect Manny Aybar in the minors. That was a long time ago. And of course, Hence wasn’t in the same rotation as Aybar. But Hence might have been down there in Memphis with P.J. Walters.

13) Because I am a nerd, I wanted to see how the Cardinals ranked in the majors offensively at every position. I’ll use wRC+ for a short hand; all you need to know is that 100 is the league average.

Catcher: No. 2 offensively with a 122 wRC+ that’s 22 percent above the league average. Shout-out to Willson Contreras. When in the lineup as a catcher this season, he has a slash line of .280/.410/.534 and his wRC+ is 68 percent above league average.

First Base: No. 17 offensively with a wRC+ that’s three percent below league average.

Second Base: No. 21 offensively with an 84 wRC+ that’s 16 percent below league average.

Third Base: No. 9 offensively with a 114 wRC+ that’s 14 percent above league average. Nolan Arenado is slightly above that league-average standard as a third baseman, but the Cardinals have gotten good production when using Brendan Donovan there.

Shortstop: No. 13 offensively with a 108 wRC+ that’s eight percent above the league average.

Left Field: No. 6 offensively with a 113 wRC+ that’s 13% above the league average. Four different players used in left – Donovan, Alec Burleson, Lars Nootbaar and Michael Siani – have posted above-average numbers offensively when assigned to left field.

Center Field: No. 30, the worst offensively at the position. The wRC+ by their center fielders is 45 percent below league average. Siani has taken over n center (for his defense) and is well below average as a hitter but he’s gradually improving. The only above-average used by the Cardinals in CF is Dylan Carlson – a 119 wRC+ – but his defense is a liability.

Right Field: No. 15 offensively, with a league-average 100 wRC+. Burleson and Nootbaar have combined for 300 plate appearances when deployed in right field, and both have been good offensively. Burleson is 35 percent above average, with Nootbaar 20% better than average.

Designated Hitter: No. 19 offensively with a wRC+ that’s one percent above the average. Contreras and Burleson have put up strong numbers at the DH spot, and Matt Carpenter is just a tick below average there.

Thanks for reading!

–Bernie

A 2023 inductee into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame, Bernie has provided informed opinions and perspective on St. Louis sports through his columns, radio shows and podcasts since 1985.

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Stats used in my baseball columns are sourced from FanGraphs, Baseball Reference, StatHead, Baseball Savant, Baseball Prospectus, Brooks Baseball Net, and Sports Info Solutions and Cots Contracts unless otherwise noted.