Better is the word against the Detroit Tigers in this 3-game series

29/04/2024 15:00

These are not your old Tigers, although it's not clear they are actually good either.

Something interesting about yesterday's loss is that normally a loss like that is devastating for more reasons than one. In order to get to the 11th inning and be put into that situation, you will use all your good pitchers and squander great pitching. If you can call it a bright side, the Cardinals' loss is only devastating by wins and losses. A fact which is minimized by winning the series anyway, in my mind.

They did not miss out on great pitching: Lance Lynn didn't pitch that well, in the end; Giovanny Gallegos certainly didn't, and Matthew Liberatore didn't either. And I mean before the homer. The entire game was a tight rope of not particularly good pitching somehow escaping without allowing a run. I suppose we squandered 2 great innings from Ryan Fernandez, but you don't typically bemoan a loss because a reliever pitched two great innings.

Also true: Ryan Fernandez might be getting to that point, but nobody the Cardinals like to rely on to secure wins pitched. Them pitching would have no outcome on the game either, unless they somehow don't pitch until the 11th inning. Normally I'd say this is a case where a worse manager would have been better for the club. A worse manager keeps Lynn in, who probably gives up the lead, Cards only have to throw 8 innings and the bullpen is fresher. But the Cards aren't much differently set up anyway somehow: Fernandez threw just 18 pitches and Gallegos is certainly available in case of emergency. Who cares if Liberatore is unavailable at this point? I don't want to see him with a lead. And if a blowout happens in either direction, John King and Nick Robertson are as available as you can be.

This is supposed to be a series preview though. About a team that isn't the Cardinals. For the next three games, the Cardinals face the Tigers. If you don't know much about the Tigers except the general sense that they've been bad the past few years, well I have bad news. This isn't your 2022 Tigers. The Tigers are decent. Probably not actually good, but certainly not a series we can assume is a win. First instinct is that they have a run differential of +3, so even though they are 16-12, this looks like a .500 team. But we can get more specific than that.

The Tigers have been bad at offense. Should they be better? Probably, although most of their hitters are two different extremes: outplaying their projection by a lot or being shockingly disappointing. There is almost no middle ground.

Former #1 prospect Riley Greene (144 wRC+) and Kerry Carpenter (132 wRC+) both seem for real however. Greene was a former #1 prospect and is still just 23, so him breaking out would not be strange. Carpenter, though in just 661 PAs, does have a career 123 wRC+. The third guy who is absolutely killing it is clearly a fluke. Mark Canha is a pretty good hitter, but he is not a 165 wRC+ hitter. His xwOBA is .354. Which would still be his best wOBA since 2020 and he's 35. As much as my fantasy team would appreciate it, he's not this good.

And then it's all bad news. Spencer Torkelson has a 70 wRC+ and his xwOBA suggest he deserves even worse than that. He hasn't even started two of the last five games. Recently extended Colt Keith has been given an unbelievably long rope to figure things out. In almost 100 PAs, he has a 17 wRC+. His only extra base hit is one double. Javier Baez has a 45 wRC+. Jake Rogers almost doubled his wRC+ to 53 and he has a 34.4 K%. Parker Meadows has a 26 wRC+.

We'll probably see at least two starts from Wenceel Perez, who has a 150 wRC+ in his first 39 PAs, but he has just an 86 wRC+ projection by ZiPS. And I'd be remiss if I didn't mention St. Louisian and CBC grad Matt Vierling, who has a 111 wRC+ playing 3B everyday. His projection is of a below average hitter.

This doesn't sound like a good team, does it? Well pitching exists. And good news: we miss their genuine ace, Tarik Skubal. If you take an average team, more or less, and remove their ace, they aren't really average team in that series. Do they have an elite bullpen? Uhh, not really.

Now, full disclosure, they are 5th in ERA in baseball. However, they are 15th in both FIP and xFIP. It looks like an average bullpen to me and that's reflected in the individual players, where I'm not really seeing anybody special. Jason Foley is a good reliever - more of a groundball specialist than a strikeout pitcher. He has a 1.50 ERA. I would expect him to be more of a 3.00-3.50 ERA guy. Good pitcher, probably worse than you want your closer to be. Andrew Chafin is good. Alex Lange is good, or at least he has been this year (he wasn't that good last year).

I mean legitimately almost everyone is outplaying their FIP in this bullpen. Significantly so. Shelby Miller (2.03 ERA, 4.06 FIP), Chafin (1.69 ERA, 3.07 FIP), Lange (0.96 ERA, 2.94 FIP), Joey Wentz (0.87 ERA, 2.68 FIP), and Alex Faedo (2.68 ERA, 5.37 FIP). And everyone in this group including Foley, but excluding Miller, have had home run luck that has also kept their FIP down. Is this whole bullpen good at suppressing home runs? I doubt it.

Monday - 5:40 PM

Steven Matz (5.55 ERA/4.15 FIP/4.80 xFIP) vs. Kenta Maeda (5.96 ERA/6.73 FIP/4.63 xFIP)

I won't go as far as to say this is a must-win game, but this is really a game the Cardinals ought to win. Two of the three actually good hitters in this lineup are left-handed. Greene actually hasn't shown any splits in his career, but Kerry Carpenter has a 76 wRC+ against LHP in his career. So, at least to date, you have one of their three actually good hitters - if he's playing - in a position where I don't know if you'd expect him to be a good hitter. Theoretically, a good matchup for Matz.

Maeda hasn't been very good this year, being very prone to the home run ball. He's also not really striking out batters (17%) and the Tigers aren't seeing an improved walk rate to compensate either (7%, exactly his career walk rate).

Tuesday - 5:40 PM

Kyle Gibson (4.35 ERA/5.22 FIP/4.53 xFIP) vs. Jack Flaherty (4.91 ERA/3.64 FIP/2.71 xFIP)

I don't like anything about this matchup. Remember Flaherty's first start with the Orioles last year? Yeah I expect that. Flaherty has actually been good this year, just pretty unlucky. He has struck out 29% of batters and walked just 3.2%. His xERA is 3.55 so he appears to actually be giving up hard contact more than a home run neutral line would suggest.

Gibson is going to have to bring his A game I suspect. I'm going to assume this is going to be a loss.

Wednesday - 12:10 PM

Miles Mikolas (5.91 ERA/4.78 FIP/3.92 xFIP) vs. Reese Olson (3.18 ERA/2.81 FIP/4.24 xFIP)

Mikolas actually had a very good start against the Mets and I'm hoping he can continue that trend. Objectively, this is probably the game I should assume the Cardinals lose - it's not like I have faith in Mikolas. But a team with the 8th highest K rate and 6th lowest ISO is about as good of a matchup as Mikolas will have. He might actually strike guys out and it's not clear the Tigers will punish him if he makes mistakes. It's all about keeping their three big guys in check really.

I really have nothing interesting to say about Olson, he just seems like a really solid pitcher, though probably not as good as his ERA.

Truth be told, this looks like a series the Cardinals are going to lose unless the offense manages to come alive. They are just a little too reliant on winning that Matz start for my liking. Of course, this being baseball, they'll lose the Matz start and win the next two somehow.