The Cardinals have blown my mind this season so far. It’s not been pretty: if anything, it’s been a little bit ugly… but here we are, in the middle of our first series against an NL Central opponent, winning the first two games (in not the most easily digestible fashion!). Andre Pallante and Bubba Chandler go at it tonight, hopefully no rain.
The Cardinals were 3-2 entering April after five games in late March. So far in April with but 2 games to go, the Cardinals have won 13 games and lost 11. The have swept
and been swept, taking care of the Houston Astros in grand fashion on the road while losing to a prior underperforming Seattle Mariners at home in one of the toughest sweeps I can remember, because they were not that far from winning the series, really. Two one-run game losses and a rough loss due to a leaky bullpen. This has been a theme for April. Sometimes the ceiling, which is higher than we thought, just drips, and sometimes the leaky roof just pours so much water in that you can’t have too many buckets. In related news, my first apartment in St Louis had a leaky roof, but not this bad!
We can cry about our leaky bullpen, but the Cardinals are still above .500 in spite of it all. This is because they defy logic and numbers. Check out this fangraphs page. The Cardinals win probability has been over 50% only 8 games this year! At least according to fangraphs schedule and the pitching matchups that have occurred. Theoretically, we shouldn’t be winning much at all.
Vs Tampa Bay, we won the games we were supposed to lose and lost the game where fangraphs thought we should’ve won. Andre Pallante beat Kodai Senga and Matthew Liberatore beat Freddy Peralta in that Mets series back in March. Perhaps the craziest thing that has happened was last night’s game: fangraphs had the Cardinals at a 39.6% chance of winning with Leahy vs Ashcraft. Obviously the maths aren’t mathing.
Fun fact: Hunter Dobbins has a 31.8% chance of defeating Paul Skenes on Thursday… I’ll take it.
The biggest winning streak so far has been 5 games, and the worst losing streak 4 games. And that all occurred within 11 games! April 14-26. This season might be maddening in the best ways… it has been so far, anyway.
It feels like this offense scores a lot of runs or very few; they’ve been streaky so far, moody even. This puts them right smack dab in the middle of the pack in runs scored as a team. With the pitching being so awful outside of a few Cardinal pitchers, it’s amazing what they are doing. The team feels stitched together at the seams but not falling apart, somehow. I guess that’s what happens when your pitching ain’t very good, and your hitting seems very streaky and unpredictable. I have a feeling the defense is what is really keeping us good at baseball.
Comparing Cardinals
- Gorman, Burleson, and Pages all have 3 home runs
- Alec Burleson and JJ Wetherholt both have excellent walk rates
- Wetherholt and Jordan Walker lead the team in stolen bases
- Wetherholt and Herrera lead the team in plate appearances and games played
- Wetherholt and Herrera have nearly the same wRC+ and OPS!
- There are seven 27 year old players!
- Jordan Walker and Thomas Saggese have the highest K rate on the team
- Jordan Walker and Nathan Church are the Cardinals with an ISO over .200! (*Pages is right at .200!)
- Jordan Walker and JJ Wetherholt are the first players to 1 fWAR
- Nolan Gorman and Alec Burleson are both a hair above replacement level so far
- Gordon Graceffo and Riley O’Brien both have miniscule ERA at the time of this writing… O’Brien’s line is distinct though: 1.26 ERA/1.52 FIP/2.12 xFIP! Graceffo FIP: 3.44 (xFIP nearly 5)
- Dustin May and Michael McGreevy both have nearly the same xFIP (around 4)
April Awards
Best baserunner: JJ Wetherholt
Best sprinter: Victor Scott II
Best catcher pop time: Pedro Pages
Best ABS challenger: Ivan Herrera
Best Fielding Run Value: JJ Wetherholt narrowly beats out Masyn Winn!
Best outfield defense (Outs Above Average): Victor Scott II
Best arm: Jordan Walker (sorry Masyn! honorable mention)
Best all-around outfielder: Nathan Church (who also has a super throwing arm!)
Best all-around hitter: Jordan Walker
Most likely to take a walk: Ivan Herrera with his elite understanding of the strike zone, is walking over 15% of the time
Best starting pitcher: Dustin May or Michael McGreevy, take your pick… McGreevy has been lucky BABIP-wise and May has been very unlucky there. If you think FIP is your pick, you’d take May, but by ERA and xFIP, McGreevy is your guy… luckily we have both of them!
Most 5th starter looking guy: Andre Pallante beating his FIPs which are nearly 5… with a perfectly serviceable 4.26 ERA… however, he’s lasting about as long as Kyle Leahy, take your pick here too.
Biggest letdown: Matthew Liberatore was trusted with the #1 starter role and he has a 6.39 FIP and is worth negative fWAR and an ERA of 4.75 because of a relatively low BABIP, hitters are just crushing him though
Most dangerous bullpen guy: Nope, it’s not Ryne Stanek or Justin Bruihl, it was Svanson! even after showing some signs of improvement, he just had a very, very rough time of it so far this year
Bullpen Savior: Gordon Graceffo! with his bright and shiny 1.12 ERA and 3.44 FIP
Best Overall Pitcher: Riley O’Brien is worth the most fWAR of any Cardinals pitcher and has been lights out with a 1.26 ERA, 1.52 FIP, and 1.80 xERA!
Most improved player within the season: Nathan Church, over the course of April, went from barely on the team to being on pace for around 3 fWAR while robbing home runs and hitting 5 of them… …and Pedro Pages! who was once one of the worst hitting players on the team along with Church, but is now sitting with well above average wRC+, 3 HR, and well above average defense
Most improved player overall: Jordan Walker and his elite hard hitting, 8 home runs, .283 BA, .357 OBP, and outfield assists with his throwing arm. Jordan Walker has been playing like Mike Trout… both have .398 wOBA
For those watching the catching situation, Pozo has been a non-factor while Pages and Herrera duke it out for catching duties. On Fangraphs, Pages/Herrera are the #14 and #15 most valuable catchers in MLB. Pages has .1 more fWAR here, because of defense, while Herrera is batting at 185 wRC+ as a catcher (using splits, overall he’s at 138 wRC+). Pages has caught 17 games while Herrera has caught 11.
Speaking of Pozo, he has been our unluckiest hitter by BABIP. I bet he’s saving that BABIP for some kind of crazy, unimaginable pinch hit situation that will save the earth. Speaking of unlucky, Yohel Pozo has certainly not been the only one! Take a look at this list of BABIP *batting average on balls in play:
- Pozo .118
- Urias .184
- Wetherholt .244
- Herrera .247
- Church .265
1988
Ok, I have been listening to hundreds of albums this year, going week to week, discovering old music I missed while representing my historical favorites. Now I have made it to 1988, which as it turns out is just as important a transitional year as 1978, which was also pretty stacked. Something about those turnover years, that transitional time of decade change, brings really good music.
- My Bloody Valentine – Isn’t Anything, You Made Me Realize EP, and Feed Me With Your Kiss EP. It was sort of tough for me to pick MBV as #1 this year, except when I realized that not only did they release their game-changing debut album, but they also released two mind-blowing EPs. ‘Isn’t Anything’ is one of the most overlooked albums ever because My Bloody Valentine is mostly known for ‘Loveless’, but ‘Isn’t Anything’ covers more styles of music and is more versatile. It is much higher energy-wise, and almost totally out of control at times. Sure it’s not going to be remembered like ‘Loveless’ because it lacks the overall hype, but it’s just as good of an album, just in different ways. The My Bloody Valentine EPs are legendary in their own right. One of my favorite bands of all time.
- Sonic Youth – Daydream Nation this album is a close 2nd for best album of 1988. The remaster was revelatory for me, it made its performance that much more clear for me and my ears. This album is definitely a grower, getting better over time. If you pick this album as best of 1988, I can totally understand, and that’s totally cool. ‘Daydream Nation’ is often looked at as one of the key albums of the entire decade of 1980s American music. The remastered version made it all gel for me, I used to think of it as a bit overrated because the original mix was pretty muddy, imo. I can get picky about the small details.
- LOOP – Fade Out something about this band really does it for me, the riffs, the all out rock n roll, the slow burn, distorted psychedelic sounds. Shoegaze as a genre was just beginning here with My Bloody Valentine exploding upon the scene and LOOP continuing its sounds from 1987, but in a more perfected form here.
- Stump – A Fierce Pancake one of the best, most unique bassists I have ever heard, this album was an underground hit around these times, I would even go so far to say this is the missing link between XTC and Primus, and a big influence on the latter. Ignore the dumb band name and album title, this is highly unique music that is not to be missed!
- Cheer Accident – Sever Roots Tree Dies Chicago’s best band, and some of my coolest buds’ first fully realized album, avant prog and punk melded into music transcendent of time, place, and genre. They’re the best. Bandcamp link included on this one because it’s too obscure! And smaller bands need all the help they can get, worth every penny (I got the vinyl version). If you want to know melancholy, this album has plenty of it! It will grow on you. If you want a drummer who also plays piano and sings, this is your ticket.
- Public Enemy – It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back any other year, and this groundbreaking hiphop album would be ranked higher by me, influencing countless rappers and even My Bloody Valentine (as quoted in interviews around ‘87/’88, MBV loved them some Public Enemy). This outdoes their debut by a mile and is a must have for any hip hop enthusiast, right up there with the Beastie Boys and Run DMC in early hiphop powers.
- RUINS – Infect another very obscure yet legendary band, Japan’s answer to the Zeuhl genre of music I’m always raving about. Along with Cheer Accident, this band possesses one of the greatest drummers of all time. Besides drums, all that RUINS have as a band is a bassist! They both sing a made up language… this music is totally confounding, complex, and even annoying, but I absolutely love it. It translates even better live, nonsensically music for brainiacs and other weirdos.
- Pharoah Sanders, John Hicks, Curtis Lundy & Idris Muhammed – Africa this album is full of good energy, inspirational, and without a doubt one of the best jazz albums of the 1980s, check it out!
- Ministry – The Land of Rape and Honey this is one of my favorite albums of all time but this year is just totally stacked with good music! I think I’d rank it higher if the production was a little better and if Ministry wasn’t about to drop a few even better albums after this… for fans of industrial music, goth, punk, metal. Key 1980s album!
- Skinny Puppy – viviSECTvi my favorite run of Skinny Puppy albums begins here, total genius from Cevin Key, Ohgr, and crew. For fans of 80s alt dance, industrial music classics, and futuristic/scifi/cyberpunk feels and vibes.
- Ultramagnetic MCs – Critical Beatdown another important early hiphop/rap album, if you know Kool Keith from Dr Octagon, etc, this is where he started with this NYC crew! If you like rhymes, this will blow minds.
- Living Colour – Vivid while this is a solid album start to finish, no 1988 list would be complete without a shout out to Living Colour, who’s big hit “Cult of Personality” put them on the map. It’s also my favorite song to sing at karaoke. All four musicians in this band are absolutely top notch and Cory Glover is one of the most criminally overlooked rock n roll singers of all time (and it could also perhaps be said that Vernon Reid is one of the most forgotten but amazing virtuoso guitarists in rock history).
- Metallica – …And Justice For All similar to Ministy, this is an all time classic album for me, very important as it was also one of my first heavy metal albums… it’s just that they should’ve mixed Jason Newsted’s bass higher in the mix, and this year as I mentioned, was just absolutely stacked with talent and groundbreaking material. Probably my favorite Metallica album, the heaviest and most complex. I have to be in the right mood to hear it though! Pretty dark and depressing material to say the least, and the album created after the death of original bassist Cliff Burton’s untimely and tragic death on a bus while on tour.
- Nomeansno – Small Parts Isolated and Destroyed Nomeansno has an absolutely stacked discography and this might very well be my favorite… lots of variety of songs here, and it sounds amazing record-wise! I feel like I should rank this much higher up, and that’s a good problem to have. One of the best punk bands of all time at their best.
- Slayer – South of Heaven a Dave Lombardo drumming clinic! The fact that legendary albums such as this, Metallica, and Living Colour not even cracking my top 10 is exemplary of how top tier 1988 was for music.
- Talk Talk – Spirit of Eden due to the spirited endorsement of VEB, I have become a Talk Talk fan and this is my favorite album by them… again, I feel like this is ranked incredibly low for how much of a masterpiece it is, straddling several genres of music but feeling focused into their own paradigm. Alt prog?
- Sade – Stronger Than Pride Sade really shines here, and I hadn’t even heard this album, maybe her best?
- Pestilence – Malleus Maleficarum fierce, laser focused combination of death metal and thrash! Like a more technical Sepultura, kind of. Or maybe closer to what Kreator was doing at this time. Pushing that heavy metal envelope even further into evolution.
- Dinosaur Jr – Bug this Dino Jr album doesn’t get mentioned enough, it’s quite good! Rock n roll history right here… grunge before grunge, but not from Seattle. Or maybe post-punk is more accurate, whatever. This is a fine listen however you slice it. Bug out!
- Steve Roach – Dreamtime Return ambient music at its finest, Steve Roach is legendary!
Honorable Mentions:
- Coroner – Punishment For Decadence Swiss metallions Coroner raise the bar in technical thrash metal
- Rudimentary Peni – Cacophony punk rock at its best, just an overcrowded year for awesome music!
- Suicidal Tendencies – How Will I Smile Tomorrow… streetwise crossover thrash, one of Suicidal’s best
- Cocteau Twins – Blue Bell Knoll I expect this album to grow on me more over time, a classic
Thanks for reading VEB! Even if you just read the baseball part, I appreciate your time and commentary! Let me know if you get a chance to hear any of that monster year of music or if I missed anything mindblowing. And Go Cardinals, let’s beat the Pirates! Game 3 of 13 coming up tonight, hopefully no rain delays. These last two games have been some really fun, entertaining baseball, even if it all doesn’t make sense.
