The Cardinals Team Defense Will Make a Big Impact In This Year’s Weird Playoffs
With the playoff field set and four of the eight tenuous three-game series set to begin Tuesday, it’s easy to start imagining the possibilities that will unfold in a wild week for baseball. MLB’s announcement of this year’s playoff schedule doing away with the usual mid-series off days for all rounds prior to the World Series has magnified the importance of each team’s pitching depth (or lack thereof). With no rest in between games for travel, you can’t simply save your best arms, role with your top three starters, and go to a small group of relievers you trust the most, a la last year’s world champion Washington Nationals.
Without your ace pitcher on the mound as often, the margins will be thinner and defense could be the difference maker that gives a team an edge they need to survive and advance in the chaos sure to unfold in this week’s 16-team tournament. With that idea in mind, we’ve examined which teams’ defense has the most potential to make an impact and turn the tide of a shortened series when pitching depth is at a premium, primarily using Outs Above Average and Defensive Runs Saved.
The NL Central was either the most competitive division in baseball or an ugly mess of mediocrity depending on how you view this season’s regional-based schedule. While the division featured three pitchers in Trevor Bauer, Yu Darvish, and Corbin Burnes who all had legitimate shots at contending for a Cy Young Award heading into the final week, the quality of opposition faced is a factor that will likely be overlooked in this year’s voting. All five NL Central teams, including four that will feature in this year’s postseason, routinely ran out subpar lineups that ranked below MLB average by wRC+. The Cardinals had the best offense of this lowly bunch with a team 93 wRC+, but they still figure to lean heavily on the other side of the ball if they hope to make a run in this year’s playoffs.
Ranking 10th in baseball in ERA (3.96), St. Louis has outperformed their FIP more than any other team in baseball aside from the Dodgers and you have to give a lot of the credit to St. Louis’ elite glovework all across the diamond. The staff doesn’t strike a lot of guys out (23.3 K%, 16th in MLB) and this means more balls in plays, a strategy that has worked to perfection when you consider St. Louis’ anemic offense.
Whatever metric you like LOVES the St. Louis Cardinals, they’ve come a long way from the winter of 2019, when things were….not ideal. The Redbirds rank first in baseball in defensive runs saved (33) and are tied for fifth in outs above average (+7) at the conclusion of the 2020 regular season. Only the Dodgers, second and sixth respectively among those metrics, rate more favorably among this year’s postseason teams. After leading baseball in team errors in 2018, Mike Schildt’s staff cleaned up some seemingly fixable mistakes to showcase the Cardinals’ true talent last year; St. Louis ranked among the top-4 in both the aforementioned categories last year and have continued that defensive brilliance into this season.
While the Cardinals are probably longingly watching Marcell Ozuna rake for the Braves this season and even flirt with the triple crown, to call his defense “suspect” would be putting it lightly. In this year’s short season, Tyler O’Neill has seemingly found his home in the vacated left field spot. He finished the regular campaign with a +4 OAA mark, tied for eighth-best among MLB outfielders, and +9 DRS, tied for eighth among all defenders in the game. This all comes after a 2019 season when he was worth 0 OAA in 44 games spent mostly in right. Maybe because he’s more known for his huge guns, O’Neill is sneakily one of the fastest men in baseball, possessing 99th percentile sprint speed. His defense isn’t flashy, as evidenced by several of the great jumps he’s gotten on balls this year. His 70th percentile outfield jump makes his speed look easy to overlook if you’re only casually watching his play.
While O’Neill’s defensive prowess has been a revelation now that he’s getting regular playing time, Harrison Bader continues to be elite ball hawk in centerfield. This season, he’s matched O’Neill’s +4 outs above average and possesses a 92nd percentile outfield jump. This year’s shortened season is just another notch on the belt of an elite centerfield defender that ranks 12th in outfielder outs above average in the Statcast era. (He trails the likes of Lorenzo Cain, Billy Hamilton, and Kevin Kiermaier who have had over twice the number of chances because of Bader’s emergence as a regular only as recently as 2018.) A strong finish to the season, including a 425 foot blast that nearly ruined a masterful, postmodern work of our time from Fredbird, saw Bader end the 2020 campaign with a .226/.336/.443 line, good for a 113 wRC+; with offense and defense contributions both considered, he’s been worth roughly a win for St. Louis this year by fWAR.
On the infield dirt, the metrics don’t love Paul DeJong as much this year (-3 OAA, 0 DRS), but you would expect this to smooth itself out over a full season given his track record. The former Illinois State standout was worth +12 OAA last year. You don’t need numbers to know Kolten Wong is good at second base (well, +1 OAA, 7 DRS this year if you do). The corner spots have been serviceable enough and St. Louis has saved seven runs with the help of the shift per the DRS leaderboards, third-best in baseball. Statcast looks favorably on Yadier Molina’s performance behind the dish this year (76th percentile in framing runs and an average pop time that’s top-20) for a player whose value always seems to be enhanced by the intangibles he brings.
With an offense that has underperformed for a second straight season and a staff that has received better than expected performances from pitch-to-contact veterans like Adam Wainwright and Kwang-hyun Kim, the Cardinals will need to lean on arguably baseball’s best defense to make some highlight-reel plays if they stand to knock off one of baseball’s most watchable teams this year. If Jack Flaherty turns it on at the right time and the Cardinals defense continues to elevate the performances of the rest of the pitching staff’s supporting cast, St. Louis can continue to make their case as one of the most reliable franchises in the National League come October.
