Yadier Molina is batting .244 with 13 strikeouts and only 4 XBH (0 HRs).
Not great, but also not impeding the Cardinals patch to victory, it appears. Besides, Yadi’s real value has never been his hitting, per se, but his defense and staff management. The Cardinals sport a 2.46 ERA and 20 wins through roughly 1/6th of the season… so everything is FINE.
Unless you read Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight. The same site that already knows who’s going to be elected President in 2016, probably.
It’s the Cardinals catcher’s defense that’s a mess. Molina’s pitch framing has collapsed, dropping from third-best in 2013 to 60th in 2015. And the Cardinals are at real risk because of it.
Aren’t there only 30 teams? And do any teams carry more than 2 catchers? 60th doesn’t sound very good at all.
But still, small sample size.
But this year, Molina’s framing is no longer even average. Already in 2015, Molina has cost his team about four strikes, while the best framers have gained more than 15. That may not sound like much, but over the course of a season, it could add up to a gap of more than 150 strikes, worth something like 25 runs. In his best year (2013), Molina acquired roughly that many extra strikes for his team, equating to an extra couple of wins per year for the Cardinals.
This is no small-sample fluke, either.
Unlike hitting and pitching, whose outcomes we still measure in the dozens this early in the season, Molina has seen 800 pitches this year. That sample size is plenty big.
Hmm.
I went ahead and read the rest of the article and didn’t care for a single sentence of what author Rob Arthur wrote. So I’d recommend that you do the same.
I’m going to instead choose to believe that Yadi will overcome and that everything is FINE.
Everything is FINE, Ok.
JUST FINE.
Photo: Aaron Miles’ Fastball
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