With Tony La Russa and Joe Torre making roster decisions for their respective teams, how do the Cardinal batters stack up against the Dodger pitchers?

Following are some hopefully helpful charts to allow you to quickly compare how well (and how poorly) Cardinal hitters have done in their careers against the LA staff (you can also download a printable version to refer to while watching the games). We’ve made it as simple as possible by displaying plate appearances (for context) and Gross Production Average, which, if you’re not familiar, is simply a better version of OPS. Here are the results against the likely starters, according to fellow SweetSpot blog Memories of Kevin Malone, plus wild-card Jon Garland. We’ve crossed out Khalil Greene, who will not be on the Cardinals’ roster, but included pitcher Adam Wainwright, who might very well be used as a pinch hitter. We’ve highlighted in red the most-favorable matchups:

And against the would-be relievers:

Some observations:

• In addition to whatever mental-health concerns the Cardinals had about including Greene, his only matchup advantage — and it was significant — was against Billingsley.
• On the other hand, the guy who took the last bench spot — Troy Glaus — doesn’t offer much, either. Perhaps he can make hay while the sun shines against Vicente Padilla.
• Given the Dodgers’ first two starters — Wolf and Kershaw — the addition of Matt Holliday is seen in even deeper relief.
• It’s cliche, but the numbers bear it out: the Cardinals are going to have to rely on their dynamic duo of Albert Pujols and Holliday to score runs. The rest of the lineup simply offers little hope against the Dodgers’ front three.
• With the two southpaw starters, Julio Lugo would seem reasonable to start at second base, at least in Games 1 and 2. But his numbers aren’t any better than Skip Schumaker’s. And at this point, Schumaker might be the better glove man.
• But Lugo doesn’t figure to do much as a pinch hitter, either, inasmuch as he hasn’t done much against the Dodger relievers that he has faced.
• If Mota makes the roster — and with those GPAs against him, here’s hoping he does — Rick Ankiel will have at least one purpose.
• The sample sizes are small, but they’re enough to get excited about seeing 4-5 hitters Holliday and Ludwick face Ramon Troncoso, who dominates everyone but them.

This entry was posted by Pip on Tuesday, October 6th, 2009 at 6:00 am and is filed under analysis. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.