Did Oquendo make the right call?
Cardinal fans and first basemen were upset Tuesday night after third-base coach Jose Oquendo prevented Randy Winn from attempting to score the tying run in the ninth inning in a game they went on to lose to the Pirates, 4-3. But can they lefitimately blame Oquendo?
First, let’s reconstruct the play: Down by one run with runners on first and second with one out in the ninth, the visiting Cardinals had the heart of their lineup coming to bat. Albert Pujols grounded sharply toward third, where Pirate third baseman Pedro Alvarez dove and slowed down the ball, which rolled into shallow left field. Winn came racing from second looking to score, but, seeing Oquendo’s stop sign, put on the brakes as shortstop Ronny Cedeno retrieved the ball, giving the Cardinals bases loaded, one out and Matt Holliday stepping to the dish.
So now, some facts:
- Holliday hit a home run to give the team the lead earlier in the game.
- Holliday is the Cardinals’ second-best hitter after Pujols.
- Holliday runs well and doesn’t ground into many double plays.
- Winn runs well and is a good bet to score on a fly ball.
- Jon Jay, on second, runs well and is a decent bet to score on a single.
- The Cardinals’ win expectancy at that point was 46.3%.
- The Cardinals have been among the league’s worst baserunning teams, running into many unnecessary outs, for which Oquendo was often responsible.
Assuming that Winn had even odds of being thrown out or scoring– admittedly a big assumption — here are the win-expectancy numbers that Oquendo was dealing with, if unwittingly:
| STL WE | |
| Actual result | 46.3% |
| Best-case (runner scores, runners at 1st and 2nd) | 58.8% |
| Worst-case (runner thrown out, runners at 1st and 2nd) | 14.1% |
Given those numbers, the risk far outweighed the reward:
| Risk | 32.2% |
| Reward | 12.5% |
Not to mention, the team’s second-best hitter was coming to the plate. The replay seemed to show that Winn had a reasonable chance of scoring, but even so, the decision to preserve the tying run at third base was completely defensible. And that’s making a split-second call without the aid of Tango’s win-expectancy tables.
Pujols’s frustration was understandable but ultimately uninformed and yet another public insult to his coach. Oquendo has made some mistakes in judgment this year, but this wasn’t one of them.
August 27th, 2010 at 1:41 am
We focus periodically on Pujols’ overagressiveness on the bag, Oquendo and LaRussa’s occasional mismanagement, and on the team’s large number of stranded runners, but honestly, how many games have been lost, and how many leads squandered, by our perpetually underachieving bullpen? Seeing Franklin, McClellan, Hawksworth, Motte, et al blow game after game is no different at this point than all those miserable times watching in horror as Isringhausen was handed the ball in a game not yet in the bag. Is it my imagination, or is 18+ games lost by the bullpen with over a month to go worse than usual?
August 27th, 2010 at 8:46 am
That’s a good point — sometimes we strain at the gnat while swallowing the camel. The bullpen does seem to be a bigger issue than some bad baserunning. I’ll have to look into it. Remember, though, that relievers are almost always inferior pitchers to starters, so we should lower our expectations. That said, it’s easy enough to compare the pen with their fellow relievers in the league.
August 28th, 2010 at 1:34 am
Take tonight as well, even though we won- Boggs nearly gives up a bad one with the bases loaded (just foul, won’t show up in the stats), then McClellan gives up a hit followed by a homer (only half shows up in the stats, thanks to a “caught sttealing” that was really a pickoff right before the bomb). Ryan Franklin then did his best Isringhausen impression by giving up a leadoff double, a long sac fly, a run-scoring wild pitch, a clean triple, and a walk before finally “earning” what we inexplicably call a “save” (can we officially change the stat to “pitching performance that didn’t blow the game”?) It’s really, really getting uncomfortable and frustrating watching this team play when the starter doesn’t go at least 7 these days, and the fact that they’ve won so many games anyway with this underperforming bunch of bad-bearded bullpen bumblers on the roster is a testament to just how good Carp, Wain-o and Garcia have been all year (Fernando Salas not included, or course-hopefully he hasn’t been infected yet, although admitedly he’s probably not ready to be the closer- I can’t remember what happened the last time we let a young minor leaguer come up and start closing games during a playoff push instead of continuing to trust the established guys who are probably only there because of LaRussa’s stubborn loyalty to certain guys… what was it, ‘06 when they let that Wainwright kid pitch? Can’t remember how that turned out… Anyway, as a side note, it’s a good thing LaRussa finally got over that “stubborn loyalty” thing, or we’d still have guys like Brendan Ryan in the starting lineup after a seasonlong slump)
Meanwhile, on the positive, Pujols plays through the pain, continues his traditionally hot August, and starts to stir up talk of a possible Triple Crown (yet another reason to hope Joey Votto hits a slide soon). Bryan Anderson continues the trend of Memphis call-ups hitting well above expectations, along with Jon Jay’s consistent excellence. And Pedro Feliz, in addition to looking stellar along the third base line (partially just because we have to contrast his performance with Lopez’ “heroics”, partially just because he’s good at it), continues his active 7-game/entire-Cardinal-career hitting streak, with 7 runs, 12 hits and a bonus walk in 35 at bats.
If we DO make the playoffs, it’ll be due to the boost from the farm system, Pujols being Pujols, and 100% in spite of the bullpen.