The Pirates lost their 8th straight in a 3-1 loss versus the Cardinals. All 3 Cardinals runs were driven in off the bat of Paul Goldschmidt who continued his hot streak and is now hitting .338 on the year with a 1.030 OPS and a 200 wRC+. The 28 year old J.T. Brubaker was on the bump for the pirates he generated 13 swings and misses 9 of which were on his slider, which has virtually no horizontal break but averages 34 inches of vertical break. Brubaker had 5 strikeouts, 4 of which came on his slider, through 5.1 innings. Brubaker’s slider has been his best pitch all year, it has only a .191 BAA and a .197 xBAA. It is also his best strikeout pitch with a strikeout percentage of 35%, a whiff rate of 41.6%, and a putaway rate of 25.7%. Sharing the mound with Brubaker was Cardinals rookie and top prospect Matthew Liberatore who was making only his fourth career start. Liberatore generated 9 swings and misses while giving up only 3 hits through his 5 innings of work. All of Liberatore’s pitches were up in spin rate compared to his yearly average, this could be a sign that the rookie is starting to feel more comfortable at the big league level. Despite the loss the Pirates had a team xBA 36 points higher than the Cardinals. Bryan Reynolds went 2-3 with 2 hard hit balls raising his season OPS to .771. Yu Chang was the only source of run scoring for the Pirates hitting a solo homerun in the 7th inning. Change also went 2-3 with 2 hard hit balls. Aside from the Goldschmidt homer in the 3rd inning the Cardinals did not have an extra base hit. But they did pitch well enough, Liberatore, VerHagen, Helsley, and Gallegos all had scoreless appearances, to grab the win.
4 thoughts on “Pirates vs. Cardinals Gm1 6/14/22 Analysis”
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Great rundown! What is wRC+? That’s a new stat for me and what’s an above average range for wRC? Goldy is as hot as they come right now so I’m assuming 200 is pretty good!
wRC+ stands for weighted runs created plus. wRC+ is park and league-adjusted stat, allowing you to compare players who played in different years, parks, and leagues. If you wanted to compare Stan Musial to Mike Trout this is your stat. The plus in the stat means that it is on a scale where league average is 100. Every point above 100 is a percentage point above league average. For example, a 113 wRC+ means a player created 13% more runs than a league average hitter. The same way for every point below 100, so a 75 wRC+ means that a player created 25% fewer runs than league average. Goldschmidt’s 200 wRC+ means that he has created 100% more runs than an average hitter, that is pretty good.
Thanks for the reply! I like that stat and you just happened to use a great example (Stan the Man) for a homer Cardinals fan like me to understand. Who has the best wRC in baseball history? Would trout, hank Aaron, Willie mays, micky mantle, and Barry bonds asterisk and all be in top 10? If so, that’s the right stat it feels like. Sleeper top 10….Rogers Hornsby
Babe Ruth has the highest career wRC+ of all time with a 197 wRC+. While he’s only played 290 games, the biggest sleeper in the top 10 would be Astros slugger Yordan Alvarez.
The all time top 10: 1-Babe Ruth 2-Ted Williams 3-Lou Gehrig 4-Rogers Hornsby 5-Barry Bonds 6-Mike Trout 7-Mickey Mantle 8-Ty Cobb 9-Joe Jackson 10-Yordan Alvarez