The St. Louis Cardinals acquired centerfielder Peter Bourjos during the offseason and I was optimistic that he could provide them a speed boost and improved outfield defense. He’s definitely a burner on the bases, and that greatly helps his defensive ability. My only real worry was how well Bourjos would hit. Jon Jay, our incumbent centerfielder the last few years, has been a pretty steady offensive player.
Jay’s career numbers (including 2014 season thus far) spans 581 games played, 2,071 total plate appearances for 1,835 total at-bats: .293/.356/.401/.757 (BA, OBP, SLG, OPS) – K: 326, BB: 146, SB: 39
Bourjos’ career numbers (including 2014 season thus far) spans 392 games played, 1,248 total plate appearances for 1,127 total at-bats: .248/.305/.392/.697 (BA, OBP, SLG, OPS) – K: 285, BB: 72, SB: 44
The first things that jumped out to me were the differences in BA, OBP, and BB/K ratio. Jay for his career is 45 points better in batting average, 51 points better on-base percentage, and his BB/K ratio is 0.45 compared to Bourjos’ 0.25.
The advanced saber stats also favor Jay on offense. His OWAR (Offensive Wins Above Replacement) numbers for 2010-2013: 1.4, 1.5, 2.9, 2.7. Bourjos from 2010-2013 (less PAs): 0, 3.6, 0.2, 0.8. The regular WAR numbers are pretty even between the two. Jay 2010-2013 WAR: 0.8, 2.6, 3.2, 1.5; Bourjos 1.4, 4.8, 1.1, 0.8.
A LOT of people, and a lot of Cardinals fans seemed very willing to say that because we are getting fantastic defense in CF that it was worth the drop-off in offensive production. Many long-time St. Louis Cardinals fans, including myself, appreciate solid fundamentals, defense, and “small ball”. Our teams of the 80’s thrived on this style of play with Whiteyball on the astro turf of Busch Stadium. So, I was also hoping the addition of Bourjos would give us a nice mix of offense and defense.
Speaking of defense, this is where it gets good for Bourjos. According to FanGraphs, here are the fancy defensive saber stats for the two centerfielders:
Jay 2010-2014 (CF only): 49/0.7/3.6, 123/1.5/2.1, 214/3.7/4.7, 242/-7.3/-7.5, 31/1.3/15.7 (Plays/UZR/UZR150)
Bourjos 2010-2014 (CF only): 120/17.1/47.2, 259/7.0/7.6, 127/16.3/40.8, 95/-0.3/-1.3, 47/3.3/23.6 (Plays/UZR/UZR150)
I’m assuming if you’ve read this far, you’re somewhat interested and most likely know what UZR (utlimate zone rating) and some of these other acronyms mean. If not, head over to FanGraphs.com and read their “glossary” section. Moving on, you can see that Bourjos is the superior defender and it isn’t very close most years. While I fancy these saber stats to be extremely interesting, I have to wonder how effective they are at determining value. Obviously, I’m not an actuary and couldn’t tell you which formulas are more precise than any other formula.
But, I think a few other things such as number of opportunities to affect the game on offense vs defense, the Cardinals ballpark, Cardinals pitching staff, putting balls in play, making the opposing pitcher work harder, etc. Jon Jay has a runs created/game of 5.0 for his career. Bourjos’ is 4.0 for his career. Jay is 4.2 in 2014 and Bourjos 3.3 runs created/game. Defensive runs saved in CF for Jay is 2 thus far in 2014, and Bourjos is 3. Jay has created 13 runs, and Bourjos has created 10 total in 2014. Jay’s career IP% & LD% are 72/22, Bourjos 66/13. Bourjos has a career SO% of 22.8 & BB% of 5.8%, Jay 15.7/7.1.
Ultimately, as you continue to compare the various numbers these guys look like a wash/tie on paper (Jay wins offense, Bourjos wins defense). However, I’m not sure that’s the case in real life. When you examine the total number of chances you get defensively with the total number of plate appearances a batter gets each year; the two aren’t even close. A CF player gets way more chances to affect the game at the plate. Jay had 628 PAs for the Cardinals in 2013 versus 340 total chances in CF, 242 FanGraphs “Plays”. Considering the Cardinals starting rotation and park stay pretty similar one could expect similar numbers in 2014. One could also argue that Jay doesn’t get as many chances on defense cause he’s a worse offensive player. But, if you examine the likes of Andrew McCutchen, Carlos Gomez, or Denard Span, who are considering plus defenders at CF; the number chances doesn’t fluctuate greatly. Gomez had 408 total chances, Span had 384 and Cutch had 338. The number of chances is probably greatly affected by the quality of your pitching staff and the park in which a team plays too. Gomez had 590 PAs in 2013, Span 662, and Cutch had 674. So, as you can see, as a batter you have guys who get 180+ more opportunities at the plate to affect the game vs how many they get in the field. In some cases it is much higher than 180 where McCutchen had 336 more chances at the plate than in the field. Cutch played the most games of the four I just mentioned and typically bats 3rd so he has a higher difference.
The Cardinals already play in a pretty pitcher friendly ballpark, with a good pitching staff (top 5 in NL ERA, SO & BAA), so does playing Bourjos everyday really help your cause as much as playing the more offensive minded Jay? I’d argue no, because his primary asset is on defense and in our pitcher friendly park with a great staff he has less opportunity to help. Whereas, a batter is always going to get a certain number of PAs per game and an opportunity to generate runs. And as indicated by SO%, IP%, BB%, LD%, etc even when Jay isn’t getting a base hit, he’s still likely moving a runner, putting pressure on the defense with a hard hit batted ball, making innings last longer (increasing pitch counts of opposing pitchers), etc.
The other reason I’d say Bourjos should be sitting is that speed is his best asset and when he does get on; we’re not utilizing his speed. Bourjos has 3 SB and even his best season was only 22 SB when he played all year. You could blame Matheny for his lack of SB this season but I’m not sure if that’s a coaching decision, because his batting numbers aren’t great, or if he just doesn’t feel comfortable stealing regularly. I’d honestly have to think it’s because Bourjos isn’t confident enough to steal regularly. Trout in his 2 seasons of full-time play for the Angels when Bourjos was there had 49 and 33 SB and by most accounts Bourjos is the faster of the two. I’d doubt the manager is holding the guy, especially in the bottom of the order where Bourjos bats in St. Louis. I’d bet it’s up to the player to steal on their own. Now, that’s purely my guess, but I feel confident it’s on the player more often than not in Bourjos’ case. Kolten Wong in 114 PAs this year has 7 SBs and he’s been batting in the 2 spot a lot recently. You’d think if Matheny was the one holding Bourjos in the bottom of the order, he’d definitely be holding Wong with Holliday, Adams, Molina and Craig coming up to avoid running into outs. But, maybe you’d argue he’s avoid the DP with a steal by Wong. Either way, I don’t think Matheny is holding Bourjos back from stealing.
Well, that’s a really long post, but hopefully it explains some of my recent Twitter ramblings about the whole centerfield issue for the Cardinals. We obviously have a lot of young OF prospects who will make this conversation even more interesting if they continue to play well. Until then, I say we play Jay everyday and use Bourjos as a late-inning defensive replacement. This gives the bulk of ABs to Jay where he can affect the game in a positive fashion and gives Bourjos the chance to make a great defensive save late when we can’t afford to have bloopers or gap shots get down. He can also be a SB threat late if he were to get on base. This would allow us to best utilize each player’s skills to the best of their ability.
References
http://espn.go.com/mlb/player/stats/_/id/29691/jon-jay
http://espn.go.com/mlb/player/stats/_/id/29318/peter-bourjos
http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=2578&position=OF#fielding
http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=5227&position=OF#fielding
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/b/bourjpe01-bat.shtml
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/j/jayjo02-bat.shtml