Giving the Cardinals their PrOPS

First of all, bravo Chris Carpenter. 13 k's, a career best and he did it in only 7 innings. That was EXACTLY the sort of dominating pitching performance the Cardinals needed tonight. Now if we could get those other 4 guys rolling. 

And while I'm handing out kudos, bravo Scott Rolen, who went 4 for 4 with a couple of doubles and his batting average is leading the NL in batting average w/.351. If you would've told me in March that Rolen would be hitting .351/.427/.574 and has stayed healthy and had nearly 200 at bats by mid June, I would've told you to keep dreaming.

During the game I was taking a look at the Cardinal's PrOPS over at The Hardball Times and found some pretty interesting stuff.  Take a look.

Stats through 06/12/06

Year	Last	First	Tm	Lg	Pos	PrAVE	PrISO	PrSLG	PrOBP	PrOPS	OPS	OPS-PrOPS
2006	Pujols	Albert	STL	NL	1B	.340	.468	.808	.471	1.279	1.193	-0.085
2006	Rolen	Scott	STL	NL	3B	.307	.190	.497	.393	.890	.970	.080
2006	Duncan	Chris E	STL	NL	1B	.274	.343	.617	.270	.886	.905	.019
2006	Spiezio	Scott	STL	NL	3B	.286	.170	.457	.386	.842	.871	.028
2006	Edmonds	Jim	STL	NL	CF	.270	.180	.450	.367	.817	.756	-0.062
2006	Bigbie	Larry	STL	NL	LF	.335	.026	.362	.415	.777	.601	-0.176
2006	Perez	Timo	STL	NL	LF	.279	.067	.346	.429	.774	.425	-0.349
2006	Encarnacion	Juan	STL	NL	RF	.282	.172	.454	.309	.763	.727	-0.036
2006	Eckstein	David	STL	NL	SS	.305	.083	.388	.374	.762	.781	.020
2006	Luna	Hector R	STL	NL	2B	.291	.138	.428	.328	.756	.794	.037
2006	Molina	Yadier B	STL	NL	C	.290	.105	.395	.341	.735	.574	-0.162
2006	Taguchi	So	STL	NL	LF	.290	.091	.381	.347	.729	.702	-0.027
2006	Miles	Aaron	STL	NL	2B	.282	.065	.347	.370	.717	.688	-0.029
2006	Schumaker	Jared M	STL	NL	LF	.244	.131	.375	.311	.686	.538	-0.149
2006	Rodriguez	John J	STL	NL	LF	.266	.066	.333	.336	.669	.766	.097
2006	Bennett	Gary	STL	NL	C	.249	.062	.312	.282	.594	.489	-0.105
2006	Gall	John C	STL	NL	LF	.191	.060	.251	.200	.451	.500	.049

In case you're not familiar with PrOPS, The Hardball Times defines it as-

"PrOPS stands for "Predicted OPS." It was developed by J.C. Bradbury and introduced in this article. PrOPS isn't really a new stat; it's a formula for predicting what a player's OPS is likely to be in the future based on his batted balls (ie grounders, fly balls, and line drives), strikeouts, home runs and walks."  Here's what strikes me here-

• First of all look at Yadier Molina. There's an -.87 point difference between his projecteced average and his actual average and a -162 point different between his PrOPS and his OPS. So Yadi hasn't been totally bad, his luck is has been. While a .735 OPS isn't much to write home about, we'd all be feeling a lot better if that was his real OPS, and that ain't bad for an NL catcher. His luck looks lately like it may be turning around.
• Look at John Rodriguez and his .266 projected average (44 points lower of actual BA) and .669 PrOPs. Earlier this season I noted that Rodriguez's high average was coming from having a BABIP (batting average of balls in play of .500) He's starting to come back to earth, as his BABIP has dropped to around .400. He still hasn't shown any sign of power he showed in Memphis and in July in St. Louis last season.  Since 8/1/05, the Rod has had 209 at bats, homering twice and his slugging percentage is 2 points lower then his on-base percentage (.373 SLG, .375 OBP) Dan at GUB is right, Rodriguez is Quilvio Veras.
• Jim Edmonds ain't what he used to be, but maybe he's not been quite as bad as we thought.
• Juan Encarnacion really has been the "as advertised" Juan Encarnacion.
• Is if Albert was amazing enough already, according to PrOPS his OPS should be higher. Also Albert's average has been down from his previous seaonon. Albert's BABIP is only .229. His previous seasons have been .318, .304, .350...Some of this is coming from swinging for the fences, as his fly ball ratio has gone up considerably. (God, I miss Albert).
• Okay, so Scott Rolen has been very lucky. Still, it's a nice comeback and you gotta be at least a little lucky to hit .351.