Revolution in the Blink of an Eye: The St. Louis Cardinals Since 1995

The other day, I posted a graph that illustrated just how much of an organizational shift has happened for the St. Louis Cardinals in the last seven years. Today, I’ve expounded on that a little bit further. Rather than focusing on how the players were acquired, I’ve created scatterplots for each Cardinals squad since 1995. Listed in each scatterplot is each player’s individual WAR (wins above replacement), plotted along with their age. Each chart by itself is relatively benign. But if you see them all together at once, the organization’s shift towards youth and homegrown talent in the last few years becomes apparent. First, an animated .gif to show the shift.

Graph: St. Louis Cardinals: WAR by Acquisition Type (1995-2013)

While working on a separate project, I recently compiled a lot of data about my beloved St. Louis Cardinals and the value provided to their roster by individual players. My other project focuses on the Cardinals in the Walt Jocketty and John Mozeliak eras, the two General Managers that have helmed player procurement since 1995. Collecting that data allowed me to create today’s graph, which illustrates how much value was provided to the organization each season by players acquired via three primary means- draft, trade, and free agency. To show value, I’ve used Baseball Reference’s WAR statistic- Wins Above Replacement, explained here. Basically, a player’s WAR is the number of wins he provides to his team over and beyond what a readily available replacement player could be expected to provide.