MONTREAL • The Cardinals’ front office and analytics group dropped a stack of statistics on manager Mike Matheny at the end of the team’s play in the Grapefruit League, and he marveled at the types of numbers available to him from simple exhibition games. There were measures of baserunning, baserunning efficiency, velocities, spin rates, and anything else a radar or scouts could capture.
Matheny hadn’t had time to pick through all of them by the time the team reached its final destination of spring — a two-game stop at Olympic Stadium in Montreal — but he saw some that confirmed a sense he had all spring.