Well, it’s open season, and I don’t mean deer hunting. Major League Baseball free agents are in the market for homes, i.e teams that will open their wallets and welcome them in.  Turning human beings into price tags can be a little degrading, but some players are probably looking for that final deal that will determine their salary for the remainder of their careers.  Players need homes as much as teams need personnel to make  a winning team in 2024.

General Manager John Mozeliak  has not consulted me yet, so I’m not holding my breath for my picks. Athletic sports writer Katie Woo likes Eduardo Rodrigues and Jordan Montgomery as likely signings. I remember Rodriguez as a high ceiling, but injury prone. Montgomery I like for reasons stated below. Here is my assessment of the available pitchers and their fit for the Cardinals.

Two Japanese pitchers are going to break records for contracts as well as wins and ERA: Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto.  They will be number 1 starting pitchers on most teams that can  afford them.  They offer good resumes, Ohtani in the Major Leagues and Yamamoto in Japanese baseball. They have great potential to exhaust team payrolls as well as exponentially upgrade any pitching staff in the Major Leagues.

Let’s just say he St.Louis Cardinals should stay out of that market, if they want to hire two quality starters in the off season.  They can afford what the Katie Woo calls Second and Third Tier pitchers.  In the Second Tier are Jordan Montgomery, Sonny Gray, Eduardo Rodrigues and Marcus Stroman.  Three of these have something in common: previous season-ending injuries. Personally I think the risk of giving big contracts for fragile arms is not worth it.  The Cardinals badly need dependable pitchers to solidify a strong offensive team that could not keep up with the incredible collapsing pitching staff in 2023.

Conveniently the fourth Second Tier pitcher was the one stalwart of the Cardinals’ pitching staff in 2023. He had a brief turn on the disabled list, but not the career-threatening injuries of the other three. It was heart-breaking to see him and Jack Flaherty squandered on pitchers with uncertain futures last year. None of them will fill the holes in the Cardinals’ starting rotation. Montgomery will. He is a dependable left hander. Sign him up.

A dependable right hand pitcher in the Third Tier is also a former Cardinal: Michael Wacha. Wacha has traveled around the country since leaving the Cardinals, making stops in New York (Mets), Tampa Bay (Rays), Boston (Red Sox) and San Diego (Padres).  We used to call players like him “journeymen,” but Wacha is only 32.  and apparently found himself in Tampa Bay.  Last season with the Padres he was 14-4  with a 3.22 Era. He could be a number one starter on some clubs, and he has a healthy arm.

Tier Four has a lot of injury-prone starters: Lucas Giolito,  Jack Flaherty, and Clayton Kershaw. Again, not worth the risk. Seth Lugo has more experience as a relief pitcher, although he started effectively for the Padres in 2023.  Shota Imanaga another Japanese neophyte, will cost a Japanese league posting fee, sliding from 20 percent to 15 percent of the contract.  That makes him more expensive and untested in the Major Leagues. Still, he would be a good Tier Three signing.

Michael Wacha is a known quantity and he would return to the Cardinals as a better pitcher, attributed to his experience in Tampa Bay. His last two seasons he went 25-6, with a 3.32 ERA in 2022 and 3.22 in 2023.  These have been his best years, since he pitched in St. Louis in 2018.  So I’m campaigning for another Cardinal alumnus to go with Jordan Montgomery. Second choice would be Shota Imanaga.

John Mozeliak, these choices are for you.

 

 

 

Just because everyone wants to acquire pitcher Jack Flaherty does not make him the best trade bait in July.  Flaherty is the kind of baseball player that teams can be built on. He is more than his record. He has character, resilience, and courage. With the departure of Adam Wainwright, he is the best successor to leadership among Cardinals pitchers. He is worth whatever the Cardinals can offer him to re-sign for 2023.

Why keep Flaherty over other trading prospects like Jordan Montgomery, Jordan Hicks and Dylan Carlson?

1. Unlike Montgomery, Jack Flaherty developed over a three-year stint in the Cardinals’ farm system. Unlike Jordan Hicks, he developed control and savvy over his first two years in the Majors. Unlike Carlson, he has shown his stellar potential in the Majors. Flaherty is a home-grown, proven talent with a very high ceiling.
2. In 2019 Flaherty showed his true potential as a Major League starter. Following the All-Star break, he yielded a 0.91 ERA, the third-lowest in major league history, behind only Bob Gibson and Jake Arrieta.^[23][24] Flaherty was named the National League Pitcher of the Month for August after going 5–1 with a 0.71 ERA,^[25] and he again won the award in September with a 0.82 ERA over 44 innings.^[26] He ended the 2019 regular season with an 11–8 record and a 2.75 ERA over 33 starts, striking out 231 over 1961⁄3 innings.^[27] He became the third-youngest pitcher in baseball history to strike out at least 230 and walk 55 or fewer with a 2.75 ERA or lower.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Flaherty
3. Flaherty is the only starter on the Cardinals’ staff with pure strikeout stuff. Over his career, his strikeouts (696) have always exceeded his innings pitched (622). https://www.fangraphs.com/players/jack-flaherty/17479/stats?position=P
4. Flaherty is truly interested in staying with the team that drafted him.  When asked if he would like to play for one team throughout his career a la mentor Adam Wainwright (ignoring his Minor League trade), RHP & future FA Jack Flaherty said, “That would be awesome.” He pointed to his heroes, Derek Jeter & Kobe Bryant, being one-team stars @JohnDenton555
5. Flaherty is a conscience-driven role model for young athletes.  He is bi-racial, yet identifies as Black. “I have seen the anger and pain that is being expressed daily by my fellow brothers and sisters. First and foremost I want to say that I empathize with you, and I hear your cries for change. I am a mixed person of color, but have been able to reap the benefits of being white due to the color of my skin.” https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/cardinals-flaherty-reflects-on-his-social-justice-outspokenness/article_cda1c547-b164-5471-90bb-deaf4cda2379.html#tncms-source=login

Flaherty has all these qualities in common with the position players that the Cardinals regard as their “core:” Paul Goldschmidt, Nolan Arenado, Tommy Edman, Brendon Donovan, Nolan Gorman and Jordan Walker.  These are untrade-ables, despite the value they may draw on the market. They make the Cardinals future contenders for Division and League Championships. What will make them World Champions will be a stellar pitching staff built around Jack Flaherty.

What do the Cardinals have to offer other teams in July?

1. A great starting pitcher: Jordan Montgomery.
2. A shut down reliever: Jordan Hicks
3. A three-tool center fielder: Dylan Carlson
4. A power hitting Gold Glove outfielder: Tyler O’Neill
5. A power-hitting shortstop: Paul DeJong

With this much talent to market, the Cardinals can afford to spare Jack Flaherty from the trading block to acquire one good starter and two or three good bullpen candidates. Maybe a minor league outfielder with a high ceiling?

Don’t trade Jack!

Jack is a gem.

Although you have to like the overall pace of baseball in 2023, the most gratifying change is the lack of delay. Delay in sports is the least engaging element of any game. It is the thief of time.

In baseball it has been most annoying at the end of a game, when you are hoping for greater suspense and excitement, while the pitcher is traipsing around the mound, rubbing the hide off the ball, and the batter is re-adjusting his batting glove or his jock for sixth time in his at-bat.  How would that define entertainment for the fan at home or in the park, when other matters may press for our attention?

Or at the close of a basketball game, the team with the three-point lead is stalling to give its rival the least amount of time to handle the ball? Or the the waning minutes of a football game, when the coach lets the play clock tick away its allowed duration, just to keep the opponent from going on offense? Where is the competition when only the clock is the opponent?

Time is the enemy of all. Maybe the stalling strategy  reminds us of life itself. But who wants to pay $100-$200 per seat to watch others fall victim to time, the opponent we thought we would escape, once we entered the sporting arena?  Don’t we expect sports to condense the time for the struggle into a couple of fast-paced hours? How are we entertained by watching great athletes stall for time or stall others who need time to execute their offense?

Baseball is not governed by a play clock, and that has always been its special allure. The game is over when the last inning is played, not when the clock of doom winds down.  The  quantity of time matters less than the quality of time. So the stalling tactic drains something from the precious resource of quality time. Sure, stalling can break the relentless rhythm of the pitcher or the hitter, and maybe a well-placed time out is always in order.  But the essence of the game is the confrontation: Show me what you’ve got, and let’s see if you have what it takes.

The pitching clock, the hitting clock, and clock between innings advance the true agenda. The pace is better, but what we witness is the end of the stall, the halting of meaningless rituals, the hastening of the deliberation that delays face0ff. The energy isn’t sapped, it is rejuvenated from pitch to pitch, from batter to batter, from substitution to substitution.  It is amazing to behold the shortening of the game time, but it is miraculous to see the story of athlete versus athlete condensed to real time, a relentless agenda.

Maybe every sport should squeeze the stall, the waste of minutes, the incentive for delay, out of the game.  How do we coach ourselves to deal with the challenges of life: to avoid inevitable conflict, to try the patience of our opponent, to procrastinate? Perhaps, on rare occasions. What we expect of ourselves and our gladiators is to get in the box and swing at good, or apparently good, pitches. What we want to see is the pitcher serving up his best stuff and challenging the batter to give his best swing.  That is what we pay to see and, when we go home, we try to practice ourselves.

Procrastination is the thief of time.

Stop, thief!

 

No one wants to hear that your team is in the top third of the Major Leagues in “hard hit percentage” (39.8%), but in the bottom third in runs per game (24th, 4.13). This sounds like incredibly bad luck, but you don’t win baseball games depending on luck. You  win by increasing your odds of scoring.

The St. Louis Cardinals have taken an ultra-cautious approach to running the bases, completely contrary to what they do when they are winning. Manager Oliver Marmol’s method  is to try to steal when the team is ahead, but the team has poor chances of getting ahead when its pitching staff yields first- and second-inning runs. That also might be considered bad luck, since the staff has yielded more grounders through the middle of the infield, since the rules against the shift have been executed.

Sorry, but  in baseball you have to make your own luck. How? By taking the extra base, by sacrificing runners over, and by stealing as soon as you get on base.  Teams that wait for their hits to fall in and bounce through are not going to win consistently.  They are going to load the bases and then strike out.  Yeah, that happened on Sunday.

The Cardinals know how to pressure a defense with base-stealing and sacrificing, but they are doing it less and less.  They are waiting for the big hit. They load the bases and hope. No team should aspire to load the bases, they should aspire to score by sacrificing a runner over and hitting the sacrifice fly that drives him in.  They should aspire by trying to steal whenever they have that capability in the runner on base. They should pressure, pressure, pressure, not wait, wait, wait.

The best teams keep their opponents on edge by threatening to steal and to sacrifice whenever a runner gets on.  They force mistakes by taking chances. Sometimes they run into an out, but that is small risk compared to striking out with the bases loaded. The bases loaded favors the defense, because there are so many ways to get an out. Don’t let opponents walk you into that position.  Steal or double-steal and put runners in scoring position.

The Cardinals have surprised us all with amazing hitting, .272, sixth in the league. They have probably figured that their hitting can carry their offense, but that has not been working out.  When scoring depends on luck, you are not mounting an attack; you are waiting for a timely hit.

Wait no more, Cardinals! Run with abandon and pressure the defense. Sure, run into a few outs, but at least those outs will not be with the bases loaded.

With all the happy talk to start the season at Busch Stadium, I feel compelled to reflect on all the variables that could relegate the Cardinals to a mediocre baseball team in this epic season of faster games and more offense. Why play the designated pessimist in 2023? Because the Cardinals’ success is constructed of conscious gambles, not calculated success.

(1) Foremost is the health of the starting rotation. Led by the aging Adam Wainwright, more than half of the designated starters are physical rehabilitation projects. Wainwright might surprise us all again or his early groin pull could be a harbinger of things to come. You can’t rely on a 41-year-old body to make 200 innings, so how many can you expect? Jack Flaherty and Steven Matz are the other retreads, who have struggled to live up to expectations for the last two years.  If they produce quality starts, as they have in the past, they will be the anchors of the rotation. Otherwise it’s Mikolas, Montgomery, and a starting wannabe from the bullpen.

The next issue is (2) power at the plate. With the 2022 Most Valuable Player in Paul Goldschmidt and a reliable slugger in Nolan Arenado, you’d think the Cardinals would be set, but you can point to a full month in 2022 when each of these sluggers was flailing at the plate, and nobody knew why. That is when others have to step up, for example Wilson Contreras. But who else will fill that gap– (3) Jordan Walker with crushing expectations on his 20-year-old shoulders?  (4) Tyler O’Neill, whose build alone intimidates, but with surprising fragility? (5) Nolan Gorman, whose re-invented swing is designed to swat the armpit- high fastball–or not? The offense will depend on the young and some high-risk bodies.

Probably the most uncertain is Manager Oilver Marmol’s  (6) platoon strategy that could see every player, but Goldschmidt, Arenado and Contreras shifting around like so many chess pieces. What will Dylan Carson do, play one of three outfield positions, designated hitter or ride the bench? Who will lead off–Brendan Donovan, Tommy Edman, or Lars Nootbar?  How does it affect one of these players to be shifted from lead-off to batting eighth or ninth ? It takes a tough mentality to enter every game with a different role to play. Will the chess pieces show that versatile toughness?

Probably the flexibility of the bullpen, the varied pitches that Marmol can deploy using Drew Verhagen, Andre Pallante, Zack Thompson and Packy Naughton, is the strength of the team. Bullpen pitchers can expect to be used strategically. They can expect to come into a game to do what they do best, and they can expect to come in at any time.  This draws on the strengths of the manager as well as readiness of the pitcher, and the Cardinals have an effective game manager in Marmol.  The middle innings guys will know they are coming in a game to do what they do best.

The closers, Ryan Helsley and Giovanny Gallegos, are reliable and experienced, what you only hope for to begin a season. (7) What do the Cardinals do when one of these arms breaks down is an open question. Relievers can be over-used or subject to endurance issues. We saw what happened against the Phillies, when Helsley had trouble with his thumb.

All these gambles could pay off in 2023, and the Cardinals’ management could look like geniuses. Jack Flaherty could have the year of his life, as we all pray he does. Nolan Gorman could have a breakthrough year, rounding out the center of the line-up as a designated hitter.  Jake Woodford could mature into a number three starter with his wonder slider. And Jordan Walker could be Rookie of the Year.  The managing chess of Oliver Marmol could make him a Grand Master.

That is what I wish for the Cardinals–but they are playing the odds, and they know it.

 

 

There’s a reason professional baseball teams keep between 12 and 15 pitchers on their rosters. They don’t need that many until arms and shoulders and legs start to break down.  A pitcher who hasn’t fallen to one of these injuries is a rare specimen indeed. That’s why the Cardinals need to start the season with six or seven reliable starting pitchers.

Every member of the Cardinal starting corps was down with an injury for a week or more last year: Adam Wainwright, Jack Flaherty, Steven Matz, Dakota Hudson,  Miles Mikolas, Andre Pallante,  and Jordan Montgomery (when he pitched for the Yankees).   Flaherty, Matz, and Wainwright can still be considered recovering from those injuries.  Flaherty and Wainwright are predicted to be the top of the rotation, but their status is questionable. Matz has yet to prove he can be reliable for a month’s worth of pitching.

That’s why I concur with Ben Fredericksen, who, in today’s Post-Dispatch, made the case for the Cardinals to trade for a top-of-the-rotation starting pitcher. Of the seven starting pitchers mentioned above, I consider two reliable for 75% of the 2023 season: Mikolas and Montgomery.  The rest should be taking out insurance policies on their arms.

If all seven of these pitchers reliably pitched for 75% of the season, the Cardinals would be set. That is theory that management appears to be working from.  It would be great if Jack Flaherty and Steven Matz rebounded to pitch to their potential, but the experience of 2022 gave no evidence for their resurgence.  It would be great if Adam Wainwright finished with the kind of flourish we saw from Albert Pujols, but experience suggests he might finish like Yadier Molina.  This is a vulnerable corps of pitchers.

Pitchers are often compared to quarterbacks in football, since they throw for living and employ strategic wisdom. But a quarterback is nothing without an offensive line, and these are the most vulnerable positions on a football team. The cry in every game when an offensive tackle or guard goes down is “Next man up” and a 300-lb hulk rises from the bench to replace another 300-lb hulk. No one is surprised if that hulk goes down in that game or the next, and the cry goes out again “Next man up.”

The punishment these giants take by slamming themselves into defensive linemen play after play can hardly be compared with repeated force of throwing a 100 mph fastball, but repetitive trauma on the body makes these football and baseball torsos and limbs the most vulnerable in professional sports.  The coaches and players have learned the litany of “next man up.”

Because of this replacement litany, an endless supply of pitchers and offensive linemen is necessary to legitimately field a contender. No one believes the early starters are going to carry their team from season’s beginning to season’s end. It’s not biologically tenable. The depth of the bench (or bullpen) will determine who emerges in the playoffs and the ultimate games.

And come the baseball playoffs, you are depending on whoever are the current starters to get from one round to the next.  You probably need three strong arms to keep you in contention in a five-game series in baseball. Who will be the last three standing of the “next man up’s”? That is a question to be answered now, even if you make some brilliant moves at the trade deadline, as the Cardinals did for Jordan Montgomery and Jose Quintana in 2022. Despite their shrewdness they could not launch themselves past the Phillies.

So Ben Fredericksen’s plea for a reliable starting pitcher is wise and reasonable. He mentioned the Florida Marlins pitcher Pablo Lopez as one frontline starter. The Cardinals have plenty of young talent they could exchange. Indeed they have an embarrassment of riches. Not reliable starters, but good prospects, both offensive and defensive.

While optimism is good practice in Spring Training, the vulnerability of pitchers should always balance the equation. Maybe there is a great rookie pitcher who will rise to the occasion, but that hasn’t happened since 2018, when Jack Flaherty rose to fame.  In last half of 2019, he was the best pitcher in baseball. Since then, not so much. The man has heart, mind and often a good arm. Like all pitchers, however, he has vulnerability.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well, the showdown starts tomorrow, and I have to choose: Cardinals or Red Sox.  No one in St. Louis feels neutral about Boston teams like the Red Sox or the Patriots, who have spoiled the end of the season more than once. So I have to choose my team.

Of course I have to choose the local nine, the St. Louis Cardinals, who dominate the local papers as well as the real estate along the Mississippi River.   I have to jump on the bandwagon that wheels Yadi and Wano and Puhols through their final year in the organization. It’s historic, it’s news-making, it’s sentiment for the Redbirds.

Breaking news: Yadi will go on the ten-day disabled list on Friday– sore knees. The 39-year-old was showing his age already in an error and strike-out plagued game on Wednesday. Some of the historic romance of the series dies with that.

But a different story is the return of Michael Wacha to the mound against the Cardinals. Wacha was drafted by the Cardinals in 2013 and began a spotted career pitching for them. Struggling with shoulder injuries in 2015-2016, he was relegated to the bullpen and then lost to the Mets in free agency in 2019.  Since then he had a stint with the Tampa Bay Rays before arriving in Boston in last fall.  This spring he has been a bulwark in the rotation with a 4-1 record.

He will have to face the Cardinals’ ace Wainwright, who has stretched out to nine innings in June, a thirty-nine-year-old eating up innings left on the plate by the younger pitchers on the staff. He promises to challenge Wacha with zeroes, but pitching in Fenway could be a challenge.  The confines are nothing like the wild blue yonder of Busch Stadium. Looking forward to the match-up between Wainwright and the ball-punishing Rafael Devers.

It was hard to give up on the Red Sox and Alex Cora, one of my favorite managers, but the Cardinals’ fundamental style of baseball with defense and speed make an appropriate displacement.  Even introducing the inexperienced Nolan Gorman to the infield has kept the sealed defense intact.  They are fun to watch, because they miss very few ground balls or double plays.  They are lock down on the diamond and hustle out for the lazy fly balls.

So maximum exposure to the Cardinals over the last year has made them my team.  I have to root for the visitors this weekend, as the Redbirds invade Boston. Picking them two out of three despite their weak records against upper division teams this spring. Go Wano! Go Goldy (Goldschmidt)! Go Arenado and Gorman!  Go Cards!