2026 Players and Pitchers of the Month

Thanks, Brian! I was waiting for this to compare to last year. I don’t know how meaningful year to year comparisons are, but heck.

There are 11 on the list this year to 9 for last year, but more interesting to me, there are more younger prospects. I arbitrarily selected 23 or younger as “younger prospects”. Better would be age relative to league, but I’m lazy. This year we have 7 of them–Flores, Gurevitch, Rodriguez, Jordan, Peete, Nickens, Suarez. Last year it was just 3, Kross, Curialle, and Rivas. The older 6 were Barrero, Mendoza, Vilade, Lloyd, Torres, and Prieto. That the last two are the only repeaters, and that last year’s didn’t include Rodriguez, maybe means this should just be filed. But I’m instead going to take it as an encouraging sign of things to come.

*Bling Rant Alert*

Yesterday, McGreevy pitched what these days is considered a gem, six shutout innings. His K/BB on the day was 1, 3 Ks and 3 BBs. A few days earlier Skenes needed 102 pitches to go 5 innings, striking out 9 and walking none, while giving up 4 earned runs and taking the loss. I don’t know, but I guess Skenes velo was better than McGreevy’s.

Hopefully the new Chaim crowd noticed that. I think the Mo crowd fell into thinking that whatever their tech could readily measure was all that mattered, not just with pitchers, but hitters too. I hope they take note of the absence of high velo wiffle ball arms in the current Cardinals rotation. I hope they notice that pitchers like that who come up as starters end up as IL fixtures not rotation mainstays.

Reality is there to be observed, but it defies measurement. What is hard to objectively measure, cannot be objectively quantified. What can’t be objectively quantified makes unreliable input. Unreliable input is best excluded from statistical modeling systems, which is what always happens and leads to problems, not just in baseball. Hopefully Chaim’s people know all that, but I harbor doubts.

There are exceptions to everything. Big money teams can see what hot arms manage to make it into an MLB rotation and spend whatever it takes to get them. Then when they break down, eat the contract and hire another one. The Cardinals will never be able to do that. They need to develop starters that will end up in the MLB rotation, not perpetually on the IL. Over reliance on measurables and statistical modelling will not get them there, as the Mo crowd found out.

It’s easier to measure velocity and pitch movement and train for those. Most guys who don’t have those things get destroyed. I

Most guys who don’t get destroyed, most guys who do don’t last. The pyramid narrows toward the top.

I hope the new regime will get a pragmatic streak and and make more decisions based on actual results and less decisions based on velocity, round drafted, prospect rankings, and bonuses paid. Look at the current Memphis rotation. You have four lefties in Mathews, Mautz, Zimmerman, and Hansen to go along with Dobbins.

Of the four lefties, and setting aside the obligatory small sample size alert, Mathews has the worst overall 2026 numbers but yet would probably be the first lefty considered for promotion by most. Personally I could care less about draft rank, prospect rank, and velocity. I just want a guy who can get outs.

Doing prospect rankings can be a fun exercise but the danger is that they can become a self fulfilling prophecy and can distort our reality. We want “our guy” to do well because it makes us look smart therefore we rationalize things we shouldn’t rationalize. Instead we should just lets the stats tell the story.

Wrobleski just struck out zero in 6 IP in the 4-1 win over the Cards.

I agree with the choice of Cho despite the very high BABIP. He has improved his play a lot this month and maybe can take the Baez route. Dattalo I wanted more time with age appropriate competition.

Dos Santos has really impressed overall. He tapped into some power this month and his line drive rate was 39.5%. I wonder how much longer he has in the FCL. Maybe a month? I would like him to get the promotion to Palm Beach maybe July to finish out the year.

Crooks I really like seeing the K% down a good amount from where it was at 23.4%.

I’d heard good things re Rajcic, but hadn’t looked closely at the numbers. Very encouraging. I wonder if at some point they will drop Roycroft and add Rajcic to the 40-man. And I wonder what sort of log jam they will face for the 40-man in the offseason as they build up the minors.