Free agent Steven Matz

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  • #177653
    mudville
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    I have a feeling that those five Gold Gloves and Yadi are what truly sealed this deal for the Cardinals. Just think if you’re a pitcher and you can get that kind of support behind you. Playing in St. Louis will probably extend Matz’ career 2 or 3 years. I’d be willing to bet that his ERA lives below 4.00 while he’s pitching in ‘da Lou.
    I get the idea that the Mets felt ‘put down’ when it was really only a business decision by Matz.

    #177669
    Mrperkins
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    I still think the Cardinals got a fantastic deal for the money. A new comparison: the Red Sox just signed Paxton to a deal, 10 mil guaranteed for this next year, then option to add 2 years and 25mil to deal. This Paxton that blew out during his 2nd start and had his 2nd Tommy John surgery and will be out the first few months of the year and has seemed to not be able to get through a full season without breaking down.

    #177690
    PadsFS
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    A lot of these guys that are getting high-dollar 1 and 2 yr deals like Syndergaard (’16: 155 ERA+), Paxton (’17: 140 ERA+), Duffy (’14: 156 ERA+), Kluber (’17: 202 ERA+) ~ all had at least one high-end career year that teams are hoping to re-capture.

    Matz’s best year was a 118 ERA+. MLBTR has it broken down best:

    TOR guys: Scherzer, Stroman, Gausman, Ray, Rodon ~ First 4 all got $100M+

    Former TOR guys: Greinke, Verlander, Kershaw, Syndergaard

    Mid-rotation arms: Desclafani, Gray, Matz, Rodriguez, Wood, Cobb

    Old vets: Anderson, Lester, Happ, Kim, Wacha

    Rebound hopefuls: Duffy, Bundy, Davies, Foltynewicz, Paxton, Kluber, Martinez, Archer

    Matz compares well with his group of 6, albeit with the worst career ERA+:

    Rodriguez, 29 (110 career ERA+) 5yr/$77M
    Gray, 30 (107 career ERA+) 4yr/$56M
    Matz, 31 (96 career ERA+) 4yr/$44M
    Wood, 31 (112 career ERA+) unsigned
    Desclafani, 32 (104 career ERA+) 3yr/$36M
    Cobb, 34 (105 career ERA+) 2yr/$20M

    #177697
    gscottar
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    TOR guys: Scherzer, Stroman, Gausman, Ray, Rodon ~ First 4 all got $100M+

    Has Stroman signed?

    #177702
    PadsFS
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    Ah my bad.

    #177729
    PadsFS
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    Wood, 31 (112 career ERA+) unsigned

    Wood signed today for 2yr/$25M

    #195598
    jj-cf-stl
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    Matz gave us nine GS in season one of his contract. Not the IP / GS we hoped the Cardinals had signed.

    In an effort to get the SFG start of 2 IP and 8 ER allowed from dominating my memory of his season, I reviewed his entire season. There were some pluses to point at.

    Steven made six starts with a GmSc of 50 or above (69, 53, 68, 55, 60, 60). Two- thirds of the time he put his team in a position to win, a good ratio. He averaged 5.2 IP per start, with a ERA of 2.14, a 3/37 BB/K and .589 ops allowed.

    Our Cardinals did win all of these Matz starts and had a 6-3 W/L this season when he took the mound.

    The other three starts were GmSc’s of 17, 38 and 14; absolute clunkers. He totaled 9 IP with a 19.00 ERA, a 6/14 BB/K and a 1.211 ops allowed. STL lost all 3 of these games.

    I considered it was the level of competition faced, but that didn’t fly. The best lineup was the NYM, where he had a win and a loss and game scores of 38 and 60.

    Here comes the unpopular part. What I did find was that in every one of the 6 very good starts, Knizner caught him. All 3 clunkers were with Yadi catching. Make of it what you want.

    #195611
    gscottar
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    JJ, I almost always give you the benefit of the doubt because you are one of our most thoughtful posters and always back your opinions up with numbers.

    In this case I am going to remain highly skeptical. As your numbers point out Matz has the capability of being effective on occasion but you just can’t count on him to remain healthy. And that should not be a surprise. He has had health problems a majority of his career. This is not a one off. That is why I was shocked the day I heard we gave him a four year deal.

    To me this deal has Fowler, Leake, Cecil, and Carp written all over it but I really really hope you are right and I am wrong.

    #195612
    jj-cf-stl
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    I really didn’t voice an opinion on Matz. The numbers above belong to Matz, I am just the messanger 😀

    What I did like about his season was the BB/K ratio, he does have swing and miss stuff and competes in the zone.

    Before I looked at his season I would never have guessed the 6-3 W/L team record in his starts.

    #195613
    gscottar
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    Health and reliability are always key factors for me. A player’s talent level can almost become irrelevant if they can’t stay on the field.

    #195615
    1982 willie
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    Yep health is as equally important as talent. It’s one thing for a player to be relatively injury free and have lots of good to great years then as they get older start having injuries, kind of expected. But to pretty much have health concerns about every year pretty much from get go is another. Now guys like waino are the exception. He got some injuries as he got older and most times they continue to have those nagging injuries but he seemed to have gotten stronger. In reality I really see no reason waino can’t pitch another year. Now I would probably rather go out with something still left in the tank rather than play another year and something happen and bang you don’t even get to finish your last season. Kind of feel the same about pujols. So hopefully matz stays healthy after this but I won’t bet on it

    #195618
    1toughdominican
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    It’s too bad what happened to Matz. Pitchers seem to always be one delivery away from arm trouble, but to injure a knee in the manner that he did on an easy out ground ball on his first turn back makes me think the poor guy is snakebit. To add insult to injury, if you watched the play sequence, it was reasonably obvious that he had no business attempting to field the baseball. An incredibly bad break not only for the LHP, but also for Cardinals. At any rate, I’m not at all sure I’ve been given a chance to make an informed decision as to the type of talent he may or may not be. I can only look at his past performance and that’s not always a foolproof method for an evaluation as can be proved by guys like Chris Carpenter prior to him becoming a Redbird. I’m pretty sure I won’t be able to get a reasonable read on Matz until the first couple of months of the ’23 season.

    #195675
    stlcard25
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    I’m fine with Matz. As jj mentioned, he was good in his good starts and the Cards won them. He’s bound to have some bad ones too, and that burned him. All the analytics looked good (xERA, FIP, xFIP) and he’s bound to be a decent #5 starter over his contract. Worst case, I see him as a candidate to move to the pen and contribute as other pitchers shift him from the rotation. He’d be a pricey reliever, but cheaper than our old pal Andrew Miller.

    #195677
    gscottar
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    I agree except his goodish stats don’t help us with him sitting in the dugout. $44M for a player to spend the majority of the time on the IL is not a good investment.

    #195678
    bccran
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    25 – He should be a very solid starter for us in 2023, 2024, and 2025. He had 30, 30, and 29 starts in 2018, 2019, and 2021. 2020 was lower for obvious reasons.

    #195680
    gscottar
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    And the two years before that he had 22 and 13 starts. This year he has 10. If we are assuming this season is an outlier then I suppose good days are ahead.

    #195682
    Oliver
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    Matz has been prone to the big inning throughout his career. He has given up more hits than innings pitch which has translated into the big inning. His career era is 4.32 which is the exact same as his FIP. His WHIP is an unimpressive 1.322. He is very average a #4 his best days #5 more likely. He is ok just not quite good enough.

    #195685
    bccran
    Participant

    So –

    2013 – 21 starts (5 month season)
    2014 – 24 starts (5 month season)
    2015 – 18 starts (5 month season)
    2016 – 22 starts (5 month season)
    2017 – 17 starts (minors and majors)
    2018 – 30 starts (MLB)
    2019 – 30 starts (MLB)
    2020 – 6 starts (Pandemic)
    2021 – 29 starts
    2022 – 14 starts (knee injury)

    Don’t see much “injury history” here.

    2016 – full season
    2017 – only

    #195686
    Oliver
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    2022 is 10 not 14

    #195691
    forsch31
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    Matz’ injury history:

    2015 – Lat muscle tear (2 month DL)
    2016 – left shoulder impingement (1 1/2 month)
    2017 – left elbow inflammation (2 months)
    2018 – left flexor pronator strain (2 weeks)
    2019 – left radial nerve discomfort (2 weeks)
    2020 – left shoulder discomfort (3 weeks)

    Of course, this year has been an injury riddled year. He also had TJS after being drafted and didn’t start his professional career for 2 years.

    #195698
    stlcard25
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    Matz wasn’t signed to provide 200 innings a year. He was signed for 150ish. This year has not worked out, but it wouldn’t be surprising if he met that total the next three years. Again, his AAV is lower than Andrew Miller’s deal. I just don’t see this massive downside. Not to mention, the Cards have plenty of payroll space to spare, if previous trends can be used to extrapolate future payrolls. They could easily expand to $170-180M this coming year, which would mean $30-40M to spend, with increases going forward.

    #195709
    jj-cf-stl
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    Matz shows 10 GS this season but he only threw pitches in 9. He was pulled while warming up, if I’m remembering correctly.

    #195724
    bccran
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    In 2022, Matz had 10 starts for the Cardinals and 4 starts for Memphis.

    #195725
    bccran
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    Out 2 weeks and 3 weeks, Forsch? Welcome to today’s major leagues.

    #195734
    forsch31
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    bc, you said you didn’t see much injury history. I was just pointing out that he has a pretty extensive injury history. Especially with his left arm and shoulder. His only full season of not being on the IL is 2021. Welcome to reality.

Viewing 25 posts - 126 through 150 (of 156 total)
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