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I saw a prediction today in the Bellview News that proclaimed that if the Redbirds indeed qualified for the ’23 post-season, that the SP’er for their first post-season game isn’t yet a StL. Cardinal. So, you may well be on to something, Mudville.
To my way of thinking, Pallante and Woodford are basically the same guy. They both don’t miss a lot of bats and don’t have electric stuff by any means. Both can be kind of hittable but they both tend to keep a lid on it. Both can have a bad inning when they make mistakes because they don’t have the stuff to get away with it. They answer when their name is called and usually keep us in it. Pallante did a great job for a guy who beamed up from AA.
1tough said:
I saw a prediction today in the Bellview News that proclaimed that if the Redbirds indeed qualified for the ’23 post-season, that the SP’er for their first post-season game isn’t yet a StL. Cardinal. So, you may well be on to something, Mudville.
Not much of a stretch call there. My Back to the Future guess is Jose Quintana. 😉
Yeah, the article pointed him out, BW. However, for the sake of sensationalism it mildly alluded to the possibilty of a bigger splash than a Quint sort of SP’er. It was a fun sort of article to read and I have to mention that lately I’ve been glancing at the Bellville News from time to time and it’s not too bad of a publication. At any rate, it’s a bit of a change from the local paper here in StL.
They were convinced that Liberatore would be a Cy Young caliber pitcher. Maybe he will be someday.
I wouldn’t go that far and some of the experts are thinking otherwise.
some of the experts are thinking otherwise.
The pinacle of Liberatore’s career so far has been being a .500 pitcher in AAA. I think he has probably come down from that pinacle somewhat at this point. I have seen nothing to suggest he is on an upward trajectory. Hudson had a good year 4 years ago. Last year he ate some innings but didn’t miss too many bats and allowed a lot of traffic. The reality is his arm didn’t hold up. There is no reason to think his trajectory will reverse and go up, and the chance of him staying healthy is not great. But their names are still on the laundry list Mo can use to argue that we have internal options.
Looking further out, Graceffo picked it up in AA last year, so there is reason to hope he will continue that trend in AAA, but it remains to be seen. McGreevy looks like another Liberatore waiting to happen, IMO. We will see if he can get AAA hitters out any better than Liby did. They will both be on the internal options list next winter either way.
Packy picked a really bad time to be on the shelf as far as his career progression goes. He had been leading the pitching staff in appearances, or maybe tied with Pallante. Part of it is we’d been getting blown out and he was tried as a low leverage daily driver, the trusty Ford with vinyl seats. But he did not hold up to it physically. Too bad. Cabrera is another pen lefty candidate who was doing well in Memphis. I could see him handling the low leverage lefty role, and he has quite a bit more shine than Packy. If Cabrera throws strikes and does the job there is no reason to switch back when Naughton gets out of the shop.
Pretty solid analysis here. It is indeed a shame that Packy got hurt. I actually have more confidence in him than I do Cabrera. Cabrera reminds me too much of Reyes and Hicks in that he can throw the ball through a brick wall but often isn’t effective. At least he is relatively healthy.
Cabrera got worse in 2022 when he started walking fewer batters. Wildness transferred from outside the strike zone to inside the zone. He needs to regain his previous velo level to be effective. Or was Cabby just another case of a too frequently used reliever irreparably damaged by the high burn rate? Siegrist comes to mind.
If I recall rightly it was during the ’21 season in which Cabrera had a nice stretch of appearances in which he was pretty effective. And like you mentioned, Euro, he seemed to lose command of the strike zone last season and entered that hazardous area of always working from behind in the count. As you know, when these hitters know a pitcher has to throw a strike, their eyes light up like they just hit the jackpot. He then started to serve up a whole lot of taters.
Maybe Liberatore is ready to become the pitcher that we should have signed in the off-season. It wouldn’t surprise me if Wainwright comes back and becomes the #1 starter like last season….. or will Montgomery claimed that spot? We need a spark on the mound from somewhere.
Liberatore can look really good sometimes, and when he does we get excited. We’ve been riding that rollercoaster for a while. When he comes back we’ll see what he’s got this time. Hope for the best.
With very little turnover on the pitching staff, from 2022 to 2023, and if they are pitching way worse, which seems obvious, what does that say about the catching? How long would it take to get Yadi into playing shape? Seriously, are we just gonna write off the season, or do something soon?
BrockLou:
There’s nothing to do. There were all kinds of starters from good to very good available this off-season. Expensive, yes but available. This is the rotation that the Front Office wanted and now they have to live with it…and so do we.
After 10 games the pitching staff has allowed 6 ER or more in 40% of the games. Conservatism at its best.
The Cardinals are spending $63.8M just on the rotation (Mikolas, Waino, Monty, Jack, and Matz). If I am not mistaken that rotation has produced one quality start in ten games. I wasn’t a finance major but I think that is called a poor ROI.
The Cardinals are spending $63.8M just on the rotation
How much are these guys making this year: Alcantara, Gallen, Lynn, Wacha, Oviedo? Not saying it matters, just wondering. Maybe Marco and Gomber in parentheses.
The Cards have perfected the rope a dope with the precarious pitching and solid offense. Unfortunately, the normally all world defense has not been as good this year. Perhaps the Cards may end up as sellers this year? Monty and Flaherty could fetch something in return.
How much are these guys making this year: Alcantara, Gallen, Lynn, Wacha, Oviedo? Not saying it matters, just wondering. Maybe Marco and Gomber in parentheses.
Those five are making a combined $38.6M this year with another $8.4M for Marco and Gomber. I get your point that we have traded away some decent pitching that is cheaper but that is hindsight. I don’t recall a lot of clamoring at the time for us to keep Lynn, Wacha, Oviedo, Marco, and Gomber. Alcantara and Gallen certainly showed promise but I doubt anyone here could have predicted they would become cy young candidates.
The point is that we placed our bets on the staff we have and thus far those bets are coming up bust.
If we have a couple of more clunkers from our staff it might be time to bring Liberatore up and give him a shot. He surely couldn’t be any worse than what we have seen thus far.
I get your point that we have traded away some decent pitching that is cheaper but that is hindsight.
Hindsight is 20/20, but they (BDW, Mo and Mike) get paid and evaluated for their foresight. They are big boys, getting paid big dollars, to make big decisions that are supposed to look good in hindsight. All over MLB, repeat failures get fired. With the Cards’ pitching, they are now multi-year repeat failures. How many more passes they get going forward is a valid question. Seems like we’re wasting a couple of future hall of famers while we’re waiting.
You can have a good rotation by spending more or by being smarter. One or the other. It can’t be neither.
Anyone know what’s going on with Waino and Hudson? I don’t expect either to be Cy Young candidates. At this point, I’d be ecstatic if they could go six innings and give up only three runs.
Oh I am not defending the front office. Far from it. Most of us knew we were going to be thin on pitching coming into the season. Those threads we had over the winter about all of our pitching depth were fantasy. My hope was that our offense would keep us afloat until Mo decided to do his annual July 31 pitching salvage routine. So far that plan isn’t looking very promising.
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