Bernie’s Redbird Review: All In All, John Mozeliak’s Revamped 2024 Rotation Worked Pretty Well.

THE REDBIRD REVIEW

Y’all are going to get mad at me … which is OK … because I tend to drive people mad, anyway.

But may I suggest that John Mozeliak’s plan to upgrade the starting pitching for 2024 worked pretty well?

Before I elaborate, I must get a few things out of the way.

I’m not saying that … the Cardinals’ 2024 rotation was great. It wasn’t great. But it was, however, better than it seems. More on that later.

I’m not saying that … that the moves to sign free-agents Sonny Gray, Lance Lynn and Kyle Gibson were ideal, or the work of a baseball genius. But the Cardinals needed bulk innings, and they needed them right away. There was logic in the signings.

I’m not saying … that Mozeliak did enough, or that it was fine for him to disregard the need for another elite starter. But I also understand that he doesn’t own the franchise, doesn’t set the budget, and can only sign players based on the funds that were made available to him. It didn’t help that the local media were completely out of their minds in “reporting” that the Cardinals would make a free-agent run at Aaron Nola, Yoshinonu Yamamoto or Blake Snell. I could mention others, but there’s no need for me to do that. Reasons: Nola wanted to stay with the Phillies and never was available; Yamamoto was determined to sign with the Dodgers; Snell wanted to stay on the West Coast or go to his hometown (Seattle.)

(Sidebar: It’s funny how I don’t read anything these days about how Mozeliak should be imprisoned for his failure to sign Jordan Montgomery. Never mind that Old Yella here told you this repeatedly: Monty didn’t want to come back here, and his agent Scott Boras made excessive demands. That’s why NO ONE signed Montgomery until the Diamondbacks made a “why not?” type of signing. And they are probably regretting their decision. Monty has a 6.23 ERA for Arizona this season, and he can opt in for another season.)

But yeah, sure, there were other starters available who would have fit with the Cardinals – provided that they wanted to pitch for St. Louis. For example: Free-agent Shota Imanaga had so much enthusiasm for wanting to be a Cub that he actually moved to Chicago last winter to show the franchise he wanted to be with them.

Mozeliak could have done more, but that’s easy to say given the budgetary restraints and the difficulty of recruiting coveted pitchers to a team that was coming off an embarrassing 71-91 season. The Cardinals paid Gray a princely sum and got him – in part because he prefers this region to the East or West. Lynn wanted to be here for obvious reasons. Gibson wanted to be here because he’s a Mizzou guy who married a St. Louis woman and lives in this area.

These were convenient signings, and Mozeliak took advantage of the built-in advantages he had to sign the three pitchers – and to get them signed quickly. It was fine work.

The starting pitching could have been more of a strength but wasn’t why this team failed to make the postseason for the second straight year. The bulk of the blame is shoveled at the St. Louis offense. End of story. No debate. I wrote about this at length last week, and won’t do it again, but when you rank 25th among 30 teams in runs per game, have limited power, and have a hitting approach with runners in scoring position was something you’d expect to see from a clan of tranquilized hyenas … well, good luck with everything.

For the most part the rotation was steady and solid. And isn’t that close to matching our preseason expectations? Without an elite starter – and having to carry the declining Miles Mikolas and the perpetually injured Steven Matz – I’m not sure why anyone would have anticipated a stronger rotation. Makes no sense.

Let’s review:

1. The starting-pitching ERA is 4.35, an improvement from 5.08 last season. That ain’t saying much. Of course the Cardinals would have more capable starting pitching this season, because the 2023 group had the worst ERA in a full season in franchise history. And while the 4.35 ERA ranks 22nd, other indicators are more positive.

2. The starters’ fielding independent ERA (4.10) ranked 16th and was slightly better than the overall MLB average. Translation: the starters did a reasonably good job of controlling what they can control, without needed superman efforts by the defense.

3. I’m sorry, so sorry, for the fancy-pants stats, but the Cardinals’ expected fielding independent ERA (3.96) by their starting pitchers ranked 10th in the majors. The “X” FIP is based on actual home runs allowed compared to the overall league average. Why is that? Well, because our buddy xFIP is used to predict future performance because it assumes pitchers have more control over how many fly balls they allow – instead of how many of those fly balls become home runs. I’ve gone deep into the weeds now! Retreat!

4. The St. Louis starters, with seven games remaining, rank 13th in the majors with 59 quality starts. Nothing wrong with that.

5. Going into Tuesday, Cardinal starters ranked eighth in the majors for innings pitched and are tied for eight with an average start of 5.4 innings. So please ignore the false narrative that would have you believe that the STL starting-pitching was short on innings this season.

6. Except for Gray, the Cardinal starters don’t have a lot of strikeout clout, ranking 23rd. But the fellers make up for that by inducing a high ground-ball rate (sixth highest) that leads to a lot of double plays. The Cards have the fourth-highest count of double-play grounders this season.

7. The team’s starters have done a pretty good job of limiting home runs, allowing 1.19 per nine innings. That ranks 15th.

8. What the STL starting pitchers don’t have is much run support, ranking 24th in runs (3.7) per nine innings.

9. The Cardinals were lucky in one aspect: Andre Pallante. They cast him as a reliever, and he’d been lousy in the role since the start of the 2023 season. Knowing this, Pallante asked to become a starting pitcher. The Cardinals agreed, and he went to work on it down at Triple A. Pallante has thanked them by pitching to a 3.47 ERA in his 19 starts.

10. Lynn missed time with a knee injury. But even with his absence mixed in, Lynn, Gray and Gibson averaged just under 29 starts and collectively have a 3.94 ERA. If we include Pallante’s numbers, the team’s four best starting pitchers had a 3.89 ERA in 99 starts. If we put trade acquisition Erick Fedde in there, STL’s best five starting pitchers have a 3.91 ERA. That 3.91 would rank 13th in the majors. Problem is, we can’t erase Miles Mikolas and his 5.35 ERA in 31 starts from the accounting.

11. I don’t want to gloss over the problems. I already mentioned the shortage of strikeouts. In 12 road starts, Gray had an awful 5.20 ERA and was blasted for 16 home runs and a glaring .509 slugging percentage. Lynn did not pitch well (4.81 ERA) on the road. Steven Matz, Zack Thompson and Matthew Liberatore had a 6.33 ERA in 15 combined starts.

12. The front office failed to hand more of an opportunity to rookie Michael McGreevy, who has a 1.29 ERA in two starts. That’s the problem when management carries a pitcher like Mikolas – all because of his guaranteed salary – even though he has the second–worst ERA (5.04) by a regular major-league starter over the last two seasons. McGreevy became a wasted asset.

13. The Redbirds’ starting pitching was disappointing in July and August, with just about every guy experiencing a downturn. Over the two months the rotation ERA was 4.95, and the team’s record was 25-28. With the combination of shaky starting pitching and a weak offense, the Cardinals fell out of contention.

The Cardinals’ bullpen is one of the best in the majors, and that’s a big factor in the team’s overall 4.04 ERA that ranks slightly above the MLB average of 4.08. That 4.04 ERA ranks 16th, but isn’t that far off from the teams ahead of them in the rankings: Padres (11th), Royals (12th), Mets (13th), Orioles (14) and Dodgers (15.)

The pitching gave the Cardinals a chance to post a higher winning percentage in 2024, but their unassertive offense ruined that possibility.

Thanks for reading …

–Bernie

A 2023 inductee into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame, Bernie has provided informed opinions and perspective on St. Louis sports through his columns, radio shows and podcasts since 1985.

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Stats used in my baseball columns are sourced from FanGraphs, Baseball Reference, Statcast, StatHead, Baseball Savant, Baseball Prospectus, Brooks Baseball Net, and Sports Info Solutions unless otherwise noted.