St. Louis Cardinals: The Silver Linings Playbook of the Reyes Injury

All of Cardinals Nation grieves collectively at the loss of the outstanding St. Louis Cardinals arm- yet again- from the rotation due to- here it is- injury and surgery uncovered in spring training.

If you don’t know the St. Louis Cardinals news (maybe you live under a rock), young phenom Alex Reyes has been scratched (or rather scalpel cut) from the 2017 season due to injury in his elbow resulting in Tommy John surgery. We were all forced to swallow this news earlier this week. Surely we are recovered by now, right?

I, for one, am not. At least I wasn’t recovered until I started seeking the silver linings. And trust me, there are silver linings. Hard as they are to imagine when such shocking news is released, they do exist and- as we all know too well- we’ve been here before.

Am I being a pollyanna? Perhaps, but I truly believe that there are some very good things to come out of this injury and I will spend this post sharing these feelings with you. I hope that these opinions will help you climb out of the despair of losing Reyes (like Adam Wainwright before him).

Let’s start with the issue of saving Reyes. This injury, this surgery, and this recovery/rehab will, in essence, save a whole year of pitching for Reyes. Had Alex pitched this season, as we heard GM John Mozeliak share at the start of spring training, he was going to be facing a limited innings threshold and the organization wasn’t even convinced that he would be in the rotation at all to assist with this.

Noting this, then, Reyes was- in the eyes of the organization- likely slated as the sixth starter or long relief from the pen to limit his exposure and innings. This sixth starter role would also have protected him from batters’ exposure. Now, his absence for a full season, will assist all of these plans even further.

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Missing the whole year will mean that Reyes will enter 2018 with an innings-pitched count of forty-six– the same number of innings that he has pitched currently. In addition, in line with this thinking, sitting out the entire 2017 season means that Reyes will face zero batters and that means his exposure to video and players learning his mechanics remains precisely as it is today. Furthermore, his mechanics might change following his rehab.

Sitting out, not pitching (resting/rehabbing), and not being exposed to batters for 2017 could well make Reyes an unknown commodity come 2018. This could, in essence, spell him a new amateur year with incredible shut-down stuff.

Disclaimer: the above statements obviously assume that he heals completely and successfully from the surgery. Want to know more about the likelihood of this? Jump over and read Zach’s recovery piece.

The next piece of silver lining is that Alex Reyes’ absence will (or should) force Michael Wacha to perform or be sent packing. The St. Louis Cardinals, of late at least, seem to carry bodies long past their expiration date. I’m fearful this is the case with Wacha. Reyes’ absence, therefore, will force Wacha to perform or get out.

In short, if Wacha doesn’t want to give up his shot (see the Hamilton reference I made there?) then he will use this absence to step-up and reassert himself as a starting pitcher. Can this happen? Yes. Will this happen? Time will tell.

Another silver lining is that this injury- another in a very long line of injuries- should force the organization to examine the medical staff and/or the handling of its players. While injury is a common occurrence in baseball, the amount of injuries to the St. Louis Cardinals pitchers over the past several years surely sheds light on a need for examination.

In the past few seasons, the St. Louis Cardinals shared that changes had been made to their medical staff and to the approach taken for conditioning. Does the Reyes news shatter these changes and negate their intended outcome? While I don’t feel all efforts will be negated, surely a deep examination is required.

Lastly, Trevor Rosenthal comes to mind. Like Wacha before him, Rosenthal now has the opportunity to show what he has and whether he is a force to be reckoned with in the pen or even perhaps the rotation. Rosey has had a rough few years but could now become a massive piece of the St. Louis Cardinals team.

The value that Rosey provides is most likely in long relief. This will allow him to serve as the cavalry should the fifth starter (read: Wacha) can only muster three innings in a start. At that point, then Rosey could come in (a.k.a. Andrew Miller) and spell an additional two-to-three innings bridging the long gap to the back end of the pen.

Disclaimer: the above statements assume that the “extend Rosenthal” experiment is successful. Want to know more about this experiment, jump over and read Trevor’s look at Rosenthal’s spring article.

Listen, let’s be honest, losing Reyes is horrible. Having said that, I heard it said best last night on MLB-Network radio on XM that this statement is only true if we automatically believe that Reyes was going to be the absolute best and that we cannot honestly say that.

MLB-Network went on to say that we saw greatness out of Reyes last year but that we also started to see batters take note of his mechanics. We also don’t know (and now won’t know) what kind of regression we would have seen in 2017. See also my notes at the start of this piece.

Next: Five Pitchers Who COULD Fill Reyes Hole

Surely these aren’t the only silver linings. I am sure that I have missed some. I’m also sure that there will be some who think that I am crazy for seeing things in this way. I’d love to hear from you. Let me know your thoughts on Twitter and thanks for reading!