St. Louis Cardinals Pitching Reconsidered: 5 Bullpen Targets

For the last month or so, St. Louis Cardinals fans have focused much of their hopes and anxiety on starting pitching in the free agent and trade markets. But as ESPN’s Mark Saxon pointed out in his offseason preview of the Los Angeles Dodgers this morning, maybe they shouldn’t.

Heck, maybe no one should. Saxon wrote,

“There is a line of thinking in baseball, one the Kansas City Royals just made look really good, that you can win with four or five decent but not dominant starters if you have a lockdown bullpen.”

He’s right. And that line of thinking is right, too. Consider that we have reached a new frontier in baseball, in which the numbers have been sliced and diced so finely that outcomes have never been more predictable (Yet still aren’t completely predictable thanks to human error. Players are people. What are you gonna do?). The last thing for baseball — all sports, really — to figure out is injury prevention.

Tommy John surgeries are

Remember this guy? He pitchers for the St. Louis Cardinals, apparently. Credit: Steve Mitchell-USA TODAY Sports

now commonplace. While the outcomes are almost always positive, it takes about a full year for those pitchers to meaningfully contribute again. As St. Louis Cardinals fans know very well after losing reliever Jordan Walden and starter Adam Wainwright this year, that’s WAR down the drain.

Why, then, do the St. Louis Cardinals and every other big league team (except the Royals, maybe) throw big dollars at starting pitching? Should the budget and the workload shift more to the bullpen than it already has?

Ten to 20 years down the road, will the piggyback system the St. Louis Cardinals once used in the lower levels of its farm system become a thing in the big leagues? The Colorado Rockies tried it three years ago. It failed, but maybe it wasn’t the system that was the problem.

St. Louis Cardinals A-ball pitchers used to go four innings per appearance, alternating between starting and coming on in the fifth inning. A designated closer would finish the game in the ninth. Jeff Luhnow was the one who installed it, so it’s no surprise his Houston Astros are using that approach now.

Piggybacking is a gallant attempt to prevent injuries, but tendons and rotator cuffs can give at any time, anywhere. The human body simply wasn’t designed to hurl baseballs at 80-plus mph over and over again.

That said, the other and perhaps more significant thing the piggyback system does is devalue the starting pitcher. If he breaks, the impact on the team isn’t as big. Take a look at the top ten injured players from 2015 in terms of overall WAR (scroll to the chart at the bottom). Five of them were starters.

The end of the conventional starting pitcher is nigh, folks. Forget shelling out millions for David Price. The St. Louis Cardinals should fortify their bullpen with one or more of these guys instead.

Jake McGee and Brad Boxberger

Credit: Kamil Krzaczynski-USA TODAY Sports

The Tampa Bay Rays relievers have gone together like peanut butter a jelly in offseason trade rumors, mainly because they’re both too expensive now for the budget-conscious Rays. Both also have the coveted closer’s experience, which, as anyone in the game will tell you, is just different (translation: more valuable) from any other kind of relief experience.

Boxberger, a righty, and McGee, a left-hander, have been more effective in the setup role, however. The Los Angeles Dodgers, Arizona Diamondbacks and Washington Nationals are all apparently chasing them hard. So, too, should the St. Louis Cardinals.

Darren O’Day

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This should be no surprise. Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last month or so, you know that O’Day is the most sought-after free agent reliever in baseball right now. And with good reason. In his four years with the Baltimore Orioles, the righthander and his sweepy sidearm delivery posted a 1.92 ERA and 0.939 WHIP. Right-handed hitters were helpless against him, batting below the Mendoza line over that span.

O’Day is, however, 33 years old and will be seeking multiple years. Four, probably. This would be a classic buy-high situation for the St. Louis Cardinals unless a trade involving McGee and Boxberger changes the market in the coming weeks.

Tony Sipp

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At age 32, the left-handed Sipp appears to have settled into his role as a middle reliever. In his seven big league seasons with the Cleveland Indians, Arizona Diamondbacks and Houston Astros, Sip has posted an ERA of 3.50. Last season he struck out 62 hitters in 54.3 innings, good for a 1.99 ERA on the season. Left-handed hitters batted just .227 against him.

Next: Part 2 of the St. Louis Cardinals Draft Recap

Righthanders fared even worse, mustering just a 1.90 average. And in each of his last two seasons in Houston, he’s given up just 5 gopher balls. That’s a real achievement in that bandbox of a ballpark. Google news on him, and you’ll see that just about every big league club out there is showing interest in him. You can include the St. Louis Cardinals on that list.