St. Louis Cardinals: Introducing the new Mike Mayers

The St. Louis Cardinals may have been responsible for handing a miserable suffering outing to a young pitcher but this outing spurred him into the bullpen mastermind who appears this season.

Had you told me even last season that Mike Mayers would one day be a staple in the St. Louis Cardinals bullpen, I likely would have called you a liar. And yet that is exactly what we are seeing this season for the Cardinals.

But who is this Mike Mayers and from where did he come? I remember him as the miserable pitcher who was called up in 2016 to fill in for ailing Adam Wainwright only to be left out in the proverbial rain as he was absolutely shelled by Los Angeles Dodgers.

In that outing which occurred on July 24, 2016, Mayers pitched only 1.1 innings but suffered through nine earned runs on only eight hits. His ERA after that MLB debut was an overinflated 60.75. He was abruptly shipped back to Memphis.

I would have told you that he would never have been seen from again. And I would have been wrong as he was recalled to St. Louis later that season. He appeared for the St. Louis Cardinals on September 6 and pitched one complete inning in which he surrendered zero hits. This outing helped him stay with the Cardinals.

Fast-forward if you will to 2017. Mayers was still with the St. Louis Cardinals organization. I would not have placed a bet on this but there he remained. Someone must have seen something worthy of keeping (and, by the way, they would have been right).

Where Mayers left 2016 with 27.00 MLB ERA, he recorded a 11.57 ERA in three games in 2017. Again, I would not have been surprised to watch him pack his bags for another organization and I would have again been wrong.

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Then something happened between 2017 and 2018: Mayers decided he needed to pitch with authority and to leave it all on the mound. He has been quoted as saying that he learned that he needed to throw hard and fast. This turned his whole career around.

Mayers was always a proven talent in AAA having recorded a 3.19 ERA in 2016 and a 3.12 ERA in 2017 in the minors. This simply hadn’t translated to the majors until this season.

Now with the fire-balling, Mayers is a whole new pitcher. Through 24 games this season, Mayers has pitched in 27.1 innings, has allowed 10 earned runs on 26 hits, but also having recorded 25 strikeouts.

The strikeouts come thanks in large part to his ability to now throw his four seam fastball with command and in the range of 98-99MPH. According to QOPA, Mayers’ fastball is valued at 4.86 (MLB average is 4.50). For comparison sake, Jordan Hicks‘ four seam is ranked 4.57.

While this surprised me (the comparison to Hicks), I realized quickly that Hicks throws his sinker for the outlandish speeds. This pitch is ranked 5.71, some 0.29 points short of QOPA’s excellence category.

Back to Mayers, Mike pitched today in San Francisco and was lights-out. This is the sort of thing that he has done this season having pitched 10 games this season without allowing a hit. To the strikeout numbers, Mayers has pitched in only 7 games in which he has not recorded a K.

Next: Voting conundrum

I like this new Mike Mayers. I think the St. Louis Cardinals would be wise to keep him but I wont begrudge them if they shop his name either.

The St. Louis Cardinals may have been responsible for handing a miserable suffering outing to a young pitcher but this outing spurred him into the bullpen mastermind who appears this season.

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Schedule