St. Louis Cardinals: With two weeks left, who’s in negative WAR?

Jose Martinez: +0.1 fWAR, -0.4 bWAR

Martínez spent time with the Chicago White Sox, Atlanta Braves and Kansas City Royals organizations, even making a stop at the independent Frontier League (which features such local teams as the River City Rascals and the Gateway Grizzlies).

It was his performance at Omaha in AAA that caught the Cardinals’ attention: he set various single-season records for the modern-day Pacific Coast League (PCL). The Cardinals purchased him from the Royals for cash.

He finally made his major-league debut until September 6, 2016. After leading the club with 19 hits and 15 RBI in the following spring training, the Cardinals announced that Martínez made their 2017 Opening Day roster, his first in the major leagues (this was at the expense of fellow-outfielder Tommy Pham).

In 2017 he batted .309/.379/.518. Martínez began 2018 as St. Louis’ starting first baseman. Moved back to the outfield after several months of fielding difficulties, he finished his 2018 campaign slashing .305/.364/.457 with 17 home runs and 83 RBIs in 152 games, and led the majors in percentage of balls hit to the opposite field (34.7%). For two straight years he led the Cardinals’ in average though his at-bats were not quite major league title qualifying.

In February 2019, Martínez signed a two-year, $3.25 million contract with the Cardinals. His season started strong, but started tailing downward quickly. Then the improved play of Dexter Fowler and the impressive fielding of Harrison Bader limited his playing time. And the vicious cycle began.

At the end of the season, with negative WAR (some of it fielding-related no doubt), it began to seem that the 31-year old Martinez’ rise from obscurity was starting to reverse Cinderellaesque.

Even with a one-game wild-card playoff where a deep pitching staff is not warranted, Mike Shildt may prefer other options to Martinez especially since he has hit left-handers particularly poorly this year. This despite the contagious enthusiasm Martinez brings to the Cardinals’ bench.

Yairo Muñoz: -0.3 fWAR, -0.4 bWAR

Muñoz signed as an international free agent with the Oakland Athletics. He made his professional debut in 2012 when he played for the Dominican Athletics of the Rookie-level Dominican Summer League. In addition to the infield, Muñoz played as a center fielder in AAA in 2017, opening up the prospect of Munoz being the next “super-sub”.

On December 14, 2017, the Athletics traded Muñoz and Max Schrock to the St. Louis Cardinals in exchange for Stephen Piscotty. During 2018 spring training, the Cardinals had him working out at shortstop, center field, right field, and second base.

Muñoz also hit well last spring, .375/.423/.625 with 18 hits and three home runs, scoring 13 runs with 9 RBIs over 48 at-bats in spring training. So the Cardinals chose Muñoz over Harrison Bader and Luke Voit for a spot on the Opening Day roster.

He finished his 2018 rookie campaign batting .276 with eight home runs and 42 RBIs in 108 games, spending time at six different positions. Most importantly, he turned in a healthy WAR for a sub: 1.5 rWAR.

However in 2019 Muñoz never got untracked offensively and his super-sub role was eclipsed somewhat by rookie Tommy Edman. Munoz is still only 24-years old. And since his trade value is limited by his negative WAR, it will be interesting to see what the Cardinals will do with him in the off-season. If the Cardinals play in a one-game playoff, he may make the roster just for his fielding versatility.

Andrew Miller: -0.5 fWAR, -0.2 bWAR

Andrew Miller’s multiple All-Star career in the American League, plus World Series performance, is well known. He would seem to be the exact kind of guy that you would want adding wisdom to a Cardinals’ postseason clubhouse that contains few players who were with the team during the 2015 playoff run and even fewer who are left from 2013, the Cardinals’ last dance in the World Series.

But Miller’s WAR doesn’t lie: -0.2, after a meager 0.2 in 2018, seems to be a trend. Miller’s negative WAR is surprising given the number of games (65) and the number of innings (47.2) that he has been used. Indeed, he has appeared in more ball games than any other pitcher.

Of course much of that heavy use is due to the Cardinals’ perennial problem of not having a strong left-hander out of the bullpen to follow-up an all-righty starting staff. Ever since the overuse of Kevin Siegrist, the Cardinals have been trying to get by with such southpaw figures as Tyler Lyons, Chasen Shreve and Austin Gomber (who has been hurt), and Tyler Webb.

The other factor is that Miller has a two-year contract, and so… a sunk cost factor. And Miller has not looked as bad on the eye test as his negative WAR would indicate. Miller does well in some conventional statistics like holds (26), saves (5) and blown saves (only 3). But on Andrew Miller the dogs of WAR have been slipped. By both Fangraphs and Baseball Reference!

Dominic Leone: -0.1 fWAR, -0.4 bWAR

A former rookie-of-the year candidate with the Seattle Mariners, Dominic Leone posted an incredible-for-a-reliever 2.1 rWAR in 65 appearances for the Toronto Blue Jays in 2017. But for two-straight injury-plagued years with the Cardinals, Leone has returned to that negative WAR territory that plagued his sophomore and junior seasons.

After Leone struggled to an 8.02 ERA with a 27:11 K:BB over 21.1 innings this season, the portly 27-year old was banished earlier in the year to Memphis. Many expected him to never return. But he battled back to the big leagues.

After being recalled to St. Louis on June 25, he has pitched better, though inconsistent, and not enough to pull himself out of negative-WAR hell.

Barring a major uptick in the last two weeks for Leone (and he could in fact see some work with the current beleaguered state of the bullpen) he certainly will not be on the playoff roster, and may indeed be packing his bags for a new destination in 2020.

Jedd Gyorko: -0.3 fWAR, -0.1 bWAR

Jedd Gyorko is a sad tale. A player hired-in to be an infield super-sub ends up being an everyday player but then gets busted down to being used less than a sub would. And then gets the tag, fairly or unfairly, of being injury-prone. All within the span of about three years.

Gyorko was traded at this year’s trade deadline for pitcher Tony Cingrani, whose injuries were not expected to alleviate until next season at the earliest. That goes to show you how lightly-regarded Gyorko had become. All that is left of the Poor Mountaineer from West Virginia, Jedd, is his negative WAR for the Cardinals in 2019.

Gyorko has done nothing on the Los Angeles Dodgers, his new team, to change anybody’s minds. Until yesterday, he was actually a 10 (sic) OPS+ in 28 plate appearances for the Dodger-blue. But Gyorko hit a clutch seeing eye single through the infield with two-out in the ninth inning of the ESPN Sunday Night Baseball game against the New York Mets last night.

Hopefully that will serve as an announcement to the major leagues thet “Jedd Gyorko is back”. And hopefully he stays healthy

Gyorko will always be remembered by Cardinals fans for starting opening day in 2017 at second base against the Chicago Cubs at home (over Kolten Wong!). As well as for being one of only three players, post-Albert Pujols, to hit 30 home runs for the Cardinals (and he did not even have a qualifying number of at-bats that year).

Alex Reyes: -0.3 fWAR, -0.4 bWAR

I guess I was not aware at the extent to which Alex Reyes stunk things up in his five appearances this year. But how about a strikeout-to-walk ratio of 0.17? Or a 15.00 Earned Run Average? And an 0-1 W-L record? Things did not go as well as fans had hoped, many of whom assumed Reyes would eventually work his way back into the starting rotation. Many had him ranked ahead of everyone except Miles Mikolas and Jack Flaherty!

These high hopes for Reyes have a long pedigree at this point, going back to 2016 when Reyes was a 21-year old call up.

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The Cardinals, attempting to make the playoffs, called upon Reyes in 2016 to start in important games against contending teams, including seven scoreless innings against San Francisco on September 23 and, in his next outing, three runs in five innings against Chicago.

As a starting pitcher in 2016, Reyes was credited with a 4−1 record; his only loss came against the Pittsburgh Pirates on September 7. He completed ​17 1⁄3 relief innings, surrendering one earned run and eight hits while striking out 23. In 46 total innings with St. Louis in 2016, Reyes struck out 52; his 1.57 ERA ranked second among all major league rookie relief pitchers with at least 20 innings.

On February 14, 2017, Reyes was diagnosed with a partial tear of his ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow. The next day, it was announced Reyes would undergo Tommy John surgery, shelving him for the entire 2017 season. He had successful surgery on February 16.After sitting out all of 2017, Reyes began rehabbing in 2018.

In a rehab start on May 19 with the Springfield Cardinals he pitched 7.2 scoreless innings, allowing only one hit and striking out 13, tying Springfield’s team record. On May 24 during a rehab start with the Memphis Redbirds, Reyes struck out nine consecutive batters, making him the first pitcher in Pacific Coast League history to strike out nine batters in a row.

In four total rehab starts between Springfield, the Peoria Chiefs, Palm Beach Cardinals and Memphis, he pitched 23 scoreless innings in which he struck out 44, walked seven, and gave up only seven hits.

Reyes was activated from the 60-day DL on May 30, 2018, to start against the Milwaukee Brewers. It was a major event in Cardinal Nation. A sort of Alex Reyes Day. Making his first major league appearance since September 29, 2016, Reyes pitched four scoreless innings, allowing three hits while walking two and striking out two.

But pitching coach Mike Maddux noticed a significant inning-to-inning velocity drop. Something just wasn’t right. Reyes landed right back on the DL a day later with a right lat injury. On June 6th, Reyes underwent surgery for a torn tendon in his lat muscle, effectively ending his season.

Reyes entered the 2019 season and began the year in St. Louis’ bullpen. However, in his first three innings of the year, spread over five relief appearances, he allowed five runs and six walks and was ultimately optioned to the Class AAA Memphis Redbirds on April 7. Back to starting, at both AAA and a rehab assignment at A+, he managed just 37 innings and a 1-4 W-L record. His official listed injury at present is “pectoral”.

This list is not necessarily a fun one to compile, but there are a few surprises when digging through the statistics. For Andrew Miller and Jose Martinez, a step up is needed. For Gyorko, Leone, Reyes, and Munoz, it is just a bit of a disappointment to see them where they ended up this year. Thankfully for all players on this list, WAR resets at the end of the year and everyone starts at 0.0 in 2020.