Cardinals: Why Jack Flaherty is the No. 68 player in baseball

Jack Flaherty is the No. 68 player in Major League Baseball, according to MLB Network.

The St. Louis Cardinals have two franchise cornerstone players in Nolan Arenado and Paul Goldschmidt. The two ranked No. 13 and 32 overall, respectively, in MLB Network’s top 100 ranking this week. But they were not the only Cardinals players to be featured on the list, with promising young right-handed pitcher Jack Flaherty making an appearance.

Flaherty ranked No. 68, the highest among any Cardinals pitcher. He is coming off a down season in 2020, finishing with a 4.91 ERA and 49/16 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 40.1 innings. It is not entirely on Flaherty, of course, considering the circumstances the team dealt with this past season, most notably the COVID-19 outbreak.

But his struggles last season are not an indicator of the pitcher he is, and the Cardinals are optimistic he will bounce back. After all, the 25-year-old finished fourth in Cy Young Award voting in 2019 and placed fifth in Rookie of the Year voting in 2018. His 2.75 ERA and 231/55 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 196.1 innings in ‘19 put him in an elite category and was an indicator that he may be one of the best young pitchers in baseball.

This upcoming season will be crucial for Flaherty to prove that, and his focus will be solely on the field as he has his salary ($3.9 million) in stone after he defeated the Cardinals in arbitration. If he has a year similar to what he produced in 2019, it would not be a surprise to see the two sides begin extension talks on a long-term deal.

Flaherty will go a long way toward helping the Cardinals not only advance to the postseason, but possibly compete with the likes of the Dodgers and Padres. He has the talent to do it and his ranking as the No. 68 player in baseball was completely justified, as his struggles last season look more and more like an anomaly.