5 pitching options the St. Louis Cardinals should consider post-lockout
Chris Archer
Chris Archer may have fallen victim to being over-used when he first entered the major leagues with the Tampa Bay Rays. As time has gone on and we saw him get traded to the Pittsburgh Pirates, his star seemed to fade. After being off in 2020, he returned to the Rays in 2021.
In six games pitched for the Rays in 2021, he was 1-1 in 19.1 innings pitched and 21 strikeouts. Over the course of his nine seasons, the righty was 61-81 with 1,254.1 innings pitched and 1,370 strikeouts thrown. In 2015, Archer threw 212 innings, in 2016 he throw 201.1 and in 2017 he threw 201.
After he was traded to the Pirates in 2018, Archer still threw 148 innings and trailed off to 119 innings in 2019.
It will be interesting to see what happens with Archer when the lockout ends. He is definitely an arm you want to check out.
He will be 33 next season. He may not be the innings eating strike thrower he once was, but it would be interesting to see how he would work with Yadier Molina and pitching coach Mike Maddux. The pair are keen on getting a pitcher to gain some confidence in his off-speed pitches in order to better use the defense behind him. The Cardinals do have a Gold Glove defense and it would be interesting to see how Archer would work within that frame.
Archer could be a fun experiment for Molina and Maddux. The pitcher could benefit from an incentive-laden one-year contract.