3 Cardinals who could experience positive regression and 3 who will start to struggle

Negative regression - RHP Gordon Graceffo

Gordon Graceffo's career has been a bit of a rollercoaster. Formerly one of the top pitching prospects in the system, Graceffo's output has not necessarily matched his prospect bidding. He's gone from a decent starter in the minors to a relief role, one that he happily took on. Graceffo has worked with Tread Athletics the last two years to make adjustments to his game.

Relievers are always going to be volatile, so putting Gordon Graceffo here isn't too much of a risk. So far, Graceffo has a 1.08 ERA and a 0.96 WHIP through only 8.1 innings. He's pitched multiple innings in each of his last three appearances, meeting or exceeding two innings twice. It appears as though Graceffo is slowly morphing into manager Oli Marmol's long reliever.

Graceffo was never a strikeout artist as a prospect, but his 15.6% K rate is in the sixteenth percentile in baseball. Additionally, his 18.8% BB rate is in the seventh percentile. He has walked six batters so far this year while striking out only five.

Graceffo has seen plenty of batted ball luck this year; Graceffo's BABIP is .100, a ridiculously low number. He doesn't generate soft contact (50% hard-hit rate), and he's allowing a crazy amount of balls to be hit in the air (40% fly ball rate). Those hard-hit fly balls will eventually find the ground for extra base hits or go out of the stadium for home runs.

Graceffo's expected ERA is a whopping 7.25 so far this year.

Unless Gordon Graceffo can start generating ground balls at a higher clip or strike out batters, his batted ball luck will flip and quickly. His multi-inning capabilities are nice to have in a bullpen that's backing up an inexperienced and wary.

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