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

Positive Regression - RHP Ryne Stanek

When your ERA is approaching double digits, you're probably an easy candidate to see some positive regression.

For Ryne Stanek and the Cardinals, hopefully those positive start to show soon.

The Cardinals signed Ryne Stanek to a one-year deal this past offseason to help bolster a young bullpen and provide some veteran experience. Additionally, Stanek's career strikeout rate well north of nine strikeouts per nine innings was appealing. This penchant for strikeouts was something that was sorely missing in the Cardinals' bullpen over the last several years.

Through 7.1 innings this year, Ryne Stanek has logged nine strikeouts, three holds, and a save. He has an ERA of 8.59 and a FIP of 4.52. His expected ERA is a much more respectable 4.49, and his expected FIP is close at 4.45. Clearly, there's room for growth for Stanek.

Stanek's fastball velocity sits in the 92nd percentile in baseball. He's generating whiffs (35.6% whiff rate) and getting hitters to chase (33.9% chase rate) at exceptional clips as well. The only downside to all of this is that Stanek isn't striking out as many batters as one would like, and he's walking too many hitters (13.2% walk rate). Hitters are also putting a charge into batted balls with an average exit velocity of 93.6 MPH, placing them in the fifth percentile in all of MLB in that metric.

Stanek has been on an on-again, off-again relationship with pitching. He battled through a clean appearance on Opening Day only to follow it up with an outing where two runners scored. His next three outings were strong, going 2.2 innings and not allowing a run to score. Since then, Stanek's appearances have gone 0.2 innings with three runs allowed and one strikeout, one inning with no runs allowed and one strikeout, and 0.2 innings with three runs allowed and no strikeouts.

There needs to be some more consistency out of Marmol's late-inning righty.

Stanek is likely a trade deadline candidate. If the Cardinals want anything in return for the 34-year-old journeyman, he needs to step it up soon.

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