Cardinals youngster adding another weapon to his arsenal

Of all the young pitchers currently rostered by St. Louis, Gordon Graceffo is towards the top in terms of arm talent and upside. The right-hander regularly touches triple digits and twirls a slider that sambas in the low 90s. Pairing his velocity with conviction on the mound, Graceffo shows a lot of promise as either a back-end bullpen arm or a starter of the future. 

During the Cardinals’ 2026 Winter Warm-Up, it was revealed that the development of Graceffo has led to him adding a “kick-change” to his pitch-mix, a fairly experimental pitch in the choreography of the major leagues. 

Cardinals reliever Gordon Graceffo is adding a "kick-change" to his arsenal this offseason

The kick-change was made popular by Seattle’s star closer, Andres Munoz. The filthy right-hander ended game after game, utilizing his changeup primarily against lefties. In Munoz’s case, the addition of a kick-change added an option that made his more prevalent pitches even more effective. When hitters had one more thing to worry about, they could no longer home in on one pitch and be right 50% of the time. Clay Holmes of the New York Mets is another name to bring the kick-change into the limelight. Holmes’s changeup owned an xBA of .221, making it an above-average pitch that balanced out his repertoire. 

Graceffo discussed at length how he tried multiple different changeup grips this offseason and ended up landing on the kick-change after seeing the results it gave him on the mound. He said that at this point in the process, the main thing is just becoming comfortable with the unorthodox grip.

Cardinals fans should be ecstatic that Graceffo is adding another layer to his depth as a pitcher. A changeup of any kind should help aid the right-hander against the opposite handedness, even though he held reverse splits in 2025. If the Redbirds want to take it a step further, the righty's curveball had an xBA of only .185 in 2025. Graceffo vastly underuses his curveball, and with the addition of even a league-average kick-change, it will improve the deceptiveness of his pitches across the board.