As all of our eyes are peeled for the potential Trade Deadline day moves the St. Louis Cardinals may make, the club surprised everyone today as they called up former first-round pick Michael McGreevy to make his MLB debut in a spot start against the Texas Rangers on Wednesday, pet Katie Woo of The Athletic.
Drafted with the 18th overall pick in the 2021 MLB Draft out of UC Santa Barbara, it has been a rocky road for McGreevy up until this point. The 24-year-old has not performed like the Cardinals hoped he would when he was drafted, but his performances in Memphis have been a lot cleaner as of late, and he'll get the chance to show what he has against big-league hitting on Wednesday.
The Cardinals' 21st-ranked prospect according to Baseball America's new top 30 organizational prospect rankings, McGreevy's only projected above-average pitch is his slider, but his plus control helps him locate his fastball, curveball, and change up in ways that help it to play up when his command is on. McGreevy sits in the low 90s with his fastball and won't miss many bats, but the hope is a good defense behind him can make good on the ground balls he creates.
I don't think we should expect McGreevy to stick around beyond this start on Wednesday, but it is a big step in his development that the Cardinals are giving him this opportunity. He is not regarded like other top arms in the organization, but if McGreevy can turn himself into a decent back-of-the-rotation starter or bullpen arm, that would be of benefit to the Cardinals.
McGreevy is arguably one of their biggest draft misses in recent years, but it is not unheard of for a player to figure things out at the MLB level after losing that prospect shine during his minor league days.
The Cardinals will move to a six-man rotation for this next turn-through, and they will reevaluate what they should do with their rotation moving forward. With the addition of Erick Fedde on Monday, the Cardinals have five other starting pitchers on their roster in Sonny Gray, Kyle Gibson, Lance Lynn, Miles Mikolas, and Andre Pallante.