The Cardinals have overhauled Liam Doyle's arsenal to glorious results

When the St. Louis Cardinals selected left-handed pitcher Liam Doyle fifth overall in the 2025 draft, the team's new development staff knew that it had some work on its hands in turning him into a well-rounded threat on the mound. Now, after coaching him through a few rough patches, the Cardinals look to be successfully developing the best homegrown pitcher in over a decade.

Scouts saw Doyle as a pitcher with a lethal fastball but questionable secondary pitches, and many surmised that he would end up as a relief pitcher at the highest level thanks to that arsenal and his high-effort delivery. But after two dreadful starts with Double-A Springfield that had Cardinals fans worried about the future, Doyle has turned his season around, and Baseball America's Geoff Pontes wrote an article (subscription required) diving into the changes the Cardinals have made to Doyle's repertoire.

According to some statistics in Pontes' article, Doyle has increased his extension by about half a foot since his college days, but the most notable changes took place in his most recent start, on May 9, where Doyle featured improved action on his slurve and cutter. He displayed plenty of faith in his new breaking balls: In his start on May 2, Doyle threw 57% fastballs and only 25% breaking balls. That was nearly flipped on its head in his previous start, where he delivered a breaking ball in 49% of his pitches and struck out a season-high eight batters.

Doyle's improvement could be a huge win for the Cardinals scouting department.

The Cardinals' pitching style for years was to draft soft-tossers and get them to induce ground balls. With John Mozeliak out the door as the team's president of baseball operations, Chaim Bloom has shown a modernized strategy, chasing strikeouts above all else. With that new approach came new coaches, as Rob Cerfolio, Matt Pierpont and others migrated to the Cardinals and look to be working wonders with Doyle and potentially others. According to Pontes' article, Doyle was willing to modify his pitches and his approach at the behest of the coaches, and he's now seeing the results.

It's been a frighteningly long time since the Cardinals developed a starting pitcher within the organization who flourished with the team. The last one may be Lance Lynn, whom the Cardinals drafted in 2008 and who debuted in 2011. If Doyle can break that drought, fans should give plenty of kudos to the team's new development staff, and there may be reason to look forward to a new era of productive pitching within the pipeline.

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