The Cardinals rotation is worse than you think

The Cardinals’ pitching is worse than we thought. 

At the beginning of the season, the thinking was that if the starting pitching could just be average, this team could surprise people. The surprise has been on the offensive side. Watching Jordan Walker have the season he has had and JJ Wetherholt playing like a veteran has made this season interesting. The pitching, however, has not been. 

When looking at team numbers, we find the Cardinals below average in several categories. They rank 26th in BABIP, 22nd in WAR, and 28th in K/9. One category they rank high in is hard-hit rate, coming in at fourth. This is not on you want to rank high in. Another category is Z-Contact%. This is the number of pitches on which contact was made on pitches inside the zone/swings on pitches inside the zone. The Cardinals rank number one, meaning whenever a pitch is in the zone, the batter hits it. 

Only a few Cardinals starters have shown promising signs

If we look at individual pitchers and compare them to league average, then it’s worse. League average for all starting pitchers when looking at K/9 is 8.34. The Cardinals have one pitcher that is better than that, and that player, Hunter Dobbins, isn’t even in the rotation anymore. 

Only two pitchers, Andre Pallante and Michael McGreevy, have an ERA lower than the league average. 

The Cardinals have only one player, Pallante, who has a better than average hard hit rate against. 

The league average Z-Contact% is 86.5%. Hunter Dobbins is the only pitcher below this mark. The others rank between 88.5% and 92.5%.

So far this year the starters have remained serviceable by ranking 12th in walks allowed and in runs allowed. This is mainly because, even though there is a lot of contact made, the defense is bailing them out. 

By not missing bats, eventually some of these batted balls will split the defenders or drop in for hits. 

By comparing this starting staff to the league average, one is setting the bar very low. We are not seeing any of the pitchers reach ace-level numbers. The numbers show the Cardinals are still pitching to contact, something they said they wanted to get away from. 

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