The results of the Cardinals' rotation overhaul for 2024 may surprise you

When the 2023 offseason began, I, like many of you, hoped the St. Louis Cardinals' front office would target multiple front-of-the-rotation arms in order to rebuild their rotation and get it ready for a true playoff push in 2024.

While the Cardinals did sign Sonny Gray, instead of trading for Tyler Glasnow or Dylan Cease or signing someone like Aaron Nola, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, or Blake Snell to pair with him, they instead opted to sign Kyle Gibson and Lance Lynn to fill out their rotation.

A year ago yesterday, I wrote about how the Cardinals, despite disappointing us with the lack of upside in the rotation outside of Gray, could see a major upgrade over their atrocious rotation starting pitching the year prior. Many thought it was a laughable proposition - believing that the rotation was not better than the group they rolled out in 2023, but I had faith that things would be better. I'll share some of the numbers I shared in that piece but in comparison to what actually played out in 2024 later in this piece.

Faith that things would be better is not the same as endorsing that as the best strategy. The Cardinals banked on the fact that if they received consistency from their rotation and that middle-of-the-pack quality would be "good enough" to get them to October with one of the better lineups in baseball.

Obviously, that did not happen. The offense cratered, and the Cardinals finished 83-79, albeit a 12-game improvement over their record in 2023. So how much were the Cardinals' changes to their rotation part of that improvement?

The Cardinals succeeding in providing stability to their rotation after a disastrous 2023 season

First, let's look on the surface at some of the obvious team stats related to the rotation. The Cardinals saw vast improvements in a number of areas.

Cardinals Rotation Comparison
2023 - 48 QS (22nd), 4.79 ERA (24th), 4.61 FIP (22nd), 1.46 WHIP (27th), 848.2 IP (14th)
2024 - 61 QS (13th), 4.04 ERA (16th), 4.06 FIP (14th), 1.26 WHIP (T-17th), 880.2 IP (8th)

Let me say this again to make sure we are on the same page - no, the rotation was not anything special, but it was a substantial improvement over the horrible production they got in 2023. The bar was set incredibly low by the club during one of their worst campaigns in franchise history, and while the Cardinals could have done a lot more to improve their rotation for 2024, they did do enough to make it competitive once again.

I do want to hone in a bit more on some stats that aren't quite as obvious on the surface. One of the things I noted last offseason was just how low of a floor the Cardinals' had at the back end of their rotation in 2023. Here is what I found when I looked at those starters, but I added in Jack Flaherty this time to make the data size comparable to the 2024 group.

Adam Wainwright (5.99 ERA), Jack Flaherty (4.20 ERA), Matthew Liberatore (4.40 ERA), Jake Woodford (7.41 ERA), Drew Rom (5.75 ERA), and Dakota Hudson (5.32 ERA) in 2023:
- 80 games started
- 46 of 5+ innings (56%)
- 26 of 6+ innings (33%)

Flaherty's presence this time helped boost these numbers, as without him, that group went 5+ innings just 50% of the time and 6+ innings 27% of the time. Now, let's compare that to 2024.

Kyle Gibson (4.42 ERA), Lance Lynn (4.31 ERA), Erick Fedde (3.72 ERA), and Andre Pallante (3.62 ERA):
- 83 games started
- 66 of 5+ innings (80%)
- 36 of 6+ innings (43%)

You'll notice that the ERAs are substantially better from this second group and they also gave the Cardinals five or more innings in 80% of their starts. Again, not flashy or elite by any means, but a major improvement over what the group in 2023 could provide. Lance Lynn was actually pretty dissapointing for this exercise, as even in his bad 2023 season, he provided way more starts that went 5+ or 6+ innings than he did in 2024.

Overall, the Cardinals' rotation was improved enough in 2024 to win a lot more games than what the 2023 rotation gave them the chance to do. Mixed with a really good bullpen and improved defense, the Cardinals had the ingredients to be a Wild Card team. But once again, the offense regressed in a big way, so average production from the rotation was not going to be enough.

While the Cardinals succeeded in raising their starting rotation's floor, their failures remained in the lack of raising its ceiling

There are a lot of things we could critique the Cardinals for over the last number of years that put them in the situation they were in for both 2023 and 2024, but two things really stand out to me.

First, the Cardinals' inability to develop young starting pitching for years caused the club to have to continuously sign or trade for stopgap solutions. You can check out a deep dive I did on that here, but in short, since 2021, only 35% of the Cardinals' starts came from pitchers they developed on pre-arbitration or arbitration contracts. Even worse, only two of those pitchers made 10 or more starts for St. Louis with a sub 4.00 ERA (Andre Pallante and John Gant) and just two others (Jack Flaherty and Dakota Hudson) posted ERAs below 5.00.

Whenever the Cardinals had a hole in their rotation, until last season, there was never a young starter who stepped up and filled the void. This directly led to signings like Steven Matz, Kyle Gibson, Lance Lynn, the Miles Mikolas extension, and riding with Adam Wainwright during an atrocious final campaign. It's also why they acquired starters like Jose Quintana, Jordan Montgomery, Erick Fedde, J.A. Happ, Jon Lester, and Wade LeBlanc midseason to plug holes in their rotation.

You can for sure critique John Mozeliak for how he chose to spend the dollars he did on their rotation. Even with the need to go get starts from outside the organization, Mozeliak could have been more cost-effective with some of those signings and been more aggressive with adding higher-end starters as well.

That brings me to the second issue - the Cardinals' reluctance to take on more risk by adding multiple front-line starters. While the signing of Sonny Gray was a step in the right direction, not making that second big splash is what separates them from aggressive contenders. Sure, teams like the Guardians, Rays, and Mariners have found ways to develop incredible pitching on a budget and not pay for big names (most of the time), but a market like St. Louis should be willing to do both things.

If the Cardinals had added someone like Glasnow, Cease, Yamamoto, Nola, or Snell along with Gray, that would have shown this fanbase they did not just want to contend again but wanted to be a true threat in October. But even setting their sights a bit higher and going after someone like Shota Imanaga, Reynaldo Lopez, Seth Lugo, or Michael Wacha would have provided them with a higher quality number two option than what they had all year.

All of this has been well documented to this point. Starting from the top, the DeWitt family's decision to cut corners financially caused John Mozeliak to have to choose between investing in the big league roster or continuing to invest in player development. Mozeliak is not without blame here though, as the investments in the major league roster were often poor and shortsighted.

Overall, ownership and the front office allowed their operation to get stale, and their failure to admit they'd fallen behind and truly look to change their model until now cost them dearly.

This feels like a weird way to end a story where I pointed out how the rotation actually did improve in 2024, but that's the point. It's hard to spend much time reflecting on the improvements they made when they ultimately could not cover up the systematic issues leadership allowed to

There is hope for the future though. Sonny Gray's 2024 wasn't as good as we had hoped for but the advanced analytics really liked him. Andre Pallante established himself as a legitimate arm for their rotation and is cost-controlled through 2029. Michael McGreevy flashed real potential in his few starts during the season for St. Louis. Quinn Mathews and Tink Hence are top 50 prospects in baseball. Cooper Hjerpe, Tekoah Roby, Gordon Graceffo, and others present more opportunities to improve their rotation.

And let's not forget Chaim Bloom's presence. He's been one of the best executives in baseball at creating the environment for strong pitching development. He's already gone out at hired Rob Cerfolio from Cleveland to help overhaul their player development along with him, and they both hired Matt Pierpont to be their director of pitching, who played a major role in pitching development with Seattle in recent years.

Brighter days seem to be ahead for the Cardinals' pitching. 2024 was a step forward from how bad things were in 2023, but not enough to overcome the hole the organization dug for itself.