The few advantages of being totally passive on the offseason market are now being felt by the St. Louis Cardinals. The Cardinals were counting on their young relievers to repeat their previous season’s success after only adding reliever Phil Maton to the major league roster over the summer. Playing this game with the bullpen is risky.
Fans expected at least some squad change outside of Paul Goldschmidt and Andrew Kittredge when John Mozeliak stated there would be a “transition” of sorts, but we were left with mostly the same lackluster lineups from the previous two seasons. Mozeliak refused to transfer any of Ryan Helsley, Steven Matz, or Erick Fedde when their worth was at its maximum, despite what seemed to be a straightforward way of thinking. As a result, none of those three are currently with the team for a minimum, if any, return.There was some justification for keeping these arms as the Cardinals balanced competing and transitioning, though, because last year’s bullpen output was strong enough to suggest that it would be a strength of this year’s squad. The bullpen corps was expected to offer plenty of support for the pitch-to-contact rotation, with Helsley and Maton filling up the bottom of the pen alongside JoJo Romero, Kyle Leahy, and Ryan Fernandez, last year’s breakout player.
We have observed that the choices to keep bullpen arms have not always been successful, ranging from a decline in performance (Fernandez) to possibly getting less value than if they were dealt during the offseason (Helsley). Bullpens are such a volatile component of a major league club that it would be foolish to expect your young arms to duplicate their performance. I thus expect that Chaim Bloom would be less hesitant to trade pitching pieces at their highest worth or to shell out the money for weapons that have a proven track record.
Chaim Bloom needs to be more aggressive with the pitching staff
The bullpen is the main source of my complaints about the offseason since paying top price for pitchers is always risky. Indeed, it was evident that this year’s starting rotation was not prepared to compete, but failing to address any recovery concerns must have been the result of either heeding ownership’s directives to cut costs or being oblivious to regression. In any case, there was bad leadership everywhere.
Depending on your point of view, the Cardinals’ pitching staff’s excellent health was either a boon or a curse. The Cardinals’ starting pitchers have gotten the lion’s share of innings this season since, except from John King’s oblique injury, no other pitchers were added to the disabled list at any time. If all of these arms—or even most of them—were successful, that would be fantastic, but in keeping with the season as a whole, the performances have been inconsistent.
The unfortunate thing is that the bullpen’s strikeout rate, which is in somewhat less awful 21st place, helps the Cardinals, who now rank 29th in MLB in terms of K/9. With an average fastball velocity of 94.2 mph, the staff ranks 17th in terms of “stuff.” Additionally, the pitch-to-contact approach causes pitchers to give up a 1.30 WHIP (18th) and a.253 opponent batting average (26th). They rank sixth in all of baseball with a 3.91 xFIP, while having a collective ERA of 4.26 (22nd). Hopefully, this will convince Bloom that it’s time to modernize the outdated strategy of throwing subpar fastballs in the zone and hoping major league batters won’t adapt.
The staff has not had a problem with command; they rank third in terms of BB% and BB/9, but their dismal other statistics indicate that they are just allowing too many hits. Personally, I think Bloom should highlight certain topics and make the most of pitching talents to demonstrate that he is different from his predecessor.We’ve seen how men with command challenges may nevertheless be productive in brief spurts during the stuff section. Riley O’Brien walks hitters 12% of the time despite a fastball average of 98.3 mph. He is minimizing damage, though, with a.195 opponent batting average and a 1.56 ERA (3.55 FIP). The same is true for Matt Svanson, who is aiming for an average fastball velocity of 97 mph and a batting average of.150 while maintaining a mediocre 8% walk rate. Despite potential concerns over their ability to identify the strike zone, Bloom appears to have begun making this change in the 2025 draft and at the trade deadline, acquiring a large number of high-octane weapons.
Only the Phillies are in the top 10 in terms of walk rate, but four of the top five pitching staffs in terms of fWAR also have the greatest average velocity. Pitchers will get batters out, but hitters will get themselves out more.
I think the Cardinals could find a lot of inexpensive bullpen possibilities to help with this, much to how they signed Phil Maton in mid-March. I found it perplexing that St. Louis believed their relief alternatives were adequate despite the 2024 outcomes, as contending teams are constantly searching for bullpen pieces. This is particularly intriguing because they anticipated switching to a type of retool, which meant that Helsley, Steven Matz, and Maton would eventually be moving. Spending more money on a short-term reliever makes sense if the Cardinals were serious about competing, as relievers are very unpredictable, especially the young ones.
The Cardinals have not been able to capitalize on assets recently, either on the big league roster or on the trade market. This was demonstrated by not giving Michael McGreevy a chance sooner, keeping Fedde and Helsley throughout the season, or even taking advantage of prospects through aggressive promotions or deals. Bloom and the organization will need to feel at ease taking more chances if they want to advance.It will be fascinating to see whether Bloom and company opt to take advantage of the pitching prospects next season while they are still healthy, as the minor league pitching staff has been severely hampered by injuries this year. In particular, I’ll be keeping an eye on Tanner Franklin, Liam Doyle, Tink Hence, and Quinn Mathews as players that could/should be discussed for major league innings before they are plagued by injuries. I am still wary to grant starters long-term contracts if they wanted to spend aggressively, but I do like the notion of opt-outs or vesting options for pitching.If it doesn’t work, the team won’t be financially hampered and can recover some value on the trade market since the starting pitching market appears to be good enough to locate an above-average arm for a medium cost.
In addition to pitching, I want to see Bloom make money now while there is still a lot of value and accept the possibility that a player may go somewhere. If they truly think a retool is the best course of action, then I think it makes organizational sense to consider offers on Brendan Donovan, Lars Nootbaar, Alec Burleson, a catcher, or an infielder. Effectively managed companies typically deal from areas of depth to satisfy needs elsewhere, and the roster’s redundancy continues being jumbled into the fabled 40-man roster squeeze.
Overall, even if I am still concentrating on the next month or so of the current season, I am eager to learn more about the answers fans have been asking concerning Chaim Bloom’s true role. Since Bloom was revealed as the future POBO, we haven’t had much face time with him, thus we don’t know much about his strategy. As long as ownership permits, he will abandon the John Mozeliak style of thinking if he truly wants to leave his stamp on the company.
