The STL Cardinals Thread - New Season, Same Old Cardinals?

[ttitansfan4life]

Yea Hicks ain’t it. Dude isn’t a starting pitcher. Doesn’t throw enough strikes. Sadly with the injuries to Flaherty and Matz, we’re stuck with him. I think I’d rather see Woodford back up to start.

[holt_bruce81]

32 minutes ago, ttitansfan4life said:

Yea Hicks ain’t it. Dude isn’t a starting pitcher. Doesn’t throw enough strikes. Sadly with the injuries to Flaherty and Matz, we’re stuck with him. I think I’d rather see Woodford back up to start.

Mo had been advocating for Hicks to get a shot in the rotation since midseason last year. So even if it's clear Hicks isn't cut out for the rotation, I'm not expecting the Cardinals to do anything about it for at least a few months because Mo can't admit when he's wrong. 

[MOSteelers56]

Have there been any past examples of wild, explosive stuff, guys like Hicks finding control? Randy Johnson, maybe? 

[StLunatic88]

I’m so glad we wasted 2 months with this Hicks experiment 

 

In order to not just complain, heres the underlying numbers;

When pitching 2 innings or less (3 outings) he has a 3.00 ERA, only one appearance giving up a run

When pitching 2+ to 4 innings (4 outings), he has an ERA of 6.08 ERA

When pitching 4+ innings (2 outings), he has an ERA of 4.82 ERA

So . . . . . its almost like hes a Reliever 

 

When Hicks "Starts" the team is 3-6.

At the beginning of the year, the MIL-MIA-CIN 3 series road trip we went 6-4, Hicks started 3 of the 4 losses

And now in the last 4 series, SF-NYM-PIT-TOR, we went 7-5 with Hicks starting 3 of the 5 losses

Its over, hes not a starter. He was a dominant Closer, why are we shortening out Bull Pen in this frivolous effort?

Edited May 25, 2022 by StLunatic88

[kgarrett12486]

Yah, sample size is enough now for Hicks. There not even getting the innings out of him they expected him to be built up for at this point, let alone the results.

In the past, I would have been leery of us actually making a change at this point, but this year seems different with Marmol and FO. Given how we've been willing to bring up the young talents, I think change could be on immediate horizon. 

Looks like Flaherty is scheduled to face live pitching today and it puts him on track to be back in the rotation by middle of June. He could take Hicks spot and you could see a guy like Liberatore or others continue to get starts. 

[StLunatic88]

1 hour ago, kgarrett12486 said:

Looks like Flaherty is scheduled to face live pitching today and it puts him on track to be back in the rotation by middle of June. He could take Hicks spot and you could see a guy like Liberatore or others continue to get starts. 

Would really like Libertore to get 4-5 starts till the Flaherty situation has more clarity.

That gets us to mid-late June, and either Jack is ready to come back, Libertore has solidified himself, or its time to make a move for a Vet starter from somewhere

[ttitansfan4life]

8 hours ago, StLunatic88 said:

Would really like Libertore to get 4-5 starts till the Flaherty situation has more clarity.

That gets us to mid-late June, and either Jack is ready to come back, Libertore has solidified himself, or its time to make a move for a Vet starter from somewhere

I mean they should be doing that regardless. Should’ve done that before the season started. Signing Matz just wasn’t enough and who honestly thought the Hicks experiment would be anything more than a failure. Right now they have a good pitcher in Mikolas who is pitching like one of the best pitchers in baseball. Waino who gives more good performances than bad and Hudson who is solid but doesn’t go deep in games. Matz has been a failure and is now hurt. Hicks is a massive failure. The bullpen is already getting taxed due to numerous starters who can’t pitch long in games. I’m hoping Libby can help solidify the rotation but they’re definitely going to have to add a veteran starter at some point. One who can eat innings but also isn’t someone that gives up 3-4 runs every start. Happ and Lester did well in their roles last year but I’m hoping for even higher than that. Expecting anything from Flaherty is just asking to be disappointed iMO.

[StLunatic88]

11 hours ago, ttitansfan4life said:

Matz has been a failure and is now hurt.

No he hasnt. He wasnt brought in to be an Ace or anything. He has 8 actual outings, and had 2 blow up ones (one being the first of the season) where he has given up 15 of his 25 earned runs in only 5 total innings in those two starts. You cant forget about them, but outside of those two he has a sub 2.80 ERA in the other games. You'd like him to go deeper in those (averaging 5.1) but the team is 5-3 in all of his starts. So hes doing his job adequately 

Remember, all of this is skewed big time because of losing Flaherty. Matz would be our 4, and Hudson would be the 5.

[MOSteelers56]

I like to see Angel Rondon get a few more starts this year too. I was really encouraged by his relief appearance. He was nibbling all over the edges. That bodes well.  

[StLunatic88]

Its one of those things that dont normally happen this early in the season, so its hard to compare what the compensation would be for a walk year SP only a quarter into the season, but Id really like it if we made a move ASAP for Jose Quintana.

It would be nice to have another Lefty in the rotation, and before we banged him up the other day, hes been having a great start to the year

[MOSteelers56]

3 minutes ago, StLunatic88 said:

Its one of those things that dont normally happen this early in the season, so its hard to compare what the compensation would be for a walk year SP only a quarter into the season, but Id really like it if we made a move ASAP for Jose Quintana.

It would be nice to have another Lefty in the rotation, and before we banged him up the other day, hes been having a great start to the year

Plus I could continually make the "that creep can roll" joke in regards to him. That alone would make him worth it. 

[ttitansfan4life]

5 hours ago, StLunatic88 said:

No he hasnt. He wasnt brought in to be an Ace or anything. He has 8 actual outings, and had 2 blow up ones (one being the first of the season) where he has given up 15 of his 25 earned runs in only 5 total innings in those two starts. You cant forget about them, but outside of those two he has a sub 2.80 ERA in the other games. You'd like him to go deeper in those (averaging 5.1) but the team is 5-3 in all of his starts. So hes doing his job adequately 

Remember, all of this is skewed big time because of losing Flaherty. Matz would be our 4, and Hudson would be the 5.

I’m not expecting Matz to be an ace. For what he’s being paid and for what the front office tried to push him as, he should at least be a good middle of the rotation guy who can eat up innings and not go deep in the bullpen everytime he starts. He’s not even that as of right now.

[StLunatic88]

26 minutes ago, ttitansfan4life said:

I’m not expecting Matz to be an ace. For what he’s being paid and for what the front office tried to push him as, he should at least be a good middle of the rotation guy who can eat up innings and not go deep in the bullpen everytime he starts. He’s not even that as of right now.

But..... he is.

You are using a very outdated thought process when it comes to Innings per start. The average starter hasnt been going 6 innings for the past DECADE, and steadily declining. Pre Covid (2019) the Average start went less than 5.1 innings, thats just the AVERAGE. 

Through nearly the first 500 starts of the 2022 season, Starters were averaging just over 4.2 innings.

There are only a few handful of guys averaging over 6 innings per start (its like 12 guys in the entire league), and none of them are averaging 6.2 or better.

If you are expecting 6 innings per start from your pitcher, and say you expect 30ish starts from them, thats 180 innings per season. Do you now how many guys made it to that number last season? 20, and like 5/6 of them were actually averaging 6IP/GS. Max Scherzer dint even technically make that 180IP or the 6IP/GS mark(2 outs shy, but that shows how rare that actually is). Sure there are some with 26-29 starts that got to the 6IP/GS mark, but its only a few, Like less than 30 total, so less than one per team.

Other than maybe your Ace, your middle of the Bullpen is just as important as your starters these days

Yes, I want more from Matz, like to average 5.1+ innings overall, not when you take out the few bad starts, but just 8 starts into the season, he has been fine. The "what hes being paid" argument doesnt fly. If that were the case he should be the 31st best Pitcher in the league (based on AAV) but that would be a completely unrealistic expectation. They paid him what the 2022 market demanded, which would put him ahead of what guys got paid in the past 3-5 years, as well as most under Team Control. But if you look at the staff, He is the 3rd highest paid Starter (behind Waino and Mikolas) not to mention Flaherty is behind him (under TC) so he was brought in to be the 3/4 for the next we years. Kinda where is falls in the rotation right now.

 

[ttitansfan4life]

 

[MOSteelers56]

I'm glad Whitley is back. I feel like that guy is pretty good, just never gets steady chances.