Do the Cardinals still know how to develop pitchers

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pioneer98
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Do the Cardinals still know how to develop pitchers

Post by pioneer98 »

I feel like the Cardinals great run from 2011 to 2015 or so was driven by the wave of really good pitchers they had graduate to the majors during that time, supplementing proven stars like Wainwright. Since then it feels like a drop off has occurred. Here is a list of notable home-grown pitchers and the year they made their debut. I didn't track down every AAAA relief pitcher, just the guys who either contributed a lot or were notable. I'm sure people will let me know if I missed any.

2011 - Lance Lynn
2012 - Trevor Rosenthal, Shelby Miller
2013 - Michael Wacha, Carlos Martinez, Kevin Siegrist
2014 - Marco Gonzalez
2015 - No one?
2016 - Luke Weaver, John Gant, Alex Reyes
2017 - Jack Flaherty, Sandy Alcantara
2018 - Jordan Hicks, Dakota Hudson, Austin Gomber
2019 - Ryan Helsley, Genesis Cabrera
2020 - Johan Oviedo (does he even count?)
2021 - No one?
2022 - Matthew Liberatore (34 innings)

This is a lot of words to say the last time a bona fide Cardinals starting pitcher graduated to the majors was 4 years ago! The last 3 seasons have been a big dry spell. Hopefully Liberatore turns out to be a big contributor next year.

There were times when the Cardinals could just about bank on a rookie or 2nd year pitcher to be a major part of the rotation just about every year. Like be their solid #3 or #4 starter. They had so much pitching they'd turn guys like Rosenthal into relievers. They had so much pitching they would trade pitchers for position players (like multiple guys on this list). Instead, the last couple years they've had to do the opposite, and trade for multiple innings eaters at the deadline to patch holes in the rotation.

So: what happened? A bad stretch of draft picks? A change in drafting and development strategy? Developing pitching used to be one of their biggest strengths. It feels like that's gone. Am I wrong?

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pioneer98
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Re: Do the Cardinals still know how to develop pitchers

Post by pioneer98 »

I recall debating Cubs fans about their famous rebuilding strategy of amassing gobs of position player prospects, and then worry about pitching later. Their argument was that since pitchers were so injury prone and unreliable it didn't make sense to try to build a team around them. It's not entirely wrong. It worked for them great for them for a while. But unless you can start churning out some pitching prospects, it's going to be a short-term strategy. Because pitchers are unreliable and injury prone in the long run you will need MORE of them, not less. In the long run a deep well of pitching prospects to keep drawing from is probably the #1 way to have the kind of sustained success the Cardinals are attempting to do. It's going to be a big problem if that well is drying up. At one time the Cardinals were able to do the inverse of the Cubs strategy to a degree, where they used excess pitching talent to get position players via trades.

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Schlich
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Re: Do the Cardinals still know how to develop pitchers

Post by Schlich »

this is a really interesting question i hadn't really thought of. it's hard to know exactly how much a major league coach affects these things but Dunc leaving couldnt have helped. What does developing a pitcher even entail nowadays?

Magneto2.0
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Re: Do the Cardinals still know how to develop pitchers

Post by Magneto2.0 »

Tink Hence is about to put this to an end. He's incredible.

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Felix The Cat
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Re: Do the Cardinals still know how to develop pitchers

Post by Felix The Cat »

A number of those listed as successes have been first round picks or supplemental picks. Not having any in 2017 hurts. No longer getting the supplemental picks also don't help.

Zack Thompson looks like he'll be alright. McGreevy is TBD.

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Re: Do the Cardinals still know how to develop pitchers

Post by dmarx114 »

No love for Pallante, lol?

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Re: Do the Cardinals still know how to develop pitchers

Post by HardcoreCardsFan »

I’m wondering if it involves the team’s philosophy in turning everyone into ground-ball pitchers who let the defense work behind them. I don’t know how much that’s stressed at the lower levels, but I know it’s a big thing with the Cardinals because of the elite infield defense, although the defense as a whole has fallen off a bit.

I won’t pretend to know everything about this stat, but the Cardinals’ “stuff grade” has declined almost every year since it started being calculated in 2015, and I’m guessing that’s a result of the emphasis on grounders and not strikeouts.

Image

It can be found on this site: http://pitchingapp.pitchingbot.com/, and an explanation is here: https://baseballaheadinthecount.blogsp ... rades.html

Magneto2.0
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Re: Do the Cardinals still know how to develop pitchers

Post by Magneto2.0 »

HardcoreCardsFan wrote:
October 14 22, 7:46 am
I’m wondering if it involves the team’s philosophy in turning everyone into ground-ball pitchers who let the defense work behind them. I don’t know how much that’s stressed at the lower levels, but I know it’s a big thing with the Cardinals because of the elite infield defense, although the defense as a whole has fallen off a bit.

I won’t pretend to know everything about this stat, but the Cardinals’ “stuff grade” has declined almost every year since it started being calculated in 2015, and I’m guessing that’s a result of the emphasis on grounders and not strikeouts.

Image

It can be found on this site: http://pitchingapp.pitchingbot.com/, and an explanation is here: https://baseballaheadinthecount.blogsp ... rades.html

I believe this and where they draft from are the biggest contributing factors.

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MinorLeagueGuy
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Re: Do the Cardinals still know how to develop pitchers

Post by MinorLeagueGuy »

Really most of your value in developing pitching comes in the rotation; if you're eventually going to have to "pay a guy" you'd hope that your 10's of millions of dollar bought you someone who can pitch half of the game at least, every 5 days. And Relivers throw so hard anymore, that pitching 3 days in a row is almost out of the question. I think given a little more time, we can say that Flores has really remedied a lot of our draft woes.

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Lesson
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Re: Do the Cardinals still know how to develop pitchers

Post by Lesson »

I don't think I'd count Cabrera as home grown. Yes, he played in Memphis and Springfield, but the majority of his development in the minors was with the Rays.

I'd count Pallante and Woodford (he performed well this season and I like him more long term than Hudson).

I think having pitching depth is necessary but I don't think there's a one size fits all solution with regards to how you acquire it.

Wainwright and Carpenter spent significant time in other organizations before coming to St. Louis. Mikolas was in Texas, SD, and Japan before coming here. Lohse was a reclamation project.

I'd argue the Cardinals haven't been doing as well of a job of acquiring starting pitching talent from other organizations as they had previously.

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