The St. Louis Cardinals finally announced that they are removing Michael Wacha from the rotation. The move is long overdue. Wacha has pitched badly going back to the start of last season, with his performance becoming downright awful this season. The Cardinals have a handful of pitchers in Triple-A that they can reasonably expect to match Wacha’s projected performance entering the year.
It’s a testament to the organization’s philosophical belief in veteran proveyness that Wacha stayed in the rotation as long as he did. Rather than try something to improve the team’s chances at winning during this miserably May, the Cards stuck with Wacha. It’s difficult to say whether this was the preference of manager Mike Shildt, the front office, or both, but it’s the type of delay that can cost a team a playoff berth. For a team that claims to be all in this season, the kid gloves approach to obviously washed-up Wacha was curious. The decision to stick with Wacha (and Dakota Hudson and Adam Wainwright, for that matter) might very well prevent the Cardinals from playing meaningful baseball in late September.
The Cardinals have created an organizational culture founded on keeping MLB labor costs low. And so they have developed a robust communications strategy aimed at minor-leaguers. Throughout the corporation’s facilities across the country, the Cardinals highlight how many players the team drafts make it to the majors. The Cards make sure that their workforce knows that the team promotes from within.
For a while, Wacha was one of the poster children of the draft-and-develop approach. Maybe he still is. Cheap labor is easier to demote or fire than expensive labor. Wacha is in the final year of club control under the seniority-based collective bargaining agreement’s salary system. This makes demoting him to the pen easier to stomach than it might have been with an aging veteran signed as a free agent and being paid over $15 million in salary. The Cardinals’ decision to demote Wacha and replace him with an up-and-comer making the league minimum is the ultimate evolution of the Cards’ quest to field a roster of cheap labor that is competitive enough on the field to give them the fig leaf of competitiveness while they rake in huge profits.
It would be wrong to downplay this as a baseball decision. The Cardinals are in a tailspin. Lots of good writers are finding lots of ways to describe just how bad their starting rotation has been this year. Calling up a minor-leaguer to replace Wacha will almost assuredly result in a performance upgrade. The decision gives the team a better chance to win every fifth start.
When Wacha landed on the injured list earlier this year and the Cards promoted Daniel Ponce de Leon to take his start, I wrote about how the youngster was more likely than not to give us pitching on par with what we could expect from Wacha. That’s still true today. The same can be said for Austin Gomber. Both pitcher performed pretty well in their MLB debuts last season, which also means that they are perhaps more comfortable with the big-league experience than other minor-leaguers. Their adjustment curve is less.
In addition to Ponce de Leon and Gomber, there’s Jake Woodford, who impressed in the spring. Woodford pitched well enough in Florida that John Mozeliak, president of baseball operations, openly stated that the would help the big-league club this year. And Woodford has pitched pretty well in Triple-A so far this season.
The Cardinals have multiple options. Naturally, they are calling up Genesis Cabrera, who has never pitched in the majors and got shelled in limited spring-training action against players that included a handful of big-leaguers. Why Cabrera?
Alex Reyes
Reyes is going to join the St. Louis rotation this season, but he just isn’t quite ready yet. The Cardinals are not choosing a replacement for Wacha who will make five or twenty starts. Rather, the Cardinals are choosing a placeholder starter who may very well slide into the St. Louis bullpen once Reyes is ready for MLB action as a starter. This makes the decision one of less consequence than if the chosen pitcher was going to make more starts as the initial Wacha replacement.
Health
Cabrera is healthy (presumably). Gomber is not. The lefty has been on the injured list with an elbow issue. The fact that the Cards are going with portsider Cabrera over the more-established southpaw in Gomber tells us that Gomber’s arm is not ready for starting every fifth day.
Performance
The following table has the 2019 Triple-A stats for Gomber, Ponce de Leon, Woodford, and Cabrera.
Pitcher
|
IP
|
K%
|
BB%
|
HR/FB
|
ERA
|
FIP
|
xFIP
|
Woodford
|
56.2
|
21.5
|
14.5
|
10.0
|
3.02
|
5.31
|
6.26
|
Gomber
|
45.1
|
28.1
|
8.7
|
12.2
|
2.98
|
3.81
|
4.25
|
Ponce de Leon
|
46.1
|
19.3
|
11.6
|
6.3
|
3.50
|
4.89
|
6.58
|
Cabrera
|
39.2
|
21.4
|
10.4
|
18.3
|
6.35
|
6.84
|
6.37
|
MLB introduced the MLB baseball in Triple-A this year and there has been a home-run explosion. Somehow, Ponce de Leon has avoided being a casualty. Woodford and Gomber have as well, for the most part. Cabrera has not.
We know that the Cardinals look at advanced metrics when measuring pitchers. They don’t seem to care much about ERA (which is good, because ERA is not very predictive of future runs allowed). The obvious choice is Gomber, who is unfortunately injured. Looking at the other three, it’s a toss-up.
40-Man Roster
Gomber, Ponce de Leon, and Cabrera are all on the 40-man roster. Woodford is not. This makes Woodford the odd man out of sorts. Woodford has not pitched well enough to force the Cardinals’ hand by placing him on the 40-man roster and certainly not for one or two starts as a placeholder for Reyes.
Handedness
I’ve written about this before, so I’ll keep it brief. The St. Louis rotation has been terrible against left-handed batters this season. Really awful. Making matters worse, the Cardinals don’t really have a bullpen option that is particularly effective against lefties either. This means that opponents can load up their lineups with lefties and have them mash the Cardinals all game without having to worry about lefty-on-lefty matchups in the late innings. The Cardinals must improve against left-handed batsmen.
Optics
With each passing day, the Cardinals’ decision to trade away Tommy Pham for Cabrera at an outfielder whose name I have forgotten (Something or another Williams maybe?) looks worse and worse and worse — like, indefensibly bad. I’m not saying that the front office is starting Cabrera as a placeholder before Reyes joins the rotation in order to try to change the narrative of the Pham trade, but I don’t think this wasn’t considered.
****
Rightly or wrongly, the Cards are going with Cabrera because he is:
1) A southpaw and their MLB staff has struggled against right-handed hitters this year.
2) Healthy and Gomber is not.
3) On the 40-man roster and Woodford is not.
4) Pitching as well as the other healthy options by xFIP.
5) A placeholder in the rotation until Reyes is ready, at which time he may very well slide into the bullpen as a lefty option for Shildt.
On top of all of these baseball reasons, Cabrera may help change the conversation about the Pham trade if he pitches well.
