Before we begin in earnest, here is a table showing the hardest thrown pitches of this young baseball season through Sunday’s games.

Right now, St. Louis right-hander Jordan Hicks is throwing harder than Aroldis Chapman. When he did it the first time, it drew some attention, but he repeated that performance on Sunday.

His hold on the title might not last, of course: Chapman could begin throwing harder, and Hicks might not be able to maintain this level of velocity all season. For example, the 21-year-old righty averaged only 98 mph on his fastball in his performance yesterday, getting four outs in what was the first appearance of his professional career without a day of rest.

Hicks was a starter throughout the minors, during which he recorded only 165.1 innings and never worked above High-A. There were indications during spring training that he might have the talent to deal with major-league hitters, but the team sent him to the minors after some issues with tardiness. Despite that, he made his way back to major-league camp and was added to the Opening Day roster even though it required the Cardinals to place Josh Lucas on waivers. Jeff Zimmerman discussed Hicks’ talent and scouting reports after Hicks made the team. We are beginning to see why the Cardinals believed he could impact the club at the highest level in potentially important spots.

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For a very long time, Greg Holland was available as a free-agent closer. For a very long time, the Cardinals appeared to be in some need of a closer. Oh, at certain points, they expressed faith in Luke Gregerson. At certain other points, they expressed faith in Dominic Leone. But Holland was always going to find some sort of job, and the Cardinals have had the best opening. And so it’s unsurprising that we’ve wound up here: Holland and the Cardinals have agreed to a one-year contract worth $14 million. Holland only has to pass his physical, and then he’ll get back to being a ninth-inning weapon.

The Cardinals have never needed Greg Holland. This isn’t something being done out of necessity. I believe the Cardinals really would’ve been comfortable going into the year with the relievers they’ve had. Yet Holland and Scott Boras also apparently backed off their multi-year wishes. The Cardinals have a new reliever now at a cost lower than that of the qualifying offer. While this means the Cardinals might now have less midseason trade flexibility, this is like making a midseason trade ahead of time. And the Cardinals are right in position to make the most use of this upgrade.

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The Cardinals don’t have a rotation problem. Which is to say, they don’t have a rotation problem right now. What they do have — as the title of this post suggests — is a potential problem in the first few months of the season if the current members of the rotation underachieve. For most teams with fine rotations — like the Cardinals — the cause for concern is a lack of depth. That is not, however, the Cardinals’ issue at the moment. The Cardinals’ potential issue is that their current sixth and seventh starter might be significantly better than the pitchers in their starting five.

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Over the past several years, we’ve seen a trend away from signing young stars to long-term extensions. As Bryce Harper and Manny Machado head to free agency in their mid-20s, Mookie Betts, Kris Bryant, and Francisco Lindor all appear on their way to the same. With stars saying no, teams have been forced to get creative, signing good players to extensions and taking more risk by signing players with very little service time in the majors. The Cardinals’ deal for their shortstop covering six years for $26 million along with two team options fits the bill on both accounts. Paul DeJong is a good player, but he has hardly proven himself with under a year in the majors.

The Cardinals have made a habit of such extensions, reaching agreements with Matt Carpenter, Allen Craig, Stephen Piscotty, and Kolten Wong in the recent past. Carpenter would have been a free agent this year without such a deal, and Wong is a solid player with the potential to provide considerably more value. Even when the contracts haven’t worked out, the Cardinals haven’t been troubled by them: they were able to deal Allen Craig, for example, before health derailed his career. The jury is still out on Stephen Piscotty, but the club netted two decent prospects when dealing him over the winter.

This deal, both in dollars and the proven quality of the player, mirrors the one for Tim Anderson and the White Sox a year ago.

Consider the following stat lines.

We have two young shortstops who strike out a lot and walk very little. DeJong has shown more power, while Anderson is the better baserunner and presumably better defender. (The sample size for the fielding metrics is too small to draw any conclusions from the numbers.) It remains way too early to pass judgment on the Anderson deal, as the potential benefit for the White Sox doesn’t really begin for another five years, but the first year did not go well. Anderson still struck out a ton, managed to walk even less, and his BABIP dropped by 50 points. He did put up good numbers on the basepaths, but his poor defensive numbers meant a basically replacement-level 0.2 WAR. Even with slightly above-average defense, he would still be a roughly average player. Paul DeJong carries some of those same risks.

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Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about Justin Verlander’s contribution to the juiced-balls debate, home runs, and a frank Justin Upton interview about how teams treat players, then preview the 2018 Cardinals (27:08) with FanGraphs’ Craig Edwards, and the 2018 Braves (57:28) with broadcaster Grant McAuley.

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The big news broke over the weekend, when the Cubs finally pulled Yu Darvish off the free-agent market. Not only is that good short-term news for the Cubs; it’s also bad short-term news for the Brewers and the Cardinals. It was, of course, expected for a while that the Cubs would eventually do something significant, but Darvish is about as significant as it was going to get. The division rivals already had needs, but the signing might’ve provoked a little greater urgency.

You can imagine the jokes when Monday morning brought news the Cardinals were signing Bud Norris. You might not actually need to imagine them — you might have authored some of them! It comes off as an uninspired response. Now, teams don’t actually need to make responses to other transactions. That’s just offseason narrative. And the Cardinals have already made an impact move in trading for Marcell Ozuna. It’s not like the Cardinals have been completely silent. But they haven’t made that Josh Donaldson-level move. They haven’t made that Manny Machado-level move. There’s impatience among the fan base, and the Darvish/Norris juxtaposition isn’t making anything feel any better.

I understand, in that Yu Darvish is analytically sexy. I understand, in that Bud Norris isn’t. Norris has never been a household name, nor has he been a particularly remarkable major-league pitcher. Let me put things differently, though. How would it feel if the Cardinals were instead signing Greg Holland? I have some tables to show you.

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Cardinals righty Jack Flaherty didn’t have what you’d call a “flawless” introduction to the majors. While he had some luck missing bats over his roughly 20 innings, he allowed too many walks and really struggled once batters made contact. His 6.33 ERA was 50% worse than league average after accounting for park and league.

The 22-year-old did, however, do one thing right: he threw 87 excellent sliders. The sliders were so excellent, in fact, that Flaherty recorded better numbers on the pitch than anyone else in the second half — just better than the ones thrown by Clayton Kershaw and Garrett Richards. Maybe he can learn something from those other two and help parlay his excellent slider into more excellent outcomes.

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A few days ago, the Blue Jays picked up a new, young, cost-controlled starting outfielder. They got him in exchange for a reliever, and for a pitching prospect with lousy peripherals. It’s not hard to see how you could spin this as a big positive for Toronto. The other side, of course, is that the Blue Jays are taking a chance on a guy who the Cardinals couldn’t make better over a number of years. It’s fine for any team to express faith in its own player-development system, but if the Cardinals can’t get a guy polished, what hope might another club have?

As is generally the case, all three players in the trade are interesting. High-level baseball players are always interesting. Randal Grichuk is interesting, because of his track record and skillset. Dominic Leone is interesting, for the way he reemerged in 2017. And Conner Greene is interesting, because of the raw quality of his stuff. The Cardinals hope they just made their bullpen better. I don’t mean to ignore their side of this. But I’d like to focus on Grichuk, and, specifically, I’d like to focus on how he hasn’t progressed. The era in which Grichuk plays today isn’t the same as the era in which he debuted.

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Blue Jays, red birds, Conner Greene. The 22-year-old righty was the lone prospect involved in a trade Friday evening that sent power-hitting OF Randal Grichuk from St. Louis to Toronto in exchange for Greene and reliever Dominic Leone.

Greene is coming off a maddening statistical season at Double-A New Hampshire, where he accumulated a 5.29 ERA in 132.2 innings. He experienced some success till the beginning of summer, entering July with a 3.23 ERA despite erratic command, but started getting shelled as the season continued. Greene has a plus-plus fastball that sits 94-97 and will touch 99. The pitch has heavy sink and arm-side movement, as well as notable downhill angle to the plate — a result, that, of Greene’s size, relatively upright delivery, and high three-quarters arm slot. It’s Greene’s best pitch and he uses it heavily, perhaps too frequently, as his strikeout totals are not commensurate with his quality of stuff.

The curveball (which was bad last fall) has taken a huge step forward and is now Greene’s best secondary pitch. It has traditional power curveball shape, bite, and depth. It projects to a 55 on the scouting scale. Greene’s changeup is inconsistent and a bit easy to identify out of his hand, as Greene is prone to drop his arm slot when he throws it. Due to his loose, fluid arm action and incredible arm speed, though, some scouts project quite heavily on the changeup. It pretty conservatively projects to average and has more upside than that. There’s a chance Greene develops two above-average secondaries to pair with his plus-plus fastball, but no measure of his ability to miss bats indicates anything remotely close to that.

Greene struggles to repeat his release point and has 30-grade control. He walked 13% of hitters he faced in 2017 and 83 total hitters in his 132.2 innings. Unless Greene’s ability to locate greatly improves, he’ll wind up in the bullpen. It makes sense to continue developing him as a starter on the off chance that he develops 45 or better command and simply as a way to get him more reps than he’d get out of the bullpen, but the Cardinals were quick to move Sandy Alcantara to the bullpen last year and seemed inclined to keep him there. They’re thought, by other clubs, to be considering pulling the bullpen ripcord on either or both of Jordan Hicks and Ryan Helsley. Greene would seem to fall into that bucket of still-raw, upper-level arms. He has a chance to pitch as a mid-rotation starter if the command comes, but he’s more likely to be a hard-throwing, above-average bullpen arm. He’s a 45 Future Value prospect.

Kiley McDaniel contributed to the scouting notes on Conner Greene.

Despite having failed to record more than 500 plate appearances in any of the past three seasons, outfielder Randal Grichuk has nevertheless produced a total of 6.8 WAR during that same interval — or just over two wins per season. Players who reliably produce two wins in a season are average players. One could make the case with some ease that Randal Grichuk is an average player.

For the St. Louis Cardinals, however, average isn’t sufficient to guarantee a place in the outfield. Dexter Fowler, Marcell Ozuna, and Tommy Pham will start for the club this year and all are superior to Grichuk. Jose Martinez is another outfield option, and he just authored a breakout season. Harrison Bader and Tyler O’Neill are loitering in the halls somewhere. That abundance of talent is what allowed the club to exchange Stephen Piscotty for a future MVP. And now the Cards have done a similar thing with another totally competent, but not sufficiently excellent, outfield piece.

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