Since the start of the year, I’ve been watching Jordan Walker mash the ball as I try to figure out something to say about it. As a card-carrying Walker booster – I’ve got a Top 50 Trade Value ranking to prove it – I’m very willing to believe in Walker’s promise. But as a sometime Cardinals fan – being a professional baseball writer makes fandom complicated – I’m afraid of getting burned. Walker has already gone from one of the most heralded prospects in the game to one of its worst-performing full-time players. Now he’s one of the best-performing players? Being a little skeptical is just a matter of self-preservation.

Now that we’re a month and a half into the season, though, I can’t keep myself from investigating. Walker hasn’t had stretches this productive since his rookie year. He hasn’t had stretches where he’s hit the ball on the ground this rarely as a major leaguer, period. He’s been 14.5 runs above average offensively in 2026 – after being 13 runs below average offensively for his entire career before now. If that isn’t screaming for an article, I don’t know what is.

If you know two things about Walker, they’re probably these: He swings hard, and he can’t get the ball off the ground. That makes it easy to think through how he might improve: keep swinging hard and stop hitting it on the ground. When I designed the Squared-Up Explorer for the FanGraphs Lab, Walker was actually one of my favorite examples to use. Look at where his best swings are, compared to another guy who swings very hard:

The bubble size represents frequency, and being further right means more squared-up contact. Before 2026, Walker squared up the ball most frequently on grounders, and he hit a ton of them. For his part, Judge isn’t squaring the ball up every time he hits it or anything, but he’s following a simple recipe. He swings really hard, he gets the ball in the air a lot, and then he profits. The harder you swing, the more valuable hitting the ball flush becomes; Judge doesn’t need to hit it pure every time to clobber dingers at a historic rate. Read the rest of this entry »

When David Morgan was profiled in last year’s rankings of the San Diego Padres’ top prospects, it was pointed out that the 26-year-old right-hander had joined the organization as a non-drafted free agent in 2022. Moreover, he’d barely taken the mound. A two-way player at Hope International University — an NAIA school in Fullerton, California — Morgan had thrown just nine-and-a-third innings. At the time he signed, he was playing for the Portland Pickles in the summer collegiate West Coast League (for which Rob Neyer is the commissioner).

Morgan’s backstory sets him apart him from his MLB brethren, but what about from a pitch-specific standpoint? Are there any differentiating characteristics?

“My ability to pick stuff up and kind of run with it is probably the most unique thing about me,” said Morgan, who made his big-league debut last May and has since logged a 3.41 ERA and a 4.15 FIP over 52 appearances comprising 60-and-two-thirds frames. “Last year, when I had to throw a sinker, it wasn’t really a learning process. It was in-between innings. I came into the dugout, grabbed a new grip, and threw it the next inning.”

The outing, his sixth in the majors, came on June 10 with the Padres holding a commanding late-inning lead against the Los Angeles Dodgers. When Morgan returned to the dugout after working the eighth, pitching coach Ruben Niebla pulled him aside and asked if he’d ever thrown a sinker. The answer was yes and no. Morgan had toyed around with one, but that was about it.

With the game not in doubt — San Diego led 11-1 — Niebla “gave [him] a grip and said to go out and throw it next inning.” Morgan did, the pitch “danced around a little bit,” and the rest is history. By season’s end, he’d thrown his sinker at a 21.5% clip, and this year the usage is up to 34.7%. Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome to another edition of Five Things I Liked (Or Didn’t Like) In Baseball This Week. This column isn’t running every week this year, which means the title is more of a suggestion than a rule. There are some plays from last week, some plays from this week, and future editions will probably break that convention even a little more. I can’t imagine that’s all that big of a deal. After all, “I Liked” is a bigger part of why I enjoy writing this series than “This Week.” So sit back, relax, and check out some of the most delightful baseball happenings of the second half of April. And of course, thanks again to Zach Lowe of The Ringer, the progenitor of the “X Things I Liked This Week” format and my inspiration for this column.

1. Inevitability
If you tune into a baseball broadcast with a runner on third base and less than two outs, you’re liable to hear a discussion of an “undefendable play.” That play is some variation on a safety squeeze: The batter bunts, the runner gets down the line as far as he can safely and waits to see where the bunt is headed before committing, and the defense has very little hope of making a tag play in time. Batters have attempted 24 of these bunts in 2026, and defenders have only retired the lead runner four times. Safety squeezes were equally hard to stop in 2025, this hilarious double play notwithstanding. But maybe they’re even better than those success rates would imply. Maybe there’s some kind of supernatural force that makes safety squeezes work. How else do you explain this nonsense?

Taylor Walls is the most prolific safety squeeze bunter in baseball, and he tried it in extras against the Pirates last week:

Read the rest of this entry »

In pitching, there’s a fundamental tension between the two best results you can obtain: strikeouts and grounders. Strikeouts are obviously the best, but grounders are incredible too. Batters put up a .232 wOBA when they hit the ball on the ground, as compared to .462 in the air (popups are another category of good batted ball, but I’m lumping them in with aerial contact today for simplicity’s sake). The thing is, the pitches that induce strikeouts tend not to induce grounders, and vice versa. Sinkers don’t miss bats, and four-seamers don’t keep the ball on the ground. It’s quite the bind.

There are, of course, pitchers who can do both. Nolan McLean springs to mind. There’s peak Zack Britton, Framber Valdez at his curve-spinning best, some good Cristopher Sánchez games perhaps. For the most part, though, it’s really hard to do both. I came up with a simple rule to measure how good pitchers were at it last year: divide grounders by two, add strikeouts, subtract walks, and divide by total batters faced. Aroldis Chapman, Jhoan Duran, and Andrew Kittredge paced the league in it last year, with Shohei Ohtani and Mason Miller rounding out the top five. Those guys were all incredibly effective.

It’s early in the season, of course, but do you know who’s leading baseball in this ratio in 2026? Well, it’s Mason Miller. Oops. I guess breaking baseball will do that. If you’re striking out 70% of the guys you face, of course you’ll lead this measure. But the only other player above 50%? That’d be Riley O’Brien, the new Cardinals closer, who has been one of the best stories in baseball so far this year. Read the rest of this entry »

On September 12, 2004, Eli Manning made his NFL debut. The Giants were down three touchdowns in the fourth quarter, and starting quarterback Kurt Warner had taken four sacks and fumbled twice; maybe let the no. 1 overall pick take a spin.

On Manning’s very first play from scrimmage, he handed the ball to Tiki Barber, who ran for a 72-yard touchdown. Now, Manning would go on to have a very, very good career: 16 years in the league, four Pro Bowls, 366 touchdown passes, two Super Bowls, and untold hundreds of millions of dollars in career earnings. But if you look at Manning’s career through a certain lens, he peaked with that first snap.

A quarterback’s job is to advance the ball down the field and score. And while Barber did most of the work, a one-play, 72-yard touchdown drive is about as good as a debut gets. Manning’s career productivity would never be better than it was after that first play. So it proved, and quickly; on the very next possession, Manning coughed up a fumble of his own on a nightmarish three-way hit. Welcome to The Show, kid. Read the rest of this entry »

Direct links to applications (please see job details below):

Data Engineer
Application Developer

Data Engineer

Summary of Responsibilities The role of the Data Engineer will be to maintain and further develop the modern, scalable, baseball data pipeline for the St. Louis Cardinals. This person will collaborate with the Baseball Systems group to ensure high quality data is available to scouts, coaches, players, and other baseball decision-makers. This person should be detail-oriented, enjoy collaborating with others, communicate effectively, both verbally and written, have a growth mindset, and love the game of baseball.

Essential Functions of the Job

• Build and support components of our data pipeline that ingests raw baseball data and outputs baseball data ready for review and analytics modeling by Baseball Operations
• Continuously extend our data pipeline to ingest additional data sources and handle increasingly dense datasets
• Continuously improve our data pipeline by reducing latency, reducing cost, and reducing errors
• Communicate effectively with Baseball Operations staff to ensure we are anticipating and supporting their data needs
• Rigorously test our data pipeline to improve its quality and maintainability over time

Minimum Education and Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in a technical field, or a combination of relevant education and work experience
• Experience identifying, triaging, and resolving data issues
• Interest in modern data system architectures, design patterns, and best practices
• Ability to apply creative solutions to challenging technical tasks
• Ability to work independently in a fast-paced environment
• Proficiency with more than one modern programming languages
• Familiarity with data-related concepts such as data pipelines, databases, SQL, JSON, and REST APIs

Education and Experience Preferred

• Professional experience in a software engineering, data reliability, and/or a quality assurance environment
• Proficiency with Python or Go (or proficiency with multiple languages and a desire to learn Python or Go)
• Proficiency with DevOps tools including Git, CI/CD pipelines, and configuration-as-code
• Proficiency with Cloud computing, Kubernetes, and/or container-based or serverless application deployment

To Apply
To apply, please follow this link.

Application Developer

Summary of Responsibilities
The role of the Application Developer will be to design, develop, and maintain baseball-related applications for the St. Louis Cardinals. This person will collaborate with fellow developers, analysts, systems engineers, and Baseball Operations staff to ensure that high quality data, analytics, and visualizations are accessible in a timely fashion to front office members, scouts, coaches, trainers, and players. This person should be detail-oriented, enjoy collaborating with others, communicate effectively both verbally and in writing, and have a strong interest in the game of baseball. This individual will be expected to work on projects independently, participate in code reviews and maintain coding standards, assist in troubleshooting and debugging efforts, and stay updated with the latest trends and best practices in application development.

Essential Functions of the Job

• Build and support new applications used Baseball Operations staff to engage with player information, performance, and projections used to guide baseball decisions.
• Create and maintain intuitive interfaces for scouts, coaches, and players to enter and view pertinent information, enhance their day-to-day workflow, and visualize complex data effectively.
• Investigate and evaluate new technologies and work to incorporate cutting-edge tools into new and existing applications.
• Communicate effectively with Baseball Operations staff to improve training, generate feedback, and build relationships with users from differing backgrounds.
• Rigorously test and make appropriate fixes and adjustments to applications developed by yourself and other team members.

Minimum Education and Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, software engineering, or a related field.
• A minimum of 2 years of web development through work experience, internships, co-op programs, or personal projects.
• Experience with web development frameworks and libraries, such as Angular, React, or Vue.js.
• Proficiency in HTML, CSS, and TypeScript.
• Familiarity with version control systems like Git.
• Experience interfacing with relational databases.
• Design and development of user interfaces with backend services.
• Familiarity with AI-assisted development tools and eager to integrate them into daily workflows to enhance productivity and code quality.

Education and Experience Preferred

• Experience developing backend services with Go (Golang).
• Interest in building reusable UI components.
• Proficiency in designing intuitive and visually appealing user interfaces (UI).
• Interest in creating data visualizations using frameworks such as d3.js, Three.js, and GSAP.
• Experience with Javascript/Typescript testing methodologies and tools.
• General knowledge of current MLB analytics, news, markets, trends, etc.

To Apply
To apply, please follow this link.

The content in this posting was created and provided solely by the St. Louis Cardinals.

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Team USA’s pre-WBC warm-up games, follow up on spring training ballpark naming rights, and discuss Jurickson Profar’s second PED suspension in as many seasons, then preview the 2026 New York Yankees (20:07) with The New York Daily News’ Gary Phillips, and the 2026 St. Louis Cardinals (59:53) with The St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Derrick Goold.

Audio intro: Beatwriter, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio interstitial 1: The Gagnés, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio interstitial 2: Sean .P, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio outro: The Shirey Brothers, “Effectively Wild Theme”

Link to Team USA vs. Giants gamer
Link to Team USA vs. Rockies story
Link to Kershaw clip
Link to Sunny clip
Link to Passan on Profar
Link to MLBTR on Profar
Link to Arrested Development clip
Link to Goodyear wiki
Link to Wrench Group story
Link to milkshake duck meme
Link to Wrigley naming info
Link to team payrolls page
Link to Yankees offseason tracker
Link to Yankees depth chart
Link to Cashman comments
Link to Gary on Cashman’s comments
Link to Ben on team turnover
Link to Stanton comments
Link to Chisholm comments
Link to Gary on Volpe
Link to 2025 team RP WAR
Link to team RP projections
Link to Petriello on Judge and ABS
Link to team challenges leaderboard
Link to Gary on Yankees challenge strategy
Link to Yankees sewage story
Link to Gary’s author archive
Link to Cardinals offseason tracker
Link to Cardinals depth chart
Link to Derrick on the roster
Link to team fielders by FRV
Link to team FRV leaderboard
Link to YoY attendance data
Link to 2025 team K%
Link to projected team WAR
Link to Simpsons “That’s the joke” clip
Link to Herrera/Raleigh data
Link to Derrick’s author archive
Link to Derrick’s podcast

 Sponsor Us on Patreon
 Give a Gift Subscription
 Email Us: podcast@fangraphs.com
 Effectively Wild Subreddit
 Effectively Wild Wiki
 Apple Podcasts Feed 
 Spotify Feed
 YouTube Playlist
 Facebook Group
 Bluesky Account
 Twitter Account
 Get Our Merch!

Podcast (effectively-wild): Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

The St. Louis Cardinals boast one of the game’s best farm systems. Strong at the top and as deep as anyone’s — 53 players were profiled in yesterday’s rundown of the team’s top prospects — the pipeline possesses not only high-level talent procured through the amateur draft and international market, but also high-ceiling youngsters acquired via trade. Led by president of baseball operations Chaim Bloom, the NL Central club is firmly in rebuild mode, trusting its player development department to turn present-day promise into quality performance in the majors.

Rob Cerfolio is playing an important role in those efforts. Hired away from the Cleveland Guardians by Bloom — a fellow Yale University graduate — in October 2024, the 33-year-old holds the title of assistant general manager for player development and player performance. He profiles as a good fit for the job. Formerly Cleveland’s farm director, Cerfolio has been described by former Cardinals beat writer John Denton as someone who “prefers to operate while studying reams of biomechanical data, analyzing pitching arm angles and hitter swing paths and load profiles.”

Cerfolio discussed St. Louis’ player development philosophy, and some of the team’s most notable prospects, in a recent phone conversation.

———

David Laurila: Your club recently acquired Jurrangelo Cijntje from Seattle. I assume you and Matt Pierpont — he used to be with the Mariners — were part of the in-house trade discussions?

Rob Cerfolio: “Yes, our director of pitching, Matt Pierpont, had Jurrangelo for half a year before I hired him over here. We did have input. That’s a fun part of this job, and part of why I left Cleveland for the opportunity: to impact deals like this, to have a voice in the room. Obviously, Chaim is the final decision-maker, but we run a really collaborative acquisition process. Everybody from Matt, who you brought up, to myself and the rest of our senior leadership team is weighing in on the various concepts and packages. Read the rest of this entry »

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the St. Louis Cardinals. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as my own observations. This is the sixth year we’re delineating between two anticipated relief roles, the abbreviations for which you’ll see in the “position” column below: MIRP for multi-inning relief pitchers, and SIRP for single-inning relief pitchers. The ETAs listed generally correspond to the year a player has to be added to the 40-man roster to avoid being made eligible for the Rule 5 draft. Manual adjustments are made where they seem appropriate, but we use that as a rule of thumb.

A quick overview of what FV (Future Value) means can be found here. A much deeper overview can be found here.

All of the ranked prospects below also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It has more details (and updated TrackMan data from various sources) than this article and integrates every team’s list so readers can compare prospects across farm systems. It can be found here. Read the rest of this entry »

The first thing Chaim Bloom did after taking over baseball operations in St. Louis was trade away everything that wasn’t nailed down. Sonny Gray? Thanks for your contributions, now go try to win a ring in Boston. Willson Contreras? Gone, and to the same team. Nolan Arenado? Thanks for the memories, enjoy the desert. With those trades sorted, he’s moved on to step two: prying up some of those aforementioned nails to make more deals. The most recent shoe to drop in the Cardinals retooling might be the biggest one, though. Brendan Donovan is now a Seattle Mariner, the key piece in a three-team trade that sends Ben Williamson to Tampa Bay and a heaping helping of prospects and draft picks to the Cardinals.

Donovan isn’t a household name like many of the best Cardinals of recent years, but that has far more to do with the team’s middling success of late than any lack of talent. His combination of versatility and offensive firepower calls to mind Ben Zobrist, and unlike almost every other flexible defender who gets compared to Zobrist, this one actually makes sense. Zobrist ran a 121 wRC+ during his seven-year peak. Donovan’s career mark is 119, the same as his 2025 total. He’s under team control for two more years at a reasonable rate, too: $5.8 million this year, with his last trip through arbitration set for 2027.

“A plus bat who can play defense everywhere” generally isn’t a good title to have applied to you. That’s because most of the hitters who receive that label either aren’t plus bats, don’t play good defense, or both. But as I mentioned, that’s not Donovan, and we might as well examine each of those two skills, as he’s the entire reason this trade happened, the best player going to any of the three clubs by a mile. Read the rest of this entry »