Caleb Durbin is an underdog’s underdog in an organization that boasts big-time star power. Acquired along with Indigo Diaz by the New York Yankees from the Atlanta Braves last December in exchange for Lucas Luetge the 23-year-old infield prospect is a former 14th round draft pick out of a Division-3 school. Moreover, he’s never going to be mistaken for Aaron Judge or Giancarlo Stanton. Listed at 5-foot-6 (he claimed to be an inch taller when I talked to him earlier this week), Durbin looks like a stockier version of Jose Altuve.

He’s currently hitting not unlike the diminutive three-time batting champion. In 112 plate appearances — 97 with High-A Hudson Valley and 15 with Double-A Somerset — Durbin went into yesterday slashing .319/.446/.385. His bat-to-ball skills have been impressive. The Lake Forest, Illinois native has fanned just nine times while drawing 15 walks.

Durbin’s numbers at St. Louis’s Washington University were even more eye-opening. With the caveat that D-3 isn’t exactly the SEC, the erstwhile WashU Bear batted .386 with 42 walks and 10 strikeouts in 439 plate appearances over his three collegiate seasons. Since entering pro ball in 2021, he has 70 walks and 62 strikeouts in 631 plate appearances.

“Low strikeout rates are something I’ve always had,” said Durbin. “That’s kind of been my elite tool, if you want to call it that. I feel like that’s always going to be there, so it’s just a matter of building on my contact quality.” Read the rest of this entry »

Nolan Arenado could have won the National League Most Valuable Player award last year, though he lost out to teammate Paul Goldschmidt, who gave chase to the Triple Crown and finished with the more eye-catching traditional stats (but slightly lower fWAR and bWAR). But while Goldschmidt has been similarly productive this year amid the Cardinals’ dreadful start — indeed, his three homers on Sunday helped end the team’s eight-game losing streak — the same can’t be said for Arenado, who’s off to an uncharacteristically bad start.

Between compiling their worst record through 35 games in half a century and making the puzzling decision to move marquee free agent Willson Contreras off of catcher, the Cardinals are such a mess that I mentioned Arenado only in passing on Monday. He’s nowhere near the team’s biggest problem, yet at the same time, the 32-year-old third baseman is hitting just .232/.282/.326 for a 69 wRC+ thus far. His 82-point drop from last year’s 151 wRC+ is the majors’ second-largest among players with at least 400 plate appearances last year and 100 this year:

Arenado, whose 207-point drop in slugging is also the majors’ largest at these cutoffs, isn’t the only MVP-caliber player struggling. Judge, the reigning AL MVP, hasn’t come close to replicating last year’s astronomical numbers, though he’s still an above-average hitter. Machado, who finished between Goldschmidt and Arenado in the NL MVP voting (and edged both in WAR), is scuffling nearly as badly as his fellow third baseman. Several recent All-Stars besides those players (Benintendi, Giménez, Marte, Rodríguez, and Springer) are represented above as well. That’s baseball, Suzyn. Read the rest of this entry »

The Cardinals snapped their eight-game losing streak on Sunday thanks to Paul Goldschmidt’s three-homer day, but not before finding new ways to embarrass themselves this weekend. Saturday’s loss dropped them to 10–24, their worst record through 34 games since 1907. On top of that, that same day the team declared that Willson Contreras, the marquee free-agent catcher signed in December to replace the retired Yadier Molina, would no longer be the primary backstop but would instead spend his time as a designated hitter and corner outfielder, drastically reducing his value. A day later, St. Louis backtracked, announcing that Contreras will DH but have a path to returning to catching duties.

What in the world?

This is jaw-dropping, panicky stuff coming from what was supposed to be a well-run organization. The Cardinals entered the season having reached the playoffs in four straight years and won at least 90 games in each of the last three full seasons; twice in those four years they took home division titles, including last year, when they went 93–69. But more than 20% into this season, they own the National League’s worst record at 11–24, three games worse than the Rockies (14–21), the NL’s next-worst team, and only three games ahead of the godforsaken A’s (8–27) for the majors’ worst record. Read the rest of this entry »

In the beginning, there was nothing. Wait, no, that’s not right — in the beginning, there was Tommy Pham. Yeah, now we’re talking. In the beginning there was Tommy Pham. Then John Mozeliak said, “Let there be a trade,” and Pham decamped for Tampa Bay, San Diego, Cincinnati, Boston, and eventually New York. In exchange, the Cardinals got a sampler platter of minor prospects: Justin Williams, Roel Ramírez, and Génesis Cabrera.

Williams and Ramírez are long gone from the St. Louis organization, but Cabrera is still going strong. That might have oversold it coming into the year — in 157.1 innings across 142 games, Cabrera had compiled a 3.95 ERA, 4.32 FIP, and 0.4 fWAR. That’s hardly an imposing line, but the Cardinals hardly had an imposing bullpen, so he fit solidly into the middle of that group heading into 2023.

He’s only pitched 11 times in 2023, but those 11 times have been revelatory. Nineteen of the 45 opponents he’s faced have struck out. Only three have walked. That’s no fluke, either; he’s so deceptive and so hard to square up that he’s recorded more called or swinging strikes than he has balls this year, by a count of 68 to 60.

That’s a huge divergence from Cabrera’s earlier career, when he struggled with both his command and with missing bats. From 2019 to 2022, he racked up 260 more called balls than called and swinging strikes. You can think of that gap as a crude measure of how much a pitcher can attack the zone or entice hitters to leave the zone without giving up too much contact. If you simply pound the strike zone with so-so stuff, you won’t get many called or swinging strikes. If you nibble ineffectually, you’ll run up a huge tally of called balls.
Read the rest of this entry »

Let’s dive right into a few incremental changes to the Top 100 prospects list, as well as a couple of non-Top 100 additions.

Cardinals lefty Matthew Liberatore has had a velo spike — he’s frequently reaching back for 96 and 97 when he wants, and his fastball is averaging 94.5 mph. That’s up about a tick and a half from his average in 2022, when he ran an ERA well north of 5.00 across about 150 combined innings split mostly between Triple-A and seven big league starts. Libby has had frequent enough velocity fluctuations during his time as a prospect to anticipate it will be a thing he deals with throughout his career, but his repertoire depth and the long-haul projection for his command will enable him to compete even when he doesn’t have his peak stuff. That’s largely why he was kept on the Top 100 this past offseason even though he had a poor 2022.

His FV isn’t changing in light of the spike (again, it’s fair to bet Liberatore’s peak velo will continue to yo-yo), but his report has been updated and he’s sliding up about 20 spots, from the very back of the list (where he sat with other bounce-back candidates) into the part of it that includes the other major league ready fourth starters. He’s probably better than Jake Woodford is right now, but St. Louis would be burning Woodford’s last option to swap them one-for-one. Woodford was effective in relief last year and could shift into that role again while a current ‘pen occupant is sent down instead, but the Cardinals don’t have an obvious candidate for that, as their big league relievers are largely either pitching well or are out of options. Read the rest of this entry »

The St. Louis Cardinals have scuffled in the early going. Even after a win against the Mariners on Sunday, their record stands at a paltry 9-13. Through the weekend, their 2.2-win dip in projected win total has been the sixth-largest decrease since the season began, and among serious contenders, their performance looks even worse: the Cards’ 22.2% decrease in divisional odds has been the league’s largest, bypassing the second-place Yankees (-19.3%), who’ve had to deal with the Rays’ historic start. Further, the Cardinals’ 18.6% drop in playoff odds is second only to the White Sox (-20.1%), who’ve played even worse at 7-15. But what’s plaguing the Redbirds?

We knew that their starting pitching was a weakness coming into the season, and it’s been even worse than advertised. We pegged their starting staff as the 20th-best during our positional power rankings, and they’re 26th in both ERA and WAR, and aren’t much better by FIP (24th), even after a stellar Sunday performance from Jack Flaherty. Though we anticipated his absence at the time, perhaps we underestimated the impact that Adam Wainwright’s early-season injury recovery would have on the staff as a whole. Nevertheless, the Cards’ pitching woes have been within our margin for error. On the other hand, their lack of outfield production has been more surprising.

Going from left to right field, we ranked the Cards 15th, eighth, and ninth in our positional power rankings. Their outfield bats have been solid if unspectacular thus far, with their 104 wRC+ tying for 13th in the league. Yet, their defense has dragged them down: by OAA, UZR, and DRS, they tie for 25th, have sole possession of 26th, and are in a four-way tie for 23rd, respectively. That all adds up to a WAR figure of just 0.3, good (or bad) for 21st in the league. Read the rest of this entry »

Jordan Walker, the Cardinals’ phenomenal young outfielder, is off to a scintillating start to the season. In his first 10 games, he’s hitting an impressive .326/.370/.512, comfortably better than league average. The Cardinals promoted Walker to the majors despite a positional logjam, and he’s done nothing to make their job easier; he looks like a foundational part of their future. And oh yeah, maybe you’ve heard, he’s on quite the hitting streak.

You probably didn’t come here for a lecture from me, but here’s a quick one about hitting streaks. I think they’re really cool. I think it’s amazing that Walker is now in second place for the longest hitting streak to start a career for players under 21 years old, and that he passed Ted Williams for that honor. That’s awesome, and I’m sure that he’ll treasure that memory for years to come. Eleven games! It’s truly amazing. I just don’t think it’s useful for my purposes, which is to wonder how good Jordan Walker is. Here’s one example of a hit that kept Walker’s streak alive, the sole hit he recorded on April 3:

That’s clearly a hit, and I’d even say that it’s a good piece of hitting. What does it have to do with how well Walker is adjusting to the majors? Not much, I’d venture to say. The streak is a tremendous achievement, it’s super cool, and I don’t think it’s worth mentioning beyond that. Read the rest of this entry »

The ribbon has been cut on the 2023 season and I wanted to push a few prospect updates live to The Board, including a few tweaks to the Top 100 list. This update also includes publication of scouting reports such that every rookie currently on an active roster now has a current record on The Board, and a few additions the farm systems I’ve already audited during this cycle based on things I saw during spring training.

Let’s start with injury-related updates to the Top 100. Phillies top prospect Andrew Painter has a partially torn UCL and is approaching the end of his four-week shutdown period. Rule of thumb: Among a similarly talented group of players, you’d most want to have the healthy guys. Painter slides from fifth overall to 12th, right behind newly minted big leaguers Anthony Volpe and Jordan Walker, who are comparably talented, healthy, and making a big league impact right now. This is just a cosmetic change to the list; Painter’s evaluation hasn’t changed. If it turns out he needs Tommy John, whether or not I slide him any further will depend on its timing. If rest doesn’t work and his surgery is timed such that he also misses all of 2024, that’s the worst case scenario for Painter and the Phillies. We know for sure that Nationals pitching prospect Cade Cavalli needs Tommy John, so in a similar fashion he falls within the 50 FV player tier, sliding from 63rd overall to 99th, right next to Mason Miller of the A’s, with whom he now shares injury-related relief risk.

Tigers prospect Jackson Jobe, the third overall pick in 2021, is going to miss three to six months due to lumbar spine inflammation. This injury is more novel than a TJ, and Jobe isn’t exactly coming off a great 2022. Unfortunately, this situation merits a more meaningful shift, but I still want to reflect the upside of a healthy Jobe, so he downshifts to the 45+ FV tier, where the most talented of the young high-variance prospects reside. Assuming he comes back late this season, he’ll be one of the higher-priority evaluations in the minors. Read the rest of this entry »

Justin Verlander wasn’t scheduled to start on Thursday, but he couldn’t even make it to the first pitch of his first Opening Day as a Met unscathed. The 40-year-old righty officially opened the season on the injured list due to a low-grade strain of his teres major, and while his absence isn’t expected to be a lengthy one, it comes at the tail end of a spring in which the Mets already lost starter José Quintana for about half the season and closer Edwin Diaz for most if not all of it.

Unfortunately, Verlander isn’t the only frontline starter to be sidelined by a teres major strain this week, as the Guardians’ Triston McKenzie recently suffered a more serious strain of the same muscle. Likewise, Verlander isn’t the only big-name hurler for a New York team who was sidelined this week (the Yankees’ Luis Severino is out again), nor is he the only NL East starter to turn up lame on Thursday (the Braves’ Max Fried took an early exit), or the only over-40 star whose plans took a turn (the Cardinals’ Adam Wainwright missed his Opening Day assignment). If it’s not a party until something gets broken, it’s not a new baseball season until a star pitcher goes down. Perhaps the only consolation to be had in this round-up is that all of these injuries are muscle strains of some sort rather than ligaments or tendons. Read the rest of this entry »

The Cardinals have put themselves in a bit of a bind. They take sustainability seriously, building to compete both now and tomorrow. They never rebuild, never go all in, and always balance the present and future responsibly. If your goal is to win forever, you have to think about more than just the next year when you make a decision. For all that focus on long-term planning, though, they have a lackluster rotation, and it’s slated to get a lot worse after this year.

Of St. Louis’ top five starting options, only one, Steven Matz, came into the spring under contract for 2024. That might not be a problem if there were a heaping helping of starting pitching prospects knocking on the door to the major league clubhouse, but there aren’t. Gordon Graceffo isn’t far off, and if you’re willing to do a lot of projecting, Tink Hence might be major league ready before too long, but the up-and-down fifth starters and swingmen with live arms that other teams use to bulk up their starting rotation in times of need don’t really exist here.

Now, the Cardinals have two starters under contract for 2024 after signing Miles Mikolas to a contract extension that will pay him $40 million for the 2024 and ’25 seasons, as Derrick Goold first reported. That doesn’t exactly create a complete 2024 starting rotation, but it’s twice as many pitchers as St. Louis had before last Friday. Bam, problem solved! Read the rest of this entry »