Here is what to look for with the Cardinals newest reliever
This morning while I was brushing my teeth the St. Louis Cardinals were busy making deals. Just before 8:00am they announced they had signed free agent pitcher Phil Maton to a one-year deal. It was later announced the deal is for one-year, $2 million. Back in January we looked at some free agent pitchers that might be able to fill the role previously occupied by Andrew Kittredge — someone to pitch a lot of high leverage innings. We looked at a few options. Phil Maton was not one of them.
So let’s take a look at him now! The first thing to like is, being from Paducah, Kentucky, he probably grew up a Cardinals fan. From this we know he has impeccable taste and good judgement. Looking strictly at baseball though it is less clear what we can expect. In his last four seasons he has pitched over 60 innings in each, which will certainly help the Cardinals pick up some of those Kittredge innings. During those seasons he has a strikeout rate as high as 28%, but he walked a lot of batters too. Over the course of his career he has walked 9% of batters and last season when his strikeout rate dipped down to 23% that walk rate stayed right around 9%. It looks like he might struggle to control his pitches a little bit, especially the sweeper, which he throws a little over 22% of the time.
His pitching arsenal mainly consists of a cutter, a curveball, the sweeper, and a sinker. He has thrown the cutter on and off during his career and completely abandoned it in 2022, which was one of the worst seasons of his career at -0.1 fWAR. In 2023 he brought the cutter back and completely ditched his four-seamer, which worked out better for him. He brought his arm angle back up from where he had slightly dropped it for 2022 and started throwing his curveball more than any other pitch. His curveball was his most valuable pitch in 2023 and to my eye, maybe his best today. He threw it over 40% of the time and right at the bottom of the zone. It has a .169 batting average against it and an over 36% Wiff rate.
He mixed up his strategy again in 2024 — being a bit of a journeyman from 2.5 seasons with the San Diego Padres to 2.5 seasons with Cleveland to 3 seasons with the Houston Astros to a half season each with the Tampa Bay Rays and the New York Mets he has probably had his share of advice from several different coaches. In 2024, Maton threw his cutter more often than his curveball. This might have been a good change to make even that season if his 2024 did not turn out as good as 2023. The curveball would sometimes miss over the middle of the zone last season, but that cutter pretty consistently hit at the top of the zone. He doesn’t throw any pitch hard, only hitting 88.7 mph on average with his cutter, but he can generate some pretty good movement. The cutter moves up vertically more than a lot of other cutters.
Despite not seeming to have overpowering stuff, Maton manages to induce a lot of weak contact. He is very frequently in the top tenth percentile in pitchers in exit velocity and hard hit percentage. Last season he was in the top 8 percent with an average exit velocity of 86.5 mph. His curveball in particular has been a pitch that doesn’t seem to get hit square very often. It had an average exit velocity of 82.6 mph last season with a .272 slugging percentage against.
Like I mentioned earlier, it is a little hard to evaluate Maton. He is a pitcher that to me seems like he should have much better results than he has had but weirdly also seems like he should have much worse results too. The walks are brutal and for high leverage innings, those are some of the last things you want, especially a pitcher that really likes to lean on his curveball. There is good stuff there though and the curveball and cutter particularly work well with each other. Here is a good cutter moving up and in to a lefty:
And here is a 1-2 curveball that just spins and spins that Chris Taylor never stood a chance on:
The Cardinals had a need and Maton seems like a sensible means to address it. And if he can figure out how to get those walks down just a little bit, the Cardinals just might have a steal.