May they have the spirit to win, so we can have a heavenly experience watching the Cardinals
The Cardinals shocked many by opening their season with their entire team – offense, defense, starting, bullpen- firing on all cylinders. The Twins are a solid team – maybe they’re headed for a worse season than I’d expect – but the Cardinals faced their three best starters and hit two of them. They hit off a pretty solid bullpen too – we didn’t see much of their high leverage guys but we hit off both Griffin Jax and Jhoan Duran. So it wasn’t just feasting on the bad part of the bullpen. And of course, the bullpen allowed one total run from the Cards side.
Now we are entering kind of a perfect sophomore series challenge. Here’s why. For starters, the 4th and 5th starters are pitching in two of the three games. You can maybe question how good Sonny Gray, Erick Fedde, and Andre Pallante will be, but there’s little question all three will usually put the Cardinals in a good position to win if the offense decides to show up. There is definitely a question on both Miles Mikolas and Matthew Liberatore.
Secondly, the Los Angeles Angels are not good. The Cardinals are going to lose series to teams like the Angels no matter how good they end up, but it’d kind of put a damper on the optimism if they didn’t manage to win this series. So it’s dipping your toes into a challenge. Here’s the weaker part of your starting rotation – probably – but we’re going to have you face one of the weaker teams in baseball.
What they lost
Griffin Canning, who was not good at all last year though he did make 32 starts last season. In theory, any schlub from AAA could replicate his performance. We know how that works of course. They also lost Patrick Sandoval, who they non-tender when he needed surgery to repair a torn UCL. It was a cheap decision, since he later signed with the Red Sox for 2 years, $18 million. He would have been paid $5.5 million and like $8 million in arbitration.
They traded backup catcher Matt Thais for cash. He was a typical backup catcher, so no loss there. And that’s kind of it. They weren’t particularly good last season and one positive to that is you usually don’t lose much.
What they added
They lost two members of their starting rotation, albeit one is injured. So they added two in response. They signed Yusei Kikuchi to a 3 year, $63 million deal, an utterly baffling deal for a team that won 63 games last year. Less confusing, though certainly with worse results (against teams other than the Cardinals) is the signing of Kyle Hendricks who is costing them $2.5 million. To replace the backup catcher, they signed Travis d’Arnaud.
They picked up three shortstops, all of whom are on the 40 man roster. They added Kevin Newman, who doesn’t really hit enough or have good enough defense to be starter-material. They added Nicky Lopez, who is an excellent defender who can’t hit at all. And they’re going to try Tim Anderson, who is somehow getting another shot at the MLB after his 27 wRC+ last year. They signed Anderson’s former teammate, Yoan Moncada to play 3B.
When they traded Canning, they received Jorge Soler in return. So they picked up a DH with two years left on his contract, hoping he bounces back. They signed Kenley Jansen to close games, because I guess they think they’re going to win this year? Or at least have to pretend like it. They traded for – and this is a good rebuild move – Ian Anderson, currently in their bullpen, but probably ideally starting if he ever figures it out. And lastly, they picked up Garrett McDaniels in the Rule 5. Spring training stats don’t matter, but he struck out 11% of batters in spring while also walking 11% in spring.
What’s the same
Mike Trout is here. Couple things different about Mike Trout being here is that he’s healthy and that’s not always the case. And he’s playing RF. Taking Trout’s place is Jo Adell, who was not especially good in RF, so I’m sure that will go swimmingly. Logan O’Hoppe is still a good hitting catcher, who has already hit a homer this season. Taylor Ward takes the third outfield spot.
Kyren Paris had a 190 wRC+ during spring training, so he is very much their Victor Scott in terms of really, really bad debut season (Paris was also very bad in AAA) and a hot spring training puts them on the roster. Paris didn’t start either of the first two games though, so that’s confusing. (He did start yesterday and went 1-3). Luis Rengifo is also still here, and he’s been in LA since 2019, so a sneaky long time. And Nolan Schanuel is still at 1B. Maybe he’ll get some power this year.
Monday – 6:45 PM
Tyler Anderson (3.81 ERA/4.66 FIP/4.85 xFIP) vs. Miles Mikolas (5.35 ERA/4.24 FIP/4.04 xFIP)
Wow talk about opposite pitchers. Anderson has been slightly better by ERA than the other two stats in his career, but not close to that extent. The 35-year-old might be in for a rough season, and I for one think it’d be good if the Cardinals kick-started that. Mikolas, well let’s hope the advanced stats are onto something and we see a bounceback year without him necessarily improving as a pitcher.
Kyle Hendricks (5.92 ERA/4.98 FIP/4.59 xFIP) vs. Matthew Liberatore (4.40 ERA/4.11 FIP/4.17 xFIP)
Angels fans reading this. I’ve got some good news and bad news. The good news is that you’re probably going to win tonight. I know you see 5.92 ERA and think that’s a lost game. Trust me. You’re going to win. The bad news is that you’re going to get excited about how good Kyle Hendricks looks and it’s going to be a total misrepresentation of what to expect. Tomorrow will be the highlight of Hendrick’s tenure as an Angel.
Liberatore, we’ve got a win-win on our hands. It may seem like a lose-lose. But if you’re bad, well don’t worry you had no shot, Hendricks is pitching. No need to waste a great start on a loss. If you’re great, well that’s also good because you may have a limited amount of opportunities and being bad against the Angels probably won’t help.
Brant Brown, if you’re reading this, I have no authority to do this, but I feel confident both John Mozeliak and Chaim Bloom would agree with me, but I’m going to give you a lifetime contract if the Cardinals hit Kyle Hendricks. This is official. Use this paragraph as evidence after the game. They will have no choice but to give you the contract.
Wednesday – 12:15 PM
Yusei Kikuchi (4.05 ERA/3.46 FIP/3.20 xFIP) vs. Sonny Gray (3.84 ERA/3.12 FIP/2.82 xFIP)
Oh hey we’ve reach our first matchup that has 2025 stats. Nonetheless for probably April, I will continue using 2024 stats. Just too small a sample. Kikuchi had a fairly strong start in his debut as an Angel, albeit it was a loss and he gave up 3 runs in 6 innings. But he didn’t walk a batter and struck out 5, and I’m going to go out on a limb here and say if he does that for 32 starts, he’s in Cy Young contention. (He will usually not allow 3 runs if he does that)
Interestingly, with the Twins series, I said I was surprised at how well the pitching matchups… matched up. Kind of the opposite here. Kind of disappointing how closely the pitching matchups… match up. Sorry it just fits. I mean statistically, it does kind of look like they have the edge, but if you throw in a potential lefty pitcher problem that the Cards had last year and the magic curse that Kyle Hendricks possesses, it’s really easy to see how the Cards would have the worst performing starter in each game. But the Angels don’t have an especially strong bullpen, so that might not matter.