3 players the St. Louis Cardinals must consider trading, and 1 they absolutely can’t
By Josh Wilson
Players the Cardinals need to consider trading: Jack Flaherty, P
Jack Flaherty started this year telling us he was going to be a cynical menace on the mound, but ultimately, the joke was on the Cardinals… Flaherty’s ERA this season is the second-highest of his career, and his WHIP is the second-worst among the four Cardinals starters that have made 10 starts or more.
The curveball has completely escaped him. Last year it had a -3 run value, this year it’s +3, a change six runs in the wrong direction. Last year batters were hitting that with an average of .150, this year, .212, though it remains his best pitch in terms of swing & miss percentage at nearly 50%.
Flaherty, like many starting pitchers, utilizes a 4-seam fastball as his most-used pitch, but he is on the slower side at 92.9 miles per hour on average. The only Cardinals starter with a slower four-seamer is Wainwright, who throws his less than five percent of the time.
Excluding Wainwright who has missed a large portion of the year, only Steven Matz (0) has fewer quality starts than Flaherty (3), whereas Montgomery has five such starts and Miles Mikolas has four.
Looking solely at his arsenal, Flaherty actually might be better positioned as a relief pitcher if any team has the willingness to change his role mid-season.
Trading Flaherty, or really any pitcher, would be incumbent on the Cardinals getting an incoming upgrade to the rotation. Yesterday we discussed how the White Sox’s Lucas Giolito has been rumored in connection with St. Louis, who would be the kind of player they need to get in to make a compensatory outgoing deal involving the rotation.
Giolito is performing better than every member of the Cardinals rotation this year, and he brings one of the deadliest fastballs this year that would be far superior to Flaherty’s, despite it clocking at the same speed.