I was curious to see where the great Eno Sarris placed the St. Louis starting pitchers in his updated “Stuff+” ratings published at The Athletic.
What the heck is Stuff+?
From the sabermetrics library:
Stuff+ is a sabermetric model that quantifies the "nastiness" or physical quality of a pitcher's pitches based entirely on their physical characteristics rather than the actual results of the play.
Developed primarily by Eno Sarris and now featured on sites like FanGraphs, the metric uses machine learning to evaluate how difficult a pitch is to hit based on its movement, velocity, and release point.
Hence the term, “hey, that pitcher has great stuff.”
Sarris ranked MLB starting pitchers, in order, from No. 1 through No. 125. Among Cardinals, it went like this:
Dustin May, No. 79
Matthew Liberatore, No. 81
Kyle Leahy, No. 116
Michael McGreevy, No. 122
What about Andre Pallante? Well, the right-hander didn’t make the Top 125. Projections on each pitcher for the remainder of the season was part of the equation in the Sarris ratings.
In Stuff+ a score of 100 is league average. Dustin May was the only above-average starter in “stuff” at 103. Then came Liberatore (99), Pallante (94), Leahy (89) and McGreevy (76.)
Pallante’s 94 grade would have been enough to make the Top 125 – but again, the rest-of-season projections undoubtedly bumped Pallante from the first 125. I sourced Pallante’s 94 score – six percent below league average – from FanGraphs. The site uses the Sarris system.
It’s more evidence showing us that the Cardinals are on the low end of MLB teams for quality of starting pitching.
On the team version of Stuff+ the St. Louis rotation came in at No. 29, with a below-average score of 94. According to the metric, the one area of strength is the STL rotation’s collective ability to locate pitches. Other than that, it’s a dismal look.
Going by my other go-to stats and metrics at FanGraphs, Cardinals starters are 24th in ERA (4.65), 27th in FIP (4.90), 28th in WAR (0.2), 29th in expected ERA (6.17), and are 19% below league average in ERA that’s adjusted for park and league effects.
The starters’ walk rate wasn’t as bad as I assumed. They have the ninth-lowest rate by a MLB rotation at 3.07 walks per nine innings.
Cardinal starting pitchers have the poorest strikeout rate (13.5%) among the 30 MLB rotations. The overall St. Louis pitching staff is also 30th with a strikeout rate of 15.4%. I’ve covered all of this before but want to dig deeper on this subject. The Cards starters also get fewer swings and misses than any MLB rotation.
Whenever I get this feeling – “hey, maybe the 2026 Cardinals contend for a playoff spot” – I snap out of it by remembering something: starting pitching puts the Cardinals at an enormous disadvantage.
And I cannot emphasize this enough. The most essential area of this team is a liability that will prevent the Cardinals from keeping traction for sustained success. So there’s no point to talk about the playoffs – and certainly not on April 17.
Let’s review the specific flaws that have created a predicament:
– The STL starting pitchers have put the team in early deficits too often this season. The Cards starters have a first-inning ERA of 6.00, giving up a .278 average and .836 OPS. Over the first four innings of a game, the Cards starting-pitching ERA is 4.92 – the sixth worst in the majors. And opponents have batted .284 with a .792 OPS, nine homers, and 13 doubles against Cardinal starters over the first four frames. The Cardinals offense can manufacture runs and steal wins – but only if the game stays relatively close and within reach in the first four or five innings.
– Cardinal starting pitchers are allowing 10.1 hits per nine innings, which ranks 30th.
– Include the walks and the hit-by-pitch incidents, and St. Louis starting pitchers have allowed 14.1 base runners per nine innings. That ranks 29th.
– Let’s break it down by looking at the five Cards starters and how many runners they’ve yielded per nine innings:
Leahy, 16.07
May, 15.4
Liberatore, 14.6
Pallante, 13.8
McGreevy, 7.06
About McGreevy: this is why he has a 2.49 ERA. Relative to the others, McGreevy keeps the bases clean, having walked only three hitters in 21 and ⅔ innings. That’s an average of 0.83 walks per nine innings. And he’s given up a reasonable 6.2 hits per nine. McGreevy doesn’t pitch himself into trouble as often as the other Cards starters. So he has less trouble to deal with. But … Can McGreevy sustain this? The sabermetric community is highly skeptical.
– Because the Cards starters currently rank last in the majors in strikeouts, an overwhelming majority of their plate appearances are ending in a Batted Ball Event (BBE).
– The rotation estimate for total Batted Ball Events is approximately 385–395 BBE. It’s estimated that roughly 78% of all plate appearances against St. Louis starters result in a ball in play. That’s well above the estimated MLB average of 68-70%. Which means the Cardinals’ defense, relative to other clubs, is responsible for recording at least 10 percent more of the outs secured via contact.
– A large percentage of the batted balls in play against Cards starting pitchers is hard contact. The rotation has been smashed for a hard-hit rate (95+ mph exit velocity) of 45.6%, which is the third highest in the majors.
– More trouble: the Cardinals' rotation currently ranks dead last in the majors with a collective whiff-swing rate of 16.1 percent. The overall league rate for whiff swings by starting pitchers is around 25 percent – and several rotation groups have a whiff-swing percentage of 28% or higher. That means St. Louis starters are missing approximately 12% fewer bats on whiff-swings than the league's best rotations.
– Here’s why that matters: Because Cards starters struggle to miss bats, and have such a poor whiff-swing profile, they’re also horrendous at finishing hitters off on two-strike counts. The STL rotation has a 26.5 percent strikeout rate on two-strike counts. The overall MLB strikeout rate on two-strike counts is 42 percent. This is ridiculous.
– And this disparity leads to considerably more damage. Because the Cardinals currently have the most contact-prone staff in the majors, think about it this way: It makes their high rate of baserunners allowed per nine innings even more problematic because they can’t fire strikeouts to escape the heavy traffic on the bases … the high-volume traffic that they create.
– The Cards starters have one of the highest rates in the majors for most batters faced when pitching with men on base. And sure enough, STL starters have an 8.18 ERA when pitching with runners on – including an 8.36 ERA with men on over the first four innings.
For the love of Ozzie Smith, how high would this rotation ERA blow up without the protection provided by the exceptional Cardinals’ defense?
The Cards lead the majors in Outs Above Average (10) and have one of the best infields in the game. Infielders Masyn Winn, JJ Wetherholt, Nolan Gorman and Alec Burleson have combined for 11 Outs Above Average, tops in the NL. And because of the high contact rate against the St. Louis starters, the infielders on average are required to make four or five additional plays per game. That really adds up over 162 games. And the pitchers can count on center fielder Victor Scott and right fielder Jordan Walker to prevent runs.
I’ll say this for the Cardinals starting rotation: they’re turning back the clock to the good old days when strikeouts weren’t as important. This actually works against the Cardinals because strikeout levels continue to rise, and these high advanced totals limit the number of runners that can get on base to set up scoring opportunities.
In the 1960s, MLB starting pitchers averaged 5.7 strikeouts per nine innings. But that rate has steadily increased through the decades, especially since the beginning of the 1990s.
So far this season, major-league starting pitchers have struck out 8.58 batters per nine innings.
Well, not the Cardinals.
Their starters are averaging 5.24 strikeouts per nine, and that’s on track to become the lowest rate by a St. Louis rotation in a full season since 1993.
Another Cards rotation averaged exactly 5.24 strikeouts per nine innings – but it happened a long, long time ago …
The 1964 World Series champion Cardinals to be exact. Yep. The same as the 2026 rotation. Matching strikeout rates!
Except I don’t think this ‘26 team will win the World Series.
Thanks for reading and please pardon my typos …
Have a wonderful weekend!
–Bernie
Bernie was inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame in 2023. During a St. Louis sports-media career that goes back to 1985, he’s won multiple national awards for column writing and sports-talk hosting – and was the lead sports columnist at the Post-Dispatch from 1989 through 2015. Before that Bernie spent a year at the Dallas Morning News, covering the Dallas Cowboys during Tom Landry’s final season (1988) plus the sale of the team to Jerry Jones and the hiring of Jimmy Johnson as coach. Bernie has covered several Baseball Hall of Fame managers during his media career including Tony La Russa, Whitey Herzog, Earl Weaver, Joe Torre and (as an interim) Red Schoendienst. In his career as a beatwriter and columnist, Bernie covered Pro Football Hall of Fame coaches Joe Gibbs, Tom Landry, Jimmy Johnson and Dick Vermeil on a daily basis.
Bernie has covered and written about many great St. Louis sports team athletes including Albert Pujols, Kurt Warner, Brett Hull, Yadier Molina, Adam Wainwright, Jim Edmonds, Marshall Faulk, Scott Rolen, Mark McGwire, Orlando Pace, Isaac Bruce, Torry Holt, Adam Wainwright, Chris Carpenter, Al MacInnis, Brian Sutter, Bernie Federko, Chris Pronger, Dan Dierdorf, Jackie Smith and Aeneas Williams. Bernie covered every baseball Cardinals’ postseason game from 1996 through 2014 and was there to chronicle teams that won four NL pennants and two World Series. He provided extensive coverage on the “Greatest Show” St. Louis Rams and has written extensively on the St. Louis Blues, Saint Louis U, and Mizzou football and basketball. Bernie was/is a longtime voter for the Baseball Hall of Fame, Pro Football Hall of Fame, Heisman Trophy and the St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame.
You can access his columns, videos and the podcast version of the videos here on STL Sports Central, catch him regularly on KMOX (AM or FM) as part of the Gashouse Gang, Sports Rush Hour, Sports Open Line or Sports On a Sunday Morning shows. And you can catch weekly “reunion” segments here at STL Sports Central featuring Bernie and his longtime friend Randy Karraker.