Some of you may remember a hit TV show that aired on ABC for seven seasons, from 1985 through 1992. Later on, starting in 2016, there was a reboot of the series on CBS that lasted six years.
The show was “MacGyver”, and it gained extra pop-culture life in 2007 with a dozen or more skits on Saturday Night Live starring the very funny Will Forte in the role originally made popular by actor Richard Dean Anderson. But Forte’s character – unlike Richard Dean Anderson’s version – always screwed things up in comically inept failure.
The “real” MacGyver character was a clever, resourceful secret agent who repeatedly solved crises and saved the day by defusing complex, imminent and extremely dangerous threats. He did it by using his scientific knowledge and plain, everyday objects.
MacGyver refused to carry a gun or other weapons of the secret-agent trade. He was the anti-Bond … no James Bond. No, MacGyver’s go-to arsenal included his trusty Swiss Army Knife, duct tape, and paper clips. Plus a zillion other things that you could find in that junk drawer you keep in your own house.
By now you are probably wondering: Bernie, this is a Redbird Review column, so why are you yammering about ‘MacGyver?’ Is there a point? Where are you going with this?
That’s a good question. And I do have an answer: the St. Louis Cardinals have their own MacGyver – and even his name is similar.
He’s not a MacGyver … he’s a McGreevy.
As in Michael McGreevy.
Michael McGreevy who is the MacGyver of major-league starting pitchers.
Work with me on this; you’ll come to understand the analogy.
It starts with this: how is Michael McGreevy doing what he’s doing? The right-hander throws a four-seam fastball that kind of rolls in at a harmless 90, 91 miles per hour. His velocity intimidates no one.
Like MacGyver, McGreevy doesn’t use a gun. He isn’t well armed, but he is dangerous. And at least part of that is because MLB hitters do not fear him. He is so … normal. He is a non-threat to their batting average. He’s just a dude.
Or so they assume …
Wrongly assume.
Every now and then McGreevy has a high-strikeout game, as was the case Friday night in the Cardinals’ win at San Diego. McGreevy befuddled the Padres over six shutout innings, allowing just one measly hit and striking out nine.
Early this season MacGyver – I mean, uh, McGreevy – blanked the Rays for six scoreless innings (how?) without conceding a hit (what!) and struck out 24 percent of his batters faced (typo?)
On May 2, the mighty Dodgers could not muster a run against the McGreevy MacGyver hybrid in six innings.
In eight starts this season, McGreevy has a 2.18 ERA that ranks 12th overall and 9th in the National League among the 83 starting pitchers that have logged 40+ innings.
If you look at the list of top earned-run averages by starting pitchers so far in 2026, you’ll find McGreevy’s name above Chris Sale, Jacob deGrom, Tarik Skubal, Max Fried, Dylan Cease, Sandy Alcantara, Shota Imanaga, Jacob Misiorowski, Robby Ray, Bryan Woo, Freddy Peralta, Michael King, Framber Valdez, Eduardo Rodriguez, Joe Ryan, Logan Webb and MacKenzie Gore.
Oh, and you will find McGreevy-MacGyver ranked 67th among the 83 starters with his average of 6.5 strikeouts per nine innings.
You should also know that the stat geeks (and I am one) are examining the metrics and the analytics and the underlying this or that … and muttering to themselves … or writing lectures on why McGreevy will get blown up, why his baseball-card ERA is meaningless, why he is doomed to fail, why he shouldn’t be taken seriously.
Data, data, data.
Yada, yada, yada.
I do not agree with these prevailing views, even though I respect many of the people who espouse them.
Why? Probably because I’ve actually watched McGreevy pitch a lot. And I know how smart he is. I think he’s pretty damn special. Because, well, you know – he knows how to pitch. Imagine that.
And if this was just a smoke-and-mirrors act, a few things don’t add up. When the hitters do get the chance to barrel a McGreevy pitch, they have done violent things to it.
There’s the four-seam fastball which has been bruised for an expected slugging percentage of .632. Only five percent of big-league pitchers have a lower fastball velocity than McGreevy. They chase McGreevy’s pitches out of the strike zone at a rate that’s way below league average. His whiff-swing rate is higher than only 18% of big-league hurlers. That sounds like a very hittable hurler.
With so much “blue” on his Statcast page – and blue means bad – there is no way this dude can be walking around with a 2.18 ERA in his back pocket. He can’t possibly have a lower ERA than Skubal, deGrom, Sale, and the Big Miz kid in Milwaukee.
There’s no way MacGyver-McGreevy can continue thinking and plotting and wriggling out of these jams with that average four-seam fastball, and that dinky strikeout rate, and two other pitches (sweeper, slider) that have “hit me” written above the stitches.
You cannot thrive in the modern form of pitching when you can’t miss bats, you can’t get hitters to chase your non-strikes. Or you will not survive when the hitters can barrel the snot out of your pitches.
The power-driven hitters in a power-obsessed game will do substantial harm to the McGreevy ERA with their “ideal attack angle” swings. (Translation: Ball hit hard! Ball go far!)
For the love of Omar Olivares, the contact rate against McGreevy on pitches in the strike zone is a bloody 91.2 percent. Doomed, the nerds tell us.
Except, yeah, McGreevy can get away with just about all of that.
That’s because McGreevy is MacGyver.
An ingenious man with proven methods for escape. That’s all there is to it. Just like MacGyver.
Just give McGreevy his version of some duct tape, a few paper clips, his Swiss Army knife, some loose chocolate bars, a couple of trash bags, maybe a little weed killer, and some table salt.
Hell, the TV MacGyver once escaped the villains by constructing a fully operational ultralight aircraft using bamboo poles, trash bags, and duct tape.
Heck, when the ordinary-looking McGreevy has pitched in high-leverage situations during his big-league career, he’s allowed seven hits in 42 at-bats.
So knowing all of that, why must a pitcher throw between 96-100 mph to be taken seriously? What’s the big deal? I didn’t realize this was a Mr. Universe competition or something.
In McGreevy’s collection of self-made tools, you’ll find a poison-drenched changeup, and a sinker with teeth. A couple of other concoctions in his pitch mix are effective against the bad guys – yeah, even when we look at the “expected” stats. I’m talking about his cutter and curve ball.
But when backed into a corner with no way out, that’s when McGreevy makes like MacGyver and reaches for his trusty changeup and bat-deadening sinker.
Let’s do a quick review of McGreevy’s MacGyver-approved solutions:
The McGreevy-MacGyver Changeup: opponents are batting .114 against this sleight of hand, with a so-.170 slug. The expected stats are good for this pitch as well. His whiff-swing rate on it is 33 percent. The hard-hit rate against the change is 22%, and hitters have barreled this slow ball only 6 percent of the time. When they connect with the change, their ground-ball rate is 51 percent and they’ve hit into three double plays.
And this is the pitch that they’ll chase. McGreevy’s changeup dives down and out of the zone and generates a significantly higher whiff/swing rate compared to the league-average changeup. When McGreevy lures them into chasing it, opponent bats are 0 for 11 with five strikeouts, a 61% whiff-swing rate, and a strikeout rate of 41.7. That’s doing the McGyver!
It’s a lovely pitch – one that couldn’t break an old glass window. But the changeup does break major-league hitters.
The Sinker: Like I said, this devilish little sinker has teeth. Or maybe a fish hook. This season the poor hitters are 2 for 27 against the McGreevy-MacGyver sinker, have pounded the thing into a 62 percent ground-ball rate, and slapped into two double plays.
These are elite pitches. Not lucky pitches. McGreevy’s sinker and change are two of the very best pitches in MLB this season. I am not exaggerating. According to the Statcast assessment, McGreevy has a Run Value of 7 on the sinker, and a Run Value on the changeup.
I’ll put that in context: among the 117 MLB pitchers that have thrown at least 100 sinkers this season, McGreevy’s sinker is tied for the second-best “grade” And his changeup is tied for the eighth-best “grade” among 72 big-league pitchers that have used the pitch at least 100 times in 2026.
The ultimate McGreevy-MacGyver stat: I must say that I really dig this one. I’m so burned out reading or hearing about McGreevy’s blah four-seam fastball, his weak strike-out punch, the “luck” factor and the coming implosion when the metrics go BOOM and dynamite his nice-looking ERA. It’s gonna happen! This is a mirage! A magic act!
Can that really be true when McGreevy has two elite pitches that muffles hitters? What about his six percent walk rate, which is one of the lowest in the majors? Does he get any credit for that – or for the bushels of ground-ball outs? What about McGreevy’s intuitive touch on sequencing pitches? That’s artful work, and it gives him a mental edge. Among the skeptics, the glaring inconsistency in judging McGreevy is laughable.
OK, so here’s the best McGreevy stat of all. This season, via Statcast, McGreevy has a Pitching Run Value that places him in the 93rd percentile among all MLB pitchers.
That means he’s better than 93% of the pitchers in the show. Is that a fake metric? His fastball (sinker) is in the 98th percentile – which is about as close to perfection as it gets. His offspeed-pitch quality is in the 96th percentile. A couple of notches below perfection.
I suppose I’m confused. As I said, I’m a stat geek for sure. That means I trust Statcast information and analysis that is straight up and objective. But I don’t have an urge to downgrade a guy, McGreevy, who pitches so skillfully and is verified by Statcast.
McGreevy is not only the MacGyver of big-league pitchers, I’m going to put another name on him as a match.
Kyle Hendricks.
A low-velo fastball righty that had a changeup that drove opposing hitters bananas. (Especially the Cardinals.) Hendricks had a career strikeout rate of 19 percent.
I also see some Mark Buerhle (13.6% career strikeout rate) in McGreevy.
I see some late-career Adam Wainwright in McGreevy. Not the 2023 Wainwright in his final season – but the 2021 and ‘22 Waino who still had the right stuff to tame hitters even if he wasn’t wiping ‘em out with a bunch of strikeouts.
Back to McGreevy …
Tell me how a guy that’s rated higher than 93 percent of the pitchers in major-league ball is marked down and waved off as some kind of lucky-fella pretender? This isn’t all about luck or variance. Sometimes it’s about the art of pitching.
Look, if McGreevy’s changeup deteriorates and his sinker elevates or he starts leaving those pitches – his Swiss Army knife and duct tape – in a hitter’s hot zone …
Well, of course opponents will beat him up. But can’t we say that about most pitchers?
Nope. McGreevy is MacGyver. He’ll find a solution. And this is a good thing.
MacGyver had a long, successful run in the ratings. Which is the Statcast for TV shows. McGreevy has much better Statcast numbers than a lot of folks would assume.
In 27 MLB starts McGreevy is 12-6 with a 3.65 ERA and the Cardinals have won the game in 67 percent of his career starts.
McGreevy is the type of starting pitcher that makes old-school baseball people and fans break out beaming in a smile.
Why? Because he walks to the mound and he knows what he’s doing. Knows how to stay ahead of the hitters. Throws with sharp location. Has two different pitches that are extremely difficult for hitters to handle – with two other effective pitches to go with it.
McGreevy has a message for the metrics:
Pipe down.
Be quiet.
Shut up.
That’s why we love watching him pitch. He can beat the other team … and he can beat the spreadsheets.
McGreevy is on a MacGyver mission. He has some pitching to do and he’ll do a helluva job of preventing runs.
Yes, oddly enough I think that still matters.
A starting pitcher who gives up the fewest number of runs has a terrific chance of winning. A starter who wins the strikeout competition in the same pitching matchup is assured of absolutely nothing if he gives up too many runs in the game. And run support is a large factor.
There is no one-style-fits-all approach to successful pitching. Some pitchers know how to pitch better than others – even if they’re lacking a heavy swing-and-miss component in their arsenal.
And some pitchers handle pressure situations better than others do. I do believe that McGreevy is one of them.
Which reminds me of one of MacGyver’s best lines during one of the many shows:
“Well, when it comes down to me against a situation, I don’t like the situation to win."
Thanks for reading …
–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.