March 12: Mikolas won’t throw for the next seven to ten days, Mozeliak tells Goold. An MRI taken of his right shoulder did not reveal any structural issues but did show some inflammation. Mikolas will undergo further testing in the coming days once the inflammation subsides a bit.
March 11: Cardinals right-hander Miles Mikolas has been slowed by shoulder troubles thus far this spring, but the club received generally positive results after a wave of imaging yesterday, it seems. Manager Mike Shildt told reporters this morning that Wednesday’s wave of tests did not reveal any structural damage in Mikolas’ shoulder or elsewhere in his arm (Twitter link via Rob Rains of StlSportsPage.com). Shildt described the results as “favorable,” but he’ll also be backed off his throwing program for the time being.
It’s unclear at this point just when Mikolas will be ready to return to the mound. The Post-Dispatch’s Derrick Goold wrote yesterday that the club does not expect Mikolas to be ready to begin the regular season in the rotation, which would create some uncertainty at the back of the rotation early in the year. President of baseball operations John Mozeliak has already indicated that touted but oft-injured righty Alex Reyes will be used as a multi-inning piece out of the bullpen, with a target of around 100 innings hopefully on the docket.
At present, the Cardinals’ top three options are set with Jack Flaherty, Adam Wainwright and Kwang Hyun Kim all locked in. Righty Carlos Martinez has oscillated between starter and reliever over the course of his five-year contract extension, but given this year’s $11MM salary and the growing need for starters, it seems likely he’ll open the year in the rotation as well.
The Cards have plenty of depth options in their ranks. Righty Daniel Ponce de Leon has fared better as a reliever in his limited big league career to this point, but he does have 20 serviceable MLB starts under his belt. Fellow right-hander John Gant was used exclusively out of the ’pen in 2019-20 but also made 19 starts for the Cardinals in 2018 and threw well in that showing. Lefty Genesis Cabrera has been used primarily as a reliever in the Majors over the past two seasons but has almost exclusively started as a minor leaguer. Prospects Johan Oviedo and Jake Woodford both made their Major League debuts in 2020 as well.
It wouldn’t be a shock if the Cardinals looked into some additional starting options — they reportedly had some degree of interest in Jake Odorizzi — though the in-house depth they have should be able to hold things down as long as Mikolas isn’t in line for a significant absence. If the Cardinals do want to add some veteran depth, there are still a few free agents of note on the market, including Rick Porcello, Trevor Cahill and Homer Bailey. Others could hit the market in the coming weeks as veterans exercise opt-out provisions in non-roster deals around the league, and at least a handful of depth options figure to hit waivers as teams continue to inch closer to setting Opening Day rosters.
JACK FLAHERTY will be the NL cy-young winner this year.
Not if deGrom keeps being deGrom
Agreed
yeah. I do like Flaherty as a finalist though.
That would be incredible
He’d be about 37th on my list of possibilities for that award, probably behind other members of the Cardinals. Dude was pretty awful last year and looks awful again in Spring. League has totally figured him out and he can’t find the strike zone.
Making predictions based on Spring Training is stupid.
He made 9 starts in 2020, also a stupid sample to draw conclusions from. He gave up 22 runs in those 9 starts (40 innings) and 9 of them came in one game against Milwaukee (3 innings).
In fairness, and I am a Cardinal fan, Flaherty has a very small window of elite performance. So if you want to talk about sample sizes cool.
Flaherty seems like a flake to me. Hopefully I am wrong.
2018 – 151 IP, 116 ERA+, 3.86 FIP
2019 – 196 IP, 154 ERA+, 3.46 FIP
He’s not Jacob deGrom, but he’s also younger today than deGrom was as a rookie. I’ll rather bet on Flaherty than against him.
making predictions based on who your favorite team isn’t wise either.
I do not predict that Jack Flaherty will win the NL Cy Young. You can take that to the bank.
When I said I’d rather bet on Flaherty than against him, I meant on him being an ace-caliber pitcher, not on winning the 2021 Cy Young.
Max Scherzer is generally mediocre in spring training. (and usually has a midling 1st regular season start on top of that) spring training is a terrible measuring stick
@dark so was bummgarner i wanna say it was with 12’ or 14 and bum had an era of 10+ and the media was asking what’s wrong. bum went nothing it’s st i working and experimenting with stuff i’ll be fine when the season starts
@seamaholic You clearly need to educate yourself. Flaherty had one bad start last year and it was a doozy. Otherwise, he had nothing but quality starts. Nice try tho, Jan.
I’d like to see seamaholic’s list of 36 NL pitchers ahead of Flaherty.
Cole Hamels is available. Let’s sign him.
Hamels is a fart in the wind, he’s there, you can smell it, but there is no good scat, I can see no bounce back
@curly i agree i didn’t think much of hamels in his prime i think even less of him at this point in his career. i think are unknown kids are better than hamels at this point.
note just because i never thought highly of hamels he has been a damn good pitcher and a gamer i just think he was a little over rated. that being said if he wants to keep playing i hope the best for him and finds a team to latch onto.
Jack Flaherty spins his slider like he did in 2019 with three degrees of speed and spin rate then he will make a run for it. He was throwing through pain for the back half of that year and wrote it on the back of the mound every start.
Your anger is a gift
I hope your right – massive potential
with jack i wanna throw 20 out the window last season was an odd season and a lot of players had great and bad year. for me this year is the make or break year for jack to show he is true ace and one of the best sp in the league. as a cards fan i’m hopping for another break out year from jack
Walker Buehler may have something to say about that!
@dodgerok are you talking about throwing out the personal stats for my players last year or that last year didn’t count. in my eyes 20 was just as real as any other season but given the chaotic nature of last season i take player numbers with a grain of salt. i will say this i can see walker degrom and jack fighting over the top votes for the cy this year.
Buehler is a stud. I hope your right about Flaherty because even though the Cards have a few rotation options the injuries are piling up. I want to see the day where Reyes can start. Maybe he’s a force out of the pen but the guy has electric stuff. He really reminds me of Jose Fernandez in a way(in style he’s got a lot to prove to be in that category).
I don’t really see a signing happening for those guys. I think they feel like their SP depth is just as good as those guys. I’m not necessarily saying they’re right but I think that’s the feeling.
I hope you nailz’d it.
The Cardinals handling of Carlos Martinez is frustrating to watch.
Not nearly as frustrating as the Carlos Martinez handling of Carlos Martinez.
Absolutely right. CMart has been immature and unable to focus his entire career even with Yadi trying to keep him out of trouble. The Cards would be better off without him. Let Tampa try and straighten him out.
handling how?
The Cardinals suggested Carlos stay in America and do a club training regimen and Carlos decided to return home to the Dominican Republic, he came back after training only to find out he had trained the wrong areas of his body this resulted in him failing as a starter. Carlos Matrinez could have been baby Pedro, had he trained like Pedro did after Tommy Lasorda said he’d never make it as a major league starter cause of how skinny he was before his trade to the Montreal Expos. This is also why the Red Sox gave up on Carlos Martinez claiming he could never be a starter. His not staying in America or failing to have great understanding on what to train contributed directly to his shoulder injury, Cardinals should have told him you cant be a starter like this we don’t care how good you are, your body has been trained wrong and will not ne able to handle the work load. Read it on an article on Redbird Rants.
I like how patient they are being with Alex Reyes.
Hopefully—— Reyes is a starter by mid season!!!
@hippy i’d like to add to your statement cmart just can’t seem to “grow up” i mean come on man your a pro ball player and your getting into fights with drunken idiot fans at a gentleman’s club. there is no reason a pro ball player should be in a g-mans club that the working class frequents. btw not saying working class stiffs are bad heck i’m one of them but add in a few man sodas and our passion for our teams we can act pretty stupid.
Mikolas looks like he should be on a 1991 Topps baseball card.
Hahaha
True That!
@carlos let’s bring back the 90’s it was a great time (i’m biased i’m a 90’s kid)
No one wants to admit yet that Mikolas is a bust.
I’ll reserve judgment on that until we see what happens this year. He’s had a great season, a fine season, and a missed “season” so far. Too soon to say bust.
It happens…you get a shoulder impingement usually after not throwing for a while. The shoulder needs to be stretched and scraped for 2 or 3 weeks and then a tossing program and then some bullpen work until he’s 100%.. He’ll be ready to start Mid May.
Yup. He had that one great year while everyone was trying to figure out what he was throwing and when. But at 32 I doubt he has a counter-adjustment to make now. Best pitcher on the Cards is Kwang Hyun Kim.
I think Mikolas can be a solid 3 if healthy, but we’ll have to see if he can be healthy.
Kim is also 32, can’t strike anyone out and only averages 4.5 innings a game. This a third place team at best. They have no pitching after Flaherty and the only offensive production is from a first baseman on the down turn of his career, a shortstop and we hope a third baseman. When Waino, Martinez, and Mikolis are all on the DL, then what will they do? Because it will happen. They are only talking about trying to fill one spot right now but that way more than that to think about. Should just let the next group fil out the rotation and learn at the major league level. They will start the clocks, but if they take their lumps, may save a few bucks come the arbitration years
Well when Wanio, Martinez and Mikolas are all on the DL I’ll be excited to see any combination of Gensis Cabrera, John Gant, Daniel Ponce De Leon, Johan Oviedo, or Jake Woodford make starts in their places.
Why do you think they traded Brebbia?
@GoYanks- c’mon bro even the “very limited” @baseballpun knows that!
Little known fact, Yanker: Even though St. Louis is a mere 15 minutes from Granite City, IL, it’s actually in Missouri!
@baseballpuny- you’re as phunny as your Cardinals. They suck like you.
I guess I should be honored that I’ve earned my own personal troll on this site. I just wish you weren’t as dumb as a cinderblock. It would make the whole experience more fun.
@baseballpun- a loser like you so fitting, rooting for a loser team. Good luck with all of that and your stupid puns. Your the troll fool!
@yank i have a question for you why are you trolling a team not in your division or league. i can say i have no love for yanks but i can respect them and i don’t go on nyy post and say how much they suck.
it was obvious from the start that that extention was s bad idea. i dont think anyone’s avoiding admitting it
I don’t think he’ll ever put up a season like he did in 2018 again. I don’t think that necessarily makes him a bust, but he’s going to have to get back on the field.
I will. He is a bust…plain and simple. Stop saying no one will do “whatever” when literally people are lining up to do just that. Has anyone in the last year denied it?
Where’s the Cole Hamels guy?
Like looking for the guy with the striped shirt and striped hat….
This is absolutely a team that is destined to lose 14-16 more games this year than they should, and it will all be due to the rotation. Flaherty can be trusted, but Wainwright is staring down his last year before retirement, Kim is largely unproven, and no one knows from game to game whether C-Mart will give you six shutout innings, or 3.2 with six earned runs. I’d like to think Mikolas rejoining them will make a difference, but there’s no guarantees of the pitcher he’ll be when he gets back, of any timetable as to when.
It’s a team that should be adopting the Rays school of pitching. They don’t really have anyone outside of (probably) Flaherty that can reliably give you 6-7 inning starts but they have tons of guys who could give you 3 solid innings.
All speculation. Recent trends point to you being correct, but again…I suppose that’s sports though. “If healthy they SHOULD be good but we’ll see”.
Ya don’t say?
Losing 14-16 games because of pitching being worse than projected is an astronomical amount. They were pretty good last year with COVID wreaking all kinds of havoc on the pitching staff. The Cardinals offense was terrible outside of Goldschmidt and Bader vs LHP. Adding Arenado and a full season of Carlson will improve the team defense and the lineup will be much better this season overall. Those factors alone should mitigate a lot of pitching issues.
Pirates still wanting to trade pitchers.
Why do people think Cole Hamels at age 37 is the answer to their team’s pitching woes? Lots of teams need rotation help, yet he is still unsigned. There must be a reason for that beyond just the money.
How many guys are left that are likely to be able to give you 140-150 innings?
I keep reading about a showcase he was going to have but didn’t. I’m thinking he’s not even healthy atm.
Can Cole Hamels play the outfield and hit over .200?
LOL!! Sounds like the polar opposite of an Angels fan who would post “.Can hit and play defense but can he pitch?? “
lol it’s funny but true (this is coming from a cards fan)
Is that Ted Lasso in the picture?
one sentence says cardinals will have depth issues early in the year and later says they have plenty of depth options. it can’t be both.
if reyes is limited to 100 innings, let him start 20 games. cardinal pitchers barely get to the 5th inning anyway.
On an unrelated note, how long before the Cards pull the plug on Carp?
Uh, at the end of the year when they have to stop paying him or when brain activity ceases with the consent of his family and medical professionals.
R-E-L-A-X.
How quickly we forget that scouts and front offices around the league have touted the Cardinals ability to bring up quality arms and high-floor position players for years. (The gripes are for their lack of ability to develop position player studs and weird extensions).
Last year the Cardinals were above .500 without Mikolas (and having something like 19 “rookies” on the team at some point) and other than Paul Goldschmidt and Harrison Bader vs. Lefties, below average hitting across the board. Adding Nolan Arenado improves both the offense and team defense immensely, and a full season of Dylan Carlson improves this team’s margin for error on the pitching side greatly.
Losing Dakota Hudson (injury) and Austin Gomber (trade) definitely will test the depth, but the Cardinals were already looking to multi-inning relievers anyway. Reyes, Gant, Ponce de Leon were all going to flirt with 100 innings as is. That doesn’t change too much. It just requires creativity. Oviedo, Woodford, Parsons, and soon Thompson and Liberatore all have a chance to contribute in a big way and are better options than anything off of the FA scrap heap at this juncture.
Jack Flaherty is a stud. Last season he got off to weird start due to COVID and never got on track fully. That being said, he really only had 1 bad start. He is a Top 20 pitcher in the MLB. People don’t like him because he is outspoken off the field. That has nothing to do with his right arm.
Adam Wainwright has accepted his role and has provided quality innings the past 2 campaigns. He’s got one last run and I’m not betting against him. Ace? No. Quality MLB innings eater? Absolutely.
Kwang Hyun Kim was a top notch starter in the KBO and pitched really well last year. The league will figure him out some and he will regress, but is still very capable.
On one side of the coin Carlos Martinez is a head case and is so frustrating. On the other side, Carlos Martinez is talented, healthy, wants to start, and in a contract year. Seems like there are worse bets for success. Again, STL fans don’t like him, so they portray him as worse than he is.
The Mikolas extension has not been good, but when healthy, Mikolas was a quality SP for 2 straight seasons. I don’t have a good feeling, but if he gets things right and can take the mound, he will be fine too.
All this fails to mention the division is arguably the worst in professional sports. Everything will be just fine in STL in 2021.
2020 stars you can throw out the window. The season ended around the time the real mvp and cy candidates start to show in a regular season.
Waino wasn’t good in 2019. He couldn’t pitch on the road. It got so bad they skipped his starts so he would only pitch at home down the stretch. Mikolis was also terrible on the road in 2019.
Kim only averages 5 K/9 and can pitch out of the fifth. So if he regresses, he’s basically a batting practice coach.
Agreed the NL central is probably the weekest of all, even though they put 3 in the playoffs last year. But as is, this cards team is 3rd or 4th place in that division this year.
Based on observing Austin Gomber in ST so far, I honestly think he would have been the Cards #3 starter, at least. Obviously they do that trade 10 times out of 10, but he’s gonna be a huge loss I suspect.
@arch i will go on the record that wanio is still an “ace” yes wanio doesn’t have “ace” stuff anymore but mentally he approaches every start that he is an ace. i remember having a similar discussion with a buddy on who was the ace of the cards carp or wanio. i went with carp in that argument because of the mental makeup but he was passing the torch to wanio. i see the same happening 10+ years later wanio is the “ace” right now (even thou on paper he isn’t) but he is passing that torch to jack. i just hope jack takes that torch and is top 10 for the next 5~7 and passes the torch to the next kid with ace potential.
Bottom line…Cole Hamels and or Rick Porcello would shore up the back end of the starting rotation, veteran leadership and accrue innings.
Flannery reminds me of Shelby Miller??????
You need glasses. They look nothing alike.
I still have to wonder if the cards should have kept Lance Lynn. We need an innings eater and he’s just that. Except for 2018 he’s really been pretty solid.
i agree i thought letting lynn go was a mistake he was a solid 2~4 guy that could eat innings and was going to give 120%+ each start. those guys are hard to replace even if adv. numbers say otherwise.
Calling Homer Bailey a free agent of note is one of the dumber things writers on this site have said.
Just make the typo of months and save us all the trouble.
Is it me or does it feel like Mikolas hasn’t been healthy for almost 20 years?
But his mustache has reported to spring training with no issues.