As expected, the Cardinals reinstated Jack Flaherty from the 60-day injured list before this afternoon’s game with the Nationals. Righty Dakota Hudson has been optioned to Triple-A Memphis to create an active roster spot, while reliever Junior Fernández was designated for assignment in a corresponding 40-man roster move.
Flaherty makes his return to the Busch Stadium mound for what’ll be his first MLB appearance since July 11. The right-hander left his final start before the All-Star Break with shoulder discomfort, his second extended shoulder-related absence of the year. Flaherty’s season debut was delayed until June 15 due to bursitis, and the star hurler revealed in Spring Training he’s pitched through a labrum tear in the area for years.
It’s been the second consecutive injury-plagued season for Flaherty, who also had extended IL stints last year due to an oblique strain and shoulder troubles. He started 15 of his 17 outings last season but has been limited to three starts in 2022. The absences certainly seemed to have a deleterious effect on Flaherty’s performance earlier this year, as he was tagged for six runs in eight innings with nine walks and only six strikeouts. He averaged 92.1 MPH on his fastball, down two ticks from his 94 MPH heater of 2019-20.
With a month remaining on the regular season schedule, Flaherty will get a few chances to try to recapture that form. At his best, he’s shown ace-like potential and could be a postseason weapon. He finished fourth in NL Cy Young balloting back in 2019, when he posted a sparkling 2.75 ERA with a 29.9% strikeout rate across a career-best 196 1/3 innings.
St. Louis holds an 8 1/2 game lead over the Brewers in the NL Central, having all but officially secured control of the division with a 25-7 record dating back to the start of August. They’re still 5 1/2 games behind the NL East-leading Mets for the second seed in the Senior Circuit, giving them an uphill battle if they’re to take hold of a first-round bye. If they wind up finishing in third place in the league, they’d host the final Wild Card qualifier in a three-game series. How manager Oliver Marmol deploys Flaherty in that set could well depend on the form he shows down the stretch. Adam Wainwright and deadline acquisition Jordan Montgomery have been brilliant and look like postseason starters, with Flaherty joining José Quintana and the struggling Miles Mikolas as options for a third start.
Flaherty’s return bumps Hudson from the primary five. While St. Louis announced last week that he’d pitch out of the bullpen, they’ll instead send him back to Memphis to work from the rotation there. Rob Rains of STLSportsPage tweets that the club still plans to bring Hudson back to make a start on September 17th, when the Cards will play a doubleheader against the Reds. Today’s demotion allows him to exhaust the required 10 days in the minors for optioned players, although it remains to be seen if he’ll stick with the big league club in relief from then forward or immediately head back to Triple-A.
A longtime member of the rotation, the sinkerballing Hudson has had an inconsistent 2022 campaign. He’s made 24 starts but posted a 4.43 ERA, striking out batters at a well below-average 13.5% clip. Hudson’s 52.8% ground-ball rate is still very strong, but it’s down from the 56.9% mark he posted in his best season back in 2019. He’s had a particularly rough go of things in the season’s second half, carrying a 5.52 ERA in 29 1/3 frames since the All-Star Break.
The demotion won’t have any impact on Hudson from a service time perspective, even if his return 12 days from now is a one-off recall. He’s already surpassed the four-year service threshold this season, meaning he remains on track to first reach free agency after 2024. The Cards would owe him a raise on this year’s modest $1.05MM salary if they tender him an arbitration contract after the season.
As for Fernández, he’ll now find himself on the waiver wire within the next few days. A member of the St. Louis organization since signing as an amateur free agent in 2014, he first reached the majors five years later. Fernández has bounced on and off the active roster for the past four seasons, tallying 50 2/3 innings over 47 cumulative appearances. He owns just a 5.51 ERA in that time, fanning 19% of batters faced with a very high 13.1% walk percentage.
The 6’3″ hurler has a 2.93 ERA over 13 MLB appearances this season, but that’s been paired with the more pedestrian strikeout and walk rates he’s posted throughout his career. He’s had a tougher go from a run prevention perspective in Memphis, where he’s allowed more than five earned runs per nine through 36 appearances out of the bullpen.
While Fernández hasn’t had a ton of MLB success to this point, the 25-year-0ld could generate some interest on the waiver wire. He’s averaged a blistering 98.8 MPH on his heater during his big league time this season. He’s also induced grounders on more than half the batted balls against him at both the major league and Triple-A levels. Any team that claims him off waivers could keep him in Triple-A for the rest of this season, but he’ll be out of options next year and would have to break camp with another team or again hit the waiver wire.
Katie Woo of the Athletic first reported Hudson would be optioned.
Junior will be claimed quickly I believe. Hudson doesn’t deserve his spot so not upset with his demotion.
Career MLB 2019-2022 – FIP 5.57, wHIP 1.737. He has a big arm, but with no control. Someone will probably take a chance on him, but he will also be out of options starting in 2023.
Speaks volumes about what the Cardinals believe they have in the pipeline that they could designate someone 20 or so teams will see as helping their organization enough to get in line to claim.
Ehh, I think the Cardianls were high on him for awhile. But he never took advantage of the chances he got and now he has no options left and he’s not shown he’s good enough to stay in a contending bullpen. I definitely think a team like Oakland or Washington that can afford to let him grow at the major league level could develop him into a serviceable reliever. He’s got velocity, but never shown command or ability to miss bats. He had flashes this year, but not enough.
Somehow Hudson’s numbers always look decent on the surface. But beneath that? He’s as hittable as anyone. As a Cards fan, I can Dak’s been responsible for more groans per IP this season than anyone not named Genesis.
Junior is just another guy that sits at 98 with dicey control and command. Those are all too common, yet always seem to be rostered. Agree 100%- he won’t last long out there.
He’s awful but he’s actually not that hittable. Base hits aren’t really his problem, h8smproblem is the walks.
I guess I don’t watch enough Cardinals games. Has Dakota Hudson been that bad where he deserves to be sent to AAA? I’ve always considered him the 3rd or 4th best starter on their staff.
He hasn’t been terrible, just below league-average. And frankly, I think with Monty, Quintana, Mikolas and Waino performing as well as they have, his middling season stands out.
No he’s been terrible.
He’s been inconsistent and has been working on some things. Pace of play, pitches etc. I like Hudson long term but they’re going with the 5 best performing starters right now. Flaherty’s back also so I’m guessing to keep him stretched as a starter they’re sending him down
I just checked out his stats and he is having a bad year, but prior to 2022, he was pretty darn good. I guess they’ve waited long enough to see if he could turn things around. He went from a 125 ERA+ In his last full season to an 86 ERA+ this season and his strikeout rates have plummeted as well. It’s still somewhat shocking to see him sent down though. Maybe it will be a wake up call for him.
His ERA may have risen from 3.55 to 4.43 from 2019 to 2022, but his FIP has only went from 4.93 to 4.45 and his WHIP has stayed relatively constant as well from 1.41 to 1.42. He’s giving up just as much hard contact as in ’19 and his BAbip has went from .275 to .296. For a guy like Hudson, who doesn’t get many K’s, walks a lot of batters, and gives up his fair share of hard contact, he’s mostly relying on getting batters to hit directly to his fielders.
Hudson has struggled massively with his command this year. He’s coming back from TJS. That or not everytime I’ve watched him He’s been working from behind in the count more often than not. He always seemed to be the benefactor of luck, this year luck has run thin as evident in his walk rate
The Cards have a doubleheader coming up on the 17, that would allow Hudson to stay stretched out with a couple of starts at Memphis and then come up as the 29th man for the doubleheader.
Junior will get another opportunity somewhere. I wish him good luck. He is only 25 yo. However he has been in the Cardinal organization for 8 years and believe it is time to give another an opportunity on the pitching ladder.
Exactly right. They have other guys like Connor Thomas (AAA), Inohan Paniagua, Nathaniel Heredia, and Dionys Rodriguez (all at High A Peoria) that are Rule V draft eligible this December, based on their minor league service time. Most likely one or more those guys will be added to the 40 man prior to the Rule V draft.
What a difference a year makes. A year ago there is no way Quintana was bumping anyone from a rotation spot anywhere.
Jordan Montgomery’s run with the Cards is very reminiscent to when JA Happ was traded to the Yankees at the 2018 trade deadline. Happ was pretty dominant and went 7-0 with a 2.68 ERA in 11 starts after the trade. Wasn’t close to as good after but definitely gave the Yankees what they needed at the time. Seems Mozeliak has done a much better job this year than last year when he got Happ (coincidently) and Jon Lester at the deadline
Don’t overlook Stratton, and the ability to put Pallante back in the pen, Romero now coming in and replacing an ineffective Cabrera, and the pen getting much more stable. The adding of Montgomery, Quintana, Stratton, Romero reminds me of 2011 and giving up Rasmus for Edwin Jackson, Octavio Dotel, and Marc Rzepczynski and how the pitching staff really stabilized after the trade and the team took off. Hopefully 2022 can have the same end result as 2011.
Hudson should have been the one released
To suggest Mikolas is struggling is quite the overstatement!
With Flaherty and Matz healthy, the Cardinals pitching looks strong. Still, even with some struggling a couple games, Montgomery, Mikolas, Wainwright and Quintana make up an effective rotation. They should use Flaherty as a 5th starter for now. From what I’ve seen so far, RPs Helsley, Gallegos and Romero looked sound but I’m not sure about the rest of the pen.
Flaherty looked pretty good yesterday. Granted it was the Nationals, and they still kicked our butts. Still Jack hit 97 and his slider was very effective. Totally different guy than what we saw in July. I’m cautiously optimistic.
@don i agree, would of liked to see him go a little longer but 1st mlb game back and get him out on high note, 5 innings and only gave up 1.
Look a little deeper at the numbers. He threw 97 pitches to get through 5 innings. Only issued one walk. The end results are there, but how he got there is less than ideal.
His control wasn’t consistent and that caused his pitch count to be inflated. But he was usually able to gather himself and make pitches when he had to. He appeared to be throwing free and easy with the ability to reach back for a little more when needed. That was the most engaged, determined version of Flaherty I have seen in a long time. There may be some rust, but the stuff and approach was reminiscent of 2019. Flaherty has certainly let me down before, but I’m clinging to a fan’s eternal hope that Jack is back.