Cardinals fans received some excellent news recently as injured catcher Willson Contreras told reporters (including Jeff Jones of the Belleville News-Democrat) yesterday that he’s been cleared to resume baseball activity after a CT scan revealed good news regarding his surgically-repaired forearm. Contreras has already caught a bullpen for right-hander Andre Pallante and today he resumed hitting. Contreras indicated that he hopes to return to big league action by the end of the month, telling reporters that “it won’t be July” when he returns.
It’s an incredibly impressive turnaround for Contreras, who was initially expected to miss ten weeks of action after a swing of the bat from J.D. Martinez collided with his forearm back in May. Instead, he was cleared to resume baseball activities just one month to the day after sustaining the injury, and appears to be ramping up fairly quickly. A return before the end of June would place Contreras’s return at just six or seven weeks after the injury, though manager Oli Marmol pumped the brakes on talk of a quick return in conversation with reporters (including those at MLB.com). Marmol noted that the club will monitor how Contreras progresses over the coming weeks and lean on the team’s medical staff as they determine a more specific timeline for his return.
Whenever Contreras ultimately returns, he figures to be a huge asset to the Cardinals. The 32-year-old slugger was slashing an incredible .280/.398/.551 with a 171 wRC+ in 128 trips to the plate at the time of his injury and stood out as the hitter leading a scuffling Cardinals team that fell to a 15-21 record on the day of Contreras’s injury. While their catcher has been on the mend, St. Louis has surged back towards .500 and now sports a 30-33 record that places them just one game back of the final NL Wild Card spot. If St. Louis can manage to hang around the Wild Card race over the next few weeks and Contreras picks up where he left off upon his return, the catcher could help to further transform their offense as they look to establish themselves as contenders ahead of the July 30 trade deadline.
Contreras isn’t the only player progressing towards a return for the Cardinals this month, as veteran southpaw Steven Matz is scheduled to make his second rehab start on Tuesday at the Double-A level as he works his way back from a lower back strain that sidelined him at the end of April. As noted by MLB.com’s Injury Tracker, Matz is slated to throw 40 pitches during his next rehab start, meaning that there still figures to be quite a ways to go until he returns to the big league club. The Cardinals are reportedly planning on stretching Matz out into the 75-80 pitch range before he comes off the IL and steps back into the club’s big league rotation, a goal that will likely keep him on the shelf until sometime near the end of the month if he continues building up at his current pace.
In Matz’s absence, the Cardinals have not been able to settle on a fifth starter to fill the void behind Sonny Gray, Lance Lynn, Kyle Gibson, and Miles Mikolas. The club has used both right-hander Andre Pallante and lefty Matthew Liberatore to follow up that quartet in the weeks since Matz was placed on the shelf, but the duo has combined for a 7.11 ERA across five starts in Matz’s absence. Those struggles have led Marmol to be non-committal regarding who will take the ball when the fifth spot in the rotation is due up tomorrow against the Rockies, though Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch notes that Marmol has noted the starter will be chosen from “options already on the roster,” indicating that they won’t look toward other alternatives beyond Pallante or Liberatore just yet.
Right-handers Sem Robberse and Adam Kloffenstein are already on the club’s 40-man roster and could theoretically be options to fill out the club’s rotation should St. Louis eventually decide to make a change, but the pair have ERAs of 4.46 and 4.50 respectively at the Triple-A level this year with no big league experience. Cardinals fans are surely hopeful that they’ll see right-hander Tink Hence, the club’s top prospect who has dominated the Double-A level during his age-21 season this year, impact the big league team at some point this year.
Fans hoping to see Hence in St. Louis this season were dealt a scare earlier this week when he was was pulled from his most recent Double-A start after just two innings. Fortunately, MLB.com notes that Cardinals president of baseball operations John Mozeliak told reporters that Hence’s removal was due to cramping rather than any sort of serious issue and that he should be ready to make his next start for the Double-A Springfield Cardinals. Through 11 starts this year, Hence has pitched to a 3.19 ERA with a 2.82 FIP in 53 2/3 innings of work while striking out a fantastic 32.4% of batters faced. It would hardly be a surprise to see those numbers earn Hence a promotion to Triple-A in the near future; after all, St. Louis promoted him from High-A to Double-A after eleven similarly excellent starts last year.
Huge news for cardinals, will they be able to leapfrog the cubs?
They don’t necessarily have to to qualify for the postseason.
Or will the Reds leapfrog the Cubs, or the Cardinals leapfrog the Reds, or the Cubs leapfrog the Cardinals, or the Reds leapfrog the. And don’t forget about the Pirates.
The Buccos might have the best pitching in the division.
Indubitably!!! I concur Baron.
They would be a dangerous team with another good hitter or two.
Does it matter? Central is weak.
This is why the Cardinals stockpiled starting pitching in the offense. They know their division is the sisters of the poor.
*Offseason*
I hear this a lot, but I don’t know that it makes sense. The Central Divisions are generally competitive in both leagues, unlike the NL East and West, where there’s always a dominant team and a runaway loser. I’d argue that the leagues aren’t balanced if there’s always a team that’s light years better than the other four.
It’s the Brewers and four .500 teams right now.
“The 32-year-old slugger was slashing an incredible .280/.398/.551 with a 171 wRC+ in 128 trips to the plate at the time of his injury and stood out as the hitter leading a scuffling Cardinals team that fell to a 15-21 record on the day of Contreras’s injury. While their catcher has been on the mend, St. Louis has surged back towards .500 and now sports a 30-33 record that places them just one game back of the final NL Wild Card spot”
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This!
The Catcher is the most important player on a team. In fact, solid baseball people build their teams around their Catchers. The duties of a Catcher in order of importance are:
1 & 2. Run/call a game and handle the individual pitchers on the staff.
3. Play defense (the silly pitch framing stat is very probably the least important aspect of playing defense).
4. Hit. (Solid baseball people believe that any offense they get out of a quality ML Catcher is a “bonus”)
Point being that Contreras had “incredible” offensive statistics, but his team was losing. Then he got hurt. But golly – while he was out the team started winning. So apparently now that he’s coming back with his big bat the team should win even more!?
When are many of the people here going to learn that MLB is not Rotisserie League?
For years my 2 favorite teams have been the Orioles and Phillies. They not only have arguably the 2 best starting Catchers in MLB, they also have solid backup Catchers that their teams win with.
Willson Contreras is a DH that insists on playing the most important defensive position.
Cardinals fans know how a Catcher can affect a team’s winning. They watched Yadi for years. That fact that Contreras was brought in as his successor says everything one needs to know about the people running the Cardinals Baseball Ops area.
A week or so ago Guardians manager Stephen Vogt said the player most responsible for the teams fast start has been Catcher Austin Hedges.
Hedges offensive line is: .130 /.158 /.204 / .362 with a 1 wRC+.
lol
The Guardians are tied with the Orioles for the 3rd best winning percentage in MLB.
I think Willson should be used as a DH 80 percent of the time and maybe be the personal catcher for a single starting pitcher to give Ivan a break. His bat is formidable, his play behind the plate is not.
I think you are wrong. I watch the games he’s not the best defensive catcher but he’s certainly not the worst.
Do you not know Herrera has yet to throw out a baserunner and teams are just running at will against him? The Rockies just took 6 bags from him in three games.
If anybody has been missing a lecture from Samuel lately he’s back in full force yammering on about how life isn’t Rotisserie baseball and yadda yadda yadda. Glad you’re back Samuel !!!
His alter-ego filihok didn’t work out. Back to the day job!
Dude Contreras can play defense. He’s better than Molina was in Molinas last year. He’s better than Herrera is today.
Besides that I like his attitude. He wanted to be a Cardinal and he plays with passion. I think he’s had to tone it down a bit because of the conservative Cardinals clubhouse and the way he’s acted since he’s been a Cardinal is just right. I think he’s a very important part of the team and he’s a guy any team would be lucky to have.
You missed the part about calling a game, which Contreras is worse at than his defense. It is okay to like him. I like him too. He just happens to be in the bottom half of the league defensively.
Contreras is fine. That game calling nonsense was Marmol trying to find a scapegoat last year.
I really don’t think it’s accurate to call catcher the most important defensive position. It’s perhaps the most complicated, but not more important than ss or cf.
I keep wondering where is this guy Molina they keep talking about? They keep calling but he no answer.
I’d like to see the Cardinals take a page out of the Brewers handbook this season and employ an opener for either Liberatore or Pallante as a fifth starter. The Brewers are doing it with both B Wilson and Rea, with some success.
Since most runs are scored in the first inning when the opposing team has his best hitters lined up, why not employ a lefty/righty advantage whenever possible? If that forces them to modify their lineup for the opener, all the better.
The Cardinals need to get with modern times and employ some creativity to make up for their shortcomings.
Modern times and creativity dont fly in St Louis lately but yeah I agree.
I’m not sure I agree. They fired Schildt for not being with modern times in the overuse of metrics. Don’t you see how well those are working for Oli??
I think they *want* to be modern and creative, but DeWitt and Mo don’t have the mental capacities to do it correctly.
The one who wins the Central will probably be the team that makes the right move at the deadline since the teams are pretty evenly matched so far.
Unfortunately, that is not good news for Reds fans considering we saw this act, or rather lack thereof, already last season.
Shildt is not a good manager. Accept it. Also, no, they aren’t modern. They don’t have a pitching lab. Even the Tigers have one..
He’s better than Oliver Marmol, I agree.
Do you think that Skip Schumacher will be any good?
He got his sub mediocre team to the playoffs last year. They didn’t resign Soler and have had some pitching setbacks this year. He’s a capable guy, but I believe the next Cardinals manager should have no previous affiliation with the Cardinals. I believe that’s part of their problem. The cardinals way BS has run its course. It’s time for new thinking. I’d like them to look at Joyner who has been Schnickers bench coach in Atlanta for the past few seasons.
Mediocre teams get into the playoffs now. That’s nothing special. It’s how the format is designed
Do you think Skip Schumacher will be good?
Looks like the Brewers are going to walk off with the “tallest midget” award for the weak NL Central