I hope you all had a relaxing, stress-free weekend. I don’t think I can wish the same for Cardinals president of baseball operations Chaim Bloom. He isn’t taking much time off as he continues trawling for starters, relievers, swingmen and minor-league arms to add depth to the St. Louis pitching supply.
And the Cardinals have been busy in this endeavor. As we inspect the assortment, let’s take a look at what Bloom and the Cards have collected in each bucket. I’ll use shorthand for right-handed pitchers (RHP) and left-handed pitchers (LHP).
Big-league starters: RHP Dustin May, RHP Richard Fitts, RHP Hunter Dobbins. May was signed as a free agent. Fitts came over from Boston in the deal for Sonny Gray. Dobbins was acquired from Boston as part of the Willson Contreras exchange. Fitts and Dobbins can work in relief if necessary.
My take: This is a good start, no pun intended. The Cardinals now have a deeper inventory of starting pitchers. The list includes Matthew Liberatore, May, Michael McGreevy, Kyle Leahy, Dobbins, Fitts and Andre Pallante. Plus there are several prospects in training including Liam Doyle, Quinn Mathews, Ixan Henderson and Brycen Mautz. Others are on the rise.
Established big-league relievers: RHP Ryne Stanek (free agent) and LHP Justin Bruihl, who was purchased from the Guardians. More on Stanek later.
My take: Local authors were buzzing over Stanek’s high-velocity fastball jolts – while mostly overlooking some glaring concerns in his profile. I’ll get into that later.
Pitching prospects: In Bloom’s two trades with the Red Sox, the Cardinals came away with LHP Brandon Clarke, RHP Yhoiker Fajardo, and RHP Blake Aita.
My take: Baseball America put all three on the Cardinals’ updated Top 30 prospects list. Clarke at No. 6, Fajardo at No. 11, and Aita at 30th. In all, Baseball America has 16 pitchers included on STL’s Top 30 rundown.
Rule V draft choice: RHP Matt Pushard (Miami.) My take: Baseball America has Pushard rated at No. 29 on the Cards top 30.
Pitchers signed to minor-league contracts: LHP Jared Shuster, LHP Bruce Zimmerman, RHP Scott Blewett, and RHP Zak Kent. But Kent was waived after the Cardinals purchased Bruihl and had to make room for him on the 40-man roster. Shuster had 62 MLB appearances (including 17 starts) for the Braves and White Sox. Zimmerman had 39 MLB appearances (28 starts) in his stints with the Orioles and Brewers. Blewett had 43 MLB appearances; all but two were in relief.
My take: the minor-league signings are a routine item of business at this time of year. But I find them intriguing for a reason. I anticipate Team Bloom will come up with a few surprises along the way because of director of player development and performance Rob Cerfolio and director of pitching Matt Pierpoint. They (and others on Team Bloom) have a history of identifying traits and tendencies to reshape pitchers and make them more effective.
ABOUT THE STL BULLPEN
The Cardinals certainly will have options for a well-stocked bullpen in 2026. We’ll know more about the quality once the season gets underway, but if there is truly strength in numbers then the Cards have some strength.
Here’s an unofficial stockpile – of bullpen regulars and legit candidates to be part of the St. Louis reliever procession this coming season:
RHP
Matt Svanson
Riley O’Brien
Ryne Stanek
Gordon Graceffo
Andre Granillo
Ryan Fernandez
Matt Pushard
Chris Roycroft
Skylar Hayes
Scott Blewett
Luis Gastelum
And I could see the eternal prospect Tink Hence converted to relief. Wouldn’t surprise me at all.
LHP
JoJo Romero (as of now)
Justin Bruihl
Nick Raquet
Jared Shuster
Bruce Zimmerman
Pete Hansen
That group is a little light. However: There’s a possibility of the org’s No. 2 overall prospect, Liam Doyle, being bullet-trained to the majors. And that’s more likely if Romero is traded.
THE BULLPEN MATTERS
YES, EVEN IN A REBUILD
Over the past two seasons the Cardinals were two games under .500 at 161-163. It could have been much worse. But based on run differential the Cardinals won 10 more games than they should have. And that was primarily because of an excellent bullpen and the way manager Oli Marmol handled it.
In 2024-25 combined the St. Louis bullpen…
+ Ranked 3rd in the majors in fielding-independent ERA (3.73)
+ Ranked 5th in standard ERA (3.69).
+ Was the No. 1 reason why the Cardinals had a 127-8 record when leading through seven innings – a .941 winning percentage topped by only the Guardians, Phillies and Brewers.
+ Was the No. 1 reason why the Redbirds had a 141-5 record when leading through eight innings for a .966 win% that ranked 7th overall.
+ Was the No. 1 reason why the Cardinals had one of MLB’s best winning percentages (.561) in one-run outcomes.
+ The bullpen held up well over the last two seasons when taking a lead into the 7th inning, posting a 115-18 record (.865).
+ Over the past two seasons St. Louis relievers collectively ranked 8th in the majors in Win Probability Added. And why is that notable? Because the Cards bullpen WPA was better than that of 11 teams that made the postseason in at least one of the two seasons.
The Cardinals have benefited from a postseason-caliber bullpen over the last two seasons.
How effective were the two bullpens?
Combining 2024 and ‘25, the Cardinals invested $20.6 million in reliever salaries over the two seasons. And according to the FanGraphs formula, the STL relievers provided $71 million in value over the two years.
I don’t know if the Cardinals can come close to matching that bullpen strength in 2026. But if that happens, this team will win more games than expected. Not saying this will be a winning team. But a dependable bullpen certainly adds wins to the team total. And a mediocre or poor bullpen can increase the number of losses by a team. See 2024-2025 for more details.
ABOUT RYNE STANEK
Yes, he throws hard, even at age 34. The Cards’ newest high-leverage reliever averaged 98.6 miles per hour on his fastball. But that didn’t translate into a good performance for Stanek in 2025. There’s more to pitching than throwing hard. And while Stanek still has good “stuff” – which is a valid metric you can check out at FanGraphs – he’s endured a statistical decline over the last few years.
Using the park-and-league adjusted ERA (per FanGraphs) here is Stanek’s yearly trend:
* His performance was 70 percent above league average in 2022.
* Stanek was still above league average in 2023 – but by only 4%.
* In 2024 … ouch. Stanek’s performance was 24 percent below league average.
* In 2025 … even worse … 30% below league average.
In 2025, Stanek had a career-low strikeout rate of 22.7 percent. That was a big drop of his 33.3% K rate in 2024. And Stanek had a 27% strikeout rate from 2021 through 2024.
In 2025 the overall contact rate against Stanek increased by five percent. And that included a three percent strikeout rate against him on strikes. Per FanGraphs, his swinging-strike rate last season was a career-low 13.4%.
SO, WHAT UP WITH STANEK?
– Stanek has always walked too many hitters. But last season his ability to locate pitches was off from his usual standards. So when a pitcher misses his desired spot, a hitter can do a lot of damage. There can be a thin line between success and failure.
– Defense and batted-ball luck makes a difference. Last season the Mets were ranked 21st in the majors at 13 outs below average. By contrast the Cardinals were 5th in the majors at 48 outs above average.
– And with more balls in play against Stanek than before, the Mets defense became more of an issue. For example: the batting average against Stanek on ground balls last season was a preposterous .444. How abnormal was that? Well, the FanGraphs batted-ball splits (on their search engine) go back to the start of 2015.
– And that .444 average against Stanek last season on ground balls was the highest against a MLB reliever who faced at least 50 batters in a season over the last 11 years.
– Wait. There’s more. Since the start of 2015, there have been 1,746 individual relievers to face at least 50 batters during a season. And that .444 average smacked on Stanek was the highest in a season against any of the 1,746 relievers.
– That’s some bad luck right there for poor Stanek. And even though this doesn’t account for his low strikeout rate in 2025, that fluky .444 average on grounders certainly made the situation worse for him.
– This one made me laugh. Last season Stanek was clobbered by left-handed hitters for a .295 average. They also reached base at a rate of 39 percent against him. And while this doesn’t account for the high .556 slugging percentage generated by LH batters against Stanek last season … still .. those lucky left-handed hitters batted an absurd .565 against him on ground balls. That slugging percentage (.556) smoked by left-side hitters can be explained by 11 line-drive hits including four doubles. He only allowed only three homers by LH bats last season but that wasn’t anything drastic. All came on solo shots via the fly ball.
– Two of Stanek’s pitches were terrible last season: the splitter and the sweeper. Cardinals director of pitching Matt Pierpont is a big believer in the cutter. So perhaps the Cardinals will remix Stanek’s pitch arsenal in 2026.
– One more thing: Stanek’s 65 appearances and 56 innings last season were the most he’d worked since 2021. He may have worn down a bit. Here’s why I say that: Stanek had a 3.48 fielding independent ERA over the first four months and that inflated to a 6.30 FIP over the final two months.
I apologize for telling you a helluva lot more that you wanted to know about Stanek’s 2025 performance. But I think I owe it to you to dig in a little deeper than writing “That feller Stanek, boy do he throw hard,” analysis.
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. 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 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 STLSportsCentral, 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.