St. Louis Cardinals Bullpen Issues:
Cardinals Relievers continue the trend of having really poor fastballs and just having very low Stuff ratings in general for some reason. The Stuff ratings of Cardinals pitchers are similar to more AAA clubs than ML clubs.
Ryan Franklin should be the closer, although Motte got the chance on Opening Day. Franklin has closed ever since. Franklin has 66 Stuff due to 5 pitches all being either 42(3) or 57(2). He should also have about 10 more strike outs projected based on
Fangraphs projections. The last year of his contract should be a club option.
Josh Kinney is a fastball/slider reliever, but his curveball is rated 3x better than his fastball.
Kyle McClellan has a change up IRL but not in the game. He doesn't use it much as a reliever, but it should exist probably.
Trever Miller is a fastball/slider lefty specialist IRL. The game has his changeup as his best pitch. He should have a <1 R/L split and a good slider. His fastall is down to more 84-86 this year and his changeup is hardly used. Switching the slider and changeup ratings would work wonders.
Dennys Reyes a fastball rating of 24 is pretty bad even for a lefty-slider specialist. His ratings show a 4.26 ERA, well above his predictions on
Fangraphs.
Brad Thompson throws a Dave Duncan 2-seam fastball generally, but seems pretty good overall.
Jason Motte has a better slider than fastball in the game. His fastball is his best pitch with the slider still developing IRL. That's my only specific critique, his pitches are just flipped.
Now on to bats...