The Cardinals have settled upon some pitching roles for the outset of the season, as Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch was among those to cover on Twitter. Newly inked southpaw Kwang-Hyun Kim is headed to a high-leverage relief role, while right-hander Carlos Martinez will step back into the rotation.
This represented one of those good problems in need of resolution. Lacking any health issues to drive a decision, the Cards had to take their pick between two rather appealing choices to round out the starting staff.
Kim inked a two-year, $8MM deal under which the club also posted a $1.6MM fee to his former KBO outfit. Kim was sharp in Spring Training, throwing eight scoreless frames with 11 strikeouts and just one walk. While he made his mark as a starter in Korea, Kim will have to earn his way back into the rotation in St. Louis. Alternatively, he could etch out a prominent gig at the back of the pen, perhaps as a closer.
There’s a model to follow in Martinez himself, who was a high-quality MLB starter for years before health issues intervened. He ended up being shifted back into the pen, where he rung up saves in half of his 48 appearances in 2019. Now, the talented 28-year-old will get a chance to reestablish himself as a starter. It makes sense that the club elected to give him another crack at the rotation. Beyond his established ceiling in that role, Martinez is owed $11.5MM in 2021 with two high-priced club options to follow.
Kim would be filthy as the 5th starter.
Kim would be the better starter between
Martinez and himself. Martinez’s head fills up with toys in his head after the first jam he gets in. Yadi would appreciate having Kim over Martinez as a starter. Yadi wouldn’t have to go to the mound to chew but to get Martinez back into reality.
Honestly, I’d rather have both Kim and Martinez in the rotation and use Dakota Hudson as a long reliever.
Hudson was great last year. i wouldn’t mess with that.
Agree with you 100%
Hudson would be wasted in long relief. And with the early roster size this season do you really need a long reliever.
Some of his peripherals(BABIP, strand rate) indicate he’s due for some regression.
.274 BABIP and a 78% strand rate??
Those aren’t unsustainable. Maintaining that performance while walking nearly 5 per 9 is the larger impediment I see. High GB pitchers like Hudson can erase those walks with double plays though. Certainly possible for a guy like that to have a higher strand rate.
He is a contact pitcher who is very effective in getting weak contact. He was good last year. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it
kim will be ruined
carlos is ruined already
Haha troll go brrr
They should just go with a 6 man rotation. That way you don’t blow out arms in a shortened, abnormal season without the proper ramp up period. Then you can maximize the innings splits. Especially with increased roster sizes and the fact that they are missing 2 of their important bullpen pieces in Hicks and Brebbia.
That’s why they’ll have stricter pitch counts at the beginning of the season. Besides, you don’t want limit how often Flaherty pitches.
Also, with those missing bullpen pieces, why would you then thin out the bullpen even further by taking away another reliever to be an extra starter?
Because the extra starter means each starter gets more rest and can pitch deeper into games. That’s the idea, at least. It depends if you think that giving your starters an extra day of rest will let you squeeze an extra inning or two out of them.
There’s not going to be much of an effect there, and what little effect there is there is more than made up by having an extra arm in the bullpen.
This means Flaherty gets less starts. Hate it
Kim doesn’t have much of a scouting report yet in MLB. After the short season in a relief role he can join the rotation next season and force teams to learn his stuff again in the new role. Martinez starting in a short sprint will be the perfect way for him to stay focused and prove he belongs in the rotation. If it doesn’t work out it can always be altered.
still no defined closer?
Do they need one or something?
Shildt said that Kim has first crack at closer.
Who said there has to be a closer named. Clubs have used multiple depending on rest in the past years
Both players will be traded before the end of August.
Kim will be ready when we see if Mikolas elbow is truly healed.
Mikolas didn’t have an elbow problem, it was tendonitis in his forearm.
Forearm issues tends to be a symptom of a torn UCL
That does not mean that he had an elbow injury. He didn’t, the MRI was clean. Hence the tendonitits diagnosis. Every tendonitis case is not a UCL problem
I hope his arm is okay. The limited rampup has us all concerned, right?
Flaherty is too good too only be starting once every 6 days
Given the Cards luck and history, there will be an injury and KK will be a starter within 2-3 weeks