Bernie’s Bird Bytes: Goldy Is Getting Better, Waiting On A Reliever, Pham In The Postseason + Other Bits.

BIRD BYTES

Notes on a hot summer day.

I’ll type with a lemonade at my side. 

1) New Cardinals starting pitcher Erick Fedde had 2.7 Wins Above Replacement for the White Sox before the trade to St. Louis. This is using the FanGraphs version of WAR. Anyway, Fedde’s 2.7 WAR is just about even with Orioles ace Corbin Burnes (2.8). And Fedde’s 2.7 WAR – a reflection of value – is higher than a number of notable starting pitchers including Aaron Nola, Luis Castillo, Shota Imanaga, Zach Eflin, Mitch Keller, Nestor Cortes, Tanner Bibee, Luis Gilll, Max Fried, Nathan Eovaldi, Brandon Pfaadt, Yusei Kikuchi, Freddy Peralta, Chris Bassitt, and Grayson Rodriguez. Not bad.

2) The White Sox had an 8-13 record in Fedde’s starts this season. What’s so great about that? Well, maybe this explains how good that really is. The White Sox had a .381 winning percentage in Fedde’s starts. But their winning percentage is .247 in all other games. Fedde gave a really bad team a chance to win; he yielded no more than three runs in 16 of 21 starts and held opponents to two or fewer runs in 14 of 21 assignments. In nine of those games, opponents had just one run or no runs.

3) The Cardinals will likely have a more dangerous offense in the postseason if they can make it there. Tommy Pham is the reason. Among 78 hitters that made at least 100 postseason plate appearances from 2015 through 2023, Pham ranks 2nd in batting average (.313), 12th in slugging (.513) and 18th in OPS (.846). Pham’s postseason wRC+ is 27 percent above league average offensively and ranks tied for 18th among the 78 batters with 100 plate appearances over the past nine years.

4) Washington reliever Dylan Floro? Could this happen? Hope so. Not a big strikeout guy, but his 2.06 ERA would look good in the Cardinals bullpen. He’d be a walk-year rental. Gets a lot of ground-ball outs. Limits walks. And the right-hander doesn’t have a platoon-split issue. This season LH batters have a .496 OPS against him. And RH bats have a .554 OPS.

5) Michael Siani drove in the team’s third run Monday against Texas with an infield hit. The center fielder is 10 for 25 (.400) in his last nine games. And in 73 plate appearances since June 24, Siani has batted .329 with a .356 onbase percentage and .400 slug. Siani is hitting .289 in July.

6) Here’s my Siani stat of the day: Among major-league outfielders that have at least 70 plate appearances since June 24, Siani’s .329 batting average ranks sixth behind Byron Buxton, Lawrence Butler, Juan Soto, Jackson Chourio and Mike Yastrzemski. And Siani’s .756 OPS since June 24 is higher than the OPS posted over that time by Corbin Carroll, Brandon Nimmo, Sal Frelick, Wyatt Langford, Jason Merrill, Harrison Bader, Adolis Garcia, Randy Arozarena and Lourdes Gurriel Jr. (among many others.) This is based on at-bats taken when in the lineup as an outfielder. No DH numbers are included.

7) It’s been a tough year, but Paul Goldschmidt is doing pretty well in July. No, not compared to his MVP season in 2022. But better, yes, relative to what he’s been doing for most of this season.  Too many strikeouts, yes. Still a problem. A poor onbase percentage, yes, still a problem. But this month Goldschmidt is hitting .252 with a .484 slug, six doubles and five homers. And in his last eight games, Goldy has batted .323 with a .677 slug and three homers + two doubles.

8) To put it another way: through the end of June, Goldschmidt had a .225 average, .361 slug and .655 OPS. But in July his batting average is 30 points higher, his slugging percentage is 123 points stronger, and his OPS this month (.655) is 103 points better than it was over the first three months of the season.

8a) Or we can parse it another way. Based on park and league adjusted runs created (wRC+) Goldschmidt was 12 percent below league average offensively during the first three months, but is 10 percent above average offensively in July.

9) Since June 22, Cards rookie catcher Pedro Pages is hitting .358 with a .390 OBP and .446 slug. Well done, big fella. Pages is one of the bright spots of the Cardinal season.

10) Let’s talk about Thomas Saggese. With Tommy Edman dealt to the Dodgers, Saggesse is making a case to fill a utility-infield role for the Cardinals in 2025. Saggese struggled after graduating to Triple A Memphis, and his offensive game stalled for a few months. But Saggese has adjusted and improved. In July he’s batted .347 with a .402 onbase percentage and .600 slug for a 1.002 OPS. Saggese came over at the 2023 trade deadline as part of the deal that sent pitchers Jordan Montgomery and Chris Stratton to Texas.

11) Just for kicks, here’s a prediction (which is more of a suggestion) by ball writer Joel Reuter of Bleacher Report. He proposes a deal that would send outfielder Kevin Pillar from the Angels to the Cardinals. “The Cardinals rank 29th in the majors with a .633 OPS against left-handed pitching,” Reuter wrote. “Pillar is hitting .375/.416/.625 with 11 extra-base hits in 77 plate appearances against southpaws, and he can handle all three outfield spots as a veteran bench piece. Even after the Tommy Pham addition, he could be a fit.”

12) Monitoring Nolan Gorman: the Cardinals are 4-6 since the All-Star break and Goman has played in only five of the 10 games, batting .167 with a .211 OBP and two homers. His strikeout rate in the five games is 47.3 percent. (Wince.) Gorman’s strikeout rate for July is 45.4 percent. Since June 8, the struggling left-handed slugger has a .164 average, .208 OBP and a sallow .313 slugging percentage. And that’s accompanied by a 44.4% strikeout rate. How can Gorman – with assistance from the Cardinals – turn his season around? A booming-bat Gorman would enhance the team’s chances of making the playoffs.

13) Side note: I never expected 2024 to turn out the way it has (at least so far) for Gorman and Jordan Walker. But they’re young and I have to believe in their talent and the probability of better days ahead.

14) Related note. Only 14 major-league hitters have had a higher percentage of 0-2 counts than Gorman’s 8.3 percent. Goldschmidt is right there with an 0-2 count percentage of 8.1%.

15) The Cardinals’ starting pitching ERA in July is 5.39, which ranks 27th among the 30 teams. But that ERA has been better (not great) since the All-Star break at 4.45.

We’ll see what shakes out for the Cardinals, if anything, by the time the deadline buzzer sounds at 5 p.m. locally. I might have another column in me today.

Thanks for reading …

–Bernie

A 2023 inductee into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame, Bernie has provided informed opinions and perspective on St. Louis sports through his columns, radio shows and podcasts since 1985.

Please follow Bernie on X @b_miklasz and Threads @miklaszb

For weekly Cards talk, listen to the “Seeing Red” podcast with Will Leitch and Miklasz. It’s available on Apple, Spotify, or where you get your podcasts. Follow @seeingredpod on X for a direct link.

Stats used in my baseball columns are sourced from FanGraphs, Baseball Reference, StatHead, Baseball Savant, Baseball Prospectus, Brooks Baseball Net, and Sports Info Solutions and Cots Contracts unless otherwise noted.