Who will emerge as the St. Louis Cardinals closer? There are plenty of options.
As the St. Louis Cardinals begin to subtly shape the disparate pieces of their starting rotation, early returns from spring training offer some guidance as to the likely path the club will take at the back end of games as well.
Kwang-hyun Kim’s start against the Marlins in Jupiter on Wednesday is being paired with an appearance by Génesis Cabrera in a split squad game a dozen miles south in West Palm Beach. After Jack Flaherty and Dakota Hudson double up on Thursday’s game against Atlanta across the state in North Port, the Cardinals will have Adam Wainwright start Saturday and Carlos Martínez on Sunday.
Before the calendar turns over into March, the favorites for the rotation jobs are precisely the expected pitchers. That leaves John Gant, and Ryan Helsley — currently on starters’ programs — as likely to break camp with the big team but in need of a prescribed role. \
The ninth inning may beckon.
“Who are the eight guys in the bullpen that are gonna get outs?” Cardinals manager Mike Shildt asked rhetorically on Wednesday morning. “Who’s gonna be flexible, who’s gonna ultimately, end of the day, get outs? That’s why I don’t get overly caught up on velocity, don’t get overly caught up on handedness.”
The Cardinals have been consistently persistent in their pushback against any assumptions drawn about the roster this early in camp. The length of the calendar and the unpredictability of injuries and poor performance conspire to remove any incentive for premature announcements.
Still, as relievers John Brebbia, Giovanny Gallegos and Tyler Webb make their first appearances of the spring, the Cardinals will search for the right matchups to guarantee proper preparation.
“I think a lot of times you see those guys pitch earlier in the game so they can face their contemporaries or at least historical contemporaries,” Shildt said. “To give you a little bit of a gauge, give themselves a gauge as well.”
Brebbia and Gallegos are two candidates who intrigue the Cardinals as options at closer because of what they represent as known quantities.
Brebbia has made more appearances than any other Cardinals pitcher over the last three seasons, and uses a fastball/slider mix to create strong deception, contributing to his average of more than 10 strikeouts per nine innings over the last two seasons.
Gallegos allowed just 19 earned runs in a team-leading 74 innings pitched in 2019. He also walked just 16 hitters across that span, assuring the club that he won’t contribute to ninth inning stress by creating more traffic for himself on the bases than is necessary.
Gant and Helsley — should they officially be moved out of the competition for starters — each have their strong points.
Gant was strong in the season’s first half before fading in the second. As the Cardinals prepare for Jordan Hicks to return around the all-star break, they might be willing to gamble on such a timeframe. Earlier in camp, though, Shildt suggested that the club might search for a full-year closer in order to reduce Hicks’s stress load once he returns.
Helsley’s triple-digit fastball and growing importance into the 2019 postseason may make him a quiet favorite for the role. He’s impressed in early camp action, flashing a sharp curveball which he largely abandoned last season but potentially better creates deception when paired with his high-velocity offerings.
Shildt recently compared Helsley’s situation this year to Gant’s last year, in that starting as a starter may result in his being better prepared to handle the rigors of a bullpen role.
Andrew Miller, who has yet to appear in game action, has also been mentioned by Shildt as an option, but would seem to provide greater value to the club in the high-leverage situations which are frequently created by the lefty sluggers in the NL Central.
Should other options falter, his experience may prove a life raft, but the Cardinals seem content for it to function as an anchor at present.
“There’s always dominoes,” Shildt said when asked about aligning his bullpen. “You can do it more as you go, but right now, it’s just about guys getting their work in, Gio’s first time out. So to expect him, to worry about him getting what role he’s in, is pretty unfair to everybody. But as we move, we’ll clearly start to slot the pieces.”
That slotting will occur in the coming weeks. The Cardinals, even as they less frequently emphasize the value of a defined closer and hesitate to let their pitcher usage be determined by a chance for save totals, would prefer to be able to point to a lodestar in the back of the bullpen from which they can work backward and create a game plan.
Helsley represents excitement. Brebbia, Gant and Gallegos represent stability. The Cardinals are in need of outs, and for the moment, are not picky about from whence they come.
