St. Louis Cardinals: Can Marco Gonzales be a Lefty Bullpen Option?
As the St. Louis Cardinals head into next Friday’s trade deadline, their needs aren’t completely pressing, as they have the best record in Major League Baseball at 61-34, and while they could stand to further boost their bullpen depth (even after acquiring righty Steve Cishek) or acquire another veteran option at first base, they’d still be a pretty formidable playoff threat if they were to stand pat the rest of the way.
One area where the Cardinals could potentially use an upgrade, lefthanded relief, could be addressed in house. Marco Gonzales, the club’s top starting pitching prospect, has been making his way back from a shoulder injury in recent weeks, and if everything lines up correctly for the Cardinals, the 23-year-old lefthander may be able to step into the same role he filled in 2014, serving as a formidable bullpen weapon down the stretch.
The Cardinals’ attack on lefties this season hasn’t been terrible, but it hasn’t exactly been great, either. Lefty specialist Randy Choate, one of the few remaining pitchers in the sport who almost exclusively faces lefthanded hitters, has allowed lefties to hit .254 against him this season while giving up two home runs. Overall, he has a 3.72 ERA in just 19.1 innings spanning 48 appearances.
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Meanwhile, lefty Kevin Siegrist, the club’s regular eighth inning setup man, has struggled against lefthanded hitters. While Siegrist has been dominant overall, posting a 1.39 ERA with a .209 opponent batting average over 45.1 innings, lefties are hitting .333 against him in 51 at-bats.
All of this comes into play due to the fact that Gonzales may be the club’s best lefty specialist for the stretch run. Perhaps that isn’t the best term, as Gonzales is a trained starter and is effective enough to get both lefthanded and righthanded hitters out, so he would be able to go for full innings and even pitch multiple frames if necessary. While Choate has done a decent job of retiring lefty hitters, his inability to pitch a full inning in a high-leverage situation severely limits the Cardinals’ bullpen, and may in fact be the biggest reason that the club has felt the need to carry 13 pitchers for nearly the entirety of the 2015 season.
And while Gonzales isn’t going to supplant Siegrist as one of the team’s most trusted bullpen arms in the late innings, he would free up Siegrist to do what he does best. With Gonzales in the fold to team with (or replace) Choate as a lefty-killer, Siegrist would no longer have to be the team’s backup lefty specialist, as he was on Wednesday night in Chicago. With rookie Sam Tuivailala on the mound for the eighth, having gotten two outs but also given up two singles, manager Mike Matheny was faced with a conundrum as lefty hitter Adam LaRoche came up to the plate with runners on first and third. He could allow Tuivailala, a veteran of 10.1 big-league innings, to face LaRoche, a 12-year MLB veteran with an .804 career OPS, or turn to one of his more tested lefties. Apparently wary of using Choate in such a high-pressure situation, he decided to use Siegrist, who pitched for the fourth time in the Cardinals’ last five games. Though Siegrist retired LaRoche with a three-pitch strikeout in that situation, it might provide for more efficient bullpen management in the playoffs if Matheny can turn to a pitcher like Gonzales that is both more effective against lefties and that is primarily dedicated to getting lefthanded hitters out.
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The most significant factor that should make Gonzales a more trusted option than most young pitchers (such as Tuivailala) is that Gonzales has proven he can perform on the biggest stage during the playoffs. He was unscored upon through 5.1 postseason innings out of the bullpen in 2014 before having a less effective outing in Game 4 of the NLCS, in which he allowed three earned runs on a hit and a walk through 0.2 innings.
Besides his overall effectiveness, Gonzales showed that he can absolutely shut down lefties. Through his brief big-league career, Gonzales has given up just four hits to lefthanded hitters in 28 at-bats. Though you can’t put much stock in small sample sizes, Gonzales showed that he could combat the most formidable lefty hitters he faced in the postseason, some of the same ones that he may face again this year if given an opportunity. San Francisco Giants shortstop Brandon Crawford, who has been dominant against lefty hitters over the past couple hitters, went 1-for-4 with a walk against Gonzales, while Los Angeles Dodgers first baseman Adrian Gonzalez was 0-for-2 against him.
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All of this discussion of making Gonzales a late-season lefty reliever, of course, is dependent on the Cardinals having enough starting pitching depth to get them through the rest of the season. With recently-optioned rookie lefty Tim Cooney and third-year big-league contributor Tyler Lyons having delivered some good starts for the Cardinals this year and now both back in the rotation at Triple-A Memphis, it would seem that starting depth wouldn’t be an issue. It’s always difficult to know what types of weird situations are going to creep up in August with injuries and fatigue, though, so it’s still possible that Gonzales could be in line for at least a temporary starting role this season.
After a rough start to his minor-league season, Gonzales has been dominant in short bursts since returning to health, as he still has not allowed an earned run through 11.1 innings spanning four appearances in the month of July. Thus, the Cardinals should have reason to be optimistic that he can succeed in a bullpen role. As long as the Cardinals don’t have a pressing need in the bullpen for the next month, it makes sense for them to allow Gonzales to continue building stamina, strength, and confidence in the minors. But come September 1, he should be in the majors, and as long as he succeeds like he did in 2015, he’ll likely become a more attractive option than Choate in the postseason bullpen.