Thinking about a post world series 2024 world, eating innings, November,
Big news week to say the least. It’ll be five days after the world series at the time of this reading. The hot stove will be going since it’s November with leaves changing whether they’re still green or not, they will have some color here in St Louis. But many of the leaves have fallen already, so we are in limbo. Driving around town is always a mesmerizing experience, as there is a lot to look at here, with winding roads and hills even in the city.
And lots of trees! If you haven’t been here the city parks are BIG. And spacious. With more hills and winding roads. About the only really flat area in St Louis is downtown. It’s like you drive into a big urban environment but it’s not long when you keep driving west or south to find it roll out in the Missouri wilderness progressively until there’s just hills and trees for a long while.
This is the time of year to reflect, and think about what just happened and what could happen. There are many pathways into the wilderness of uncertainty. There is a lot more to happen yet this year, and not much of it left, simultaneously. We really are stuck in limbo for now. Many leaves have fallen, but many are left, only to be enveloped in November’s icy winds, and eventually either crumbled into dust or become a frozen replica of its past self.
As food becomes more expensive making the working class struggle even more, the big spending Major League Baseball teams are also cutting back. For sure our Cardinals will be cutting back. They already did, big time! They declined options on 3 pitchers, saving $29 million dollars by saying no. What they will do with all that money, who knows.
Losing starting pitchers Lance Lynn, Kyle Gibson, and reliever Keynan Middleton won’t be as big of a deal as it seems. Lance Lynn’s 3.84 ERA may be missed, but he probably won’t be that good next year, and he only pitched 117.1 innings. He may not be very durable next year either. He’s not super old yet, but 38 at the end of next season could spell the end of his career, if he doesn’t retire.
Kyle Gibson, well, he looked great at times but the end result was a 4.42 FIP and 1.5 fWAR in 169.2 IP. That 286.3 IP between two pitchers. For two guys signed to be innings eaters, they kind of did, I guess? Miles Mikolas also did not pitch a lot of innings, just a couple more than Gibson. So why bother having a rotation of innings eaters? That part of the rotation didn’t really work out really well, but the bullpen took up some of the slack even without Middleton all season, right? Well, no.
Our bullpen actually didn’t eat a lot of the innings. It was the rotation. The Cardinals rotation ended tied for the 7th most in 2024 MLB in total innings pitched at 880.2. This is because the Cardinals deployed this starting pitcher breakdown:
- Mikolas 171.2
- Gibson 169.2
- Gray 166.1
- Lynn 117.1
- Pallante 111.1
- Fedde 55.2
- Matz 32.1
- Liberatore 22.2
- McGreevy 20
There were also Zack Thompson and Gordon Graceffo getting a handful of innings but it didn’t really amount to much. Thompson was below replacement level and Graceffo was ineffective and pulled from his start early.
If you squint you can see a 6 man rotation in there. And then there’s Matz! He’s still around. “At the time of this writing”.
So we now have a rotation with 2.82 xFIP Gray, almost innings eater Mikolas, a subtraction of Gibson and Lynn, 3.56 ERA Pallante, 3.72 ERA Fedde, the ghost of Steven Matz, and maybe 2.87 FIP Michael McGreevy (small sample size, of course).
I suppose if Mikolas or Matz are no longer good options for the rotation, McGreevy might be able to step up. This rotation actually seems pretty good! After losing not one but two starting pitchers. Baseball never ceases to amaze me.
But I digress. 2024 will be mostly remembered for Masyn Winn’s rookie season. I have talked about his defense, but what of his baserunning? He’s top ten in MLB in a stat called “runner runs” on baseball savant. So not only did he have a pretty great rookie season, he did it in multiple ways.
Album Hall of Fame
My next induction into the perfect album hall of fame is a band called Thingy, for their album ‘Songs About Angels, Evil, and Running Around On Fire’. It is a strange blend of punk and prog rock, so I guess I would file it under the post-punk genre. Since this one is a little more obscure, here is a link to the album on bandcamp. This is a remastered version that you probably won’t hear on youtube, but if you want to hear the original mix or just really liked using youtube, click here.
This album features short songs, tight musicianship, and a lot of vocal melodies between the guitarist Rob Crow and singer Elea Tenuta. Recorded in San Diego in the year 2000, it gives you a glimpse into a different time in music history, when alternative rock ruled much of the radiowaves. However, Thingy didn’t really sound like anyone else, with extremely complex songs presented over a rather succinct compositional format. Which may leave many listeners with their heads spinning. But the song structures make sense and accomplish a lot in a short time span.
You may know the name Rob Crow from his band Pinback, who I like about the same amount as Thingy, and his other bands Heavy Vegetable and Other Men. Which means, A LOT. One of my favorite musicians ever. These songs may sound like sonic puzzles but if you hear them enough to unlock the rhythms, dynamics, and emotional impact, it will reward you more and more with each listen.
I hope you like ‘Songs About Angels, Evil, and Running Around On Fire’. I cannot recommend this album enough if you are into punk rock, indie pop that verges on prog rock, or post punk sounds. And please read up on Rob Crow, an American musical genius of the music underground. He has many different bands! But Thingy is my favorite, with Pinback and Heavy Vegetable a close second. The closest band of his to Thingy is its precursor, Heavy Vegetable, which has a more fun and playful sound but it very similar in style. Expect mostly high velocity punk songs with a lot of changes and sections, a few dirges, and some noisy indie pop.
Thanks for reading all of that again, VEB! It’s good to be here despite a weird crashing site with random videos unrelated to the articles, and the Cardinals going into a hush hush rebuild mode. At least it’s fun to think about what Thomas Saggese might do next year, and struggling Cardinals like Nolan Gorman and Jordan Walker, who are really just beginning their potential careers. Not to mention, on the pitching side Andre Pallante, Michael McGreevy, and even some of the young bullpen arms might end up being really good. And of course a Masyn Winn sophomore campaign will be exciting to think about this winter.
