Joker's Wild
This isn't where we expected to be approaching Jack Flaherty's free agency.
“Never quarrel with a man who buys ink by the barrel.”
It’s a phrase that has been attributed to many (it seems the first instance was actually Congressman Charles Bornson) and while the specifics have changed—Ben Fredrickson doesn’t get a regular shipment of ink these days—the spirit has not. Getting on the wrong side of the media can make for some tough days if you are a public figure.
Jack Flaherty’s probably going to be finding that out today.
Responding to questions about his fastball velocity in last night’s game, Flaherty dismissed those concerns with a line of defense that could be fairly summed up as “you don’t know pitching”. Using that as your bulwark usually doesn’t end well.
Coming up, Flaherty was maybe not the biggest prospect—Alex Reyes was right ahead of him, after all—but he was a big deal. The idea of Reyes, Luke Weaver, and Flaherty all in a rotation seemed to set the Cardinals up to continue their extended period of pitching success.
He made his debut in 2017 against the San Francisco Giants as the Cardinals were trying to make the playoffs. The first outing was less than ideal—five runs in four innings—but he posted six strikeouts and gave Cardinals fans hope that another big strikeout machine was on the way. He finished that September with 20 strikeouts in 21.1 innings and was poised to join the rotation in 2018.
The next season was proof of concept. Flaherty wound up fifth in the Rookie of the Year voting after putting up a 3.34 ERA in 151 innings with 182 strikeouts. The future was bright and fans were already clamoring for the front office to sign him to a long-term extension, figuring if he hit the free agent market the demand would push him well out of the Cardinals’ comfort zone.
The club forcibly renewed his contract when they couldn’t come to terms with him and for the first part of 2019, that looked like it was going to be a fair thing. Flaherty struggled and after allowing seven runs in 4.2 innings to the A’s and four runs in 4.2 innings to the Mariners, he went into the last start before the All-Star Break sporting a 4.90 ERA, fairly earned when compared to his 4.81 FIP. Some of the ugliness was based on the 19 homers he’d allowed in just 90 innings, but whatever the case, it wasn’t what everyone had planned for the future king.
Then, in that start in San Francisco before the break, something clicked.
The Cardinals lost that game 1-0 but that was an unfair result for Flaherty. He took a no-hitter into the seventh, when Evan Longoria reached him for another homer. He gave up another hit that inning but finished his day with six strikeouts, one walk, and those two knocks. It was the beginning of the greatest run of pitching Cardinal fans had seen since Bob Gibson.
In the second half of 2019, as everyone knows, Flaherty had a 0.91 ERA in just shy of 100 innings. He struck out 124 and walked just 23. Batters had an OPS of .424 against him. An OPS! He went seven or more innings nine times during that run of 16 starts. There were stories of Gibson being impressed with him, of the two discussing pitching.
Nobody expected sub-1 ERAs for the rest of Flaherty’s career but it did seem like he had taken his game to the next level and that he was taking his place among the elites of the game.
In retrospect, maybe the Cardinals didn’t trust that breakout.
The team had all the contractual advantage after that season and they came to terms with Flaherty on a one year deal that was a bump but not a significant one. They didn’t overtly look to sign him to a long-term deal, though Flaherty had also given signals that he didn’t want to sign away his arbitration years, looking to maximize income instead of prioritizing security.
2020 was….we all know what 2020 was. You can’t really take anyone’s stats from that season and use them in any sort of narrative, especially on a Cardinal team that wound up not playing for about two weeks, then spent much of the rest of the shortened season playing doubleheaders. Flaherty famously had to resort to throwing baseballs into the hotel mattress propped up on the wall while the team was quarantined in Milwaukee. When he put up close to a 5.00 ERA in nine games, nobody batted an eye or had any concerns.
Maybe because of those numbers, though, the Cardinals took him to an arbitration hearing, something that used to be pretty rare (though they’d already broken their decade-plus streak by going to court with Michael Wacha). Flaherty won the battle, which wasn’t a surprise with 2019 still fresh in people’s minds.
Injuries came for Flaherty in 2021, hampering his season. In the first half, he had a 2.90 ERA in 11 starts, but he appeared in only six games (four starts) in the second, posting a 4.41 ERA. Again, you couldn’t take that season too seriously because of that, though it was easy to make the case that, when healthy, Flaherty would return to form.
Flaherty avoided arbitration after 2021 but still there was no sign of any long-term deal.
Last season Flaherty was injured again and wasn’t terribly effective when he was on the mound. It was only 36 innings, meaning that when you totaled the innings from 2020-2022, you got a result less than 2019’s high water mark. Flaherty didn’t even debut until mid-June, then three starts later went back on the injured list. He returned in September and the strikeouts were still there (27 in 28 innings) but also walked 13 in that span. After the season, he again agreed to a contract, avoiding arbitration for the last time.
Which brings us to this season, which really is making no sense. Last year he had his highest BB/9 at 5.5, this year he’s surpassed that at 6.2. He has a 6.18 ERA after eight starts, which looks more like the 6.33 ERA he had in the six games in 2017. The only game he didn’t allow a run in was his first start, where he walked seven. He has a 10 spot on his game log against the Angels. He’s still striking out a batter an inning but his WHIP is 1.729, which means you better strike out a lot of batters because you are always in a tough spot.
Given his history, given his results, and then given a drop in velocity last night, can you blame the media for asking about that?
Apparently, if you are Jack Flaherty, you can.
I get that Flaherty is probably frustrated about his results and he’s also got to be tired of people always wondering if he’s hurt, because if you aren’t hurt but people think you are, that means you aren’t doing well. Nobody asks the guy with a 2.10 ERA and a 6-1 record if they are hurt if the velocity drops a bit (at least not often).
However, it’s a fair question to ask. In 2019, his fastball velocity was in the 63rd percentile. Since then it’s been 60th, 52nd, 39th, and now 22nd, a trend that tends to go along with the decline in his results (and his injury history). I understand the idea of pitching at different velocities, of not necessarily throwing your fastball at the highest speed every time, but it’s also fair to say that if you are throwing it in the upper 80s/low 90s regularly, the results may not be what you want to see.
There’s a ton of blue on his Savant page. While there’s still a long time for these things to turn around, if they don’t, we’re asking a question we never thought we would in 2019.
Should the Cardinals even try to bring Flaherty back?
Obviously, Flaherty’s price is going to be significantly lower than expected even just two years ago. Even if he has another 2019-like second half, the injury history and spotty results are probably going to make some teams hesitant. The market is going to be weaker for him than we ever thought.
Which, normally, would be good for the Cardinals. They could sign him at a lower rate than expected with the idea that he’ll be more like first half 2021 Flaherty than what we’ve seen the last year or so. St. Louis famously only has two starters under contract for next year (and there’s no guarantee what the role of Steven Matz will be by then) so they have the openings. In fact, if a pitcher with this resume was on the free agent market, as fans we’d be open to the Cardinals taking a shot on him as long as it wasn’t the only move they made.
It’s different, though, when it’s your player versus someone else’s, though.
The “change of scenery” argument probably works for both sides here. As noted above, the Cardinals have never made a big push to try to keep Flaherty. They’ve never tried to make him one of the core. Perhaps that’s because Adam Wainwright was taking that role in the pitching staff, perhaps because of the injuries, perhaps because Flaherty’s outspokenness didn’t mesh with the organization. Whatever the case, it doesn’t seem like retaining Flaherty is one of their top priorities.
As for Flaherty, it wouldn’t be a surprise if he got somewhere like Los Angeles, always an expected destination for him, got a tweak, got healthy, and got dominant. It wouldn’t be a surprise if that never happened either, though.
The Jack Flaherty Era has had its bright spots but it hasn’t lived up to (admittedly high) expectations. We’ll see what the rest of the season brings but it seems unlikely we’ll greet his free agency with the same attitude we would have six years ago.
I like to imagine the joker video followed by/coinciding with his first game of walks being by design. I mean, it actually worked if you don’t knee-jerk to walks being bad. If you imagine walks being a tactic - voilà!