Well, it’s happening again.
Two players the Cardinals decided to let walk are dominating in debuts for new teams.
Red Sox outfielder Tyler O’Neill, who was traded away by the Cardinals for minor league reliever Nick Robertson and minor league starter Victor Santos, has through 35 at-bats built a league-leading on-base plus slugging percentage of 1.346 that tops superstars like Mookie Betts (1.234 OPS) and Mike Trout (1.195). Mr. Muscles and Trout lead the majors with six home runs each. And O’Neill isn’t just clobbering the baseball. He’s walked (eight times) nearly as many times as he’s struck out (10). That’s new.
Now, can he keep it up? Fair question. History suggests a healthy dose of hesitation before naming O’Neill the new David Ortiz. But he’s hit Beantown ground running, no doubt.
“There’s a lot of things that he does well on the diamond,†Red Sox manager Alex Cora recently told The Boston Globe. “I honestly believe this is the type of guy that people are going to fall in love with at Fenway (Park) because he plays with an attitude, he plays the game hard and we’ve just got to keep him healthy.â€
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Easier said than done.
Meanwhile, Giants starting pitcher Jordan Hicks, who was traded by the Cardinals as a reliever to the Blue Jays for starting pitching prospects Sem Robberse and Adam Kloffenstien, has made a near perfect impression with his newest team. San Francisco’s free-agent vision for Hicks started with him producing the lowest ERA (1.00) of any starter who had at least three starts. In 18 innings of work he has totaled more strikeouts (13) than hits allowed (12) while walking only three. His opponents are averaging .194 against him.
“It’s more of the mindset more than anything else,†Giants manager Bob Melvin told The San Francisco Chronicle. “He wants to go out there and give us innings, no talk of pitch counts, none of that stuff. That mindset has really worked well for him. You’re always trying to be aware of a guy who hasn’t started before, but every time he’s gotten into jams, he’s been able to stop it. I think that’s when he goes into closer’s mode and has to make a big pitch or get a big out.â€
That sound you hear is frustrated Cardinal Nation sharpening pencils to update the list of recent ex-Cards who are performing better for other teams than they did for the Cardinals, whether it was because they could not consistently find the best version of themselves while playing here or because they didn’t get much of a chance to do so before they were gone.
On the position side, dominated by outfielders, the group includes Randy Arozarena, Adolis Garcia and Lane Thomas. On Wednesday, O’Neill was featured on MLB Network programming that focused on Cardinals outfielders who got away. The network included the obvious names and tacked on Randal Grichuk and Tommy Pham. I’m a Phamatic, but those last two feel like a bit of a reach. The others? Fair.
O’Neill? Still too soon.
There was no network mention of the pitching side, where the greatest hits include traded-away Sandy Alcantara and Zac Gallen. Is Hicks headed for that territory? Too soon, too. But the possibility of it stings more than any what-if about one more season of O’Neill. Why? Because O’Neill got endless chances to do this with the Cardinals. Hicks, not so much.
When the Cardinals traded O’Neill, president of baseball operations John Mozeliak beat others to the joke, suggesting there was a chance the slugger, considering recent trends, could win the American League Most Valuable Player award. There’s never been much doubt about O’Neill producing home runs if healthy and locked in at the plate. We saw that in 2021, when he finished in the top 10 in MVP voting during the only season in five not shortened by the pandemic that he played 100-plus major league games.
The Cardinals could have stuck it out one more year and banked on an increased chance of a max-effort season from O’Neill in his final shot before free agency. Maybe they will wind up wishing they would have played it that way. But it’s hard for me to fault them for moving on when it was clear a player-team relationship was falling apart, especially for a team that felt it needed improved clubhouse chemistry and leadership.
The Cardinals knew they were trading O’Neill at a low point. They felt they had no other choice. He had been handed nearly 1,500 at-bats since 2018, was entering his age-29 season and had not locked down a role. Counting on him had too often been a liability.
The same can’t be said about Hicks, can it? The Cardinals can’t say they gave him a legitimate chance to start. They can’t say they were aware of what he could become.
Briefly tinkering with Hicks as an opener in 2022 doesn’t really count, does it? That plan folded after the idea was not an instant success. Hicks made only eight starts in his Cardinals career. Only one was allowed to reach five innings.
Hicks fell into the dreaded Trevor Rosenthal Zone. He was the high-powered reliever the Cardinals wondered about as a starter, one who had high interest in becoming a starter, but the grooves always led him back toward the back end of the bullpen. The Giants are looking smart, so far, for doing what the Cardinals could not convince themselves to truly try. They committed a four-year, $44 million deal to this project. So far, very good. And remember, Hicks is only 27.
The Cardinals’ seemingly lost feel for knowing what they have in pitchers and getting the most out of them is a bigger problem than the continued outfield carousel. Pitching remains the single most important thing draft-and-develop organizations have to nail in order to have a chance to compete with the game’s biggest spenders. Buying starting pitching is both incredibly expensive and incredibly volatile. The Cardinals have been forced to do too much of it lately.
Time will tell if the returns on trading O’Neill and Hicks become answers. All of those arms are pitching at Class AAA Memphis this season, so they are not far away from their chances. You can’t truly grade trades until moving parts stop moving. That won’t stop O’Neill’s homers from getting MLB Network air time. The Cardinals were braced for those bruises. It’s the Hicks surprise that could really hurt.