Cardinals did an admirable job keeping his internal dialogue to himself during Winter Warm-up last month at Busch Stadium. He probably wanted to emphatically swat away any suggestion of him going to the bullpen the way an older sibling swats their kid brother or kid sister’s jump shot.
In his head, he might have said, “Bullpen? Get that crap out of here!†And you couldn’t have blamed him if he let some version of that slip out of his lips. Yet, he didn’t.
Instead, the former first-round draft pick (19th overall in 2019) firmly reiterated his focus and intention this offseason remained on one job. That job didn’t include watching the game from behind an outfield wall and waiting for the bullpen phone to ring.
“My whole offseason plan has just been making sure physically and mentally I’m in a spot to be prepared to try to throw 200 innings,†Thompson said.
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Thompson, who made his major league debut in 2022, began last season on the opening day roster in the bullpen. He went down to Triple-A on May 2, and the Cardinals started stretching him out as a starter. At the time, they were clear that part of the thinking was he’d be a candidate to start in 2024.
Amid the Cardinals’ late-season roster shuffling, including trades and injuries, Thompson returned to the majors in early July. Originally, he was supposed to work exclusively out of the bullpen when he came back to the majors.
He made a spot start Aug. 6 and then eight additional starts down the stretch. For the season, Thompson went 5-7 with a 4.48 ERA, 9.8 strikeouts per nine innings, a 1.42 WHIP and a 2.88-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio in the majors. Big league opponents posted a slash line of .270/.336/.442 against Thompson.
When he was thrust into a starting role last season (nine starts, 45 1/3 innings), Thompson was 3-4 with a 4.57 ERA, 9.1 strikeouts per nine innings, 1.32 WHIP and a 3.29-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio. Opposing hitters slashed .264/.323/.437 against him as a starter.
“I think it just drives me more as much as anything,†Thompson said of the 2023 season. “Bouncing around between the rotation and the bullpen, finding some weaknesses in my game, some weaknesses in my preparation. I tried to knock that out this offseason. I’m working on a couple of new weapons, making sure I’m ready to go as a starter.â€
The 6-foot-2, 215-pound Indiana native spent time this offseason in North Carolina with the sports performance specialists at Tread Athletics. With the help of the Tread staff, Thompson decided to retool his arsenal in an effort to allow him to pitch deep into games.
He’d said last season he planned to refine his change-up this winter. His curveball has been his bread-and-butter pitch, but this winter, he decided to add another “smaller†version of his curveball in an effort to get more swing-and-miss.
“I’m looking for strikeouts,†Thompson said. “Looking back at my curveball numbers last year, I leaned on it hard, and guys didn’t hit it hard a ton.
“But I didn’t get the whiff I needed on it. I need to be able to get those strikeouts, avoid wasting some pitches, get into my pitch count. So I’m going after some strikeouts with the additional curveball this year.â€
Even though the Cardinals aggressively bolstered their starting pitching rotation with three veteran additions before the start of December, Thompson has shown no signs of willingly taking a backseat.
When asked about how his arsenal might adapt to a bullpen role, Thompson was diplomatic yet definitive about his intentions.
“Really, this offseason I haven’t tried to look at it as I’m going to be a reliever,†Thompson said. “It’s what arsenal do I need to be a consistent starter, to take the ball 30 times a year and put up innings? How do I get through a lineup three times, maybe more? I really haven’t thought about what pitches I would need to scrap to go to the bullpen yet.â€
The next homegrown starter?
If Thompson carves out a path as a big league starter, then he’ll become the current flag bearer for an organization that has increasingly gone outside of its own ranks to find starting pitching options as well as starting pitching depth.
In the past year, the Cardinals cut ties with several of their most recent homegrown starting pitching options to reach the major leagues.
They traded away Jack Flaherty, who appeared on a trajectory to grow into a front-line starter before injury issues. They nontendered Dakota Hudson (34th overall pick in 2016) and Jake Woodford (39th overall pick in 2015).
Their projected five-man starting rotation for this season features a group all 32 years of age or older, and all were signed via free agency.
Miles Mikolas signed as a free agent after the 2017 season, following three seasons in Japan. Steven Matz signed after the 2021 season, and this winter, the Cardinals signed Sonny Gray, Lance Lynn and Kyle Gibson. The Cardinals originally drafted Lynn in 2008, but he left via free agency following the 2017 season.
previously worked as a scout and front office executive for the New York Yankees, Baltimore Orioles, Pittsburgh Pirates and Atlanta Braves from 2005 to 2012.
McDaniel described the perception of the Cardinals’ approach to pitching development 10 years ago as wanting “athletic guys†with good arm speed, which wasn’t an uncommon approach.
“In the last say five to seven years, as the industry has fallen in line with the pitch design stuff and the top-of-the-zone four-seam fastball and the swing-and-miss and all that, I wouldn’t even say they have been left behind,†McDaniel said. “They have instinctively chosen to stay with what’s been working for them, which is athletes that can go deep into games, that can make adjustments, that have a good breaking ball, but not necessarily have the best shape for swing-and-miss in the zone for fastballs.
“Which means they get painted — by other teams that who are looking for that stuff and have had some success — as a place that is not looking for front of the rotation potential, that is looking for pitch-to-contact sinker ballers, that is getting most back-end of the rotation kind of guys.â€
Cardinals president of baseball operations John Mozeliak said as recently as January he remains “bullish†on their pitching prospects such as 2021 draft picks Michael McGreevy (18th overall) and Gordon Graceffo (fifth round, 151st overall). Neither Graceffo nor McGreevy, both drafted out of college, have shown themselves as high-strikeout-rate pitchers in the upper levels of the minors.
The Cardinals clearly have felt the need to go outside of the organization in recent years to bolster their pitching options in their farm system with the likes of Matthew Liberatore, Drew Rom, Tekoah Roby, Sem Robberse and Adam Kloffenstein acquired via trades.
Right-hander Tink Hence, drafted by the Cardinals in 2020, remains the highest-rated pitching prospect in the organization according to third-party publications and prospect evaluators, but Hence also remains further away than the aforementioned group.
Hence has flashed some of that strikeout ability in the lower levels of the minors, but he has limited experience in pro ball. Hence, 21, was drafted out of high school during the COVID-19 pandemic and has thrown just 156 1/3 innings in the minors. He began last season at High-A (11 starts) and finished at Double-A (12 starts).
The recent reliance on pitching from outside of the organization has prompted the Cardinals to at least consider changes to their approach to acquiring amateur pitchers.
“We are taking a look at our amateur model because there’s no doubt that we’ve made some pretty high picks, first- or second-round guys, that you’re not seeing some of their performance that they had in college necessarily translate into a successful pro model,†Mozeliak said in December.
“I’m not saying they’re done or we’re giving up on it. It just hasn’t been as quickly as we had hoped. So we are tinkering with how we think about that.â€
Thompson’s ability to successfully make himself a starter could have ramifications for more than just his career. It could have reverberations for the Cardinals approach to pitching development.