The struggles of the St. Louis Cardinals pitching staff are well documented. At the time of writing, the staff ranks 22nd in ERA, 16th in FIP, 20th in strikeout rate, and 20th in fWAR. That’s below average all around.
There’s been plenty made about the lack of frontline stuff in the rotation and that’s certainly a fair criticism. I’m not going to focus on that, though. What I want to focus on is pitch mix because the Cardinals throw too many fastballs in a league where pitchers are throwing fewer and fewer fastballs every year.
I’ve pulled the last decade of data to prove this.