Questions persisted all offseason as to what this 2026 St. Louis Cardinals starting rotation was going to look like. Matthew Liberatore has not quite found his stride early in the season. Dustin May, after 2 shaky starts to begin the year, has found a footing in the rotation over his last 3 appearances. Andre Pallante has been mostly good in his first 5 turns this year, and Kyle Leahy is early in his transition from the bullpen back to a starter’s workload.
On Sunday, we saw Michael McGreevy give the Cardinals another quality start, going 6 IP, the only run he allowed was on a solo shot to Cal Raleigh (it happens), and allowed scant traffic all game long. It was Mcgreevy’s 3rd time posting a QS in 6 games started this season. If McGreevy can maintain a QS% of 50% or higher, that’s going to go a long way towards the Cardinals navigating the 162-game season and a really refreshing source of “Bulk” innings, not a 30-something veteran starter on the back end of their career.
In 31.3 IP now this season, McGreevy has a 3.16 ERA, and his WHIP is down to 0.86, which is good for 6th in the NL. McGreevy has been the quintessential “pitch maker” for the Cardinals this season, living around 91-92 MPH on the FB so far this year. McGreevy has effectively mixed his pitches, featuring at least 5 pitches with more than 10% usage. His Hard-Hit% is only 36.5%, and his average exit velocity against is 87.9, and those are both above-average marks. The other thing that McGreevy is doing superbly is avoiding the free passes. His BB% is under 5% this year, and in the modern game, if you’re not a pitcher who can punch his way out of trouble, then you better not GET yourself into trouble often.
Michael’s Changeup has been a particularly effective pitch for him this season. Opponents are hitting .077 against the cambio and with a .114 wOBA and 25.6 Whiff%. So far in 2026, it rates out as a +4 in Run Value, which puts him in the 98th percentile of all offspeed pitches in baseball. McGreevy’s sinker and Cutter are also positive value pitches for him thus far this year, as well as using the breaking ball as a “strike stealer” early in counts, and can put hitters away with soft contact in play.
We spoke to Eno Sarris on last week’s episode of the podcast, and our wonderful Gabe Simonds asked Eno about Stuff+ and the ability to have outliers, and it is possible for certain players to outperform what they show, and Michael McGreevy would certainly seem to be one of those pitchers who will outpitch a lot of expected predictor type stats.
For the more experienced fans in Cardinal Nation, McGreevy is probably more of a favorite, as he does the things that Cardinals starters of a previous generation did well. He works quickly, throws strikes, gets groundballs, and gives his team a chance to win just about every start he makes. He won’t wow stuff metrics evaluators, but he’ll do enough to be your dad/grandpa’s favorite pitcher on the team.
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