Last year, I spent the time immediately after the season examining each player that had made an appearance in St. Louis during the season. This series was well received and so I’m bringing this idea back for the 2013 offseason. More summaries than anything, I imagine the player coming into Mike Matheny‘s office and having a short conference before heading home for the winter. Stats are just the ones accumulated for the Cardinals during the regular season.
This year’s Exit Interview series is brought to you by Bonfyre. A large number of the United Cardinal Bloggers used Bonfyre all season long and found it a great way to interact and discuss things in a limited audience. No need to worry about some pseudo-fan crashing your Facebook conversation or trying to explain fine points in 140 characters on Twitter. Invite who you want to the group and get to talking. Share pictures as well–Bonfyre is a great way to document parties or other events, especially for folks that can’t be there. Sign up today and give it a try.
Name: Trevor Rosenthal
Season stats: 2-4, 3 SV, 2.63 ERA, 74 games, 75.1 IP, 63 H, 20 BB, 108 K, 1.10 WHIP
Hero/Goat: Hero 1, Goat 4
Overall grade: A
Positives: When you can rack up that many strikeouts in that few of innings, you are definitely doing something right. Rosenthal spent a very successful season in the set-up role before sliding into the closer role at the end of September when Edward Mujica‘s mojo went missing. After taking on the ninth, he got three saves, put up a 0.00 ERA, and struck out five in three innings. In the postseason? 11.2 innings, 18 strikeouts, 0 earned runs. Seems like he took to the promotion pretty well.
Negatives: His command was a little shaky at times and he could get overly enamored with his fastball. One of the great things about Rosenthal is that he has a number of pitches with which to get batters out, but he wouldn’t always take advantage of it. The only other negative was that he didn’t get the job sooner, but that’s not his fault.
Outlook: Rosenthal still wants to be a starter, but while the club hasn’t completely ruled it out, they told him to prepare in the offseason to be the closer next season. With Jason Motte returning from surgery, there could be a little bit of competition for the slot, but it seems very unlikely we won’t see Rosenthal doing a lot of hand-shaking with Yadier Molina after the last out next season.
