For the fifth straight year, we’re taking some time in that time between the end of the season and the winter meetings to discuss each player that made an appearance on the St. Louis roster this season. Whether they played almost every day or never actually got into a game, they get covered in this series. All stats are exclusively their time in St. Louis. Just think of this as them stopping by Mike Matheny‘s office for a quick evaluation before heading home for the winter.
This year’s Exit Interview series is “being brought to you by” some of the various Cardinal podcasts that are out there for your listening pleasure. Our focus this time is the Viva El Birdos podcast. John and Heather break down all the recent happenings in Cardinal Nation with the skill and approach you’d probably expect if you are a VEB reader. Find them on iTunes or check out the site!
Player: Kevin Siegrist
Season stats: 6-3, 3 SV, 2.77 ERA, 67 games, 61.2 IP, 42 H, 26 BB, 66 K, 1.103 WHIP, 4.43 FIP, 1.7 bWAR
Hero/Goat: Goat 3
Overall grade: B+
Positives: Only had three outings where he allowed more than one run….allowed only a .193 BAA….righties hit .180 off of him….had a 2.01 ERA at Busch….had a 1.50 ERA in September….when batters swung at the first pitch they had an OPS of .529….batters had a .544 OPS on the first pitch….allowed only a .155 BAA and a .492 OPS when nobody was out….batters hit .160 with runners in scoring position….that number dropped to .074 when there were two outs….had a 1.93 ERA in the eighth inning….had a 1.08 ERA (man, I’m going to miss that number being relevant) against the Cubs in nine games.
Negatives: Allowed 10 home runs, which doubled his career total….had a significant gap between his ERA and his FIP….had a 3.56 ERA away from home….had a 5.79 ERA in August….hitters batting second in the lineup went .306/.333/.611 against him….when a batter was ahead in the count, he allowed a 1.034 OPS….allowed six of his home runs in high leverage situations….had a 21.60 ERA in the sixth inning (1.2 innings, 5 games)….had a 5.40 ERA in five innings against the Brewers.
Overview: Whenever Siegrist kept the ball in the ballpark, he was a very tough man to face at the end of the game. While he never was in serious consideration to take over the closer role that Trevor Rosenthal relinquished, the ability to deploy him not only against lefties but for entire innings was a huge part of the strength of the bullpen, which was a strength of the team for most of the season. The 10 homers are troubling, but six of them were solo shots, and if your reliever is going to get burned like that, much better when nobody is on base. Siegrist never gave up runs in back-to-back outings and even his August skid only had one blown save in it and had him with more than a strikeout per inning. Siegrist is a solid, very good cog in the bullpen and the club is fortunate to have him.
Outlook: That FIP does get you a little concerned that we’ll see a little “catch-up” next year, but really if Siegrist can keep the home run total down, there’s little reason to think he won’t be a great seventh or eighth inning guy for the Cardinals again next season. While I’m sure other teams would love to have him as well, it seems hard to fathom he’d be a trade chip, so we should see him when the team arrives in Jupiter in February.