St. Louis

Cardinals

Saggese, who missed time playing for Team Italy in the WBC, made his fifth outfield start today. With JJ Wetherholt overtaking him and Ramón Urías getting brought in as a utilityman, Saggese has played the infield just twice (both times at shortstop) this spring. He’s now played left field three times and center twice. Given that, it seems like he’s batting Nathan Church for the last spot on the Cardinals bench, which is a spot that figures to go away if Lars Nootbaar can return in mid-April. He’s batting .316/.381/.526 in 21 plate appearances.

Graceffo has made the conversion to a full-time relief role this spring and looked sharp in a handful of Grapefruit League appearances. The 26-year-old will open the regular season back in the minors but should factor into the Cardinals’ relief mix at some point.

Nootbaar has yet to appear in a spring training contest for the Cardinals as he works his way back from offseason surgery on both heels. The 28-year-old corner outfielder’s absence creates a pathway for Nelson Velàzquez to open the year in the big leagues as a temporary stopgap.

Liberatore didn’t give up a hit until his final inning. He walked one and struck out five while generating seven swings and misses before exiting. He finishes the Grapefruit League with a 1.80 ERA, and he whiffed 12 over his final two starts. The former top prospect will be the Opening Day hurler for St. Louis in 2026, and there’s at least a smidgen of fantasy upside in Liberatore’s left arm.

Both of his hard-hit balls were singles, unfortunately. Burleson was hitting in the two-hole and figures to be a reasonable second or third-tier fantasy starter with a full-time role after the Willson Contreras trade. Burleson is hitting .323/.488/.419 in 40 Grapefruit League plate appearances.

O’Brien got whiffs on 44 percent of the nine swings he generated and should be regarded as the lead of St. Louis’ closer committee heading into the season. It’s possible he separates himself into an actual closer role at some point, but this wasn’t exactly a sweat-free outing.

Leahy produced a 23 percent whiff rate and 31 percent CSW while throwing 71 percent of his pitches for strikes. That’s the good news. The bad news is that his velocity was down across the board, and his four-seam fastball sat 94 mph in the first inning and was down to 91 mph by the fourth and fifth innings. He has a spot in the Cardinals’ rotation, but we would prefer to let him go to the waiver wire rather than draft him right now.

This was always the expected outcome. With Richard Fitts getting demoted, the Cardinals rotation appears set with Dustin May, Michael McGreevy, Andre Pallante and Kyle Leahy rounding things out. It’s definitely one of the league’s least exciting groups, but no one projects as an especially big liability and there are interesting arms on the way.

There was some hope that Fitts, who came over from the Red Sox in a trade this offseason, would immediately get a shot in the rotation, but that doesn’t appear to be the case. The 26-year-old posted a 5.79 ERA, 1.29 WHIP, and a 9/3 K/BB ratio over 9 1/3 innings and will be in the Triple-A rotation. That means that both of Michael McGreevy and Kyle Leahy have won a spot in the Cardinals’ rotation.

He also struck out three and walked one while posting a 20 percent whiff rate and 20 percent CSW. You rarely see a pitcher get just seven called strikes in five full innings of work, but that’s what May did today. The right-hander threw 55 strikes on the day today, and the Nationals swung at 46 of them. Perhaps Washington was simply being aggressive, or perhaps May wasn’t really fooling hitters, which might be why Washington had eight hard-hit balls. Regardless, he maintained his fastball velocity throughout the outing, which is good news. That puts him on the fantasy radar, but until we start seeing consistent whiffs, it’s hard to get too excited.