What the Cardinals pitching staff direly misses right now is a Dave Duncan-type
In a time of trouble, the starters could use a true guru.
Long before he slid headfirst into first base to get an important out in a World Series game, Chris Carpenter was a Toronto Blue Jays outcast who showed up to St. Louis with a problematic shoulder. His career was uneven too, producing mixed results with promise attached. Carpenter would go on to become one of the most dominating pitchers to ever wear a Cardinal uniform, donning a Hall of Fame red jacket a few years ago.
Remember Woody Williams and Kent Bottenfield? They came to St. Louis searching for a pulse and found great success that led to better money and some playoff baseball. They couldn’t have done that without a guy like Dave Duncan. He could take damaged goods into his shop, and bring back more than just a feasible pitcher. He brought back a guy who could win games. He became an artist at it. In the land of pitching coaches, he was a giant.
Who else could pry a nice season out of Garrett “I think I pitched alright” Stephenson? Bottenfield found more worth in a guitar after leaving St. Louis than he did baseball. While Duncan and his manager co-pilot, Tony La Russa, had some trouble with young talent on the mound, two soon to be nobody rookies threw no hitters under him in Jose Jimenez and Bud Smith.
Duncan is exactly what this current pitching staff needs. With no disrespect to Dusty Blake, the current pitching coach for the Cardinals, he’s not an artist. Most coaches aren’t, because it’s not as easy to help adults playing at the highest level with a lot on the line. This is a different land than college and the minors, which is why I don’t push a lot of worth into the general practice of hitting and pitching coaches. If they suggest something or try to help a player and it doesn’t work, it’s more common than one would think. They’re reborn weather predictors. Duncan was different.
Imagine if he could pop the hood on Miles Mikolas, and see what’s wrong with him? Maybe Duncan could get his slider to return, or he could revamp his entire arsenal. He saw things most didn’t, but Duncan could more importantly take those issues and find a way to fix them. He was the mechanic with the computer who diagnosed your car, but he was also the computer in a way.
Duncan could take a long look at Steven Matz, and unlock something. Maybe he could tweak a delivery point or something with his landing. Or, he could tell the front office that he should be a reliever. The front office would listen to a guy like Duncan, taking his insight and using it to sign free agents who were covered by the Dunc insurance policy. Maybe this front office isn’t listening to a guy like Moore.
You bet your ass Walt Jocketty leaned on Duncan’s expertise in tracking and signing guys at the trade deadline (remember those days) or in the offseason. I don’t think the front office even consults or takes the opinion of their coaching staff and manager seriously. Sabermetrics has helped rob baseball of the integral need for coaches, something Duncan quickly got away from.
If the man weren’t 78 years old, I’d recommend the team reach out. Do it like the movies, sending out a team rep with a briefcase and plane ticket. They better hope Duncan isn’t talking to a guy about white walls. His time is done, and his health is better for it.
It’s just the team assembled a team of old arms to put together this 2024 rotation, a specialty for Duncan to unlock and find hidden treasures buried underneath a bad year or misusage. In a perfect world, he’d be the answer. A non-hitting team needs all the good pitching they can find, which makes Blake’s job doubly hard.
Thinking about Duncan makes me think about the day and age of baseball he worked in. It seems much different and much more important than anything going on right now around Busch Stadium and the league. I miss those days, and so does every other Cardinal fan in the world.