Why Miles Mikolas's descent lays a blueprint for future pitching acquisitions in St. Louis
He'll be a free agent this winter. Thank goodness.
Miles Mikolas owns one great season and one pretty good season with the St. Louis Cardinals. Every other year in his eight-year MLB career is forgettable or downright awful. The past two seasons have been downright stinky.
When your earned run average is hovering near 5.00, things aren’t going the way all intended parties were hoping when the ink was drying on the contract. Mikolas is finishing off a three-year contract worth nearly $56 million dollars, including an $18.5 million salary this summer.
His performance for that salary doesn’t sit anywhere near satisfactory. The 4.80 ERA and 1.32 WHIP leave much to be desired. The one thing that Mikolas promises-innings pitched-even look paltry at 141. He’ll make 2-3 more starts and could finish short of 160 starts. That would mark the lowest amount of innings in a season where he made at least 30 starts for his career.
Once again, things aren’t going so swell around here, and Mikolas is one of the people to blame. He was paid to do a job, and hasn’t done that job in three years. The last good season for him came in 2022, which also happens to be the last time that St. Louis tasted playoff baseball. This isn’t a guy who helps keep a ship afloat during a storm. He can hold it steady when the sun is still shining, and that’s all.
Next summer, when he is wearing a different uniform, Mikolas will turn 38 years of age. More than likely, he will still be serving up home run balls in a park far, far away. The average amount of long balls served up per-nine-innings this season is 1.5. It’s not the worst amount to have, but the lean in the crookedness of it all doesn’t leave a nice taste in a manager or fan’s mouth.
All he can promise a future team is the occasional wonderful start mixed in with a batch of average to below average outings. He’s not quite batting practice level, but he’s getting there.
All one can hope is that Chaim Bloom and company take this contract and overall pitching performance into consideration for future starter contracts. Sonny Gray doesn’t escape that conversation. He was solid last year overall, but far from ace-worthy stuff. 2025 has been a descent for his performance as well. Handing out $18.5-25 million dollar deals should be off the itinerary.
Sometimes, you learn lessons this way. Think of today’s work from Mikolas. Five innings, zero runs allowed, and five strikeouts. If he could do that 28 times out of 32, it would be great. His WAR would be right around 2.5, which would put him in line with what Fangraphs rates a salary in relation to wins above replacement.
Then again, Mikolas can’t promise that every time. He’s a bad bet, and has been for years. Think wiser with your cash, Cards. You do spend the money. For the past 5-10 years, it hasn’t been spent wisely.