
The projected starting pitcher had a solid showing in his first outing in Grapefruit League action
It's all but certain the St. Louis Cardinals starting rotation Opening Day on March 26 will not be the group of hurlers the team will end the season with.
The Cardinals dealt away three-star All-Star Sonny Gray to the Boston Red Sox and signed former Los Angeles Dodgers hurler Dustin May to a one-year, $12.5 million contract with a $20 million mutual option for 2027.
The addition of May, and various other hurlers acquired in respective trades in the last year, has given St. Louis options as to how it wants to slot its starting rotation in 2026.
Kyle Leahy will make the transition from the bullpen to the starting rotation this year and impressed in his first outing of spring training Sunday.
On Monday, in a 5-4 win against the Miami Marlins, it was Michael McGreevy's turn to take the mount.
McGreevy pitched two innings, struck out two and allowed one earned run on two hits. He didn't issue a walk in his outing.
McGreevy is a former first-round pick for the Cardinals. He was selected with the 18th overall pick in the 2021 MLB Draft out of UC Santa Barbara and made his major league debut in 2024.
McGreevy was up and down with the major league roster and the Triple-A Memphis Redbirds last season.
Amidst the series of roster moves, the 25-year-old right-handed hurler posted a 4.42 ERA and struck out 58 batters in 95.2 innings pitched across 17 appearances (16 starts).
McGreevy didn't excel in a lot of advanced statistics, but didn't issue many walks and generated a significant amount of ground balls in '25.
According to Baseball Savant, McGreevy had a walk rate of 5%, which ranked in the 93rd percentile of baseball last season and had a ground-ball rate of 48%, which was in the 76th percentile of the major leagues.
In his two innings of work against the Marlins, McGreevy got full use of his arsenal. He offered six pitches multiple times Monday: his cutter (twice), slider (three times), two-seam fastball/sinker (five times), four-seam fastball (five times), changeup (six times) and sweeper (seven times). He topped out at 91.8 mph with his fastball.
McGreevy generated three outs with his sweeper alone, according to Baseball Savant.
Currently, McGreevy projects to break camp for St. Louis as the No. 4 pitcher on the starting rotation.
According to FanGraphs' roster resource, the rotation projects to be, in order: Matthew Liberatore, May, Andre Pallante, McGreevy and Leahy.
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