Cardinals prospect Michael McGreevy hopes to build off 2024 after finding feel for cutter
As Michael McGreevy experienced the growing pains of introducing a pitch he didn't completely develop over the previous offseason into regular-season games with Class AAA Memphis this past season, the Cardinals prospect knew he needed to trust it despite some frustrating results.
With a cutter added to his arsenal, McGreevy posted a 5.81 ERA and allowed a .298 batting average through his first 11 starts for Memphis. But as he continued to take his turn in Memphis' rotation, McGreevy saw just how effective that new pitch could make him once he got comfortable with it.
The improvements as he found a grip on his cutter led him to post a 2.72 ERA and kept hitters to a .224 batting average across 20 outings — four of which came in the majors — to end the 2024 major and minor league seasons.
"I think it's just more confidence in myself," McGreevy said in mid-September of his cutter's strides. "The first month and a half was more development. And obviously you want to compete, but it was more like, 'Hey, we've got to trust this process with the cutter and what we're trying to accomplish.' Once we were able to kind of catch our stride, it was just back to my normal self."
The 24-year-old takes that development into the offseason as he prepares for the 2025 season that could begin for him a regular role in the majors as the Cardinals head for an organizational "reset" that will focus on youth.
"It's something that we could build off of instead of trying to find like we did last offseason starting from nothing," McGreevy said. "Just continuing to improve the (cutter) that is just another weapon to lefties. I'm excited to see where it goes."
McGreevy began working on the cutter last winter following an offseason conversation with senior minor league pitching coordinator Tim Leveque. The pitch became a larger emphasis early in spring training after talks with Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol and pitching coach Dusty Blake. The idea for the cutter was to help McGreevy combat left-handed hitters, who batted .327 and slugged .503 against him in 2023 while he pitched in Class AA and Class AAA.
Through his first 11 starts this past season, left-handers batted .331 and slugged .551 against McGreevy, the Cardinals' first-round pick in the 2021 MLB draft.
While he went through the shaky results, McGreevy received some advice from his Memphis teammates to find the right grip for his cutter. The advice he sought from his teammates led him to test out righty reliever Kyle Leahy's slider grip. McGreevy began toying with with Leahy's slider grip and noted that "turned into somewhat of my cutter grip."
As his cutter grip began to form following the shaky start, McGreevy held left-handers to a .248 batting average and a .421 slugging percentage over 16 minor league starts. McGreevy's strikeout rate went from 17.2% through his 11 starts to begin the year to 23.9% through his final 20 games, including his time in the majors following a July 31 call-up.
"I've done a lot of stuff with my own pitches," Leahy said. "Mike just asked me what I feel and what I'm thinking about and what my thought process is, so I just told him, and ... I guess a couple of things worked out for him and helped him a little bit. I'm happy that I could help."
Earlier this year, McGreevy described the need for a cutter as a "protect pitch" that'd help prevent left-handers from sitting on his curveball and slider. Although his curveball (.267 batting average allowed in 11 minor league starts through the end of May) fared better than it did in the final 16 starts he made (.364 batting average allowed), McGreevy's slider kept lefties to a .170 batting average in his last 16 starts for Memphis after allowing a .316 average through his first 11.
The strides he made in Memphis translated to the majors in the form of a 1.96 ERA in 23 innings across four outings — one of which was a relief appearance. Opposing hitters batted .193 against McGreevy, who had a 3-0 record for the Cardinals. McGreevy's 36 matchups against lefties in his brief sample of the majors combined for a .206 batting average.
As a whole for McGreevy in 2024, the former first-round pick went 12-8 with a 3.75 ERA and kept opposing hitters to a .690 on-base plus slugging percentage (OPS) across a career-high 173 innings between the majors and the minors. The cutter helped him boost his strikeout rate from 18% across 24 Class AAA starts in 2023 to 21.6% in the 27 Class AAA starts he made this past season. While in the majors, McGreevy collected 18 strikeouts and used his cutter as the put-away pitch for 33% of the batters he fanned.
"I think (early in the season), we were talking about it, and I'm like, yeah, I'm still messing around with it. It's not great. Walks are up because I can't really command it that well," McGreevy said of the cutter. "But it's been huge to lefties. Just seeing the growth is super-encouraging."
