St. Louis Cardinals: OF Randal Grichuk Optioned to High-A Ball

After a dreadful month of May, the St. Louis Cardinals are optioning outfielder Randal Grichuk to High-A.

Things aren’t going well for St. Louis Cardinals outfielder Randal Grichuk right now. We’re now more than a quarter through the season, and he’s batting at just a .222 clip. The month of May hasn’t been friendly to him, and now he’s going back down to the minors. Grichuk isn’t going to Triple-A like most fringe major leaguers though, he’s on his way down to High-A ball.

In a radio interview with David Solomon of KTRS 550 AM, Cardinals GM John Mozeliak explained his reasoning for Grichuk’s demotion:

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"“Over the last week or so he’s really been struggling at the plate, we wanted to give him the opportunity to take a deep breath, allow him to work on some stuff down in Jupiter where there’s a little bit less stress” -Mozeliak on Grichuk"

Since the beginning of May, Grichuk is hitting just .202 with a paltry 54 wRC+. He’s been even worse since May 10th. In that time, he is 9-52 (.184 batting average) while striking out a whopping 32.7% of the time. According to Mozeliak, they’re going to send him down to work on his pitch recognition and plate selection.

"“Clearly when you’re looking at that strike zone management, the ability to put himself in an advantage in counts, is what we’re hoping to see.”"

While he struggles to make contact, Grichuk definitely has the power to make up for it. In 132 games last year, he blasted 24 homers. He hit 17 bombs the year before that despite playing in just 103 games (350 PAs). The power is there, but his ability to put the bat on the ball is not.

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A demotion to High-A sounds a bit harsh, but the team has to address Grichuk’s plate discipline. A quick peak at his Heatmaps over at Fangraphs will tell you that Grichuk’s current plan is flawed. So far in 2017, he’s been swinging at more than 60% of pitches too far inside and below the strike zone. Hopefully for the Cardinals and Grichuk, his stay in the minors will be brief. The Cardinals could sure use a boost, as they enter Wednesday’s game with a losing record of 24-25.