With 10 minutes to spare before the trade deadline the Orioles traded for Jack Flaherty from the St. Louis Cardinals. It was an interesting move because while it was not surprising that Flaherty was traded it was a little surprising that he was traded to the Orioles since he had been linked to the Dodgers as someone they could pursue and the Orioles were more heavily linked to pitchers with more years of control like Cease.
I’ll do a bigger post about everything the Orioles did and did not do this trade deadline but for this one I wanted to just focus on Flaherty.
Why we should be excited about Jack Flaherty
The last time Jack Flaherty had a healthy season was 2019 when he finished 4th in Cy Young voting with a 2.75 ERA and led the league in WHIP at .968. (This was peak juiced ball time so those stats would be even better in 2023) What Flaherty does best is avoid hard contact and force softly hit balls in play that the defense behind him can easily field.
His 4.43 ERA is far from elite but when you look at his game logs this year there is a start where he gave up 10 ER in 2.1 innings and that seems to have dramatically inflated his ERA. Outside of that start he has turned in mostly good starts especially over the last 2 months.
Flaherty has 6 different pitches in his arsenal that break down as follows: fastball (40.5%), slider (24.6%), curveball (19.1%), cutter (10.5%), changeup (3.1%), and the sinker (2.2%). I’ll be interested to see what the Orioles pitching coaches do and if we will see certain pitches get used much more or less or if they try to introduce him to the sweeper. The Orioles have invested heavily in coaching and are starting to have a track record of helping pitchers figure out how to revamp their pitch mix to become more effective so I think that there is a strong possibility that we see Flaherty make some adjustments and see some better results.
Flaherty also immediately becomes the Orioles most experienced postseason pitcher with 23 innings which is something I wanted the Orioles to look for at the trade deadline to help their rather inexperienced rotation.
I’ll talk more about his struggles this year in the next section but one of the glaring issues he has is his WHIP that was at 1.554 when the Orioles traded for him which is one of the highest WHIPs among starting pitchers who actually start a lot of games. The reason for the bad WHIP was a serious command problem at the beginning of the year where he was walking people at an alarming rate (this was highlighted by his first game against Toronto earlier this year when he pitched 5 innings of no hit ball with 7 walks which is just not a statline you see everyday) As well as a dip in velocity that was making it harder for him to avoid barrels like he is accustomed to (he had a weird quote earlier this year where he talked about how he can get outs at 90 or 95 and that it didn’t matter that he wasn’t throwing hard) Since July the command has been a lot better and he is walking a far fewer people each game. He is still averaging about 2 walks per game which is not ideal but is much improved from the beginning of the year when we were seeing games with 5,6, or even 7 walks. And in his first game with the Orioles the fastball velocity ticked up to 96-97 which is closer to what it was during his breakout year in St. Louis, now that could be do to some extra rest or just being excited to be on new team but if he sits at 96 for the rest of the year that is a huge win for the O’s.
Speaking of his first start for the O’s it was a gem. After he pitched his way out of a jam in the first inning he sat down 15 straight Blue Jays. He pitched 6 innings striking out 8 and allowing only one run which scored on a Vladimir Guerrero bloop single. It felt like a big moment when Hyde trusted Flaherty to pitch his way out of a base loaded situation in the 6th and Flaherty came through. Flaherty mentioned that he liked working with Adley Rutschman and that he felt really comfortable and that he was excited to be on a contending team. If the Orioles get this version of Jack Flaherty for the rest of the year then that is a huge win for them.
Reasons to be less excited about Jack Flaherty
A lot of people were hoping that the Orioles would trade for a front of the rotation ace and based on his numbers this year and the last few years that is not what Jack Flaherty has been since 2019. Even though the walk numbers have gotten better over the last month averaging 2 walks per start doesn’t point to someone who has fixed all their command issues so that will be something to watch for over the course of the remainder of the season.
Another thing is that when Jack Flaherty was an elite pitcher early in his career he had the ability to control hard contact as well as get guys to swing and miss and chase outside of the zone and while he he still has done a good job controlling contact he hasn’t produced the same swing and miss numbers and his chase rate is way down. As long as that is the case there is a ceiling on his ability to be a #1 ace pitcher on a staff.
I mentioned earlier that his velocity was back up to 97 in his first start for the O’s which is encouraging but this whole year it has been down much lower so it will be interesting to see if he can maintain those velocity numbers from his first Orioles or if he slides back to what he was like with the Cardinals.
Final Thoughts
I think there is a lot to be excited about with Jack Flaherty and since they added him I feel much better about the Orioles rotation options as they go into the postseason. I think that the change of scenery will be really good for him and between the Orioles coaching staff, Adley behind the plate and the pushed back left field wall I think we will see a better version of Jack Flaherty than what we’ve seen so far this year and I think he is the kind of competitor who will be at his best in the biggest moment.
I also think that even though he is a free agent after this year I don’t think it is out of the question if things go well that he could re-sign with the Orioles so this doesn’t have to be a pure rental situation.
The Dishwasher 
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