An Introduction to Chris Roycroft

07/05/2024 15:00

The 6'8" reliever is at least interesting which can't be said about most of the Memphis bullpen.

Yesterday the Cardinals added Chris Roycroft to the 40-man roster and promoted him to St. Louis where he will make his MLB debut whenever he takes the mound for the first time. But who is Chris Roycroft? If you're not a prospect hound you may have never heard of him before yesterday.

So today I want to do a quick breakdown of the newest member St. Louis Cardinals bullpen because, well, there's not a whole lot else to talk about, frankly. But when things are going poorly it's at least fun to write about a prospect making his debut.

So let's get to it.

Background

I do want to dive into Roycroft as a pitcher but I want to start with some background first because Roycroft is a great underdog story.

(I don't know where to put this so I'm creating a parenthetical paragraph because why the heck not. Roycroft also played one year of basketball at Aurora Univesity, coming off the bench in 11 games as a backup center. He seems to have dropped basketball after that year but it's worth noting that he was listed at 6'7" and 205 pounds at the time which is equal parts massive and lanky for what is essentially a high school senior.)

The right-hander attended division III school Aurora University, located in Aurora, Illinois. Like most freshman pitchers, Roycroft struggled to carve out a consistent role in his first season, finishing the year with a 6.28 ERA in 12 relief outings (14.1 IP).

He improved slowly and became a full time starter in his senior year where he showed much better control but struck out just 7.8 batters per 9 innings. As a senior. In Division III.

I cannot overemphasize how unlikely it was for Roycroft to even get noticed by a professional team, much less make it to the game's highest level.

After graduating in the spring of 2019, Roycroft didn't latch on with any professional teams and then he didn't take the mound in 2020 either. But the following year, in 2021, Roycroft signed a contract with the Joliet Slammers of the Frontier League, though he struggled to the tune of a 5.81 ERA as a swingman.

This isn't how most major league careers start. Yet Roycroft turned a corner in 2022 and worked a 1.08 ERA with a 33% strikeout rate in his first 13 outings with Joliet and that was enough to catch the Cardinals eye and earn him his first contract with a major league organization.

From there Roycroft climbed the ladder pretty rapidly. You'll see his Cardnals stats in the next section of this article - and they aren't always pretty - but Roycroft pitched well in his first and second exposure to High-A ball and then climbed 3 levels in 2023, beginning the year in Peoria and ending it in Memphis.

He then started at Memphis this year and after 13 innings has received the call to the bigs.

This may not be the most exciting pitcher in the world but Roycroft is a guy who has beat the odds every step of the way and that, at least, is worth celebrating.

What should we expect from Roycroft?

If you're on social media or get your Cardinals takes from other places then you have probably heard mostly negative things about Roycroft. At best you've probably heard indifferent things about him. For me, my strong opinion of Chris Roycroft is one of indifference.

Is he likely to be a shutdown reliever? Absolutely not. But can he maybe serve as an effective enough low leverage depth option who can probably pass through waivers if/when the Cardinals need a 40-man spot later in the season? Maybe. And that's pretty much all the Cardinals are looking for at this point.

So there's the high level view of Roycroft. Now I want to get into the numbers and metrics that have created my opinion of him.

What do the numbers tell us about him?

These numbers aren't flashy. They probably don't excite you. They probably make you feel the opposite of excitement, actually. Surely a guy with a 16.7% strikeout rate, 11.1% walk rate, 95.9% left on base rate, and .237 BABIP isn't due for regression, right? And that's before he gets called to the major leagues.

Like I said, the numbers aren't rosy.

What is interesting is that, at various times and at various levels, Roycroft has shown the ability to miss bats and get ground balls. The command isn't great but that bat-missing, worm-killing combination is at least interesting.

And that's exactly why I'm indifferent. Roycroft has at least some interesting traits. The same can't be said for the rest of the Memphis bullpen.

The best bullpen performer has been Ryan Loutos, who is sporting an 0.84 ERA and 2.22 FIP, both of which are backed up by a pristine 35.7% strikeout rate. The problem with Loutos is that his pitch specs aren't anything special and his command can also come and go.

I'm not one to discount results by any means but I'm okay with seeing if Loutos can sustain his 10.2 innings of success before bringing him to the majors. Roycroft on the other hand, has a good sinker and a solid slider that may be able to play effectively enough in the majors.

A deeper dive

I've already started talking about pitch specs and I've been trying to hold myself back until this point so let's just get right into it. I flat out love Chris Roycroft's sinker. Does that mean it will play well? Not at all. But the pitch sits 95-96 mph on average with over 18 inches of arm side run and is helped by the fact that it comes out of a lower than average release point with 7 feet of extension.

There's really a lot to like there and all the stuff models, if you're into that sort of thing, will grade the pitch as above average.

His command of the pitch can be inconsistent but from a pure stuff perspective there's a lot to like. The pitch has missed more bats in the past and does a great job of keeping the ball on the ground, and that fact, when paired with the strong movement profile, at least gives Roycroft a solid foundation to work from.

Roycroft's go-to secondary pitch is a slider which gets 10 inches of glove side sweep on average and sits in the mid-80s. There's a four-seamer in there too but the pitch sinks more than rises and doesn't have much arm side life. (It's a real shame that the righty doesn't have good feel for a four-seamer because a four-seamer with decent riding life would be nasty coming out of a low release height with a ton of extension but I digress.)

Really, though, Roycroft tries to keep the ball down with a sinker heavy approach while using his slider off his main fastball and letting his four-seamer occasionally give him a more vertical element to his attack.

That's it with Roycroft. That's the story. He'll throw a good sinker a ton, work in a slider, and then try to use a slightly harder four-seamer when he wants a little extra oomph. The command isn't great and he can leave pitches over the heart of the plate but his sinker has been good enough to prevent that from hurting him at the Triple-A level.

Final Thoughts

There's probably not enough here to have any major expectations for Roycroft and he probably won't be in the majors all that long to be honest. But Roycroft's sinker intrigues me and I can't wait to see how it plays at the major league level. At a minimum he's interesting and while he may not be very good, there is a world in which he's cromulent.

I know that's not exactly a glowing review but we are looking at a guy who sits behind Kyle Leahy on the depth chart after all.

But taking all the analysis and scouting out of it, Roycroft is a guy who I sincerely hope finds success at the major league level. He has an underdog story that we can all root for and is a great example of someone who has beat the odds. Even if he gets shelled, he'll always be able to say that he made a major league appearance and that is a feather in the cap of anyone who has ever played the game.

Thanks for reading.