Cardinals right-hander Miles Mikolas will begin the season on the injured list after receiving a platelet-rich plasma injection, per Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. As of now, it appears Mikolas will make his 2020 debut toward the end of April or in the beginning of May, according to Goold. It’s a blow to the Cardinals’ rotation, which got back-to-back quality seasons from Mikolas in 2018-19 and now has to fill a couple openings behind Jack Flaherty, Adam Wainwright and Dakota Hudson. Carlos Martinez and Kwang-hyun Kim were already known to be in the running before Mikolas went down, and now Daniel Ponce de Leon, Austin Gomber, Ryan Helsley, Alex Reyes, John Gant and Genesis Cabrera are also in the mix, Goold writes.
Here’s more from around the game…
- Mariners third baseman Kyle Seager was the subject of trade rumors over the winter, when “a handful of teams” discussed him with the M’s, Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times writes. Seager has stayed put to this point, and he’s now the longest-tenured player on Seattle’s roster, though he realizes a deal could still come together. The 32-year-old admitted to Divish that a trade remains “a definite possibility.” Seager enjoyed a bounce-back season in 2019, but he’s still owed $37MM over the next two years. His contract also includes a 2022 $15MM club option that will turn into a player option if he’s dealt, which could help stand in the way of a trade.
- Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge has been battling a right shoulder issue early in camp, but he’s progressing in his recovery, George A. King III of the New York Post relays. Judge told manager Aaron Bone he’s “game-ready,” but the Yankees are taking it slow with their prized slugger, whom injuries limited to a combined 214 of a possible 324 regular-season games from 2018-19. “Start reintroducing him to full swinging and stuff in the next couple of days I would think,’’ Boone said. “I am sure in the next day or two it will probably start to ramp him back up.’’
- Thanks to a productive 2019 season at the Double-A level, Diamondbacks first base prospect Pavin Smith has a chance to make his major league debut sometime this year, Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic observes. Smith was the seventh overall pick of the Diamondbacks in 2017, and while he hit well in low-A ball that year, he provided little to no power (zero home runs, .097 ISO). He then didn’t produce at a particularly impressive clip at the high-A level the next season, but Smith turned it around last year. In his Double-A debut, he put up a .291/.370/.466 line with 12 homers and almost as many walks (59) and strikeouts (61).
Cardinals have a really good mix of pitchers where they could adopt the rays approach of pitching (openers, multi inning middle relief starters). Cardinals have a bunch of former starters that can still be multi inning relievers. Jack Flaherty and I guess Adam Wainright as the traditional starters. Then figure it out with Hudson, Ponce De Leon, Gomber, Helsley, Gant, Reyes, Cabrera, Kim. This team may not have the sexiest rotation but they have a bunch of effective multi inning guys. Hicks, Miller, and whoever else I’m missing for the high leverage situations.
Use each pitcher in the right situation and this could be the top pitching staff in the league.
Not a chance
Dynamite drop in, dummy
Cardinal fans. Sharing the stupid for almost a century.
but they won’t.
Cards could have best staff in baseball this coming season as the team as a whole drastically over achieve every year. Or more probable the law of averages finally sink in and they finish 4th in central and continue to rebuild.
What deep intellect and humility you show Monty. You’d be my first choice for that open spot MLBTR has for new staff. Lolz
Continue to rebuild? wow…the continuing rebuilding cardinals reached the NLCS last year…looks like this continuous rebuild is very successful
Introducing the new Yankees manager, Aaron BONE!
Porn doppelgänger
I thought that was pretty humerus.
First thing that comes to mind with Seager is that epic le against Jered Weaver
That was awesome. All of an 83 mph HEATER! Soto should take notes from Seager.
If it’s really only a month, the Mikolas injury isn’t a big deal.
You call 2019 a “quality” season for Mikolas?
He was an above-average starter in 2019, pitchers stats across the board got worse due to the juiced ball. Lol people are acting like he was a scrub with a 5.5 ERA and 25% walk rate or something.
Radiohead801…Sharing the stupid for almost a century.
Mikolas led league in losses. Poor strike out per nine innings. He was a good pitcher for the Cards- Two years ago. For one season. I’m guessing the injection on for a knee issue. The writer does not say. The Cards will be good and right at top however will need things to go their way to win the division. Someone will break the 90 win threshold and take the division.
so? 14 losses is a low league leading loss total, and plenty of good pitchers take loss titles. (such as Shelby Miller in 2015) he had a good year all things considered. nothing spectacular, but okay.
It won’t be the Cardinals, I pick the Cardinal to be in third place at best.
Imagine using W/L record to evaluate pitchers…
Too bad it is 2020 and win and loss totals are not used to determine a pitchers value.
even will less arms now, i still will stick to my belief from that start of last year that the Cards have enviable SP depth. maybe not the best now, but its still quite a bit of depth. id kill for De Leon, Gomber, Gant, or Helsley as a Phillies fan.
This site is full of people who follow a ton of baseball and no one has ever heard of any of those dudes lol. A list of no body’s…..
Bet cards fans wish they had an order that looked like
McCutchen
Realmuto
Harper
Hoskins
Didi
Instead of better 3A pitching.
Yup we sure wish we had McCutchen who was injured half the year last year, Harper who’s getting paid 300million for the next decade, Hoskins who hit .226 last year and who has a .236 career average, and well see how good didi is outside of yankee stadium. But yeah enjoy Realmuto this year, hes a free agent after this season.
Cards projection –
Fowler
Wong
Goldy
Dejong
Molina
Phili is better at every spot. And in rest of your line up has carpenter and Bader in it. Lolz. That’s why cards are rebuilding
At least Goldy and DeJong are better than Hoskins and Didi.
Les chester youre wrong. Cardinals are better then the Phillies last year and this year too. Cardinals win the division again because of pitching. Cardinals have deeper staff then almost anyone. This is what usually wins. You can keep your lineup that costs too much and won’t be in the playoffs because you dont have the pitching depth even though you incorrectly Think that you’re lineup will send you to the playoffs
If you haven’t heard of those guys then you are not following baseball that closely
If Judge misses any time this year due to an injury. Trade him and move on.
A Judge will miss more than 30 games in 2020.
It does certainly look like he’s one of those high-talent, injury-prone players like Eric Davis before him.
No
The really tall position players seem to break down quick and often. Nobody is bigger than Judge. He’d be wise to ask for a big extension sooner than later.
man, who on earth would put such a stupid clause into a contract @Mariners
A good agent…
Jack Z
Seager ADP 287 vs Franco ADP 451… remember WAR doesn’t matter in Fantasy. And it doesn’t matter in regular baseball too chest thumpers if the rest of your team is trash. Predicting same offensive production of those 2 guys in 2020.
Thank goodness judge is “game-ready”. Of course, they’re not playing any games right now, so it’s like every other vacuous statement out of the brain-rust. Maybe his shoulder hurts because he’s been crying on it about the Astronauts and their evil ways.
It’s not hard to imagine that other teams knew of the suspicious activity by the Astronauts. In fact, the yankees and other teams went to greater lengths to use more complex signs. How this was allowed to transpire by the opposing players and the boyfred major league fake baseball drain trust is beyond what should happen. So cry all you want but something should have been done in 2017. Why it took a disgruntled pitcher to open the can of worms reminds me of how it took hoser can say so to blow the lid off of all the ramapant PED usage.
Baseball making a mess of things is nothing new. Lousy commissioners are not new. Players not acting when others are cheating is nothing new, but in all fairness to the players, even when they do, MLB does nothing. Shame on baseball once again.
I do actually agree with where judge is coming from and maybe if he had actually won the mvp his shoulder would fell better.
Some further thoughts on this nonsense. Stealing signs is NOWHERE near as bad as taking PED’s. How many times does a good hitter have a pretty strong idea what pitch is going to be thrown next? In a sense, they know what’s coming. Quite often. Further, can’t other teams make their signs more difficult to steal. In football, everything is on video, so when a quarterback changes the play at the line, wouldn’t the other team know the play if there wasn’t an effective coding of the message? Catchers can’t be as good as quarterbacks at signaling? Sure they can. But with PED’s, the advantage is CONSTANT. It’s not on some pitches, it’s on all pitches. PED’s are profoundly worse than sign stealing. QED.
whyhayzee, I’d argue the opposite, that stealing signs is way worse than PED use. Look at the last few players busted for PED use—Pablo Reyes, Martes, Lawrence, etc. We all say “Who? Never heard of him!” Most of these guys have recently been designated for assignment or coming off TJS, etc. The PEDs haven’t helped them even stick in the majors. By contrast, the Astros stole signs in 2017 and it helped them win a WS title. Knowing what pitch is coming is much more of an advantage than getting a bit stronger or improving fast twitch muscles, etc. Players on PEDs still need the hand-eye coordination, bat control, pitching mastery of multiple pitches, etc. And if they lack those skills, all of the PEDs in the world won’t overcome those deficiencies. But if a batter knows what pitch is coming, the pitcher loses all deception and any batter becomes immensely better.
Pavin Pavin Pavin!
Pavin Smith and Kevin Cron take in the minors but they both would be. better off if traded. Neither has a path to playing time with the Dbacks.
That’s particularly true with Cron because he can’t play defense he’d be more valuable to an AL team. But Pavin could still have value. Christian Walker has to duplicate last season’s offensive performance, otherwise the door is open for Beer and Pavin to get some time at 1b. And if Lamb has a bounce back year, he and his $5M+ salary will get traded at the mid-season deadline, again opening a spot for Pavin to step into. So I wouldn’t unload Pavin now, especially when his trade value is so low, the Dbacks wouldn’t get anything back.
The Mariners have a chance to be slightly better this year than last. That of course is not really saying much. The upgrade in defense alone should help them to a handful more wins. Pull Seager out of that lineup and IMO they will have a chance to be the worst team in MLB.
Although injured in the first half of 19’ when he was finally healthy in the 2nd half Seags proved he could finally beat the shift and hit the ball to opposite field w authority, his defense was also much improved. Take him out of the lineup and factor in the Mariners don’t have a 3B prospect close to the majors and you’ll have a team that has a hole at 3B for 2+ seasons. I understand shedding payroll so they can tie up players like Julio Rodriguez, Kelenic, Lewis, Sheffield, Dunn, Gilbert and Kirby to long term contracts but isn’t that putting the cart before the horse? You won’t get anything in return for Seager so keep him.
That’s probably why he’s still with the team.
Well said
Be careful with Pavin. His new-found power could have been the result of the superball that was used.
You can apply that same warning to so many players in this year’s MLB fantasy drafts- Ketel Marte, P Alonso, Y Alvarez who knows what you’re going to get from these players
ayrbhoy, I agree with what you wrote conceptually, depending on how the 2020 ball plays there will likely be regression across the board. However, I think the 3 examples you gave are among the least likely to see huge power regression. K. Marte, Alonzo and Alvarez didn’t hit many “cheap” HR last year, instead they hit a bunch of tape measure shots that will still be HR in any ballpark in 2020 even if the hall doesn’t carry as far as it did last year.
pretty sure Pavin has alyways been tabbed as a masher, just didnt translate until last year.
very happy Zona took Pavin off the board so we would take Haseley. absolute stud
Kyle Seager’s contract doesn’t seem unreasonable. Isn’t he getting paid what he’s worth? Not sure why more teams aren’t willing to make a trade yet. He’s worth every penny and deserves to play for a contender. He’s earned it
I’m just happy Zona has a respectable Farm System now.
Darkside…..Hazen is an absolute stud , too.
Pitching A offense C still need a good power bat in that lineup.