The Cardinals placed left-hander Kwang Hyun Kim on the 10-day injured list yesterday due to left elbow inflammation. The placement is retroactive to August 8. Right-hander Daniel Ponce de Leon was activated from his own 10-day IL stint after missing close to seven weeks with shoulder discomfort.
This is the third time Kim has visited the IL this season, following two previous absences caused by a bad back. The southpaw has been dealing with a sore elbow for over a week, which led the Cards to give him some extra time between starts. After Kim was touched up for five runs over 2 2/3 innings against the Indians on July 28, his next start was held off until August 7 — another less-than-successful outing, as Kim allowed two runs and threw 83 pitches over four innings against the Royals.
It isn’t known if Kim could return after just a 10-day break, or if his elbow issues will require more recovery time. In the short term, St. Louis can fill the rotation spot with ace Jack Flaherty, who is expected to return from the IL this week. Miles Mikolas is also getting closer to a return after spending almost the entire season on the injured list.
Despite all the injuries and only a 18.3% strikeout rate, Kim has been effective when he has been on the mound this season, posting a 3.36 ERA over 91 innings. Now with 130 innings of Major League work to his name after two seasons, Kim has a 2.84 ERA but also with a 4.85 SIERA that reflects the lack of strikeouts and only a slightly above-average walk rate. On the plus side, Kim is good at limiting hard contact and at keeping the ball on the ground (47.1% grounder rate), making him a particularly good fit on the defensively-strong Cardinals.
Another injury absence, however, won’t help Kim’s free agent stock heading into the offseason. There was some trade buzz surrounding Kim heading into the trade deadline, though St. Louis ultimately opted against selling and made some modest rotation additions in J.A. Happ and Jon Lester. Adam Wainwright , Kim, Happ, and Lester will all be free agents, while the Cardinals aren’t expected to exercise their $17MM club option on Carlos Martinez. With all this rotation uncertainty heading into 2022, one would assume the Cardinals would have interest in re-signing Kim after his solid results of the last two years.
Oh well, not like they’re missing Austin Gomber and his 80 ERA- and years of cheap control, not at all. And not like Montero is one of the best players in AA at age 22, nope. Another dumb trade by the Cardinals.
STL made the mistake of not using Gomber more early, then dealing him as a complimentary piece in a trade.
I’ve always thought Montero has serious potential. Lefty arm like Gomber was hard to see go (He’s also already 27?), Maddux is very good with lefties.
To early to call the trade a mistake? Nolan Arenado has been every bit as advertised for the St Louis Cardinals this year.
Nevermind the 4+ WAR season that Arenado is having. Definitely lament the 2 WAR season that Gomber is having fueled by a .255 BABIP though and the 40 FV 3B prospect that we have like 5 better than in the minors currently at 3rd!
Touched up for 5 innings over 2 2/3 innings
This is bad news. They shouldn’t have let him pitch if his elbow was bothering him at all after that last start in Cleveland. KK puts so much effort into his delivery and its an odd delivery its gotta be rough on multiple parts of his body, hips included.
Cards should have pulled the shoot at the trade deadline or at least hedged. Why not move Andrew Miller? Hind sight sure but without Flaherty for most of the season they should have been looking at 2022. Lester and LeBlanc might help them get a better draft pick though…
Actually—— the Cardinals should have been looking at trading for an Ace starter (For 2021 & 2022) when Flaherty went down!!
Prospects are prospects, no matter if they are your #1 or #35. Proven Ace Starters are proven!!! I’m sure not big on the Cardinals protecting their prospects like they do when they have the opportunity to land an impact player!! Especially when that impact player could be signed in St. Louis for 2-4 more years!!!!
Nothing will change until they get a quality GM
Michael Girsch is a Quality GM. HE’s the one who put together the Arenaldo trade.
What they need is a Quality President of Baseball Operations!!!
In that respect—— the Cardinals have needed a Quality President of Baseball Operations for the past 5 years!!!!!
Coming here to blast Mozeliak for the Arenedo trade just shows your agenda. Mozeliak has made some questionable deals. This isn’t one. Gomber and a guy putting up 285 and 20 hrs at AA is still less valuable than the Cardinals having Arenedo playing fantastic 3rd base, decent #’s, providing a presence in the lineup, and most importantly–Not being Matt Carpenter. Oh, and the Rockies are paying his salary. Garcia has hit .200 with 3-4 hrs/month the last 2 months. Everyone cried about Oscar Mercado, he can’t even hit at AAA anymore. Arozorena is hitting fine. .260ish with 15 or so home runs. He can carry a team when hot but hasn’t shown to be consistant. I’m satisfied with Libertore and us dumping Jose Martinez in that deal. I’ll be the first to admit the Ozuna deal was regrettable but the Cardinals had a hangover from missing on Stanton (thank god) and were compelled to do something
like & agree w/ a lot of what you have to say here but Mercado is actually a defensive wizard for CLE.. Oscar is hitting .228 this year at the big league club, a lot better than Lane Thomas (i know he’s gone), Carp or Noot. Would say Cards lost that trade as well for getting Conner Capel and Jhon Torres…. Cards have trouble either evaluating what they have or getting what they have to reach it’s potential. at least seems somewhat that way for the last decade.
Agreed, Mercado is a valuable defensive outfielder. I think the Cardinals just decided they had 2 similar skill sets in Bader and Mercado and dealt away for the shiny lottery ticket in Torres. I don’t remember any on our side expecting anything from Capel.
Agreed—- the Arenaldo deal was a great deal (if he’s not disgusted with no help from the Front Office this season and Opt’s out of his Contract).
However—— Mozeliak projected by saying the word “We” obtained Molan Arenaldo. When in fact— Michael Girsch—- coordinated the actual deal for Arenaldo. Mozeliak just had to Okay the trade!!!!
In retrospect—— most of the blast at John Mozeliak are bonified !!!! I for one don’t see the Cardinals rising much over a .500 team as long as Mozeliak is in charge.
As a Cardinals fan, we’ve sustained a level of success longer than most. A season like this is bound to happen from time to time. Injuries happen, I’m not criticizing anyone in the front office.
They made calculated risk in the signings and trades. Some of them haven’t panned out. It’s fine, I’m sure they’ll make the adjustments needed. I would say that I wouldn’t mind them taking on Lester and Happ on cheap deals if they finish out strong this year. They clearly need pitching depth, and at this point I’d rather them get it from veterans.
Maybe not a bad idea, but I am not so sure either Happ or Lester would take a 1 year deal to comeback to St.Louis, unless they don’t get what they are looking for out on the market. Just assuming here without actually knowing for sure, but I bet they are looking for something along the lines of a 2-3 year deal maybe worth $8-$12 million a year to finish out their respective careers. If that is the case, then the Cardinals need to stay far away from them and go with either Oviedo, Liberatore, or Angel Rondon as their #5 . Then again, I wouldn’t rule them out on bringing Wainwright back for one more year to go along with Flaherty, Mikolas, Hudson and KK. If they do, then you can forget about them bringing back Happ and or Lester. Only way I could see one of them 2 possibly coming back is if KK’s elbow is worse then they originally thought and would need to have Tommy John Surgery, then be out for all of 2022 and part of 2023.
How many costly bad signings and trades can’t you name that Mozeliak has made over the past 5-6 years????
Put the good and bad results all together and the bad will heavily out weigh the good!!
Why don’t you do that for us? Seems like you have it all figured out already.