- As the Cardinals look for relief help post-lockout, the team is prioritizing pitchers who throw strikes, throw a sinkerball, and generate soft contact and a lot of grounders, Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch writes. Goold lists several available free agents and trade targets who fit at least a couple of these parameters, and also provides some details on specific pitchers. Goold linked Joe Kelly (who pitched in St. Louis from 2012-14) to the Cardinals last week, and now adds that the club’s pre-lockout conversations with the right-hander were “initial but not aggressive.” The Cardinals hadn’t yet been in touch with Archie Bradley’s agents prior to the lockout, though Bradley is seemingly a good fit as a sinkerball pitcher who keeps the ball on the ground and doesn’t allow much hard contact.
Cardinals Rumors
NL Notes: Wainwright, Dodgers, Phillies
A 2022 season shortened by the lockout would have a statistical impact on every player, particularly veteran names like Adam Wainwright. The Cardinals veteran is looking forward to one final season with retiring longtime teammate Yadier Molina, and if the duo joins forces for 20 more Wainwright starts, they’ll set a new record for most games started by a battery (breaking the Mickey Lolich/Bill Freehan mark of 324 starts). “Any time you can say you had the most all-time ‘anything’ in baseball is a real accomplishment,” Wainwright told Rick Hummel of The St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “I just look so much forward to having an opportunity to break that record with my buddy, Yadi. I hope we get enough starts to make that happen. We just need the season to start.”
To this end, Wainwright is hopeful of a good result in labor talks between the league and players, but feels “these owners are going to have to come around, though. They’re kind of crazy with their asks. I guess when you own the company, you want to see how far you can stretch it. The game of baseball is a very lucrative thing for players and owners. The ones that get left out of that are always the fans, unfortunately. Baseball sometimes just needs to get out of its own way and realize we could be the only show going.”
Though a delay to the start of Spring Training seems inevitable, Wainwright is continuing to work out as usual as he prepares for his 17th big league campaign. This work was temporarily delayed by a recent bout of COVID-19, though Wainwright said his symptoms were relatively mild.
More from around the National League….
- “The Dodgers seem to be positioning themselves to have a young wave of pitching ready in the second half of next season,” The Athletic’s Fabian Ardaya writes, citing Dustin May’s return from Tommy John rehab and the impending big league debut of prospect Ryan Pepiot. Los Angeles hasn’t been shy about immediately putting its young arms into key roles in the rotation or bullpen, so Ardaya believes the Dodgers will look to acquire a veteran “stopgap” kind of starter to cover some innings before the youngsters arrive. Clayton Kershaw’s free agency also continues to loom over the L.A. offseason, yet Ardaya feels the Dodgers would “likely” still try to land that second-tier arm even if Kershaw also re-signs with the team. Such moves would give the Dodgers six starters on paper (with Kershaw and the stopgap joining Walker Buehler, Julio Urias, Andrew Heaney, and Tony Gonsolin) before even considering the likes of May or Pepiot, though having a surplus would be a welcome problem for a Dodgers team that had its depth thinned by injuries in 2021.
- The Phillies hired Chris Fonnesbeck as the top analyst in their research and development department earlier this offseason, The Athletic’s Matt Gelb reports. Fonnesbeck worked in the Yankees’ analytics department from 2019-21, and also spent the 2018 season working as a consulting analyst for the Brewers. The Phils have put a new focus on their analytics team this winter, hiring Arirudh Kilambi as the team’s new assistant GM and putting him in charge of R&D.
David Green Passes Away
The Cardinals announced this morning that former MLB outfielder and first baseman David Green has passed away. He was 61 years old.
One of the first Nicaraguan-born players to crack the big leagues, Green eventually played 489 games at baseball’s highest level between 1981 and 1987, primarily for the Cards. Originally signed by the Brewers, he was traded to St. Louis after the 1980 season. After a cup of coffee as a 20-year-old in 1981, Green got into 76 games in 1982, hitting .283/.315/.373. In nine postseason games that year, he hit .273/.333/.545, as the Cardinals eventually defeated Green’s former team, the Brewers, in the 1982 World Series.
Green would stay with the Cards through the next two seasons, before being dealt to the Giants prior to the 1985 campaign. After one year in San Fran, he was dealt back to Milwaukee but was released before appearing in a game with them. He then spent some time in Japan, playing with the Kintetsu Buffaloes of Nippon Professional Baseball before rejoining the Cardinals for part of the 1987 campaign. That was his last taste of the majors, though he did later spent some time in the minors with the Braves and Rangers.
All told, Green hit a combined .268/.308/.394 across his 489 career big league games, with 31 home runs, 168 runs scored, 180 runs batted in and 68 stolen bases.
We at MLBTR extend our condolences to Green’s family, as well as his many friends and fans.
Cardinals Looking For ‘High-Leverage’ Bullpen Arms
In a Monday chat with readers, Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch addressed the approach of the Cardinals front office to upgrading the team’s bullpen — a known priority for the club. In response to a question regarding potential interest in longtime Dodgers closer Kenley Jansen, Goold suggested that, during the free agent bonanza that preceded the lockout, the Cards had looked less for a closer per se than at other ‘high-leverage’ arms — “ones who could be used as a closer, but not only a closer.”
The 2021 Cardinals bullpen finished roughly middle-of-the-pack in most statistical metrics (11th in ERA, 8th in FIP, 24th in xFIP, 11th in fWAR) and could see some significant improvements without making a move. High-octane righty Jordan Hicks, who new manager Oliver Marmol will stretch out for an expected multi-inning role in Spring Training, is reportedly healthy after missing most of 2021 with elbow inflammation; and Ryan Helsley, who was shut down in mid-August with knee and elbow issues, is expected to regain a primary set-up role alongside Genesis Cabrera. Giovanny Gallegos will likely retain the closer role he inherited from 2021 All-Star Alex Reyes following Reyes’ substantial second-half struggles.
Goold notes former Cardinal Joe Kelly as a likely target and had previously cited interest in former Blue Jays, Cubs, and White Sox reliever Ryan Tepera; both relievers fit the bill of a versatile, high K-rate late-innings arm. Each is likely to seek a multi-year deal with a meaningful financial commitment (MLBTR projects Tepera to sign for two years and $12MM, for instance), though neither is likely to exceed the Cardinals’ budget — particularly if they remain committed to some combination of Paul DeJong and Edmundo Sosa at shortstop. Potential targets Andrew Chafin and Collin McHugh fall in roughly the same market stratum as Tepera and Kelly, while the club could also look for bounce-back candidates on one-year or minor league deals. The list of free agent relievers with a history of big-league success but who won’t command a significant investment includes Brad Hand, Chris Martin, Archie Bradley, Adam Ottavino, Sergio Romo, Yusmeiro Petit, Mychal Givens, Sean Doolittle, Pedro Strop, Richard Rodriguez, and Tyler Clippard.
Beyond Gallegos, Cabrera, Reyes, Helsley, and Hicks, the Redbirds will return journeyman and 2021 revelation T.J. McFarland (who re-signed on a one-year, $2.5MM deal in November) as well as Kodi Whitley and potential long-man Jake Woodford. Current minor leaguers Andre Pallante (who posted a 3.91 ERA in 99 1/3 innings between Double-A and Triple-A in 2021, his age-22 season) and Jake Walsh (who’ll play at age 26 in 2022 but posted 2.86 ERA in 22 innings across the same levels) could also be asked to contribute at some point in 2022.
Should they add a high-leverage arm to what’s already a talented group, the Cards’ bullpen could prove a substantial strength in 2022, particularly if a starting rotation bolstered by the addition of Steven Matz can continue to eat innings at the pace it did in 2021 (the Cardinals’ bullpen covered 584 1/3 innings in 2021, 9th fewest in the majors). Indeed, St. Louis could showcase one of the National League’s deeper pitching staffs in 2022, particularly if Hicks and starter Jack Flaherty can both stay healthy and return to their respective 2019 forms. And though the Cardinals play in the comparatively soft NL Central, with a roughly league-average offense returning essentially intact from 2021, they’ll likely need their pitching staff to perform at a high level to return to the playoffs in 2022.
Cardinals Sign Aaron Brooks To Minor League Deal
The Cardinals announced Monday that they’ve signed righty Aaron Brooks to a minor league deal. The Paragon Sports International client received a non-roster invitation to Major League Spring Training. He was eligible to sign a minor league during the lockout by virtue of the fact that he was a minor league free agent returning from a stint overseas.
Brooks, 31, is a veteran of four big league seasons but has spent the 2020-21 seasons in the Korea Baseball Organization, where he’s notched a tidy 2.79 ERA in 229 1/3 innings for the Kia Tigers. While Brooks hasn’t missed many bats pitching overseas — he posted a rather pedestrian 20.1% strikeout rate — he’s demonstrated excellent command and posted practically inhuman ground-ball rates. Brooks has walked just 4.4% of his opponents in the KBO, and it’s hard to think of a much better team to take advantage of his outrageous 78.4% ground-ball rate than the defensively stout Cardinals.
This past season, St. Louis had a staggering five Gold Glove winners, including three in the infield: first baseman Paul Goldschmidt, second baseman Tommy Edman and third baseman Nolan Arenado. Shortstop Paul DeJong had a rough season offensively that cost him some reps in the infield as the Cards looked to get more offense into the lineup, but DeJong is regarded as a standout defender himself — evidenced by last year’s plus-6 Defensive Runs Saved and a career plus-36 mark in 4366 innings at the position.
Royals, A’s and Orioles fans may remember Brooks for his big league work across those three franchises. A ninth-round pick by Kansas City back in 2011, he made his MLB debut with K.C. in 2014-15 but was traded to the A’s alongside Sean Manaea in the swap that brought Ben Zobrist to the 2015 World Series champion Royals.
The A’s wound up trading Brooks to the Cubs in exchange for Chris Coghlan back in 2016, setting off a sequence of scenery changes for Brooks over the next several years. He went from Chicago to Milwaukee via waivers, and the Brewers traded him back to Oakland in exchange for cash. Brooks’ second stint with the A’s lasted about a half season, as the Orioles claimed him on waivers the following summer and, after the 2019 campaign, released him to allow him to pursue his KBO opportunity.
While making the rounds on the trade/waiver circuit, Brooks appeared in 47 big league games and tallied 170 2/3 frames with an uninspiring 6.49 ERA. He was never much of a ground-ball pitcher during his prior stints in the big leagues, so it seems he’s done some work to reinvent his approach on the mound while pitching in South Korea. If he’s able to replicate that KBO success in Triple-A, it’s likely the Cardinals will find a way to get him onto the big league roster in 2022.
The Cards already have a full rotation, but adding some depth along these lines was a clear need. Jack Flaherty, Adam Wainwright, Dakota Hudson, Miles Mikolas and offseason signee Steven Matz are set to occupy the top five spots in the St. Louis rotation, but a lack of starting depth nearly sunk the 2021 Cards when they saw their entire rotation outside of Wainwright hit the IL by June. Brooks joins in-house options like Jake Woodford, Johan Oviedo, T.J. Zeuch and Angel Rondon on the depth chart, and the Cards are surely also hopeful that prospects Matthew Liberatore and Zack Thompson can reach the Majors in 2022.
Cards Likely To Wait On Flaherty Extension?
- Jack Flaherty is scheduled for free agency following the 2023 season, but even with the Cardinals’ team control winding down, Ben Frederickson of The St. Louis Post-Dispatch figures the club will wait until next spring to really delve into extension talks. After a big 2019 season, Flaherty ran into some struggles in the pandemic-shortened 2020 campaign, and then tossed only 78 1/3 innings last year due to oblique and shoulder injuries. Since any Cards extension offer in the near future is likely to be tempered by this recent track record, Flaherty himself would probably prefer to re-establish his value with a healthy and productive 2022 season before committing to a longer-term deal. Flaherty is projected for a $5.1MM salary next year via arbitration, and even those shorter-term talks will be interesting considering Flaherty and the Cardinals went to a hearing (won by Flaherty) last spring.
Cardinals Didn’t Actively Pursue Free Agent Shortstop Help Before The Lockout
The Cardinals have entered each of the past four seasons with Paul DeJong as the Opening Day shortstop. He’d earned the starting nod in 2018 after hitting .285/.325/.532 across 443 plate appearances as a rookie the year prior. DeJong’s next two seasons weren’t quite as strong, but he still combined slightly above-average offense with highly-regarded glovework.
Over the last two years, though, DeJong’s production at the dish has tailed off. Going back to the start of 2020, he’s just a .213/.295/.378 hitter over 576 trips to the plate. That led to a fall down the batting order and eventually, a reduction in playing time. Edmundo Sosa took the lion’s share of at-bats in the season’s final month, and erstwhile skipper Mike Shildt turned to Sosa in a must-win Wild Card game.
With how the second half of the season played out, it seemed like DeJong could wind up as a trade candidate this winter. The free agent shortstop class was loaded with stars, and the Cardinals don’t have many obvious areas of need on the position player side. Yet there was no indication St. Louis made much effort to move DeJong in the early stages of the offseason, and Derrick Goold of the Post-Dispatch now writes that the Cardinals “were not active in discussions with any player in this marquee class of free-agent shortstops” prior to the lockout.
While it’s possible the team ignites free agent discussions after the transactions freeze — Carlos Correa and Trevor Story remain available — it seems likelier shortstop will be DeJong’s job to lose. Not only was he not the subject of any trade rumors of note, Cardinals president of baseball operations John Mozeliak and general manager Mike Girsch gave DeJong a public vote of confidence at November’s GM Meetings. According to Goold, Cardinals executives also privately expressed confidence in DeJong’s ability to right the ship and reclaim the shortstop job in 2022. (Those conversations also occurred before the lockout, which includes a prohibition on contact between team staff and players on the 40-man roster).
DeJong’s contact rate and overall average exit velocity have each dipped over the past couple seasons. Yet he actually barreled balls up at a career-best 10.6% clip last year, and his exit velocity on balls hit in the air hasn’t meaningfully changed. That provides some reason for optimism DeJong’s offensive production can improve, particularly if last season’s .212 batting average on balls in play regresses closer to his .282 career mark. The 28-year-old isn’t merely resting on his laurels awaiting better batted ball fortune, however, as he chats with Goold about changes he’s made to his offseason training routine.
Regardless of whether he rebounds offensively, DeJong should be a key part of a high-end defensive infield. He’s coming off a season regarded highly by both Defensive Runs Saved and Outs Above Average, and DRS has pegged DeJong as a plus gloveman throughout his career. Sosa remains on hand as a potential fallback option, coming off a nice .271/.346/.389 showing. DeJong is guaranteed around $6.167MM next season and is controllable through 2025 under the terms of the contract extension he signed four seasons ago.
Padres Name Shane Robinson Double-A Bench Coach
The Padres announced their 2022 minor league coaching staffs yesterday, including the hiring of Shane Robinson as the bench coach for the Double-A San Antonio Missions. The news would seemingly indicate that the 37-year-old Robinson is retiring from playing after 15 seasons.
Best known for his time with the Cardinals, Robinson was a fifth-round pick for St. Louis in the 2006 draft, and he appeared in 268 big league games with the club from 2009-14. Robinson then moved on to play with the Twins, Angels, and Yankees over the next four seasons, while also inking minor league deals with Cleveland, Philadelphia, and Atlanta but not seeing any action on their active rosters. His career also took him to the Australian Baseball League and Mexican League within the last three years, and he wrapped up his playing days with a brief five-game stint with the Acereros de Monclova in 2021.
Overall, Robinson hit .221/.288/.292 over 849 plate appearances in the majors, playing in 461 games over parts of nine MLB seasons. Strong glovework was a big reason for that lengthy career, as Robinson was a very solid outfielder capable of playing at all three positions on the grass. Robinson posted +26 Defensive Runs Saved and +12.4 UZR/150 over his 1792 2/3 career innings in the outfield, with above-average career scores as a center fielder and both corner outfield spots.
MLB Trade Rumors congratulates Robinson on his career achievements, and we wish him the best in his move to a coaching career.
Jon Lester Announces Retirement
After a 16-year major league career, Jon Lester tells Jesse Rogers of ESPN he’s made the decision to retire. “It’s kind of run its course,” the 38-year-old said of his career. “It’s getting harder for me physically. The little things that come up throughout the year turned into bigger things that hinder your performance. I’d like to think I’m a halfway decent self-evaluator. I don’t want someone else telling me I can’t do this anymore. I want to be able to hand my jersey over and say, ’thank you, it’s been fun.’ That’s probably the biggest deciding factor.”
A second-round pick of the Red Sox out of a Washington high school in 2002, Lester entered pro ball as one of the more promising pitching prospects in the Boston system. Within a few years, the left-hander was ranked among the top farmhands in baseball and he made his big league debut at age 22 in June 2006. Lester was faced with incredible adversity just a few months into that run. He was diagnosed with anaplastic large cell lymphoma late in his rookie season, cutting that year short and requiring chemotherapy treatments.
Lester beat the disease and made an inspiring return to the mound in 2007. He made 12 regular season appearances that year, then pitched in three playoff games during the Red Sox’s run to a championship. Making his first career postseason start in Game 4 of the World Series against the Rockies, Lester tossed 5 2/3 innings of scoreless ball. He wound up getting the win in what proved to be the title-clinching game, as the Sox wrapped up a sweep.
Entering 2008, Lester was cemented as a key rotation member on Terry Francona’s staff. Incredibly durable, he’d make at least 31 starts over each of his next six seasons in Boston. While Lester only had two seasons (2009-10) with excellent strikeout numbers, he consistently demonstrated strong control and proved one of the game’s hardest pitchers to square up. A pillar of high-end consistency, Lester posted an ERA between 3.21 and 3.75 in five of six years from 2008-13.
Lester’s run in Boston was littered with accomplishments. He tossed a no-hitter in May 2008, earned back-to-back All-Star selections in 2010-11 and finished fourth in AL Cy Young award balloting during a 2010 season in which he tossed 208 innings of 3.25 ERA ball. Perhaps of most importance, Lester was excellent during the Red Sox’s surprising run to another championship in 2013. He pitched to a 1.55 ERA over 34 2/3 postseason innings that year, including 15 1/3 frames of one-run ball to earn two wins as part of a World Series triumph over the Cardinals.
Ticketed for free agency after the 2014 season, Lester began the year stellar as ever. He tossed 143 innings with a 2.52 ERA for the Red Sox, earning his third career All-Star nod in the process. Yet with free agency looming and the Red Sox on their way to a last place finish, they traded him to the A’s at the deadline. Lester continued to excel over his final few months in Oakland, eventually getting the nod in the AL Wild Card game. The A’s were knocked off by the Royals in one of the more thrilling back-and-forth contests in recent memory, and Lester hit the open market for the first time shortly thereafter.
Ranked by MLBTR as that offseason’s #2 free agent, Lester commanded a six-year, $155MM deal with a Cubs team looking to emerge from a massive rebuild. That’ll go down as one of the best free agent investments in franchise history, as he picked up right where he’d left off upon switching to the National League.
Lester worked 205 innings of 3.34 ERA ball his first season, helping Chicago to the NLCS. The following year, he compiled a 2.44 mark across 202 2/3 frames. He finished second in NL Cy Young voting, earned a fourth All-Star nod, and was arguably the top pitcher on a 103-win team. As he had so often in Boston, Lester shined in the playoffs yet again. He was tabbed that year’s NLCS MVP after tossing 13 innings of two-run ball to knock off the Dodgers. Lester made three outings with a 3.68 ERA during the World Series, in which the Cubs erased a 3-1 deficit against the Indians to end the franchise’s legendary 108-year title drought.
The third World Series title of Lester’s career proved to be his final one, as the Cubs never had quite the same level of success from that point forward. That wasn’t much fault of the veteran southpaw’s, though, as he remained effective for the next few seasons. He paced the NL with 18 wins in 2018, earning another All-Star nod in the process. As he entered his late-30s, Lester’s production finally began to tail off, although he remained remarkably durable and took the ball every fifth day through the expiration of his contract after 2020.
Last winter, Lester hooked on with the Nationals on a one-year, $5MM deal. He made 16 starts with Washington before being flipped to the Cardinals at the trade deadline. Despite lackluster strikeout and walk numbers, he managed a decent 4.36 ERA over 12 starts in St. Louis, proving to be a much-needed stabilizing force for a Cardinals rotation that had been hit hard by injuries. St. Louis made a miraculous September run to a playoff spot, but they fell to the Dodgers in the Wild Card game. Lester didn’t appear in what’ll go down as the final contest of his career.
One of the league’s most reliable hurlers for more than a decade, Lester leaves a fantastic legacy in the game. He tossed 2,740 innings over parts of 16 MLB seasons. He pitched to a 3.66 ERA, won exactly 200 games and struck out just under 2,500 batters. The five-time All-Star was a key contributor to three World Series teams with two separate franchises, and he’ll be remembered by both Red Sox’s and Cubs’ fans as one of the more impactful players in each organization’s recent histories. Lester’s career was valued at between 44 and 46 wins above replacement by FanGraphs and Baseball Reference, before accounting for an incredible 2.51 ERA over 154 playoff innings. According to B-Ref, he earned just over $188MM.
Lester will likely garner some Hall of Fame support five years from now. Whether or not he’s ultimately enshrined in Cooperstown, there’s no question he had a long run of excellence and reliability. MLBTR congratulates Lester on his fantastic career and wishes him all the best in his post-playing days.
Cards Prospect Ian Bedell To Begin Mound Work After TJ Surgery
- Cardinals prospect Ian Bedell is set to make some light throws off a mound this week, according to Derrick Goold of The St. Louis Post-Dispatch. This marks Bedell’s first work off a mound since he underwent Tommy John surgery back in May, and the 22-year-old has been able to continue his rehab normally with minor league staff, as Bedell and minor league team personnel aren’t subject to the lockout. The right-hander is tentatively still on schedule to return to action by May 2022, as Bedell is eager to resume a pro career that has already been set back by the pandemic and now his TJ procedure. Bedell was a fourth-round pick for the Cardinals in the 2020 draft, and he tossed only 2 2/3 innings for the team’s high-A affiliate before being shut down for surgery last season.
