Alex Reyes

It wasn’t that long ago that Alex Reyes was arguably baseball’s best pitching prospect — a power right-hander heralded as the Cardinals’ ace of the future, Injuries, however, have decimated Reyes’ past few years. Tommy John surgery plus lat and pectoral strains have limited him to a combined 195 2/3 innings in the past four seasons (despite working almost exclusively as a starter in that time). Still just 25 years of age, Reyes tells Rick Hummel of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that he hopes to continue as a starter now that he’s healthy, but president of baseball operations John Mozeliak suggests that’s not likely — at least this season.

“It’s going to be tough for him to break our rotation given the talent and the names we have in it,” Mozeliak tells Hummel. “We are going to bring him to camp and stretch him out the best we can. But I think the likelihood of how he most likely contributes to the Cardinals in 2020 is in the bullpen.”

The Cardinals’ rotation consists of Jack Flaherty, Miles Mikolas, Dakota Hudson and Adam Wainwright. Fifth-starter candidates include Carlos Martinez (who was forced into a relief role by injuries in 2019) and winter pickup Kwang-Hyun Kim, who could work in either the rotation or the ’pen. Right-hander Daniel Ponce de Leon and lefties Genesis Cabrera and Austin Gomber are depth options on the 40-man roster. One would imagine that a healthy Martinez is the best option, but he did excel in a relief capacity in 2019 (3.17 ERA, 2.86 FIP, 9.9 K/9, 3.4 BB/9, 0.37 HR/9, 56.5 percent ground-ball rate).

Turning back to Reyes, it’s indeed difficult to see how the club could expect him to function as a starter in the short term. He’s thrown just 84 1/3 innings in the past three seasons, including just 40 1/3 frames in 2019. Dropping him back into a starter’s workload would necessitate an enormous increase in his total innings and pitches thrown — and that’s particularly problematic for a pitcher who has never even tossed 120 frames in a single season; Reyes’ career-high innings total is 115 1/3 all the way back in 2015.

That’s not to say that the talented righty doesn’t have any sort of future in the rotation, but between the organization’s pitching depth and Reyes’ injury history, it’s easy to see why the club has its sights set on a relief role in 2020. Looking down the line, Wainwright is only playing on a one-year deal, while Kim is being paid $4MM in both 2020 and 2021. A strong relief effort for Reyes this coming season could well lead to a look as a starter in 2021, but he’ll first need to prove his arm can hold up. The Cardinals control Reyes through the 2023 season.

It appears that Cardinals righty Alex Reyes is once again threatened by the potential of a season-ending injury. Mark Saxon of The Athletic tweets that Reyes is heading to St. Louis for another round of imaging and examinations on his ailing right pectoral muscle, adding that it “appears as if his 2019 season is over.”

Reyes, 25 later this month, has been limited to just 40 1/3 innings in 2019 — only three of which came at the MLB level. He hasn’t pitched in a game since a June 23 outing and hasn’t appeared in the Majors since April 5. At the time of the injury, it was announced as a pectoral strain that was only expected to cost Reyes two to three starts, but manager Mike Shildt said Wednesday that Reyes’ arm didn’t respond well to a bullpen session this week (Twitter link via Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch).

If Reyes is indeed shut down for the season, it’ll mark a third straight season for Reyes that has been virtually wiped out by injury. He didn’t pitch at all in 2017 due to Tommy John surgery, was limited to 26 innings last year thanks largely to surgery to repair a tendon in his lat muscle and has now only totaled 40 1/3 frames in 2019. Reyes is among the most highly touted pitching prospects in recent memory and was at one point hailed as a potential ace in the making, but he’s never even reached a total of 115 innings in a season between the Majors and minors combined.

The latest setback for Reyes comes at a poor time, as St. Louis has dropped four consecutive games after choosing not to add to its rotation at the trade deadline. Michael Wacha is currently holding the fifth spot in the rotation, but he’s lost that job twice already in 2019 and pitched poorly in his return to a starting role in his last outing.

Among internal alternatives, lefty Genesis Cabrera has struggled in the upper minors and in a pair of MLB starts. Right-hander Daniel Ponce de Leon made a handful of solid outings earlier this season but didn’t complete four innings in any of his three most recent starts. Lefty Austin Gomber, also on the 40-man roster, has been sidelined since mid-May. Adding depth in August is harder than ever before, and the Cardinals’ record is better than that of fellow postseason hopefuls in Milwaukee, New York, Arizona, San Francisco and Cincinnati, which lessens the likelihood of a palatable option making it to St. Louis on outright waivers.

Little to nothing has gone according to plan for St. Louis’ rotation in 2019. Onetime top starter Carlos Martinez has settled for a relief role after shoulder weakness slowed him during the spring. Miles Mikolas, unexpectedly the Cardinals’ No. 1 starter a year ago, has taken sizable steps backward. So has Michael Wacha, whom the Cardinals demoted to their bullpen last month. Meanwhile, ex-ace Adam Wainwright and young starters Jack Flaherty and Dakota Hudson have produced decent bottom-line results, but no one’s confusing them with front-line options at this point.

At 30-29 and within 2 1/2 games of a playoff spot, St. Louis could reel in a rotation upgrade(s) from outside the organization via trade and/or free agency in the next couple months. As things stand, though, righty Alex Reyes might represent the Cardinals’ best chance to make a near-term improvement in their starting five. The 24-year-old has barely pitched in the majors this season, having totaled three innings in relief during the first week before the Cardinals optioned him to Triple-A Memphis.  Three weeks later, Reyes fractured his left pinky while punching a wall after a minor league start. That ill-advised decision cost Reyes a few weeks, but he’s back to pitching at the minors’ highest level and could be within one start of a return to the majors, manager Mike Shildt said Tuesday (via Mark Saxon of The Athletic).

“Alex is clearly a guy who, when right, we’d like to have available if the need is there,” Shildt stated. “He’s definitely in the mix.”

It’s easy to see why the Cardinals are holding out hope for a Reyes breakthrough. Reyes was one of the game’s elite farmhands not long ago, and he justified his high rankings on top 100 prospect lists with a 1.57 ERA/2.67 FIP during a 46-inning debut in 2016. But Reyes underwent Tommy John surgery prior to 2017 and then required a season-ending procedure on his right lat last June.

Reyes’ injuries have helped prevent him from building on his initial showing in the majors, though he may get his first real opportunity to do so this year. Fellow young flamethrower Genesis Cabrera, whom the Cardinals promoted May 27 in an effort to boost their rotation, gave the team his second subpar start in as many tries Tuesday. Cabrera’s scheduled to make his next start Sunday in Chicago, but the club could go in another direction by then. Even if Cabrera does pitch against the Cubs, he may need to turn in a much-improved performance to get another start.