The Royals have acquired catcher Tony Cruz from the Cardinals in exchange for young infielder Jose Martinez, Kansas City announced. The club designated fellow backstop Francisco Pena for assignment to clear roster space, MLB.com’s Jeffrey Flanagan tweets.
Cruz lost his backup job with St. Louis after the team inked free agent Brayan Pena. He is projected by MLBTR to earn $1MM in his second season of arbitration eligibility. That’s just $100K shy of the projection for incumbent Kansas City backup receiver Drew Butera, who could now be displaced by the new addition.
The 29-year-old Cruz owns a meager .220/.262/.310 slash line in 633 plate appearances over the last five years. That’s poor, even for a catcher, though it does rate above Butera’s own lifetime production. Obviously, though, Kansas City isn’t looking for much out of a reserve catcher. Just like Yadier Molina in St. Louis, Royals backstop Salvador Perez handles the vast majority of the duty.
Cruz is a solid backup to Perez because he will rarely play. He won’t complain about it either.
Poor Francisco Pena. Signed as a 16 year old and was supposed to be the mets backstop of the future obvisously that never happened
still playing catcher in the major leagues and getting paid, might even get a world series chance or 2 before he’s done – i’d like to see how many 16yr old signees are playing in the Bigs, imagine if 16 yr olds could get signed in America…those 2 years make a ton of difference
Well he might already have a WS ring coming to him since his team just won it like 2 months ago. And saying he’s “playing catcher in the big leagues” is a but of a stretch when he’s logged 70 days of service time in 10 years. And what does signing at 16 rather than 18 have to do with anything? Like earning 20 grand or whatever minor leaguers make for 2 extra years is a big deal.
So long Cruz! Have a good run on the other side of Missouri!
Heard Martinez plays some strong D at short
Sounds like the Cardinals were the frontrunners to land Price until Boston swooped in and added and extra $30 Million. Mo finalize your trades and sign Wei-Yin Chen, Alex Gordon, and Ryan Madson and call it an offseason.
I know, I was surprised by that, guess Mo is serious about spending money this offseason
Yeah definitely. This shows that Mozeliak and crew weren’t kidding when they said they were ready to open the pocket books. I don’t see an absolute difference maker that is a good fit outside of Price though, who obviously is now off of the board. Looks like they’ll mainly focus on locking up Heyward before moving to other targets.
Had we got Price for what we offered.. would have been a great deal. You can also argue that it was a “we’ll we tried for Price” situation but they really did it under the radar. I just hope Mo doesn’t spend all the $ on Heyward. Im sorry but he in NOT worth 180-200 Million.
Very interesting what Mo did there. I think he made it clear his #1 priority wasn’t going to be Heyward with that Price offer. Had he gotten Price, Heyward would have gone elsewhere, surely. Now does he settle for Heyward or try and make a push for Grienke or someone else?
Come to think of it.. this is probably a sign that they wont resign Heyward. If they were will to offer 187 Million at Price, no chance they offer anything close to Heyward. Im guessing they will offer him a 7 year 140 million contract to him tops.
Settle probably wasn’t the right word to use. He’d be paying Heyward a boat load of money. Heyward will demand close to 200 million, correct?
I think I’d rather them offer Upton over Heyward to eventually replace Holliday in LF. Has similar OBP and AVG numbers to Heyward but can hit for more power, which seems to be a need for STL right now. Just a thought.
They need a good hitter, power hitter-profile, Heyward doesn’t match that. Hes got great defense and speed, but his offense isn’t worth $200 million that he wants, and as RedFeather said, offering $187 to Price was a push, then Heyward doesnt look likely to be resigned. Their offense has been the biggest struggle the past couple of years.