Central Notes: Cardinals, White Sox, Holaday

The Cardinals haven’t called the Braves about shortstop Erick Aybar, tweets Jon Heyman of MLB Network. St. Louis is looking to fill a void at shortstop left by injured veteran Jhonny Peralta. As we heard a few days ago, the Braves have a high asking price for Aybar. Given that he’s under contract for just one more season and declined last year, it’s no surprise St. Louis is exploring other options. Heyman mentions Mets shortstop Ruben Tejada as a cheaper alternative. For their part, the Mets are willing to trade Tejada despite an injury to Asdrubal Cabrera that could cause him to begin the season on the disabled list, per Adam Rubin of ESPN. The club is confident in less experienced depth pieces like Matt Reynolds and Gavin Cecchini.

• Earlier tonight, we heard the Rangers made an offer to Austin Jackson prior to signing Ian Desmond. In an interesting bit of symmetry, the White Sox tried to sign Desmond to play shortstop for north of $4MM, tweets Heyman. The nonspecific nature of the report makes it hard for us to compare the White Sox offer with Desmond’s eventual $8MM payday with Texas. As Heyman notes, the White Sox went on to spend $10MM on Jackson, Mat Latos, and Jimmy Rollins.
• The Tigers are considering rostering three catchers to start the season, writes Aaron McMann of MLive.com. Third string catcher Bryan Holaday is off to a 7-for-11 start to the spring with three home runs, but he’s firmly behind James McCann and Jarrod Saltalamacchia on the depth chart. The club has always liked Holaday per GM Al Avila and may want to avoid exposing him to waivers. The availability of Cameron Maybin for the start of the season will affect Holaday’s bid for a roster spot. Maybin is currently sidelined for three to five weeks with a broken wrist.