The Cardinals announced on Monday that they’ve activated center fielder Dexter Fowler from the disabled list and optioned Stephen Piscotty to Triple-A Memphis to clear a spot on the roster.
[Related: Updated St. Louis Cardinals depth chart]
The move marks the third Opening Day regular to be optioned to the minors this season — both Randal Grichuk and Aledmys Diaz have been sent down in 2017 — and also makes this the second straight season in which St. Louis has optioned a recently extended player to the minors. In 2016, it was second baseman Kolten Wong that was sent down after struggling in the wake of signing a five-year, $25.5MM extension. Piscotty, 26, inked a six-year, $33.5MM pact prior to the 2017 season but has struggled to live up to the expectations that accompanied that deal thus far.
Piscotty batted .282/.348/.467 with 29 homers through his first 216 Major League games (905 plate appearances), prompting the Cards to make that show of faith just as the 2017 campaign got underway. However, he’s yet to find a groove at the plate this year and currently has just a .232/.340/.362 slash through 291 plate appearances. Piscotty has seen his walk rate spike to 12.7 percent this season, but his power has largely evaporated; he’s hit just six homers in 2017 and has an isolated power mark (.130) that is 54 points lower than his 2016 level (.184). He’s also missed time due to a hamstring strain and a groin strain through the season’s first four-plus months.
With Piscotty out of the picture for the time being, the Cards seem set to go with an outfield mix featuring Tommy Pham, Fowler and Grichuk. Jose Martinez, too, should factor prominently into the mix on the heels of his strong play in recent weeks. Some have even argued for Martinez to remain in the lineup on a regular basis, including Bernie Miklasz of ESPN 101, who made a lengthy pitch for the Cardinals to keep Martinez in the heart of the order earlier today.
Prefer Piscotty over Grichuk. Kind of crappy of them too to send him down, even though the org acknowledges his drop in performance is related to his personal life.
Why? He gets his money either way, only now he can deal with his personal issues and not have his performance in the spotlight.
Not that St. Louis is much closer but Memphis isn’t anywhere near CA, so he wouldn’t really be able to deal with it any better (not that he can really do anything about it). So all it’ll really do is probably drop his morale even further. On top of that, he wasn’t given much of a chance. We’ve seen similar performances but others get a much longer chance, and even praise in some cases.
Who has been as bad as Piscotty and received more of a chance?
Domonic Brown.
Domonic Brown is part of a rebuilding Phillies team. Piscotti is part of a Cardinals team that is trying to compete. You can’t compare those two.
How is that crappy?? This is a business, he is not performing well. They would be doing him a disservice to let him stay in the majors and continue to suck. And he was crap prior to his mother’s diagnose, tho I’m sure it has exacerbated his poor play. Ship him to the W coast- win win for both sides.
I understand teams sometimes offer extensions to their young rising stars as a cost control measure, but with STL that concept is clearly trending in the wrong direction. It might be better to hold off on the extensions until the player matures another 2-3 years.
Yeah they extend so many guys early its ridiculous. Their core isnt a group of guys built for long term success as it is
They don’t even have a core really, it changes with the wind. Only real for sure players that’ll stay for longer than 5 minutes are Molina and Wainwright. The Org likes Grichuk too much to sell him off or demote him to make way for the decent players. Dejong will be useless soon, that power is gonna die out and we’ll be stuck with a 31%+ strikeout rate, not to mention the fielding which has been held up by very questionable hit/error scoring. Carp hasn’t done anything offensive since the break, same with Gyorko. That leaves Molina, Pham, and Wong (who is on and off hurt) as the only producing players. Jose Martinez when he’s in. Fowler was putting up higher offensive numbers but it appears he’s made of glass. Just a big mess really.
They extend so many guys? Who’s arbitration years have they bought out besides Wong, Martinez and piscotty
Craig, but I agree with your point.
Cost a ton more if you do that.
It’s a gamble, but worth it if even 1 of the 3 extensions pans out considering the value given.
I totally agree with you on that one!!! The extensions Piscoty and Wong get were very questionable because of their small sample size of success.
Amen to that!!!
If a team sends a player down for less than 20 days they don’t use an option. They brought Randal Grichuk back in less than 20 days. Considering that there are only 28 days left in the minor league season they’d be wasting an option they don’t have to use if they leave him in AAA until the end of the season. I’d expect him back in less than 20.
Hopefully they don’t have to worry about piscotty’s options considering they have 33.5 mil guaranteed to him. I’m sure they’d prefer this to be the only option they ever need to use. so I don’t think that’s a big consideration right now
He will be back up for the Cubs series and hit 10 homeruns against them
Ha, that’s funny.
Needed to be done
Add his extension to the list of items that the Cardinals front office has messed up recently. His extension wont end up being awful but pair it with terrible Wong extension, Fowler signing, Cecil signing, and u got yourself a bunch of bad contracts
Is the kolten Wong extension really all that bad. You’re basically paying market value for a 2B that puts up Wong’s numbers.
Both Wong and Piscotty are making less than they are producing, and considering the ages, both are still good extensions to be holding.
Considering both would be making less without the extension and will not receive raises that would have warranted the early commitment
And to me Wong is low ceiling easily replaceable player
The only year on wong’s deal that won’t be warranted is when it jumps up to 10mil in 2019 I believe. I really wouldn’t consider that to be too bad of a deal. I wouldn’t write wong off he’s typically batting in the lower half of the lineup and doesn’t really get to steal down there and he’s been banged up this year, I think there’s a good deal of hope to go on that one.
I think its a bit early to write off the Fowler/Cecil contracts. There’s still multiple seasons that both could improve. Fowler’s only real issues have been staying healthy, otherwise he was putting up better power numbers than he has before.
Fowler already looks like he may need to move to a corner spot sooner than later and while the power has been good this season i dont see it as sustainable. In other words i only think he will get worse going forward
Fowler hasn’t graded out as a plus defender in center fielder for almost his entire career. It’s really not surprising that he will need to move over. That deal is probably not going to look so good in the end.
moving him negates the theory of corner players must hit with power.
extension and demotion in same season, along with matheny continually playing him when its clear to all he is in more than just a “funk”…he has become the 2nd coming of allen craig
He has been striking out to much and absolutely no power.Defense is slightly above avg.If I were GM ,Piscotty,Grichuk and Cecil would be GONE.
Cecil has been pretty much the same guy he was last year. His K/9 is down but his ERA and FIP are actually better than they were last year.
It’s how he is performing in high leverage situations that bothers fans.
Back to back seasons with major negative WPA
I hate this but that is where he and Grichuk need to be to work out their swing problems. Especially when other outfielders are having better seasons.
I don’t think it would be a stretch to see guys like Wong, Piscotti and Grichuk improve if a new coaching staff comes in.
Wong has been fine this season besides the injury. One of the players that actually get on base.
Wong has been better this season. But I think he could do more.
From the business side; to many consistent bad contracts (Wong, Piscotti, Fowler etc) and questionable talent evaluation. What happened to Edmonds, Pujols, Rolen, Reintera, Bergman, Walker etc….instead we get Grichuk, Fowler, Piscotti (stellar outfield), and Carpenter, Wong, Dejong/Diaz and a third basemen. Great work Mozalik.
The cardinals haven’t done bad with their prospects. It’s really no surprise they don’t have a superstar because you guys are competitive every single year. You don’t get top 5 picks so you don’t have top 5 players. You have some solid ball players though. Missing Reyes this year to TJ as well. Things could be a lot worse, the cardinals are a very good organization and extending players young is a risk but it’s not one that hasn’t panned out for you guys. You take the savings alone on Carlos martinez’s contract and you can cover any money lost on wong’s or piscotty’s. You have to extend them young if you want to find a bargain, a player isn’t going to intentionally screw himself out of future money if he has a solid track record in his young career. Piscotty and Wong still have time to recoup value anyway… things could be a lot worse
A shrewd move would be to get a king’s ransom for Carlos. Hes a wildcard to me going forward. It takes everything Yadi has to keep him under control. Cardinals can use him ti acquire the elite position player they severely lack and use the pitching depth to cover for Martinez
The Cards are in a really bad place right now. They have a group of players who have shown all-star potential underperforming, their farm-system is weak, however they’re going to look bad if they trade Grichuk, Piscotty, Diaz, Wong or Rosenthal and they start playing like studs.
Honestly, with the Cubs and Brewers pretty much looking set to run the division for a few years, It gives them a little time to regroup. Might as test out the trade waivers, see if you can get lucky, but if not those guys are young enough where giving them one more year to try to figure things out isn’t going to kill anyone.
I don’t know why the cards farm system is weak? They have tons of pitchers on the farm. Literally have 3 Mlb ready starters for next year in the minors. If they can add a bat like JD Martinez or maybe more likely moustakas this offseason and ship off one of their surplus arms for another position player they will be fine. A lot of reasons to believe a guy like piscotty could bounce back as well. Grichuk probably needs a change of scenery but I don’t think the cards are that far away. Maybe you use Reyes out of the pen next year and he runs with the closer job since he’s coming back from TJ.