Cardinals right-hander Miles Mikolas will undergo surgery to repair his right flexor tendon and miss the remainder of the 2020 season, president of baseball operations John Mozeliak announced to reporters Tuesday (Twitter link via The Athletic’s Mark Saxon). He’s been placed on the injured list, and right-hander Jake Woodford has been recalled from the club’s alternate training site in a corresponding move. St. Louis also announced that Giovanny Gallegos has been activated from the injured list. Right-hander Daniel Ponce de Leon will start against the Twins tomorrow in place of Mikolas.
The loss of Mikolas is a notable blow to the St. Louis rotation. Since returning from a highly successful stint in Japan in 2018, the now-31-year-old Mikolas has given the Cards 384 2/3 innings of 3.44 ERA ball with averages of 6.8 strikeouts, 1.4 walks and 1.01 home runs per nine innings pitched. The right-hander finished sixth in 2018 National League Cy Young voting and has made 32 starts in each of his two seasons with the Cards.
That on its own would’ve been enough to make the two-year, $15.5MM deal that Mikolas signed with the Cardinals in the 2017-18 offseason a huge success. But the Cardinals clearly viewed the righty as a key long-term asset, as they locked him up on a four-year, $68MM extension prior to the 2019 season. The current season is the first year of that new pact, and a major arm surgery for Mikolas surely isn’t how either player or team hoped to kick things off. The hope is that he’ll be good to go for the 2021 season, Mozeliak added, though a more precise timeline will becomes clearer after the surgery.
Even without Mikolas, the Cardinals still have a talented group of starters. Young Jack Flaherty is emerging as one of the National League’s best arms. He’s joined by veterans Carlos Martinez and Adam Wainwright as well as fellow youngster Dakota Hudson in making up the Cardinals’ top four starters. Option for the fifth spot include Woodford, left-hander Genesis Cabrera and righty Alex Reyes, among others, although Reyes’ longstanding injury issues might make him better suited for a relief role.
The Cards opened the year with southpaw Kwang Hyun Kim in the bullpen, but the longtime KBO starter could move to the rotation, with the aforementioned Gallegos taking over ninth-inning work. Left-hander Ricardo Sanchez and right-hander Alvaro Seijas are both on the 40-man roster and in the team’s 60-man player pool as well.
Go get Samardzija
Just pay the rest of his contract. Don’t give the Giants anything significant for him. Does he still have a lot left at this point? St. Louis should definitely pass on Jeff Samardzija.
STL should be fine without a starter like that. Ponce, Cabrera, Reyes or some combination of them should be alright as a 5th starter.
Would the Cards dangle Genesis Cabrera in a trade with the Yankees for Clint Frazier, Tyler Wade, Ben Heller or Luis Cessa?
I think if it’s a left-hander, Cardinals are going to hold on to them. That’s been a fairly significant weak point for them over the last four or five years, so I suspect Cabrera won’t be available.
Why would an article about a starting pitcher going down for the year lead you to ask if the Cardinals will trade one for one of the Yankees spare parts?
@Yank4Life – No. They may not know yet what they have in Cabrera, but they don’t need another OF, and the others are older and worse than Cabrera.
@gbs42 – If you don’t need another outfielder then Frazier is definitely not your guy. Then hold on to Cabrera especially with Mikolas going down.
@jbigz12- Obviously the Cardinals are in no need for an outfielder that could easily hit 30 homers in 500 at bats. Just keep Cabrera who can definitely replace Mikolas in the rotation.
“could easily hit 30 homers in 500 at bats.”
He’s still young, so maybe he’ll develop this power, but I don’t think this will happen “easily.”
It’s probably good for the Yankees to keep him around for if/when Stanton and Judge get hurt again.
@gbs42- He has the power it’s already there. Fraz just needs the at bats. If the Yankees trade him that team will be getting a really good player. I’m sure the Cardinals miss Luke Voit. Frazier is as good as Voit. With Brett Gardner being re-signed he was sent down. I wanted Red Thunder to play regularly instead of re-signing Gardy. Having Tauchman there hurts him also.
ummmm why exactly he suxx
silver lining? can see what to youngsters can do.
Tough loss. But I suspected this and I don’t think I’m alone. Wish him a healthy recovery
Not saying this isn’t a blow but they’ve got Gomber and Ponce can swing between the bullpen and rotation (and Kim could be another option as well.
sure can’t move martinez to the closer. he barely closed out the second inning last night.
I know pitchers supposedly prepared for the restart as they normally would, but this is four arm injuries to significant pitchers in four days.
This is definitely not a new issue though, Mikolas was shut down during the first spring training for the same tendon. I don’t think the restart is to blame for this, it was him saying no to surgery in the hopes that rest would cut it.
gallegos to closer, kim to rotation?
that’s what i’d do anyway
So glad Gio Gallegos worked out for you guys in the Luke Voit trade with the Yankees. Voit has been a lot more then we expected. I can’t believe how much power he has. It’s scary.
A rare win-win for both sides. I think both have been pleasantly surprised
@echozulu88- Absolutely, that’s what you want to happen for both sides. That being said I definitely think that Frazier given 500 at bats would become a star in St. Louis. He’d hit 30 homers and probably would steal 15 bases. Just not going to win a gold glove in left field any time soon.
Get well Mikolas. The Cardinals can add Kwang-hyun Kim to the starting rotation.
Told you!
It’s time for KK
Alot of cardinals extensions lately are turning out bad. Will give DeWitt or moze another reason, and possibly excuse, to be shy about giving out any others. Our free agent deals havent been great either. Maybe time to get some new decision makers
You can’t blame the front office for not predicting that an injury would happen a year and a half out from the extension. That’s pointing the finger because they aren’t psychic. Criticizing performance is one thing, but a torn tendon is something completely different.
While yes, they haven’t been great spending money, they’ve still been keeping that farm system chugging along bringing up players without having a tank/sell-off. Until that fails, they’ll stay.
Another ‘Stop and Go’ injury. The SPs are going down in a hurry.
Will be interesting how history treats the 2020 season, and the people making the decisions.
Mikolas’ injury is not new. It’s not related to the stop and start.
yes it is loser
He had the injury in spring training, and it came back, which many expected.
And why call me a loser for disagreeing with you?
Is it Alex Reyes time for the Cards now?
You mean time for his annual injury? I hope not.
Unfortunately, Statistics reflect Reyes is just a shadow of the talent he first displayed. MPH on his fastball and rate of rotation on his curveball has vastly deteriorated to average or slightly below average.
He’s a loser, no great loss here.
What does this mean? He was very good in 2018 and about average in 2019.
Loser
Did you and Gigorilla get the same word-of-the-day calendar last Chirstmas, and Tuesday’s word was “loser?”
Sign Cashner, he can still throw 98. You can use him as a starter, reliever or closer.
Cashner as a closer? Lol good luck with that.
What in the world???? I saw a lot of odd comments on this article, but I had to stop when you said Cashner throws 98.
Lol and Cardinals fans thought their FO were geniuses when they extended this guy.
I”m a Cardinals fan, and I haven’t thought much of their extensions recently. Mikolas was given too much, too soon. Goldschmidt would never have gotten five years and $130M this past winter. Matt Carpenter’s extension was unnecessary. Even Yadier Molina’s, three-year, $60M deal seems like $10-$15 too much.
St. Louis’ player development is impressive, but the big-money expenditures haven’t worked out well overall the last few years.
Their player development is less impressive when you take into account that they get “small market” benefits while being top 10 in revenue and payroll.
The sandwich picks they receive give them 4 of the top 100 picks every season. Most teams with similar payrolls and revenue get 3.
Most of those others teams have also tanked to collect top five picks. The Cardinals haven’t even picked inside the number 19 pick since 2008 and you have to go all the way back to JD Drew in 98 to their last pick in the top ten. There is a huge difference in talent level from the first few picks in a draft and the rest of the field, and the Cardinals have done it without put any of the top-tier draft talent.
Yup. Their fans always say stuff like “When the Cardinals have a good player and they want him extended, it happens.” Easy to do that when you pay the player market value or higher. But the entire point of extending a player is to sign him on the cheap. You mention Paul Goldschmidt. There’s a fair argument to be made that St. Louis would have been better off not making that trade, outbidding everyone for Goldschmidt last winter, taking their chances on Luke Weaver and packaging Carson Kelly to fill a need elsewhere on the diamond.
Sign Big Sexy!!