The Cardinals are activating left-hander Kwang-hyun Kim from the 10-day injured list before this afternoon’s game against the Pirates, manager Mike Shildt told reporters (including Jeff Jones of the Belleville News-Democrat). Reliever Junior Fernández is being optioned to Triple-A Memphis in a corresponding move.
Kim is moving to the bullpen, according to Shildt, who noted that the 32-year-old could immediately work as many as 45 pitches in multi-inning relief. Kim has missed a little less than two weeks with inflammation in his throwing elbow, and it seems St. Louis doesn’t want to run the risk of overworking him by plugging him back into the rotation. That means the Cardinals will continue to rely on Jack Flaherty, Adam Wainwright, Miles Mikolas, Jon Lester and J.A. Happ every fifth day.
The bullpen role will be an unfamiliar one for Kim, who has started 26 of his 27 appearances since signing with the Cards before the 2020 season. Kim’s work as a starting pitcher has been excellent, as he has a 2.84 ERA over 130 MLB innings in spite of a below-average 17.5% strikeout rate. He’s thrived by generally avoiding walks (8%) and inducing ground-balls (47.1%) while limiting hard contact. If he can continue to have that level of success in his new role, he’d be a key bullpen piece for a Cardinals team that trails the Reds and Padres by four and a half games in the race for the National League’s final playoff spot.
Interesting
Smart move
I’d have him piggyback lester’s starts
With how good he’s been in the rotation this makes sense? Happy to have him back, better option than Miller for a lefty our of the pen for sure. Hopefully that elbow holds up, I admire Kim for this, he went to dinner, didn’t eat any of it and said I want to pitch for the money I’m earning. I’m a pending free agent dont let me sit.
What did he order for dinner?
Give him a Mikolas deal. 4/68. Why not? He’s proven himself for ONE year.
I knew you were being sarcastic, but at first I thought you were a little off. I was thinking that the Mikolas situation is different than the Kim one. But the more I thought of it, the more I realized you have a good point. Other than age, the situations are fairly similar, and it would be ridiculous to give a contract like that to Kim…which was what they did with Mikolas.
Yes, sarcasm. Nobody ever should get a contract of that size after ONE good year. You have to wait and see how the league adjusts to him and vice versa. They did it with Paul Dejong, although team friendly deal, it’s rearing it’s ugly head now with $15M still owed to him.
There have been a fair amount of moves that have backfired on the cardinals front office. You had this great pitcher drafted in the organization from Mississippi state who pitched 7 solid years for your organization, and when you balk at the asking price he earned by putting together quality start after quality start and worked to a career 3.30 ERA for your team you just let him walk, over a difference of less than a few million per year? Now we are where we are, the team is paying Mikolas the money Lynn earned and you look at the difference in the two pitchers, they are being paid the same, but one has been a lot LESS injured than the other? So if I got this correctly, the Cardinal way is not to retain players who have earned your keep who are over 30, but its ok to sign a free agent with past question marks and take a flier on him and pay him the money the other guy earned over 7 YEARS for one year and a 3rd place finish in the Cy young voting? I hope Lance Lynn wins that Cy Young award, and calls the front office some $lap **** ****** ******* for striking out on him and so many others in the past 5 years
Lynn makes $9.3M this year. Mikolas $17M
But I heard somewhere that Kim was told that there is no spot for him in rotation. Can’t believe Happ was retained over Kim.
Happ has actually been very solid since the trade. Lester should be bumped if anyone. He has been pretty terrible.
Solid is easy against KC and Pitt
In 2 weeks he’ll be back in the rotation as one of those 5 will be on the IL.
Last time Kim worked out of the bullpen, it didn’t go so well. He’s clearly more effective as a starter.