The Cardinals announced they’ve agreed to minor league contracts with infielder Anderson Tejeda and right-hander James Naile. Both players will receive invitations to big league Spring Training. Additionally, St. Louis passed righty Ljay Newsome through outright waivers.
Tejeda has briefly appeared in the majors in each of the past two seasons, tallying 94 combined plate appearances with the Rangers. He’s hit just .220/.245/.385 in that time, and he’s coming off a tough season. The switch-hitting infielder posted just a .194/.266/.368 line over 318 plate appearances across three levels of the minors in 2021, leading Texas to outright him off their 40-man roster after the season. Tejeda had enough minor league service time to elect free agency.
It hasn’t been a great showing for Tejeda recently, but he’s still just 23 years old. Baseball America placed him among the top ten farmhands in the Texas system on three separate occasions, including entering this past season. He twice appeared on top 100 overall prospects lists at Baseball Prospectus. There’s little harm for St. Louis in taking a flier on a still young player to see if a change of scenery can yet unlock some of the power and middle infield defense that made him a highly-regarded prospect.
The Cards just claimed Newsome off waivers from the Mariners last month. He doesn’t have the requisite service time to elect free agency, so he’ll stick in the St. Louis organization as non-roster depth. The 25-year-old has twelve big league appearances (five starts) under his belt, with 30 1/3 innings of 6.53 ERA ball to show for it.
Newsome doesn’t throw especially hard or miss many bats, but he’s posted extremely low walk rates throughout his minor league career and can work as either a starter or multi-inning reliever. He underwent Tommy John surgery at some point this past summer, so it remains to be seen when he’ll be healthy enough to try to work his way back onto the 40-man roster.
The rangers are a team that should be looking to keep any semblance of young talent. Why would they let tejada go so easily?
Because he’s sucked in the majors and we have organizational depth (Foscue, Wendzel, Acuna’s younger brother, etc.)
Dude hit .194 in AAA
Roster crunch time.
Teresa sucks they have 5 guys at same position
As Tejeda better than him in minors
The Cardinals —- John Mozeliak—- loves signing pond scum and insures the media he’s laid the golden egg with his purchases.
It’s a minor league signing of a 23 yr old. Change of scenery and different coaches. Give him a chance to develop in Cards system . No minor league signing is a bad signing.
people like to blame Mozeliak for moves that Girsch makes.
That was one of the dumbest posts I have ever seen.
It’s really not. Hirsch is the GM. If you think this team would hire a GM just to have Mozeliak still be the guy calling the shots, you’re being silly.
@tater grisch is nothing more than mo’s secretary with a fancy title, heck a pbo is a gm with a fancy tittle. imo a lot of these new titles have been created so other teams just can’t pick them off from other team because mlb has rules on fo personal, one of them being you can’t take a job for another team unless it’s a promotion.
The same was said of Luis Garcia and TJ McFarland last year…
3/4 of the Cardinals infield and 2/3 OFs just won the gold glove. And our catcher is a legend.
Huh, dude?..
Brother Ruben tejada? Don’t know this guy.
Sweet. A little more upside at backup MI UTIL than we’re used to. He’ll presumably be a little closer to making the 25-man than Kramer Robertson. Wonder if this means anything for Jose Rondon’s future in STL.
I liked Jose too. Oh well. Kramer has to be rule 5 protected, maybe he gets dealt with the emergence of sosa and donovan
Yeah, I think Robertson is on the bubble to be nabbed in the Rule V. Doesn’t look like he is going to be protected. With Tejeda, you still have that depth, but don’t have to allocate a 40-man roster to him. Could see Robertson having a look in spring with another team but I’d ultimately see him being returned if selected.
Maybe it spells the end of DeJong or Sosa in a Cards uni. Hard call for the Cards’ management. Tough to give up on DeJong after only one bad full season. Still Sosa played well, and deserved most of the playing time during the streak. Good chance Robertson will be part of a trade mix. Hope this doesn’t effect Rondon. He is too valuable on the bench. Somehow the Cards still need a lockdown lefty out of the pen.
I doubt seriously that obtaining either of these players has any impact on anyone on the 40 man roster. I guess that there was not much to say about the right hander Naile.
He is somewhat of a local kid (Naille) that is, Cape Girardeau, then 2 years at UAB, then an up and down minor league career, but not bad numbers the past couple of years, considering he was pitching in Las Vegas.
Why would you think that signing a minor league free agent wh can’t hit .200 would mean the end of DeJong or Sosa? I mean I know DeJong has a hard time hitting .200 but at least he has power
Possible injury protection. If either DeJong or Sosa are moved, and Robertson isn’t protected they may feel a need to shore up the AAA infield. Doesn’t bode well for Perez or others, but you tell me why they would occupy the space?
@spudchukar….Wtf is “possible injury protection?”
@Spud – you can’t be serious.
this is a depth signing with some possible upside, plus every milb team needs players that may never go anywhere just so the ones with a shot in the mlb have someone to play against. heck who knows with a change of scenery and a different message he might turn out to be lighting in a bottle.
You guys are talking Kramer Robertson like he is some prospect. He turns 28 midseason next year, and his highest batting average at any stop was his first stop in A, and that was .270. I’m a Cardinals fan and this guy might touch the majors a few times for injuries but I doubt they make any moves worrying about what will become of him. If Kramer does get plucked via R5, put Perez at AAA and see if the hitting atmosphere jumpstarts his bat back to prospect status.
Where were you this year? Perez already has relit his prospect status. And I don’t think anyone’s referring to Kramer as a legit prospect; but he is in the depth mix, and is probably behind Tejeda on the depth chart. Plus, if you’re looking at his batting average, you’re looking in the wrong place. It’s his plate vision, discipline and pop that are his calling card.
It’s gonna be hard for tejada to get mlb playing time. Sounds like unless one of the big ss market falls flat then DeJong and Sosa in line for majority of starts. Rendon was impressive as a team player and doing whatever they needed. Most of the changes for the cardinals are going to be pitching related unless they get an absolute bargain on an established position player.
A good number if these minor league signings are about roster depth at the minor league level. Most will have very little impact on the 40 man roster. There is of course always the possibility of one of these players suddenly erupting into major league talent but few do!
To the contrary, if a former prospect of Tejeda’s pedigree signs so early in the free agent process, he’s probably been at the very least afforded an opportunity to fight for a utility bench spot in camp by that club.
Is this the son of that Oriole and the CNN anchor dude, could probably jack a few over the fence while providing round the clock coverage of the California mudslide