The Cardinals announced Monday that they’ve signed righty Aaron Brooks to a minor league deal. The Paragon Sports International client received a non-roster invitation to Major League Spring Training. He was eligible to sign a minor league during the lockout by virtue of the fact that he was a minor league free agent returning from a stint overseas.
Brooks, 31, is a veteran of four big league seasons but has spent the 2020-21 seasons in the Korea Baseball Organization, where he’s notched a tidy 2.79 ERA in 229 1/3 innings for the Kia Tigers. While Brooks hasn’t missed many bats pitching overseas — he posted a rather pedestrian 20.1% strikeout rate — he’s demonstrated excellent command and posted practically inhuman ground-ball rates. Brooks has walked just 4.4% of his opponents in the KBO, and it’s hard to think of a much better team to take advantage of his outrageous 78.4% ground-ball rate than the defensively stout Cardinals.
This past season, St. Louis had a staggering five Gold Glove winners, including three in the infield: first baseman Paul Goldschmidt, second baseman Tommy Edman and third baseman Nolan Arenado. Shortstop Paul DeJong had a rough season offensively that cost him some reps in the infield as the Cards looked to get more offense into the lineup, but DeJong is regarded as a standout defender himself — evidenced by last year’s plus-6 Defensive Runs Saved and a career plus-36 mark in 4366 innings at the position.
Royals, A’s and Orioles fans may remember Brooks for his big league work across those three franchises. A ninth-round pick by Kansas City back in 2011, he made his MLB debut with K.C. in 2014-15 but was traded to the A’s alongside Sean Manaea in the swap that brought Ben Zobrist to the 2015 World Series champion Royals.
The A’s wound up trading Brooks to the Cubs in exchange for Chris Coghlan back in 2016, setting off a sequence of scenery changes for Brooks over the next several years. He went from Chicago to Milwaukee via waivers, and the Brewers traded him back to Oakland in exchange for cash. Brooks’ second stint with the A’s lasted about a half season, as the Orioles claimed him on waivers the following summer and, after the 2019 campaign, released him to allow him to pursue his KBO opportunity.
While making the rounds on the trade/waiver circuit, Brooks appeared in 47 big league games and tallied 170 2/3 frames with an uninspiring 6.49 ERA. He was never much of a ground-ball pitcher during his prior stints in the big leagues, so it seems he’s done some work to reinvent his approach on the mound while pitching in South Korea. If he’s able to replicate that KBO success in Triple-A, it’s likely the Cardinals will find a way to get him onto the big league roster in 2022.
The Cards already have a full rotation, but adding some depth along these lines was a clear need. Jack Flaherty, Adam Wainwright, Dakota Hudson, Miles Mikolas and offseason signee Steven Matz are set to occupy the top five spots in the St. Louis rotation, but a lack of starting depth nearly sunk the 2021 Cards when they saw their entire rotation outside of Wainwright hit the IL by June. Brooks joins in-house options like Jake Woodford, Johan Oviedo, T.J. Zeuch and Angel Rondon on the depth chart, and the Cards are surely also hopeful that prospects Matthew Liberatore and Zack Thompson can reach the Majors in 2022.
Is it my imagination or are there more minor league deals this year? Are MLB owners going to attempt to kick the union to the curb? Don’t laugh, it’s happened before.
There have been fewer so far — at least for players of note.
There are plenty of veterans who’ll still end up having to settle for minor league deals, but because they’re technically Major League free agents, they have to wait for the lockout to end to negotiate (e.g. Danny Santana, Billy Hamilton and a few dozen more).
Might just seem like there are more this winter because there’s less other news to help these deals get lost in the shuffle.
If they did. It probably be would be a great thing to level the playing field for other young ballplayers.
40 man roster players will be locked out of Spring Training until a deal is reached. AAA teams, especially, are going to need players as several players will not be available to them if the lockout lingers past minor league opening day.
Yep, and they are the only thing to report
Seems like there’s been at least two guys named Aaron Brooks in each of the big three sports in the last decade or two.
He probably would have stayed in the KBO had it not been for Kia being forced to release him midseason for a vape pen that he had ordered online having trace amounts of Marijuana.
He’s a San Bernardino brotha, it’s their way of life
this dude gets a lot of looks for just being a terrible pitcher.
The Cardinals sign the last Saints QB before Drew Brees?
It all comes back to KBO or NPB these days!
Chris Flexen 2.0?
Nope, he gets way fewer strikeouts while also walking less batters and getting considerably more groundballs.
Josh Lindblom 2.0.
See above except Brooks gets way more groundballs.
In Korean ball. Let’s see if he reverts to his established norm here.
Aside from the groundballs the peripherals aren’t too different from his MLB and MiLB peripherals.
check out his 2014 KC stats. them some yip stats if i ever saw any
Always wondered where he went after retiring from the Raiders … Korea
With how pitch needy the Cardinals are, I wouldn’t be surprised to see him get major league innings if dumb and dumber can get a season together for us first
Cardinals have gone for a certain type of pitcher this year.
It seems it’s back to the old Dave Duncan mantra of “pitch to contact”. With the Cardinals great defense and their HR suppressing stadium, this is a solid pick up for cheap.
Welcome to the club, ground ball pitchers please apply! Now if they would realize that they can’t be a home run hitting club things would make sense.