The Cardinals announced this morning that right-hander Seth Elledge has been granted his unconditional release, and he’s quickly latched on with a new club. Elledge updated his social media profiles to reflect that he’s with the Braves organization (hat tip: Katie Woo of The Athletic), and MLBTR has confirmed that the righty indeed signed a minor league deal there.
Elledge, 25, was a fourth-round pick by the Mariners back in 2017 and found himself in the Cardinals organization by way of a 2019 trade that sent reliever Sam Tuivailala from St. Louis to Seattle. Elledge made his big league debut with the Cards in 2020 and wound up pitching exactly 11 2/3 innings for St. Louis with an identical 4.63 ERA in each of the past two seasons. He’s fanned 24% of the 52 big leaguers he’s faced and averaged 93.9 mph on his heater, but Elledge also walked seven hitters (14.4% walk rate) and hit another in his brief MLB looks. The Cardinals outrighted Elledge off the 40-man roster following the 2021 season.
Above-average strikeout rates and sub-par walk rates have been a hallmark of Elledge’s time both in the big leagues and in the minors. He carries a 3.93 ERA, 30.6% strikeout rate and 10.8% walk rate in parts of four pro seasons, but he’s had some particularly pronounced struggles in Triple-A (5.66 ERA, 13% walk rate in 70 frames). Command issues notwithstanding, Elledge regularly ranked in the middle tiers of the Cardinals’ prospects. FanGraphs’ Eric Longenhagen listed him 17th among St. Louis farmhands heading into 2021, praising Elledge’s mid-90s sinker and plus slider while noting that he has a tendency to lose command of the latter.
Elledge isn’t on the 40-man roster with the Braves, but he has a pair of minor league options remaining, so if he’s selected to the big league club at some point, he’ll provide Atlanta with some bullpen flexibility over the remainder of the season. He also doesn’t have a full year of MLB service time under his belt yet, so he’s technically controllable through 2027 — though a lot needs to go right before that’s even a factor to consider.
This is a dynastic move. The Battery is now fully charged.
It’s just like after a good healthy fart, you feel relief. You can never have too much relief. AA keep on
Ironic
Depth,Depth, and more depth. AA and his staff prepping for the long grind.
Well with all these subpar pitchers we’ve signed. We will find out how good Our pitching staff is.
the staff that won the WS?
Braves will have one of the best bullpens in baseball
What are you talking about? Who’s the below average pitcher we signed?
Weird kind of move for a decently rated prospect, with no 40-man ramifications. One of those moves where likely there’s more going on in the background than we know.
Sometimes, you see moves like these as a relative favor for a player that St. Louis knows isn’t going anywhere in their system, yet also knows he doesn’t have much trade value, if any at all.
The Braves will now get him, try to build off his sinker as a relief option, and just take a gamble on him. At worst, hes triple AAA bullpen depth.
At best, they’re able to work out some kinks with him, and they can turn him into a sinker specialist that can come on with runners on and induce weak contact or double plays.
The Braves used to seemingly ALWAYS have at least one of these guys in their bullpen like a Kevin Gryboski. A guy that would seemingly come out of nowhere that they would turn to, with a runner on first or runners on first and second, and he could come in and induce a groundball double play helping then escape the jam..
Maybe this guy could be the next one, who knows?? Odds are he will likely just be AAA depth, but it never hurts to take a chance..
I remember when the Braves traded one of their top starters to a contending club in the AL for a kid who had been drafted in the 22nd round a couple years before and had a 5.68 ERA in AA.
The one thing you can’t tell much about pitchers is how their arm can be developed. Beauty really is in the eye of the beholder and most of us rolled our eyes if we noticed when Tyler Matzek was added to a minor league deal.
So, most likely this is an irrelevant addition but I know that it takes one scout to look at the kid in the Tiger’s farm system and see the future John Smoltz. In no way am I suggesting Elledge has a hall of fame career ahead. Just pointing out how he could be a surprise. One of the scouts has brought him to AA’s attention because they see something.
You’re totally misrepresenting the Tigers valuation of John Smoltz at the time he was traded for Doyle Alexander. Smoltz had told scouts that he was going to attend Michigan State instead of turning pro. When his “hometown” team drafted him and offered him too much to turn down, he signed. He would have been drafted much higher if other teams had believed he wasn’t going to college. The Braves and Tigers discussed whether Smoltz or Steve Searcy would be the trade piece. Luckily for the Braves, Detroit’s GM decided they wanted to keep Searcy. Romanticizing Smoltz as some kind of out of the blue, late round find is a feel good tale that isn’t true. No “one scout” had a dream about “a kid” or saw something that others in the business didn’t. Smoltz was already very highly regarded. That AA ERA of over 5 meant as little then as it would today.
This is the sort of pickup I would expect Miami to make, not the dude they claimed yesterday.
Sam Tuivailala… talk about completely vanishing
Yea his Twitter is all about nfts, maybe he’s masking money that way.
Whatever happened to Sam Tuivailala anyway? He’s still young and he apparently got cut in Spring Training 2 years ago, but haven’t heard a peep from or about him since.
Braves will finish in last place as the Curse of Freddie Freeman begins.
lol, yeah, ok.
Classy move