The Cardinals have selected right-hander Aaron Brooks to the 40-man roster, the team informed reporters (including Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch). He’ll break camp with the club. To clear roster space, righty Alex Reyes has been placed on the 60-day injured list.
St. Louis signed Brooks to a minor league deal in late January. The 31-year-old had spent the prior two seasons in the Korea Baseball Organization, working out of the Kia Tigers’ rotation. He pitched to a 2.50 ERA in 151 1/3 innings his first year, leading the Tigers to bring him back for another season. Brooks only made 13 starts and tallied 78 frames last season, but he posted a solid 3.35 ERA in that time.
Brooks only struck 20.1% of opposing hitters over that two-year stretch. Yet he virtually never handed out free passes, walking just 4.4% of batters faced. Of most interest to the Cardinals, he induced grounders on more than three quarters of the balls put in play against him in both his KBO seasons. St. Louis has perhaps the game’s top collection of infield defenders (Paul Goldschmidt, Tommy Edman, Paul DeJong and Nolan Arenado), and they’d set out this offseason to target pitchers capable of playing to that strength.
They identified Brooks, despite his 6.49 ERA in 170 2/3 career big league innings. The former ninth-round pick suited up with each of the Royals, A’s and Orioles before heading to South Korea but never found much success. The Cards clearly believe he’s capable of performing better with a strong defense behind him, and he can factor into either the rotation or the bullpen for first-year skipper Oli Marmol. St. Louis will be without Jack Flaherty to open the year, giving Brooks a shot to compete for the final rotation spot behind Adam Wainwright, Steven Matz, Dakota Hudson and Miles Mikolas.
It was also already known they’d be without Reyes in the early going, and he’s now officially going to miss at least the first two months of the season. The hard-throwing reliever received a stem cell injection in his shoulder last week and wasn’t expected to be available until late May or early June. Today’s IL placement rules him out until at least the second week of June.
In addition to the Brooks/Reyes news, St. Louis announced they’ve signed utilityman Cory Spangenberg to a minor league deal. The 31-year-old appeared in every big league season between 2014-19, spending the bulk of that time with the Padres. Like Brooks, he’s coming back to the U.S. after a two-year stint in an Asian league — in his case, Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball.
Spangenberg, a left-handed hitter, has a fair bit of experience at each of second base, third base and left field. He owns a .256/.315/.389 line in just under 1400 MLB plate appearances. He combined for a .257/.330/.463 mark in two seasons with the Seibu Lions and will add some versatile depth to the high minors of the St. Louis system.
dont get the appeal…
I’d assume they are selecting people they weren’t that high on in case they have to pass them through waivers. Lots of clubs do it at the beginning of season.
Also a 8:0 K/BB in 5 IP so far. He also has been showing groundball tendencies while hitting 95 on his fastball.
Brooks had an absurd ground ball rate the last few years in Korea and the Cards have an elite defense.
he was also bad with a really good defensive A’s team.
He most likely had an opt-out.
Reyes down again?
Reyes sure isn’t living up to the hype, get well soon and try to pitch just on healthy season.
He has such a lively arm even through all these injuries. He’s still young enough that he could turn things around and string together healthy seasons, but one of those arms that you hope doesn’t turn into a “what could’ve been” guy.
They could very well have a staff ERA over 5 this year.
It might not be great but over 5 is a stretch. Only 5 teams had an era over 5 last year. And one was colorado
Fake news. This defense alone will keep the ERA under 5. I have screamed louder than anyone for another starting pitcher to be signed, but this staff will survive as is. Every team is going to deal with injuries. Losing Jack is serious, and I wish we had signed another guy, but last year proved that this team can win with average pitchers who can keep it in the park.
Sports information solutions data for 2020 and 2021 is rather suspect https://blogs.fangraphs.com/dan-straily-returns-from-the-kbo-with-the-diamondbacks/ the comments mention that Kia’s home stadium doesn’t have a trackman system in place.
Bottom line, 3 of your starters have chronic injuries in Flaherty, Hudson and Mikolas…your 4th starter is 40 years old. Mozalik and management have continued to fail at building a competitive pitching staff (starters and closers).
and the last one is Steven Matz
Hudson does not have a chronic injury history…he did just have TJ surgery but don’t act like he is a Reyes…Mikolas has looked great and so what if Wainwright is 40…I think he proved last year he will be fine
Cards will blow away the NL Central. Mark my words doubters!
I think a lot of people are underestimating the cardinals for sure…they still made the playoffs last year and hardly had any SP all year…when they finally got some stable arms look what they did in the second half…but the Brewers won’t make the Central easy for the taking
Ah, the perfect storm in a single post/response…Two cardinal fans who historically process zero reality.
Lol what does that even mean? What reality…the fact that they did make the post season last year without pitching for the better part of the year? So what reality are you living in? Please make sense before posting
If it doesnt make sense to you, it doesnt mean it doesnt make sense to most others…..
Good response…nothing about baseball but ok? You’re cool though
Love the triple negative in a sentence…before you act better than everyone else check yourself
I nominate John Mozeliak as BM of the year
Bowel movement of the year?
Reyes is toast…Flaherty hates the front office and the Cards are cheap, with a lousy farm system. You are watching a team that will be dismantled at the end of the year by a new GM for 2023.
The Cardinals are usually a top ten team when it comes to payroll in the MLB so the owners really aren’t that cheap…they have three top 50 prospects in Gorman, Libetore, and Walker…plus they have a nice catching prospect in Herrera…they also have some good outfield prospects coming up…but Bader is controlled to 24, O’Neill 25 and Carlson to 27…Arenado won’t opt out…Goldy signed to 25…I will admit I would like to see more pitching depth in the minors but hopefully they address that in the draft…so please tell me how you are even close to reality…you have proven you know next to nothing about the cardinals