TODAY: The Cardinals announced that Brooks has been outrighted to Triple-A Memphis, after clearing waivers.
MAY 2: The Cardinals have designated righty Aaron Brooks for assignment, according to Jeff Jones of the Belleville News-Democrat. He notes that the club also optioned Packy Naughton to Triple-A Memphis to get down to the requisite 26 players on the active roster.
Brooks, who recently turned 32, signed a minor league deal with St. Louis after spending two years with the KBO’s Kia Tigers. He broke camp with the team but allowed runs in four of his five appearances. Ultimately, he allowed eight runs in 9 1/3 innings and served up a trio of homers during his first big league exposure since 2019.
A ninth round draft pick of the Royals back in 2011, Brooks and Sean Manaea were traded to the Athletics for Ben Zobrist and cash at the 2015 trade deadline. During the following spring training, Brooks was shipped to the Cubs for Chris Coghlan. He then bounced to the Brewers, A’s, and Orioles before heading to South Korea.
Notably, Brooks did show the best velocity of his big league career in his brief time with St. Louis, averaging 93.2 miles per hour on his fastball. Brooks has always had excellent control, and his ground-ball rate in KBO was through the roof, a big factor in the Cards adding him in the first place. It remains to be seen if his strong KBO numbers and personal-best fastball velocity will lead another team to give him a longer look than St. Louis afforded.
Not surprising. He looked overmatched at times. His career stats don’t exactly jump out either to play the wait and see game either.
Bring up Graceoff. He’s the next good one.
Let’s see how long it takes him to arrive.
Brooks was here. So was Red.
Underrated comment.
Get busy living or get busy dying
Much too young (to feel this damn old).
Could head back to the KBO if he wanted. Nows around the time the struggling foreign players get cut.
I believe he has legal issues that would prevent him from returning to Korea. Technically he was sentenced to prison but allowed to leave the country and return to the US
Well you make it sound scary. For those too lazy to look it up (almost me), he ordered a vape pen online. Postal service searched it before it ever arrived and it had traces of *Gasp* marijuana. It automatically voided his contract and visa.
Any possession of marijuana in Korea is a prison sentence so I understand why he wouldn’t go back now.
That does sound scary, if you were going to South Korea. Things that seem harmless here can get you in a lot of trouble elsewhere. Ever looked at Singapore? They don’t screw around there either.
Sure, Brooks gave up 3 homers, but some of his other stats looked good. It seems to me Books still has something to offer an MLB team. I would still give Brooks a chance to right the ship. This is why I am not an executive in the front office of an MLB team.
Example of why both the 26 man MLB Roster and the Team 40 man roster are antiquated and obsolete for today’s game.
I’m not sure I follow? Can you explain your point?
He has plenty of velocity but hitters keyed in on it quickly. Somebody will pick him up to throw junk innings when they are up seven, eight runs late. His role might be to save some better arms. He’s got lit up in a Cardinals shirt but he’s not done.
Brooks is that AAAA starter that every team has just a emergency starter if somebody gets injured. He is the ultimate 6th starter.
He is a reliever and not a good one at that.
They could have used him in Philadelphia this evening.