The Cardinals have acquired minor league backstop Austin Allen from the A’s, the team announced. Minor league pitcher Carlos Guarate is back to Oakland in return.
St. Louis designated Austin Romine for assignment yesterday, en route to trading the veteran to the Reds prior to today’s deadline. With Yadier Molina being activated off the injured list for tonight’s game, the Cards will replenish their catching depth chart by adding Allen to the minor league ranks. Andrew Knizner remains as Molina’s backup on the big league roster.
Allen was born in St. Louis, so the 28-year-old will now suit up for his hometown organization. Originally a fourth-round pick for the Padres in the 2015 draft, Allen made his big league debut in 2019, and was then traded to the Athletics as part of the Jurickson Profar swap during the 2019-20 offseason.
Though he has been a part of the last four MLB seasons, Allen hasn’t received much playing time in the Show, with only 57 career games played and 127 plate appearances. Allen has hit .195/.252/.288 against big league pitching, but he has mashed at the minor league level, including a .313/.362/.594 slash line in 680 PA at the Triple-A level.
Guarate is a 21-year-old right-hander with four years of pro experience, and he has a 4.18 ERA over 75 1/3 innings (starting 12 of 19 games) at A-ball this year. This was Guarate’s first season with the Cardinals, as he was a selected in the minor league Rule 5 Draft this past winter, with St. Louis selecting him away from the Padres.
I like brats!
Brats are annoying. I have 2 of my own.
If we’re talking a pig product they are yummy, if we’re talking brats those need spankings which are illegal these days
On the flip side, I like this trade for the Cardinals Allen, Herrera, and Kizner will compete for storing role when Molina retires at seasons end
I like Austin. Tremendous power. He just didn’t have a chance with the A’s.
We never gave him a chance. Hope he does well with the Cards.
He started out as our backup catcher with his first chance to be a full time MLB player. He didn’t get vaccinated and we had to put him on the IL for our trip to Toronto, Christian Bethancourt stepped in and played well, and we never saw much of him after that.
Welcome home austin allen!
#thecardsway
Ok now what backup C are the A’s going to trade for?
Soderstrom just got bumped up to AA Midland. They’ll likely promote Jonah Bride (current OPS 1.005) to replace Allen at AAA.
Beau Taylor was recently Signed. Hebats Lefty.
A’s model is to have a Lefty-batting backup Catcher. Ron Hassey backed up Terry Steinbach. After Hassey, it was Jamie Quirk. Greg Myers backed up Ramon Hernandez, then it was Adam Melhuse, and so on.
Chris Hermann and Austin Allen in recent years.
This one might hurt. Allen has nothing left to prove in the minors, we had openings for him but instead of giving him a shot we brought in Stephen Vogt.
The A’s kept finding other guys to be the backup C because Allen is crap defensively.
Agreed. We went out and Signed 2 players that should have Retired to block our Younger players from getting Playing time. Lowrie and Vogt.
And now we are playing Vimael Machin at 3rd Base every other game simply because he ” bats left-handed and balances out the LIneup”.
Who give a rat a$$ what side of the Plate he bats when he bats .181 ?
It boggles my Mind why we keep giving him chances. He should not be playing ahead of Pinder, Bride, Neuse, or Steven Smith at 3B.
We have enough of a Sample size on Machin now to realize that he is a 4A player and backup 2B at best. Can’t play his weak Bat at 3B. Law of Diminishing Returns applies there. Especially when Kotsay bats him in the Leadoff spot.
Who wants a .181 batter batting 5 times a game?
Front Office is shoving him down our Throat because they went out and drafted him in the Rule 5 Draft and have too much Ego to admit a mistake.
LOL. You really think the A’s are keeping Machin around because they drafted him in the rule 5 draft several years ago? That is absurd. Nobody cares about that. The fact is that Smith, Neuse, Bride, and Machin are all just placeholders until they trade for a real 3B or one of the prospects in AA (Gelof, Diaz, Harris, Davidson) shows they are ready. Austin Allen is not young and is too lousy of a defensive C to be the backup especially on team with an inexperienced pitching staff.
Jordan Diaz has already moved to 1st Base. He is batting a solid .307 there in Double-A. Gelof is a nice looking prospect.but he’s in Double-A.
My point on Machin is that he should not be playing ahead of guys that actually have a chance at getting better = Bride, Neuse, and Smith.
We’ve seen what Machin can do and its not much. Plus, he is a 2nd Baseman and not a 3rd Baseman. He’s getting extra looks because he bats left-handed.
Lets see what Pinder can do with regular playing time at 3B,,which is where he played in College at Virginia Tech. He at least has a chance to hit the ball out of the park.
Pinder at 3B lets us play someone else in the Outfield, call up Pache again and give him another look. Move Piscotty to left field, and play Ramon in right field.
Lineup has more thump with Machin not in it.
Bang bang baby!
I agree that we don’t need Vogt/Kemp/Andrus taking lots of AB’s when we could be trying out rule 5 journeyman types with team control options…. but Allen wasn’t the answer. We don’t need a bad defensive catcher that is struggling to hit at the MLB level.
They should’ve given Allen time at 1B/DH. Brown goes to left and Pinder should’ve been the starting 3B from day one. Allen was given a grand total of 56 AB’s, not nearly enough to make a fair assessment on the guy. Max Muncy, Joey Wendle, and Jonah Heim are a couple recent guys we had that never got a fair shot and moved on to be very successful with other teams.
The cards didn’t like the other catcher named Austin
hooray… yet another pitcher…
St. Louis native (and former top prospect!). Lefty-hitting catchers are cool, too.
Just realized Guarate was a Rule V pick this past offseason — was wondering how he wasn’t Padres property any longer. Nice move by the Cardinals.
Austin was an underrated lower level prospect for Padres. Saw him on back fields in spring training –
Maybe 2018. I think he wasincluded in the Profar trade.
Shocked they didn’t trade Murphy.
Where’s that one dude who said he’d get a haul lol
This is minor league catcher Austin Allen not Sean Murphy.
In the long run this may be Mo’s redeeming deadline move. I’m glad we got Quintana and Montgomery, they’re exactly what we needed. I’m not so thrilled we gave up Bader and Oviedo. But a lefthanded hitting catcher to pair with Knizner for next season could prove really valuable.
I’ll give Mo a solid B for the deadline. I’m glad we didn’t get Soto. I wish we had got Lopez.
Best of luck to Harrison Bader and Johan Oviedo and thank you for your contributions while in St. Louis.
Now let’s do the Cardinals thing and tear it up for the rest of the season
So you believe knizner will be the starting catcher for the 2023 season?! Hell, I’m surprised we didn’t deal him to get Gallo from the yanks! That’s how bad he is. Terrible framing, bad hitting, slow pop time and not a fantastic arm…. how this dude made it past high school baseball is a mystery to me