Cardinals infielder/outfielder Taylor Motter, who was designated for assignment over the weekend when Paul DeJong was reinstated from the injured list, has cleared waivers and been assigned outright to Triple-A Memphis, per the transaction log at MLB.com. Because he’s been outrighted previously in his career, Motter has the ability to reject an outright assignment in favor of free agency. However, Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch tweets that Motter is expected to accept the assignment. He’s being added to the roster at Memphis and will remain in the organization.
Motter, 33, signed a minor league deal with the Cardinals over the winter and rode a solid spring training effort to a spot on the team’s Opening Day roster. He received limited playing time in a bench role with St. Louis, appearing in seven games and batting .222/.300/.333 with a pair of walks and eight strikeouts in 20 trips to the plate before being designated for assignment.
Beyond this brief stint with the Cardinals, the well-traveled Motter has spent time in the Majors with the Rays, Mariners, Twins, Red Sox, Rockies and Reds. He also had a brief stint with the Kiwoom Heroes of the Korea Baseball Organization during the 2020 season. Overall, Motter is a career .192/.264/.310 hitter in 466 big league plate appearances but carries a more robust .262/.352/.482 slash in 2062 Triple-A plate appearances.
Motter’s versatility surely holds broad-reaching appeal around the league. He’s logged at least 1200 professional innings at each of shortstop, second base, third base, left field and right field, plus another 513 innings in center and 389 innings at first base. He’s even pitched an inning and a third of mop-up duty in the Majors, leaving catcher as the lone position he’s never played at any professional level.
What to say about this move.
Nada.
From all indications, nothing’s the motter here
Motter Focter, DeJong literally needs to step up to the plate. Where have you gone Joe DeJong? A nation turns its lonely eyes to you…
Daryl, you commented to say you have no comment?
Hey Steve, read your chat yesterday. Maybe you’d want to reevaluate your comment that Justin Steele is only a 3/4 rotation piece.
You might want to check some numbers going back to last years All Star game. There haven’t been too many better SPs.
Cubs could win the NL Central.
If you look at Jose Quintana during that same period he looks like an ace. And Quintana did it in 14 games where as Steele did it in just 7 games. You can’t take a 7 game stretch and say that is what the guy is going to be. If at the end of this season he still pitching like this, sure. But what he’s done so far is a total of 12 games from a guy who never broke 100 innings in the minors in a season. I’m going to need to see a full season from him before I’m willing to say he’s better than a number 3/4.
In all due respect black and orange, Justin Steele has an ERA of 1.07 going back to July 22, 2022.
There probably aren’t 3 or 4 better starting pitchers in the entire NL Central. And just to put things into perspective: Steve Adams recently wrote he’s putting Ashcroft of the Reds ahead of Steele – as more than a3/4.
Is this guy a bad person or something I’ve heard some ramblings that he is.
It’s perpetuated by certain members of the media because he doesn’t subscribe to woke viewpoints.
Could you explain exactly what your definition of, woke, is?
I didn’t think so.
“Can you answer the question me about to ask you? (blurts out without offering an opportunity for said request to be fulfilled) Me no think so.”
You win.
Politically correct.
Or just a comment the right uses to describe anything- anything at all. Even when it makes no sense. Kind of like ‘server’.
I never understood why he was signed. There was plenty of infield depth without him.
Well, there obviously wasn’t, since he was the next guy up after DeJong got hurt. Once you get past Edman, Donovan, DeJong, and (technically) Gorman on the Major League roster, Motter is still the next best middle infield option the Cardinals have until Masyn Winn is ready.
There were others at spring training who played as well as Motter. Those players are still doing well at Memphis.
Not middle infielders aside from Winn.
Querecuto is doing fine at AAA for depth. The Cardinals are now carrying 5 middle infielders on the active roster. I really don’t understand that.
Querecuto has only played 16 games in AAA. Like Winn, he’s not ready for a promotion yet.
While Gorman only barely counts as a middle infielder, I do agree it’s odd that they pick Motter over some other choices like Yepez. I guess they *really* value Motter’s positional flexibilily for that last bench spot.
We are talking about a 30 year old who would be the fourth person on the depth chart at second.
My main reason for hating this is that Marmol is trying too hard to get everyone into the lineup. Too many players are too unsure about their roles and their future. He’s moving people all over the field. He’s giving multiple starters days off on the same days. Competition is great until too many players start viewing teammates as a threat.
The cleverness is starting to backfire imo.
Unfortunately, that’s pretty much necessary for now with too many decent hitters with promise (including even DeJong now) yet no one but Goldschmidt and Gorman (and DeJong in his first few games back) truly hitting well. At least optioning Walker cleared up the logjam a little.
Knizner and Motter are clearly bench players, but the competition between the others (save for Goldy, Arenado, and Contreras) has to continue until they figure out exactly who the best options are to be the starting position players, and even then there’s still going to be some platooning when a lefty starts against them.
It doesn’t really motter anymore.
poor guy, seems like he doesnt motter to the Cardinals anymore, they would rather have DeJong bat .157
Motter doesn’t hit much better, and DeJong plays great defense and can smash lefties if nothing else.
He was pretty solid in the limited opportunities he had. Glad he stuck around because DeJong will fail once again after getting far too many chances. For whatever reason, Motter doesn’t fit into Marmol’s plans, but if things continue Marmol should be the next one shown the door.
No, Motter was pretty lousy, not solid at all. We’ll see how he does this time now that he’s been called back up, but he’s still the last guy off the bench unless you count Knizner.
Money is the reason they keep trotting out DeJong, when healthy.