The Cardinals announced that they have selected the contract of right-hander Jacob Barnes. In a corresponding move, left-hander Matthew Liberatore lands on the 15-day injured list, retroactive to August 19, due to lower back tightness. There was already a vacancy on the 40-man roster.
Barnes, 33, has bounced around the league quite a bit, both this year and in his career overall. Things started out fairly steady, as he was drafted by the Brewers, debuted with them in 2016 and stayed until partway through the 2019 season. But from 2019 to the present, he’s become a valuable Immaculate Grid choice, suiting up in the big leagues for the Royals, Angels, Mets, Blue Jays, Tigers and Yankees.
This year, he’s yet to pitch in the majors, jumping to the Rangers, Phillies and Cardinals on minor league deals. Between those three organizations, he’s thrown 51 Triple-A innings, allowing 2.47 earned runs per nine frames. His 20.4% strikeout rate and 10% walk rate are both subpar, but he’s kept the ball on the ground more than 40% of the time at each of his three stops. In his major league career, he has a 4.70 ERA over 252 appearances but with his best results farthest in the past. He had a 3.54 ERA from 2016 to 2018 but a 5.39 mark since then.
The Cardinals made a number of subtractions from their pitching staff at the deadline, sending out Jack Flaherty, Jordan Montgomery, Chris Stratton and Jordan Hicks as part of their selloff. That’s led to some innings going to younger pitchers like Liberatore, Drew Rom and Zach Thompson, but they’ve also brought aboard some older guys like Casey Lawrence and now Barnes to supplement the staff. Barnes is out of minor league options but could be retained for 2024 via arbitration if the Cards like what they see out of him in the next few weeks.
As mentioned, Liberatore has been getting a chance to seize a job in the rotation but hasn’t quite succeeded thus far. He has a 6.06 ERA in 84 2/3 career innings to this point. The Cards are hoping to add three starters to their rotation this winter, though they could always alter those plans if they felt Liberatore or one of the other internal options took a step forward. Unfortunately, his audition will now be put on pause for at least two weeks as he deals with this back issue. The rotation now figures to consist of Rom, Thompson, Miles Mikolas, Dakota Hudson and Adam Wainwright.
They should just have one lucky fan pitch each game till the end of the season. They’d get the same result.
Not a bad idea, but that would leave them with dozens of untradeable “untouchable” fans at years end.
If bad teams did that, I think attendance would go up just for the thrill of possibly pitching against an MLB lineup. The shenanigans would alone be worth it.
If I threw my shoulder out, would they pay to fix it?
Cool idea….let’s run it past Tony Clark and the players union. Never mind. I have enough problems hitting fantasy camp pitching.
I just think it’d be hilarious if one time a fan came up and actually pitched decent enough, making the professional pitchers look like chums.
It’s difficult to care at this point
Where is that one Cardinals fan who was insistent that the team would trade Contreras well in advance of this year’s deadline? He said for me to “come find me” when it happens. I’m curious if he has an inside line on why the deal didn’t go down.
I can’t even imagine how fulfilling your life must be if these are the grudges you hold
The wrong Zach Thompson is linked in the article. Still, he’s provided some decent starts for the Cards.
They still haven’t fixed it.