Left-hander Connor Thomas went unclaimed and has been assigned outright to Triple-A Memphis by the Cardinals, per a team announcement. He’ll remain in the organization after being designated for assignment Tuesday, when the Cards set their roster in advance of the deadline to protect prospects from the Rule 5 Draft.
Thomas, 25, was the Cardinals’ fifth-round pick in 2019. He’s yet to make his big league debut but was selected to the roster last offseason when the Cards were setting their roster to protect players (Thomas included) at that same deadline. A rough 2023 campaign in Triple-A, however, dropped his stock and led the team to remove him from the roster.
In 21 appearances with Memphis this year — 17 of them starts — Thomas worked 94 1/3 innings of 5.53 ERA ball. That marked his third straight stint in Triple-A and his second with an ERA north of 5.00. Thomas notched a 3.10 ERA in Memphis back in 2021, and the Cards saw fit to protect him from Rule 5 selection last year in hopes that he’d rebound in a third look with their Triple-A club.
Instead, Thomas saw his strikeout rate plummet to a career-low 15.7%. He maintained strong command, although this past season’s 7% walk rate, while still better than the league average, was his highest in a full season. As a soft-tossing lefty with plus command and plenty of grounders, Thomas has profiled as a fifth starter at his best. He’s something of a throwback to prior generations in an era increasingly populated by power arms.
Thomas had previously ranked as highly as No. 19 prospect in the Cardinals’ system at Baseball America and No. 20 at MLB.com. FanGraphs pegged him 11th heading into the 2023 season. The Cards will hope to get him back on track this year, and given the general organizational need for rotation depth, they’re likely happy to stash him back in Memphis.
He seems like a good choice in the Rule 5 draft. Decent prospect that is old enough to theoretically serve as a long reliever or 5th starter on an MLB team in need of cheap pitching. I doubt he will be Cy Young material or anything, but there are 390 spots on MLB rosters that need to be filled by pitchers and that is not even counting the inevitable injuries. I think he could be useful to someone.
@HiFlew – He was just available to all teams for free and no one claimed him. I highly doubt a team will now pay the $100K in Rule V fees (or whatever the cost is now) to acquire him and have to keep him on their MLB 26 man roster when they could have had him for $0 and could have kept him in AAA with his options as well. It would have only cost a spot on their 40-man roster to acquire him.
A 40 man spot right now might actually be more valuable than spot #26 in April. I’m not saying he should be anyone’s first choice or anything, but it is possible that someone could decide to take a flyer on him if they miss out on other choices.
this is quite accurate. They’re happy he went unclaimed and are hoping ’24 goes better for him. I’m surprised he went unclaimed as well, hiflew
How does one go 2 for 10 at Western Oregon and then get to AAA as a pitcher?
I pointed this out along with others on the DFA post. I don’t know why the position player is linked
It gave me a laugh
His name having a million entries in a phone book doesn’t help, either. It’s not like his name is Lars Nootbaar or something
right?! lol
The only thing that is going to get him back on track is a move to another organization. The cardinals don’t know how to develop pitchers at the minor league level or maximize their performance at the major league level. I fully expect whatever starter they get after the real teams pick through the good ones, to have the worst season in his or her career.
slider, which pitchers are you referring to? do you have any examples that floundered in St Louis but were pretty good elsewhere? I know some pitchers don’t excel here, but that can be said for a plethora of pitchers in MLB. I can think of several that were great here but can’t find the same success with other clubs.
Pretty sure Sandy Alcantara fits
on that same train of thought, Gallen too. What about pitchers like Lance Lynn, Michael Wacha, Trevor Rosenthal? Relievers like Seth Manness and John Brebbia. Sometimes players just fit with a certain org better than others. Cards fans would love to have a do-over for trading Sandy and Zac away but would they have found the same level of success here? I don’t know that they would.
Lynn was really good in st Louis terrible example
I am pretty sure that was his point.
he’s not shown that he has more to offer than Thompson or Liberatore yet. Thompson looked pretty good as a #5 this past season. I think he will continue to improve this next year.
Do the Cardinals have a pitching coach and hitting coach right now? Does anyone know?
excellent question
The pitching and hitting coaches from last year are still in place.
Why they haven’t canned Dusty Blake (PC) is a mystery to me. The Cards have a player development issue when it comes to pitching, so the obvious choice is to remove Blake. Haven’t heard anything about him being a GM or player favorite, so I’m wondering what the holdup is.
Maybe there’s a particular coach they’re looking for?
No Dusty was still doing his old job in addition to the pitching coach. They are hiring more to the staff to help support the team as well as within all levels of development. One thing will help is Molina if he’s a coach he can improve our catchers defense as well as get the pitching and Contreras on the same level as Yadi would. It’s time you all realize we have the smallest staff and things are changing with how we will get starting pitching but can also develop pitchers.
Also Lance Lynn was great here, wacha too but he was getting injured a lot and not in form the last season he maybe someone we sign.
Gallen and Alcantara would have been great first they would have been under Mike Maddux the whole time.