The Cardinals announced that they have selected right-hander Chris Roycroft to the roster. In corresponding moves, they placed righty Giovanny Gallegos on the 15-day injured list with a right shoulder impingement and transferred infielder/outfielder Tommy Edman to the 60-day IL. Roycroft’s promotion was hinted at earlier by Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Roycroft, 27 next month, graduated from Aurora University in 2019. The 6-foot-8 righty pitched for the Joliet Slammers of the independent Frontier League in 2021 and 2022, but signed with the Cardinals midway through the latter campaign.
He reported to Single-A and tossed 32 innings in 2022, with a 4.50 earned run average. Last year, he went through Single-A and Double-A and Triple-A with a 5.86 ERA. His 21.8% strikeout rate and 13.9% walk rate were both subpar, but he generated ground balls on about half of balls in play.
This year, he has continued to keep the ball on the ground. He has logged 13 innings over 11 Triple-A appearances so far in 2024. His 16.7% strikeout rate and 11.1% walk rate are again not great, but 67.6% of balls in play have been pounded into the dirt. That’s helped him post a 1.38 so far this season. He won’t be able to maintain a .237 batting average on balls in play nor a 95.9% strand rate, but the Cards are encouraged by the results nonetheless.
The Cards did a sort of bullpen game yesterday, with Steven Matz recently landing on the IL. Matthew Liberatore took the start but isn’t fully stretched out since he’s been working out of the bullpen this year. He threw 3 2/3 innings but the club then used four other relievers to get through the game. Three of those threw more than an inning and the other was Gallegos, who is now hurt. Roycroft will give the team a fresh bullpen arm and will be making his major league debut as soon as he gets into a game.
As for Edman, he underwent arthroscopic wrist surgery in October and was still experiencing pain in Spring Training, forcing him to start the season on the injured list. He’ll now be ineligible to be activated until 60 days from his initial IL placement, which was backdated to three days before Opening Day. In other words, he could rejoin the Cards in late May if he’s healthy by then. He still hasn’t yet begun a rehab assignment, so it doesn’t seem like he has a strong chance of being ready by then, which allowed the Cards to use his roster spot on Roycroft.
Trade EVERYONE
I would first start by firing any coach involved in coaching hitting.
Always cool to see another indy baller and undrafted guy make it.
Cool, and a great story but man I hope someone knows more than his stats provide in terms of his capabilities!
FIRE everyone…from Mo on down. Find a veteran manager who actually know how to develop players, it’s obvious Marmol has no idea how to do that.
I’m not a Cardinals fan so I don’t follow them too closely but I believe Mozeliak has made it known that he’s retiring either after this season or next. I doubt the organization fires him now
We’ll see. Support for the team is dropping. MO inherited a very solid team which has gotten steadily worse under him. This wasn’t a collapse by the Cardinals. It’s been a slow steady decline since LaRussa and Luhnow left the team.
2021 and 2022 were really good years for a team supposedly in continual decline. They also won 100 games in 2015.
21 and 22 were taking advantage of a very weak division with a division heavy schedule. 2022 also required a very surprising resurgence with Pujols carrying the team in the second half. 2015 was 9 years ago still using a team built by others.
The division wasn’t weak in 2021. The Brewers won the division with 95 wins, and the Reds also finished above .500. Besides, the Cardinals had a .553 Win% against the division and an even better .559 Win% outside the division in 2021.
Pujols helped but did NOT carry the entire team in the second half of 2022. The trades for Montgomery and Quintana helped in the second half more than Pujols did, along with an MVP season for Goldschmidt and a near-MVP season from Arenado.. Pujols himself also counts as a good signing by Mozeliak and Girsch.
2015 was 8 years after Mozeliak took over and 4 years after La Russa left, so a 100-win team at that point doesn’t fit your narrative.
It’s not the MLB manager’s job to develop players.
As for Mozeliak, he got 4 excellent years out of Gallegos before he went into decline starting last year. Overall, that trade was a pretty big win.
Taller than Aaron Judge? Darn.
So, there’s no logical way that Mozeliak survives this, right?
Outdated & stale view of roster construction…
Paying champagne prices for malt liquor quality in a total misread of the pitching market this past winter…
What is now a pattern of fielding uncompetitive clubs…
John Mozeliak is AJ Preller’s idol.
That isn’t correct. So far the pitching decisions have been fine. The winter additions of Lynn, Gray, and Gibson are hardly the Cards’ problem. The addition of Kitredge is panning out. I’m no fan of Mo, but some of the moves look great, so far!?
I agree. Not only have Lynn, Gibson, Gray, and Kittredge put up good numbers, but seem to be a good fit in the clubhouse as well. Lynn in particular seems to light a fire under the team when he is on the mound. If Goldy can heat up with the weather as he usually does, the rest of the offense may feel less pressure and get cooking. If Father Time has truly sapped Goldy’s bat speed then it will be another .500 club or worse.
What misread of the pitching market? Gray, Lynn, and Kittredge have been excellent, while Gibson has been pretty good. Say what you will about the strange sudden decline of the offense, but most of Mo’s and Girsch’s offseason moves have worked
I would like to see a line-up change. Move Donovan to the 2 spot. And let Winn lead off until Edman returns. Then, so split up the righties. Probably Carlson in the cleanup, Then Arenado to 3rd Burleson 5th, Goldy 6th, Contreras 7th, Nootbarr 8th, and Gorman or Fermin 9th.
Donovan should move down further than that. If Winn is leading off, then the next 3 hitters should still be some combination of Contreras, Goldschmidt, and Arenado. The only issue is that it puts at least 4 righties in a row at the top of the lineup, but at this point I don’t think they’re in a situation to care about that.
Yeah, the 4 righties is an issue. All there of Donovan, Nootbarr, and Burleson have been unlucky. Plenty of well hit balls with nothing to show for it. Also it is easier to hit with guys on base, especially speed guys, and so far that hasn’t been the case. Edman will help, hopefully Carlson contributes, and I still believe things. will turn around soon.
The Cardinals are going with 4 righties at the top of the lineup tonight with Fermin leading off, although they are facing a lefty..
Yeah, I saw that. The problem is later in the game it easy to match up relievers. Night work early, and they have Burleson and Gorman to pinch hit, but for who?
I’d rather have four righties face a righty than pinch-hit with Burleson or especially Gorman at this point. There’s also the proven factor that cold bats off the bench don’t hit as well as they usually do.
Does lineup construction really matter when only 2 or 3 hitters in the lineup have an OPS over .700?
The cardinals hasn’t really contended since they fired Mike Shildt and with Mike Maddux leaving the club for the Texas Rangers. I was saying to my friends that if the Cardinals can’t beat losing teams like the White Sox, then Marmol will be fired. Bring on Yadier Molina as manager.
Since when didn’t they contend in 2022? They won 92 games and the division that year!
Molina was too busy with side business to even fulfill his farewell tour season.
Why would anyone think he wants to actually work at baseball again?
Besides, the players already know how to spit and to use stickum.
I was wondering if the Cardinals were going to use a phamtom IL placement for Gallegos. It looks like I was right.
I’m seriously thinking that the pitch clock has ruined Gallegos’s career. Just look at the numbers since he fully established himself in MLB:
2019: 2.31 ERA, 3.05 FIP, 0.881 WHIP
2020: 3.60 ERA, 2.06 FIP, 0.867 WHIP
2021: 3.02 ERA, 2.75 FIP, 0.884 WHIP
2022: 3.05 ERA, 2.87 FIP, 1.017 WHIP
During this period, he was also one of the slowest workers in MLB.
Now, here are his numbers in the pitch clock era:
2023: 4.42 ERA, 4.36 FIP, 1.200 WHIP
2024: 12.00 ERA, 9.82 FIP, 2.333 WHIP
Good point. Not certain you can blame the injury on the clock, but he has struggles since the rule change.
Ha.
Gallegos was one of the slowest Pitchers pre-clock. He could actually be a casualty.
I’m not blaming the injury. I’m saying he’s not actually injured, and the Cardinals are faking it to get him off the active roster and on a minor league rehab assignment before they have to resort to a DFA.
With Contreras following up last year’s strong finish with a strong start(in a terrible line-up) this season, is there any chance he’s tradable?
It seems like any team in the market for a RH bat would have more interest in Contreras than Goldy. The Cardinals would probably need to eat some salary, but they should be trying to move any multi-year contract.
Thoughts?
Dumbest take ever trade the only guy that’s been consistently good all season and improved in defense? lol we aren’t rebuilding buddy. lol eating salary sometime pretend GMs just like you make me laugh and GLAD we have MO not some wannabe Preller
I don’t think the Cardinals will have to eat salary to trade Contreras. Eighteen million a year for a very solid bat that can also catch isn’t unreasonable at all. I don’t see it happening unless they decide to blow up the entire team. He’s been their best player over the last two years.
I agree with you, but why would the Cardinals hold onto him? Are they going to be better next year? Is it better to win 75 games instead of 70?
To me, it makes more sense to get the money off the books and try to recoup prospect capital. We can say “we’re not rebuilding”, but does that make last place more palatable? I don’t think optics should be a be a priority at this point.
There’s way too much talent on the team to rebuild. They’ll only be trading expiring contracts and try to retool over the winter again. They should still finish with a significantly better record than they did last year, so a continual improvement should still be expected for 2025. That is, if they wind up as sellers in the first place.
-33 Run differential.
Second fewest runs scored in all of baseball.
All of that done with a mostly healthy roster.
Where is the improvement going to come from?
What happens if Grey or Contreras got hurt and missed a month or two?
What happens if the bullpen can’t sustain it’s current dominance?
At what point do you put away the projections and acknowledge the results?
Show-Me that “way too much talent”.
Nostradamus
Contreras has over 3 years left on his contract and is performing well. Like with Arenado, the Cardinals have no reason to trade him even if they do become sellers again this year.
Rinse and repeat, eh?