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Cardinals To Activate Marcell Ozuna

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The Cardinals have gone without one of their top hitters, injured left fielder Marcell Ozuna, for over a month. The club has since grabbed a half-game lead in the National League Central, and now it’ll get Ozuna back as it works to hold off the rival Cubs and Brewers. The Cardinals are “likely” to activate Ozuna from the IL on Saturday, according to president of baseball operations John Mozeliak (via Rick Hummel of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch).

Ozuna hasn’t played since June 28, when he suffered several finger fractures on his right hand in a base-running mishap. The Cardinals then recalled Tyler O’Neill from Triple-A Memphis to take Ozuna’s place. The 24-year-old O’Neill has done a decent job in the majors this season, having hit .279/.316/.434 (97 wRC+) with five home runs in 136 plate appearances, but a sure-to-fall .397 batting average on balls in play has buoyed his numbers. Furthermore, O’Neill has struck out in just under 34.0 percent of plate appearances and walked at a mere 5.1 percent clip.

No Cardinals outfielder has been as productive as Ozuna, who has slashed .259/.331/.515 (118 wRC+) and shown prodigious power (20 homers, .256 ISO) across 326 trips to the plate. Injury aside, this has been a strong platform season for Ozuna, a pending free agent who ranks as one of the best hitters scheduled to reach the open market in a few months. In the meantime, he’ll continue trying to make a case for a sizable contract while attempting to help the Cardinals to the postseason.

Mozeliak On Cards’ Quiet Deadline

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Even as their NL Central rivals landed improvements in the midst of a tight race, the Cardinals came away empty at yesterday’s trade deadline. Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch broke down the fruitless negotiating effort and the ensuing comments of Cardinals president of baseball operations John Mozeliak.

The Cards “explored starting pitching first and foremost,” said Mozeliak, with an eye to improving an underwhelming rotation. Presumably, they continued to engage on lefty relievers. There’s no indication whether the team contemplated position-player improvements, though there was certainly an argument to be made for some exploration on that front. The Cards are loaded with options, but the production at second and third base has been sporadic and center field has been a bit of a black hole this season.

While the St. Louis front office is no doubt keenly interested in breaking a four-year string of seasons that ended without postseason appearances, it wasn’t willing to bet the farm on 2019. Per Goold, the club wasn’t willing to give up outfielders Tyler O’Neill or Harrison Bader to rent Zack Wheeler down the stretch, as the Mets demanded. Neither were the Cards amenable to parting with top prospects Dylan Carlson and/or Nolan Gorman in order to pry loose a quality hurler with 2020 contract control, such as Robbie Ray or Mike Minor.

Given those stances, perhaps it’s less than surprising that nothing got done. Gorman and Carlson were obvious targets for other teams to pursue when the Cards came calling on good starters. The club’s other best prospect, catcher Andrew Knizner, is on the MLB roster at present and likely was also off limits. While we had seen indication that the Cardinals were dangling some young outfielders, including O’Neill and the just-promoted Lane Thomas, it seems that those pieces were not available under all circumstances.

Ultimately, the Cardinals did swing two deals with the Dodgers, adding recently designated reliever Zac Rosscup and sending out unwanted infielder Jedd Gyorko. They also claimed southpaw Adalberto Mejia in advance of the deadline. It’s tough to say that any of those acquisitions moved the needle, especially in comparison to the acquisitions of the rival Cubs (Craig Kimbrel, Nicholas Castellanos, David Phelps, Tony Kemp), Brewers (Drew Pomeranz, Ray Black, Jake Faria, Jordan Lyles), and even Reds (Trevor Bauer).

There certainly seemed to be room to improve. There’s an argument to be made that the Cards ought to have been more willing, in particular, to part with some of its young outfielders to make something happen. Then again, the winter St. Louis blockbuster has served to highlight some of the pitfalls in such moves. There will be a need for some of those players next season as well, with others perhaps still representing future trade fodder. And it’s hard to second-guess a team’s internal valuations on players it knows better than anyone might hope to from the outside.

As Mozeliak summed things up: “When you spend seven straight days in a room working on something, you tend to want to see something come out of it. So, there’s a high level of frustration, even for us. But we answer to people and have to be responsible for decisions that come out of it and we just didn’t feel we could get there.”

Dodgers Acquire Jedd Gyorko

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3:33pm: Southpaw Tony Cingrani is heading to St. Louis, likely for salary relief (as he’s out for the year), along with righty Jeffry Abreu. The Dodgers also obtain international spending capacity and cash considerations in unannounced amounts.

2:15pm: The Dodgers have struck a deal to add infielder Jedd Gyorko from the Cardinals, according to Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic (via Twitter). The return isn’t yet known.

Gyorko, 30, is playing on a $13MM salary this year ($5MM of which is still property of the Padres) and comes with a $13MM option ($1MM buyout) for next season. It’s not clear whether the Dodgers will be stepping into the full obligation.

Though he’s currently on the injured list, Gyorko is expected back in relatively short order. He’s on the 60-day injured list at present, which means the Dodgers don’t have to open a 40-man roster spot for him.

The Dodgers certainly have a wide array of players that fit Gyorko’s general description as a multi-positional player with a nice track record at the plate. But several of those players are currently dealing with injury issues, so the L.A. brass obviously decided to snag another.

Gyorko will be looking for a bounce back when he arrives with his new team. He hasn’t seen much action this year but has struggled when he has been available. But he was a consistent hitter over the prior three seasons in St. Louis, carrying a cumulative .259/.331/.463 batting line with 61 total long balls.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Cardinals Exploring Trade Options For Jedd Gyorko

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The Cardinals are “exploring trade options” involving infielder Jedd Gyorko now that the 30-year-old is nearly ready to return from the injured list, tweets Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. St. Louis moved Gyorko to the 60-day injured list today, but he’s already spent 52 days on the IL, so he’d be able to return a week after the trade deadline.

Gyorko, 30, has appeared in only 38 games for the Cardinals and has taken just 62 plate appearances. Gyorko opened the season on the IL due to a minor calf strain but has been out since early June due to a low back strain that Goold suggests is now fully healed. The acquisition of Paul Goldschmidt pushed Matt Carpenter to third base, and Gyorko wasn’t starting over either of Paul DeJong or Kolten Wong when healthy, either. In Gyorko’s current IL absence, both Yairo Munoz and Tommy Edman have emerged in the Majors, though neither has performed at the same levels a healthy Gyorko has reached in recent seasons.

Clubs interested in Gyorko will surely be intrigued by his versatility and offensive track record. He’s appeared at all four infield positions as a big leaguer, including 2000-plus innings at second base and third base, nearly 500 innings at shortstop and more than a hundred innings at first base. Gyorko has generally received plus ratings at third and passable marks at second base, though he’s not considered a quality defender at shortstop.

That said, he’s been a highly productive bat throughout his time with the Cardinals, hitting at a .256/.328/.456 clip with 63 home runs, 49 doubles and four triples in 1383 plate appearances dating back to 2016. Gyorko is earning $9MM this season and is still owed $3MM of that sum plus a $1MM buyout on a $13MM club option for the 2020 season.

Cardinals Claim Adalberto Mejia

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The Cardinals announced that they’ve claimed left-hander Adalberto Mejia off waivers from the Angels. Infielder Jedd Gyorko was moved from the 10-day IL to the 60-day IL in a corresponding 40-man roster move. St. Louis also announced the previously reported demotion of Harrison Bader and promotion of fellow outfielder Lane Thomas.

Mejia, 26, was only with the Halos briefly. He appeared in four games there, allowing a run on four hits with a 6-to-1 K/BB ratio before being designated for assignment a second time this season. The former top 100 prospect had been with the Twins since Minnesota acquired him in the 2016 deal that sent Eduardo Nunez to San Francisco, but he was ultimately cut loose after significant struggles both with injuries and performance.

A former starter, Mejia shifted to a bullpen role on a full-time basis this season but has been tagged for 17 runs on 20 hits and 13 walks with 21 strikeouts in 19 2/3 innings of work. Mejia has a solid track record in Triple-A but can’t be sent there to continue sorting things out, as he’s out of minor league options. He’ll take a spot in the Cardinals’ bullpen for now, but depending on what moves St. Louis is able to make between now and tomorrow afternoon’s trade deadline, his stay with the Cards could prove even more abbreviated than his time with the Angels.

Quick Hits: Domingo S., Rays, Molina, Red Sox, Jays

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Although Mariners outfielder Domingo Santana has come up as a potential target for the Rays, it doesn’t look as if the two teams will reach a deal for the slugger. Tampa Bay has “cooled on” Santana, Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times reports. Divish cites the elbow problems that have bothered Santana over the past few weeks as a potential reason the Rays have backed off their pursuit. The 26-year-old has endured his worst month of the season, perhaps on account of his elbow, having batted .246/.310/.354 with 25 strikeouts in 71 plate appearances. July has marred Santana’s offensive numbers to an extent, though he has still slashed a solid .273/.342/.475 with 20 home runs in 446 plate appearances.

More from around the majors…

  • The hope was Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina would return at the beginning of August when he landed on the injured list July 11 with a right thumb tendon strain. We now know that won’t happen. President of baseball operations John Mozeliak announced Monday that Molina was just cleared for “light baseball activities,” which still puts him around two weeks from rejoining the Cardinals, Rick Hummel of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch writes. Molina’s thumb has hampered him since May, which could at least partially explain his uncharacteristic .261/.286/.368 line in 276 plate appearances. Backup Matt Wieters has offered far better offensive production than Molina this season.
  • Red Sox catcher Sandy Leon has hired The MAS+ Agency for representation, Jon Heyman of MLB Network tweets. Leon, who’s earning $2.475MM this season, is slated to go through arbitration for the fourth and final time during the winter. Although Leon was the Red Sox’s best option behind the plate in 2016 – he slashed .310/.369/.476 with 2.3 fWAR in 283 plate appearances – he hasn’t come close to replicating that production since then. Dating back to 2017, Leon has hit .202/.263/.318 with 1.4 fWAR across 722 trips to the plate. The 30-year-old has largely done well behind the plate, including at framing pitches and throwing runners out, but his offensive decline has helped opened the door for Christian Vazquez to take over as Boston’s primary catcher over the past couple years.
  • Shortstop Freddy Galvis was a late scratch from the Blue Jays’ lineup Monday, which led to speculation they were on the verge of trading the 29-year-old. That didn’t prove to be the case, though, as Galvis sat on account of lower back tightness (via Gregor Chisholm of the Toronto Star). Fortunately for Toronto, it doesn’t appear this issue will prove severe enough to kill Galvis’ trade value – which could be happening with Blue Jays closer Ken Giles and his balky elbow. Manager Charlie Montoyo said that Galvis should return Tuesday, per Scott Mitchell of TSN. Any kind of injury is a rare occurrence for Galvis, who came into the season with back-to-back 162-game campaigns under his belt. Galvis has missed more time than usual this year, but he has still appeared in 102 games and hit a career-best .265/.299/.435 with 15 homers in 421 PA.

Pitching Chatter: Vazquez, Diaz, Ray, Colome, Greene

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As the Dodgers continue to try to pry closer Felipe Vazquez loose from the Pirates, ESPN.com’s Buster Olney reports (Twitter link) that the sides are at a bit of an impasse. It seems the Bucs would (quite understandably) like to receive soaring L.A. prospect Gavin Lux, a versatile infielder who has completely obliterated Triple-A pitching (.474/.553/.918 in 114 plate appearances with eight home runs and a 17:17 K/BB ratio) since a mid-season promotion. The clubs may well be engaged in a bit of a staring contest as the deadline draws near.

More news and rumors from the pitching market …

  • The Rays may have faded in the AL East, but they’re not planning to go quietly. Olney tweets that the club is “doing work” on Mets reliever Edwin Diaz, making for an intriguing (if vague) connection. Beyond the obvious appeal of a high-charged young hurler who has shown a past ability to dominate like few others, there are a few other reasons to like this match. Diaz’s run of poor results will limit his arbitration earning power, boosting his appeal to the payroll-conscious Rays. And as Mike Petriello of MLB.com explains, there are plenty of reasons to believe that Diaz is every bit as good as ever before.
  • Rival organizations “fully expect” the Diamondbacks to deal southpaw Robbie Ray, according to Bob Nightengale of USA Today (Twitter link). Arizona GM Mike Hazen continued to acknowledge his club’s tricky middle ground while avoiding a firm commitment to a particular course of action, as Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic reports. The top baseball ops man did acknowledge that there’s a possibility the team could pull off enough sell-side moves that it wouldn’t make sense to reload in the offseason. At the moment, the Brewers, Astros, and Yankees are among the teams with active talks or interest in Ray, per Jon Heyman of MLB Network (via Twitter).
  • With a real shot at a much-anticipated return to the top of the heap in the NL Central, the Cardinals could yet swing a big deal. Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reports (subscription link) that the St. Louis ballclub is interested in a controllable starter. Beyond that, the Cards’ precise plans remain a bit difficult to ascertain. The club is interested in lefty relief pitching, though that’s a trade deadline staple for many contenders. We haven’t seen the team connected prominently to any high-end hurlers, but a bold move seems tempting.
  • We’ve seen the Yankees connected to a wide variety of hurlers in recent weeks, with the club focused primarily on starters but also entertaining relief upgrades. They’ve recently chatted with the Tigers about old friend Shane Greene, according to MLB.com’s Jon Morosi (Twitter link). Most contenders are no doubt at least checking in on Greene, who’s among the likeliest players in baseball to be traded in the coming days.
  • Similarly, the Phillies have cast an exceedingly broad net. Their relief situation remains problematic; now, there are indications that David Robertson’s rehab may drag into September, as Nightengale was among those to tweet. Another name to add to the list of Phils possibilities: Alex Colome of the White Sox. Morosi tweets that there’s “continued interest” on the part of the Philadelphia organization.

Cardinals Option Harrison Bader, Promote Lane Thomas

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The Cardinals have optioned outfielder Harrison Bader, per the MLB.com transactions page (h/t Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch; Twitter links). Lane Thomas will come up to take over for the struggling 25-year-old, per the Dispatch’s Rick Hummel.

This is a disappointing moment for Bader, who turned in a strong 2018 effort but has fallen off quite a bit this year. Through 260 trips to the plate this season, he’s slashing a meager .195/.309/.339 with six home runs. Bader has actually made more hard contact than he did last year and is identified by Statcast numbers as a positive regression candidate. On the other hand, those figures also suggest his 2018 output was due in some part to good fortune on batted balls.

There’s still long-term value here if the Cards — or another team — believe that Bader can figure things out at the plate. He has boosted his walk rate to 11.2%, helping to offset a lofty 28.1% strikeout rate, but there’s work to be done. Importantly, defensive metrics still love Bader’s glovework. He’s curiously grading poorly on the bases despite maintaining excellent speed, though perhaps that’s just a blip.

Notably, by optioning Bader today, the Cards will keep him shy of reaching a full year of MLB service. He’s sitting at 1.161 years at present, meaning he’s eleven days shy of passing a new threshold.

Thomas had previously popped up in trade rumors. Instead, he’ll be installed — at least temporarily — as a piece of the MLB outfield mix for a club that has ever intention of making a run at the NL Central title. Thomas is capable of lining up at all three outfield spots, making him a flexible piece for the Cards.

The 23-year-old Thomas debuted earlier this season but only received a brief run in a reserve role. He has spent the bulk of the season at Triple-A, where he’s again turning in solid results at the plate. Through 304 plate appearances, the right-handed hitter carries a .268/.352/.460 slash with ten long balls.

Cardinals Acquire Zac Rosscup

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The Cardinals have acquired lefty Zac Rosscup from the Dodgers, per a club announcement. He had been designated for assignment recently.

Cash considerations are going to Los Angeles in return. Rosscup will begin his tenure with his new organization on optional assignment at Triple-A.

Rosscup, 31, has already appeared with three other clubs this season. He owns a 5.16 ERA in 83 2/3 career innings at the game’s highest level, averaging a healthy 12.2 K/9 but also an ugly 5.9 BB/9. The free passes have been a particular issue this season.

In other moves from the Dodgers, utilityman Kike Hernandez is going on the 10-day injured list with a sprained hand. The club optioned down righty Jaime Schultz while activating just-acquired infielder Kristopher Negron and calling up righty reliever Josh Sborz.

Minor MLB Transactions: 7/27/19

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The latest minor moves from around baseball…

  • Cardinals left-handed reliever Chasen Shreve has cleared waivers and accepted an outright assignment to Triple-A Memphis, Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch tweets. Shreve, whom the Cardinals designated Tuesday, could have opted for free agency instead. However, as MLBTR’s Steve Adams noted when the Cards booted him from their 40-man roster, Shreve would have had to forfeit the balance of his $900K salary. Shreve’s likely best known for joining the Cardinals (along with fellow reliever Giovanny Gallegos) in a trade with the Yankees for first baseman Luke Voit on July 28 of last year. Although  Shreve was solid at times prior to 2019, he has barely been a factor in the majors this season. The 29-year-old has thrown two innings in St. Louis and 42 2/3 in Memphis.
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