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Health Notes: Verdugo, Mikolas, Buxton, Buttrey

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As spring training gets rolling in earnest, news continues to trickle out about various players’ health situations. We’ll collect the latest here.

  • Red Sox outfielder Alex Verdugo has a stress fracture in his lower back, the team told reporters (including Chris Cotillo of MassLive). The organization is comfortable with Verdugo’s progression but unsurprisingly plans to take things slowly in the early going, Cotillo notes. Interim manager Ron Roenicke acknowledged to reporters (including Cotillo) that “if everything goes right, he still might not be ready for Opening Day.” That’ll surely raise some eyebrows among Sox fans, but the organization was fully aware of the issue at the time they made the Mookie Betts trade, reiterates Pete Abraham of the Boston Globe (on Twitter). Surgery won’t be necessary, tweets Mike DiGiovanna of the Los Angeles Times, but this is the firmest indication we’ve heard yet that Verdugo is likely to start the season on the shelf. Of course, Boston finalized a deal with Kevin Pillar yesterday. He figures to take on a significant role if Verdugo ends up sidelined.
  • The prognosis seems to be better for Twins center fielder Byron Buxton. Buxton hit off a tee today and hopes to progress to soft toss by next week, per various reports (including from Do-Hyoung Park of MLB.com and Aaron Gleeman of the Athletic). Per Gleeman, manager Rocco Baldelli expressed optimism earlier this week that Buxton could return from the shoulder surgery that ended his 2019 season by Opening Day.
  • Cardinals right-hander Miles Mikolas is working back from a flexor injury and could be delayed in spring training, the team told reporters (including Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch). Mikolas had some recurring flexor soreness last season, Goold adds, although the hope was that a postseason PRP injection and rest would alleviate the issue. With the soreness having cropped back up, Mikolas is likely ticketed for an MRI, Goold reports. Notably, manager Mike Shildt stressed to Goold that the injury is likely not indicative of any damage to the UCL, which would obviously have been quite problematic. It doesn’t seem there’s overwhelming cause for concern just yet. Of course, it’s not ideal for a key member of the St. Louis rotation to be dealing with arm soreness this early in the season. (UPDATE: Mikolas underwent an MRI this morning, Goold tweets. The exam did not reveal any ligament damage, tweets Anne Rogers of MLB.com).
  • Angels reliever Ty Buttrey suffered an intercostal strain and will be out for one or two weeks, manager Joe Maddon told reporters (including Rhett Bollinger of MLB.com). The club still anticipates he’ll be a full-go by Opening Day. The 26-year-old posted a 3.98 ERA with a strong combination of strikeouts (27.2%) and walks (7.4%) in 2019. The former Red Sox prospect figures to be a key bullpen piece for Maddon in the latter’s first year at the helm in Anaheim.

Miles Mikolas Has Fallen Off

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The Cardinals signed free-agent right-hander Miles Mikolas to a two-year, $15.5MM guarantee in what became one of the wisest moves of the 2017-18 offseason. Although hardly a bank-breaking commitment, it was somewhat of a gamble for St. Louis. After all, Mikolas was an unspectacular major leaguer with the Padres and Rangers from 2012-14 who then spent three years pitching in Japan. Mikolas was dominant overseas, though, and he carried that excellence into 2018 in St. Louis.

During his first year with the Cardinals, Mikolas pitched to an outstanding 2.83 ERA/3.28 FIP in 200 2/3 innings. While Mikolas only struck out 6.55 batters per nine, he walked a mere 1.3 and induced ground balls at a 49.3 percent clip. Mikolas’ stinginess in the walk and fly ball departments helped lead to a 4.3 fWAR, which ranked 12th among major league starters.

Sold on Mikolas’ output last season, the Cardinals signed him to an extension worth a guaranteed $68MM for four years back in February. That deal will keep Mikolas under wraps through 2023, but unfortunately for the Cardinals, it’s not looking like a great move so far. Facing the lowly Marlins on Wednesday, Mikolas allowed five earned runs on eight hits in five innings, thereby raising his ERA to 4.83 in 78 1/3 frames this season. His 4.74 FIP isn’t much better.

Mikolas’ 2019 woes haven’t come because of significant declines in the strikeout, walk, groundball or BABIP categories. Those numbers look almost the same compared to last season, though there has been a noticeable drop in his strike rate. Nobody posted a higher strike percentage than Mikolas’ 69.3 a year ago, but the figure has fallen to 65.8 in 2019. Meanwhile, Mikolas’ strand rate has decreased by a large margin (from 76.2 percent to 70.9), and he has been far more prone to surrendering long balls.

After yielding home runs on a meager 9.2 percent of fly balls in 2018, Mikolas is all the way up to 19.7 this season. It hasn’t helped that Mikolas’ infield fly rate has plummeted from 9.8 percent to 4.2. At the same time, his hard-hit rate has climbed by greater than 5 percent, according to FanGraphs, while Statcast indicates his average exit velocity against has hopped from 85.4 mph to 88.2. Consequently, Mikolas’ weighted on-base average/expected wOBA against has shot from .271/.286 to .339/.347.

So why the newfound contact management issues? For one, Mikolas isn’t fooling as many hitters this year, as they’ve chased 5 percent fewer pitches than they did last season. And left-handed hitters have been especially tough on Mikolas, who held them to a .309 wOBA last season but has seen the number jump to .396 this year. As seen in these FanGraphs heatmaps (2018, ’19), he’s not staying away against lefties as well he did last season.

Worsening matters, Mikolas’ once-elite slider has been ineffective, and he has leaned on it less as a result. While Mikolas’ slider was one of the most valuable pitches of its kind a year ago, per FanGraphs, it has taken colossal steps backward this season. Batters posted a measly .201/.231 wOBA/xwOBA versus the offering in his first year in St. Louis, but they’re up to .395/.329 in the current campaign. If we’re to take that 66-point gap in face value, there has been some poor fortune involved. However, it simply hasn’t been close to as lethal as it was in 2018, perhaps owing to a 1 mph drop in velocity and somewhat of a change in typical location (heatmaps via FanGraphs: ’18, ’19).

Contrary to last season, when Mikolas’ slider helped him perform like one of the majors’ top starters, troubling signs abound for the 2019 version of the righty. His struggles are a key reason why the Cardinals have gotten off to a mediocre start and are on track to miss the playoffs for a fourth straight season. That’s not what the Redbirds had in mind when they bought high on Mikolas over the winter.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Cardinals To Extend Miles Mikolas

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4:25pm: Mikolas will receive a $5MM signing bonus and $15.75MM annual salaries, Bob Nightengale of USA Today tweets. The deal also includes $2MM in escalators and full no-trade protection, Heyman reports (Twitter links).

12:55pm: The contract does not overwrite Mikolas’ 2019 salary but runs from 2020-23, per The Athetic’s Ken Rosenthal (on Twitter). That’ll give the Cardinals control of Mikolas through his age-34 season.

12:50pm: MLB Network’s Jon Heyman tweets that Mikolas will be guaranteed a hefty $68MM over a four-year term on his new contract. That deal lines up identically with the four-year pact inked by postseason hero Nathan Eovaldi with the Red Sox earlier this winter. The deal, Heyman adds, can reach a total of $70MM in value.

12:45pm: The Cardinals and right-hander Miles Mikolas have agreed to terms on a contract extension, reports Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (via Twitter). The two sides had expressed mutual interest in completing such an arrangement back in January. Mikolas is represented by Octagon.

Miles Mikolas | Jeff Curry-USA TODAY Sports

This time one year ago, Cardinals fans were unsure what to think of Mikolas, the team’s primary rotation addition last winter. At the time, Mikolas was a 29-year-old who’d never established himself in the Majors but put himself firmly on MLB radars with a brilliant three-year run for the Yomiuri Giants of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball. Adding Mikolas on a two-year contract worth a guaranteed $15.5MM was met with a fair bit of skepticism.

Mikolas, however, proved his doubters wrong in emphatic fashion. In 32 starts for St. Louis, he totaled 200 2/3 innings with a pristine 2.83 ERA, 6.5 K/9, 1.3 BB/9, 0.72 HR/9 and a 49.3 percent ground-ball rate. Among qualified MLB starters, only Patrick Corbin and Jacob deGrom induced swings on pitches out of the strike zone at a higher clip than Mikolas’ brilliant 36.6 percent mark. Statcast pegged Mikolas in the 92nd and 90th percentiles, respectively, in terms of opponents’ exit velocity and hard contact allowed on a league-wide basis. Furthermore, no pitcher in baseball posted a better BB/9 mark than Mikolas, whose 3.28 FIP and 3.67 xFIP largely supported the notion that he was a quality big league starter.

Mikolas doesn’t need to replicate last season’s showing to the decimal point in order to justify the organization’s considerable expenditure — the value he provided was worth far more than $17MM last season — but he’ll need to settle in as a viable mid-rotation piece for the next few years in order to make good on the commitment. There’s little reason to doubt his ability to do so, however; as noted previously, virtually any metric agreed that Mikolas was a legitimate big league starter, and he finished the year as strongly as he started — if not more so.

For the Cardinals, locking up Mikolas now gives them some long-term solidity in a rotation that had previously stood to lose not only Mikolas but also Michael Wacha and Adam Wainwright at season’s end. Between those impending departures, ongoing concerns surrounding Carlos Martinez’s shoulder and the perennial lack of durability from wunderkind Alex Reyes, the Cardinals had a deceptively uncertain long-term outlook in terms of starting pitching. Mikolas will now team with Jack Flaherty in comprising the St. Louis rotation for years to come, and the organization certainly has hopes that some combination of Martinez, Reyes and Dakota Hudson can work to round out the starting staff in the foreseeable future.

With this deal in place, the Cardinals now have more than $101MM committed to their 2020 roster (assuming even distribution of the salary) — though that number will drop substantially in 2021 when the contracts of Yadier Molina, Matt Carpenter and Brett Cecil come off the books. The deal shouldn’t have any bearing on St. Louis’ 2019 payroll, which currently projects at just under $162MM — a slight increase over last year’s franchise-record Opening Day payroll of $159.7MM.

NL Central Notes: Cardinals, Moose, Reds, Montgomery

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Though the Cardinals have a deep mix of rotation candidates, Bernie Miklasz of The Athletic explores the uncertainty surrounding many of those arms in a call for the St. Louis organization to pursue free-agent lefty Dallas Keuchel (subscription required). The Cards can’t know what to expect from Adam Wainwright, Miklasz writes, and the recent shoulder troubles for Carlos Martinez have raised some questions as well. Michael Wacha, too, has had his share of injuries in recent seasons and made only 15 starts in 2018. And while ballyhooed prospect Alex Reyes has a sky-high ceiling, he’s pitched just four innings across the past two seasons (27 frames, including the minors) and will obviously be limited in ’19 as a result. Jack Flaherty and Miles Mikolas each have just one season of MLB success under their belt, and the depth options for the rotation are even less established.

Furthermore, each of Mikolas, Wacha and Wainwright are free agents next winter, creating some potential needs down the line. Miklasz does write, however, that the Cardinals are “confident” of reaching an extension with Mikolas. Both sides expressed interest in such a deal late last month.

Here’s more from the NL Central…

  • Mike Moustakas met with reporters upon his arrival at Brewers camp this week to discuss his offseason and his new position: second base (video link courtesy of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel). “It’s going to be fun,” said Moustakas of playing second base. “Obviously, it’s going to be new. I’ve been over there a couple of times in the shift, so it’s kind of comfortable at this point. … Me and Counsell talked about — even last year, we talked about it when I got traded over.” Moustakas had no gripes about being asked to make the switch even though last season it was Travis Shaw who slid to second base. Rather, he touted Shaw’s “phenomenal” glove at the hot corner and voiced trust in the Brewers’ data/analytics department to help position him for success at his new spot on the diamond. There are, of course, some other intricacies to handle, though Moustakas noted that the middle infield isn’t totally foreign to him, considering he was drafted as a shortstop (and logged 561 innings there in the low minors from 2007-08). “…That double play is something we’re going to have work on and get used to, and cutoffs, relays — being in the right position. I’ll get the hang of it.”
  • Because the Reds have yet to add a true center field option to the roster, Scott Schebler is among the top options to break camp in that role, writes Mark Sheldon of MLB.com. The 28-year-old does have a nominal amount of experience at the position, having logged a combined 358 innings there across the past three seasons. “I’m interested to see him in center,” rookie manager David Bell said to Sheldon. “Everyone I’ve talked to that has seen him, people are confident that he can do it. I am, too, but it’ll be a good opportunity to see him out there. I’m convinced he can be really good in left and right.” Schebler will have some competition for the center field gig in the form of Yasiel Puig and top prospect Nick Senzel, though Senzel played in only 44 games last season due to a fractured finger and vertigo symptoms; he was also forced to sit out the Arizona Fall League after undergoing elbow surgery.
  • Cole Hamels’ return to the Cubs all but eliminated Mike Montgomery’s chances of opening the season in the team’s rotation, but Montgomery nonetheless tells MLB.com’s Jordan Bastian that he was “rooting” for the team to retain Hamels. Montgomery will return to a role with which he’s quite familiar — one that requires him to be ready to start, pitch in high-leverage spots late in games and also to enter in multi-inning stints as needed. “Be a guy that can start 20 games or close 20 games, because it has to be [that way],” said Montgomery. As Bastian notes, Montgomery not only started 19 games in Chicago last season, he also entered the game in eight different innings as a reliever and pitched multiple innings of relief on seven occasions. The versatile lefty is controlled through the 2021 season and will earn $2.44MM in 2019 as a first-time arbitration-eligible player.

Cardinals, Miles Mikolas Interested in Extension

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Right-hander Miles Mikolas is scheduled for free agency after the 2019 season, though both he and the Cardinals have interest in negotiating a contract extension.  Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that the team has already been in touch with Mikolas’ agent “about what the framework would look like for an extension,” while Mikolas told Goold and other reporters that he would be open to a longer-term stint in St. Louis.

“It’s something that the Cardinals and my agency have to work out – if the numbers work out and everything turns out to be it’s absolutely something that could happen,” Mikolas said.

Talks may not begin in earnest until the Cards open their Spring Training camp, which conveniently takes place in Mikolas’ hometown of Jupiter, Florida.  While most players prefer to have contract negotiations wrapped up before Opening Day in order to avoid distractions, Mikolas doesn’t mind if talks stretch into the season.  This could give the Cardinals some time to address other extension candidates, though GM Michael Girsch recently indicated that the team may take something of a wait-and-see attitude towards Marcell Ozuna, Michael Wacha, and Paul Goldschmidt — the latter because he has yet to play a game in a Cardinals uniform, and Ozuna and Wacha because of some injury concerns in 2018.

Mikolas signed a two-year, $15.5MM deal with the Cardinals last winter in the wake of a dominant three-year run in Japan with the Yomiuri Giants, following an undistinguished 91 1/3 innings with the Padres and Rangers from 2012-14.  Mikolas’ second stint in the big leagues was, needless to say, a vast improvement over his first — the righty posted a 2.83 ERA, 5.03 K/BB rate, and 49.3% grounder rate for St. Louis, while his 200 2/3 innings pitched ranked tenth among all MLB starters.

ERA predictors (3.28 FIP, 3.67 xFIP, 3.93 SIERA) weren’t quite as bullish on Mikolas’ performance, and he didn’t miss many bats, with only a 6.55 K/9 rate.  Still, Mikolas exhibited excellent control (a league-low 1.3 BB/9) and limited his hard contact, with a .271 wOBA and an only-slightly higher .283 xWOBA.  Mikolas turns 31 in August, though his arm hasn’t faced too much of a workload over 10 pro seasons, after Mikolas spent his first five seasons as a reliever.  Indeed, Mikolas has looked quite durable over the last two years, with just 200+ inning performance for the Cardinals and a 188-inning performance for the Yomiuri Giants in 2017.

That first Mikolas contract has already proven to be a bargain for the Cardinals, yet Mikolas has also benefited since he has quickly lined himself up for an even larger payday, whether as a free agent next winter or in an extension.  Mikolas’ contract came without any allowance for his lack of Major League service time, so the Cardinals don’t retain any arbitration control over Mikolas even though he’ll only have slightly more than three years of MLB service time by the end of the 2019 season.

The Cards haven’t been shy about locking up key players during John Mozeliak’s reign atop the baseball operations department, and Goold estimates that a Mikolas extension could fall somewhere between Kyle Lohse’s extension in 2008 (four years, $41MM) and the five-year, $80MM free agent pact Mike Leake signed with St. Louis in the 2015-16 offseason.  The Cardinals face losing Wacha in free agency and Adam Wainwright is year-to-year at this point, and while the team has a number of intriguing young arms in the fold, there’s certainly value in keeping a durable veteran like Mikolas amidst these more unproven rotation options.

Mikolas’ unique career history makes him something of difficult player to find a comp for, extension-wise.  Mikolas might also feel a desire to lock in another big salary while his value is at its highest, rather than test what is becoming an increasingly hard-to-predict free agent market next winter.  Even if Mikolas pitches well for the Cardinals this season, it would be interesting to see what teams would offer a 31-year-old who doesn’t generate a ton of strikeouts, especially if the Cards were to issue Mikolas a qualifying offer in the fall.

Heyman’s Latest: Machado, Yanks, Tribe, Harper, Realmuto, Braves, Mauer

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Dodgers pending free agent Manny Machado has made it known he prefers shortstop, but the former Baltimore third baseman would return to the hot corner “for the right team,” Jon Heyman of Fancred writes. A willingness to play third certainly won’t hurt Machado on the open market, where he’s expected to sign one of the richest contracts ever, as it could encourage more teams to get involved in the bidding. Machado prefers to sign with the Yankees, Heyman relays, which jibes with a previous report from Bob Nightengale of USA Today. The Yankees already have an excellent shortstop in Didi Gregorius and a big-hitting rookie third basemen in Miguel Andujar, but their presences didn’t prevent the team from pursuing Machado at this year’s non-waiver trade deadline. Gregorius is only under contract for another year, moreover, while Machado is a much better defender at third than Andujar. Speculatively, if the Yankees sign Machado and extend Gregorius, perhaps they’d move Andujar to first base (where they haven’t gotten much production this year) or use him as trade bait to acquire pitching.

More rumblings from Heyman…

  • The Indians were the most aggressive pursuers of Nationals outfielder Bryce Harper at the non-waiver trade deadline in July, according to Heyman. However, the Indians were unwilling to trade high-end pitching prospect Triston McKenzie for Harper – who’ll be a free agent at season’s end – and general manager Mike Rizzo didn’t want to deal Harper anyhow. Expectations are that the Rizzo-led Nats will do their best to re-sign Harper, Heyman suggests.
  • There isn’t much optimism around baseball that the Marlins will be able to extend star catcher J.T. Realmuto, reports Heyman, who writes that he “apparently remains a target” of the NL East rival Braves. Atlanta extended catcher Tyler Flowers earlier this week, but only for a guaranteed $6MM over two years. Realmuto is also controllable for the next two seasons, and given that the Marlins won’t contend during that span, it seems like a strong bet that they’ll trade the 27-year-old if they’re unable to extend him.
  • Twins icon and pending free agent Joe Mauer is uninterested in playing elsewhere, per Heyman, who adds that it’s believed Minnesota would welcome the first baseman back in 2019. The question is whether the St. Paul native will choose to play next year, which would be his age-36 season. Mauer’s now in the final weeks of the franchise-record eight-year, $184MM extension he signed as a superstar catcher in 2010. The deal hasn’t quite worked out as hoped, though, thanks in part to injuries and a decline in production. Mauer has posted league-average offensive numbers over 444 PAs this year, with a .278/.350/.379 line (99 wRC+).
  • The Brewers finished second to the NL Central rival Cardinals in the race to sign then-free agent Miles Mikolas last winter, Heyman reports. A former Ranger and Padre, Mikolas returned stateside after a couple seasons in Japan, joining the Cardinals on a two-year, $15.5MM guarantee. That contract has been a steal for St. Louis, which has seen the 30-year-old Mikolas turn in 167 innings of 2.96 ERA/3.43 FIP ball this season.

Cardinals Place Carlos Martinez On DL With Right Oblique Strain

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Jennifer Langosch of MLB.com reports that Cardinals right-hander Carlos Martinez is going back on the disabled list, this time due to a right oblique strain. The Cardinals have also recalled John Brebbia, reinstated Miles Mikolas from the paternity list, optioned Matt Bowman, and added Luke Weaver to the roster as the 26th man for today’s doubleheader against the Cubs.

It’s the latest unfortunate twist in what’s rapidly turning into a disappointing season for Martinez, the young ace the Cardinals planned to lean on heavily in hopes of a playoff berth this year. He certainly began the season strong, pitching to a 1.62 ERA across his first 50 innings before straining his right lat muscle and subsequently spending a month on the DL.

Since his return on June 5th, Martinez has looked like an entirely different (read: ineffective) pitcher. He’s put up a bloated 5.32 ERA while barely averaging 5 innings across nine starts. His walk rate has soared to a remarkable 5.12 BB/9, and he hasn’t even managed to strike out a batter an inning- a department Martinez has excelled in when he’s been in top form.

Oblique injuries are no small matter, to be sure. While we don’t yet know the severity of the injury, more serious strains have kept pitchers out for well over a month. It’s not unfair to think that the Cardinals could potentially be out of the race for the NL Central crown by the time he’s healthy; that’s a factor that could ultimately delay or expedite Martinez’ timetable. For now, though we’ll await further news on the grade of his strain rather than speculate about how much time the right-hander might miss.

For the time being, it’s likely that Luke Weaver will take his spot in the rotation, which also includes Jack Flaherty, John Gant and Miles Mikolas. Lefty Austin Gomber could be a candidate to move to the rotation if and when St. Louis needs a fifth starter, though Michael Wacha could be on track to return from his own oblique injury fairly soon.

Quick Hits: Tanaka, Machado, Phillies, Mikolas, Twins, Padres

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The Yankees have placed right-hander Masahiro Tanaka on the disabled list with mild strains of both hamstrings, according to the team, which recalled infielder Ronald Torreyes in a corresponding move. Tanaka suffered the injuries on the base paths during the Yankees’ game against the Mets on Friday, forcing him to depart after five quality innings. He’s now the second member of New York’s season-opening rotation on the DL, joining lefty Jordan Montgomery, who’s out for the year.

Tanaka will miss “weeks,” manager Aaron Boone told Bryan Hoch of MLB.com and other reporters, though it’s unclear whom the Yankees will call on in his absence to join Luis Severino, CC Sabathia, Sonny Gray and Domingo German in their rotation. Two Double-A prospects – Domingo Acevedo and Jonathan Loaisiga – as well as Luis Cessa (who’s nearing a return from the DL, Brendan Kuty of NJ.com tweets) and A.J. Cole seem to be their most realistic 40-man options. The club has an open 40-man spot, however, and could take advantage of that by selecting the likes of Justus Sheffield, Chance Adams or David Hale from Triple-A.

A bit more from around the majors…

  • The Phillies are genuinely interested in Orioles shortstop Manny Machado, Todd Zolecki of MLB.com hears. Zolecki’s report jibes with one from FanRag’s Jon Heyman, who noted this week that Philadelphia had already reached out to Baltimore in regards to Machado. The 32-30 Phillies have been slumping lately, however, and may not be serious contenders when the July 31 non-waiver trade deadline arrives. Whether they end up vying for Machado and other veterans around the deadline will be determined over the next several weeks, general manager Matt Klentak suggested. “How we come out of June and how we transition into the month of July and what our placement in the standings is in the month of July will be what really dictates what our Trade Deadline strategy is,” Klentak said. “If we are contending and in a legitimate spot to make a run, then I would expect to address that and make moves. We just have to maintain the proper perspective on that and adjust as our performance suggests we adjust.”
  • Along with the previously reported Rangers, the Twins and Padres were among teams with offseason interest in right-hander Miles Mikolas, per Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe. Mikolas, who pitched in Japan from 2015-17, ended up signing a two-year, $15.5MM deal with the Cardinals. The 29-year-old is no stranger to the Padres, who selected him in the seventh round of the 2009 draft and then had him on their roster for parts of the 2012 and ’13 seasons. Mikolas was unheralded in San Diego, but he has turned into one of the NL’s most effective starters during his stint in St. Louis. Across 79 1/3 innings this season, Mikolas has notched a 2.27 ERA with 6.58 K/9, 1.02 BB/9 and a 50.2 percent groundball rate.

Cardinals Notes: Leone, Mikolas, Wainwright

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The Cardinals will place setup man Dominic Leone on the 10-day disabled list with what the team is calling a nerve issue in his right biceps, per Joe Trezza of MLB.com (Twitter links). The team didn’t have enough time following today’s diagnosis to call up a replacement for him, however, so a formal move won’t be made until tomorrow. The St. Louis ’pen already had nine relievers in tow, so the pitching staff won’t be especially short handed even if Leone is unavailable.

As Stu Durando of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch explains, Leone was called upon for a relief appearance last night but felt something unnatural in his biceps while throwing his warmup pitches. After immediately calling for a trainer, he exited without throwing a pitch. “It was something I hadn’t felt before and I was concerned,” said Leone. “I didn’t want to put a bad product on the field. I didn’t want to mess with it and potentially hurt myself worse or be ineffective.” It’s not yet clear how long Leone will be out of action at this time, though the Cards figure to have further updates before the weekend is up.

Here’s more out of St. Louis…

  • While many Cards fans were skeptical of the team’s two-year, $15.5MM deal with righty Miles Mikolas this offseason, but the 29-year-old has gone a long way toward proving his doubters wrong with a 2.70 ERA and a 31-to-2 K/BB ratio through his first 40 innings back in the Majors. Mikolas chatted with the Post-Dispatch’s Derrick Goold about the Cardinals’ offseason pursuit of him, revealing that the division-rival Cubs were also in pursuit of his services before they “cooled of” and eventually struck up a deal with Tyler Chatwood. “I guess they didn’t want me that bad,” said Mikolas of the Cubs. “I guess they thought it would be more fun facing me than having me on their staff. They figured they’d take their chances.”
  • Adam Wainwright tells reporters that he’s lined up to make a rehab start with the Cardinals’ Double-A affiliate on Monday (Twitter link via Trezza). The veteran has been out since April 22 with inflammation in his right elbow but could seemingly return to the club in the near future if all goes well in Springfield. The 36-year-old posted a 3.45 ERA in 15 2/3 innings to open the season but also turned in an ugly 12-to-8 K/BB ratio and hit a pair of batters in that time, demonstrating questionable control. That said, with both Wainwright and top prospect Alex Reyes nearing returns from the disabled list, the Cardinals are on the verge of adding some significant depth to the pitching staff.

Cardinals Notes: Wainwright, Mikolas, Martinez

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The Cardinals are off to a solid start to the year, though the NL Central is shaping up to be quite the battleground in 2018. Maintaining health throughout the season could end up being a major factor in deciding the division race. The long view is what motivated Cards righty Adam Wainwright to go on the DL at this point, as MLB.com’s Joe Trezza reports. His elbow has flared up a bit, though the 36-year-old suggested he’s confident that he’ll be able to return in relatively short order. The hope is that some rest and minor mechanical tweaks will allow Wainwright to take most of his scheduled starts in the final season of his contract. Of course, even if the veteran hurler is down longer than expected, the team has plenty of options, as Ben Frederickson of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch explores.

Here’s more from St. Louis:

  • Another key hurler for the Cardinals, recent signee Miles Mikolas, has thrown well upon his return to the majors. Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch documents some of the ways in which Mikolas has thrived. In particular, he has been one of the most efficient starters in all of baseball, due in no small part to the fact that he has issued just a pair of walks in 26 innings. Goold traces this element of Mikolas’s game back to his successful stint in Japan, during which he gained mental and physical control of his pitching. It’s early, to be sure, but the two-year, $15.5MM pact Mikolas signed over the winter has looked like a bargain.
  • Cardinals fans will also want to check out two other recent pieces from the Post-Dispatch on the team’s pitching staff. Jose de Jesus Ortiz offers a look at staff ace Carlos Martinez, who says he believes he is pitching better than ever. That the 26-year-old has found another gear is certainly a scary thought for the rest of the league. And Goold examines the intriguing case of Bud Norris, who is now closing out games and sporting a career-high 15.3% swinging-strike rate. It’s a worthwhile read that goes well beyond the field of play.
  • On the position-player side, the Cards appear to have unearthed another hidden gem in first baseman Jose Martinez. The late-blooming 29-year-old has done nothing but hit in the majors and is off to a .329/.409/.526 start to the current campaign. Trezza penned an interesting look at Martinez’s unlikely path to the majors. The St. Louis scouting department and front office aptly identified and targeted the burly slugger, eventually snagging him from the cross-state rival Royals. Of course, the results have outstripped even the most optimistic expectations. “We were confident he could be a good right-handed hitter off the bench,” says Cardinals GM Mike Girsch. “That’s what we thought we were getting. Since then, he’s been raking.” While he’s currently performing like a mid-prime star, Martinez won’t even reach arbitration eligibility until 2020.
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