Cardinals, Nationals Swap George Soriano, Andre Granillo
The Nationals and Cardinals announced a one-for-one swap of righty relievers. St. Louis acquires George Soriano while Washington picks up Andre Granillo. Washington placed starter Trevor Williams on the 60-day injured list in a corresponding move. The Nationals had designated Soriano for assignment last week when they claimed lefty Ken Waldichuk off waivers, so they needed to open a 40-man spot for Granillo.
Soriano will hopefully find some certainty after a hectic offseason. This is the fourth time he has changed organizations since November. The 26-year-old had spent his entire career with the Marlins until they placed him on waivers at the beginning of the offseason. He landed with Baltimore, Atlanta and Washington via successive waiver claims and designations.
A veteran of parts of three seasons, Soriano has an earned run average just under 6.00 over 118 big league innings. He has a league average 22% strikeout rate against a moderately concerning 10.3% walk percentage. The biggest issue is that he has been very homer-prone, surrendering 1.75 longballs per nine innings. Soriano works in the 95-96 mph range with his sinker and four-seam fastball while using a slider and changeup fairly frequently. He’s out of minor league options and either needs to break camp or be sent back into DFA limbo.
It’s a good sign for Soriano’s chances of sticking on a roster that St. Louis parted with an MLB reliever to jump the waiver order. Granillo, 25, is a former 14th-round draft choice who was called up for the first time last June. He was up and down from Triple-A Memphis for the rest of the season. Granillo got into 14 MLB games, posting a 4.71 ERA through his first 21 innings. He has posted high strikeout and walk rates throughout his minor league career but had more of a pitch-to-contact approach in his limited big league work.
Granillo leans most heavily on his slider while sitting 94-95 with the fastball. He sporadically mixes a changeup but is mostly a two-pitch reliever. He’s coming off an excellent season at Triple-A Memphis, where he turned in a 1.29 ERA with a 36% strikeout rate and a career-low 8.7% walk percentage across 42 innings. He still has a pair of minor league options remaining.
It’s surprising that the Cardinals parted with Granillo for a pitcher who was waived three times in an offseason. They’re evidently not bullish on Granillo’s chances of translating his Triple-A production into success at the highest level. It’s also worth noting that they never had an opportunity to grab Soriano off waivers. Offseason waiver priority is in inverse order of last season’s record, and St. Louis had a higher win percentage than each of Baltimore, Atlanta, or Washington did. The Cardinals and Nats each have plenty of opportunities in a wide open bullpen.
Williams’ IL move is a formality. He underwent an internal brace surgery to repair the UCL in his elbow last July. That’s a year-long recovery process. He’ll aim for a return sometime after the All-Star Break.
Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported the trade shortly before the announcements.
Cardinals Expected To Designate Garrett Hampson For Assignment
The Cardinals are expected to designate utility man Garrett Hampson for assignment in a series of roster moves slated to become official tomorrow, according to a report from Katie Woo of The Athletic. Hampson’s active roster spot will go to Alec Burleson, who is slated to be activated from the injured list tomorrow. Hampson’s 40-man roster spot will go to left-hander Nick Raquet, who will have his contract selected to the major league roster tomorrow. Raquet will take the 40-man spot of right-hander Andre Granillo, who is expected to be optioned to Triple-A.
Hampson, 31 next month, opened the season as a member of the Diamondbacks after signing with the club on a minor league deal during the offseason. He was selected to the big league roster but ultimately appeared in just 18 games for the club before being designated for assignment in early May. Later that month, he was signed by the Reds to a major league deal and stuck with the organization until late June, when he was designated for assignment once again and plucked off waivers by the Cardinals.
Hampson was hitting just .167/.310/.188 across 24 games in the majors this year when he arrived in St. Louis, and his offense hasn’t really improved during his ten weeks with the organization. In fact, they’ve trended in the wrong direction, as he’ll finish his Cardinals career with a .103/.133/.138 slash line across 31 plate appearances. Hampson got less work at the dish in with St. Louis than he did with Arizona and Cincinnati, but he did actually end up appearing in more games due to his role as a defensive replacement and pinch runner late in games. He appeared in all three outfield spots for the Cardinals during his tenure with the organization and also played second base, third base, and shortstop.
That versatility has generally been Hampson’s calling card over the years. While he’s a career .235/.298/.353 hitter in spite of his offensive numbers being inflated by five years at Coors Field, he’s managed to generally stay in the majors thanks to his value as a versatile bench player. Prior to his three-team tour around the National League this year, he had played for the Marlins and Royals since leaving Colorado. Going forward, the Cardinals will have seven days after the move becomes official to try and pass Hampson through waivers. Perhaps he’ll be claimed by a team in need of bench depth down the stretch, but if he clears waivers he’ll have the option to either accept an outright assignment to Triple-A for the final few weeks of the season or elect free agency.
Hampson’s departure makes room for the return of Burleson, who last played on August 28 due to a bout of wrist inflammation. Burleson has enjoyed something of a breakout season with the Cardinals this year, as the 26-year-old has hit a solid .286/.337/.451 with 16 home runs in just 122 games. That’s far and away the best triple slash of his career, and while that won’t be enough to push the Cardinals into the postseason this year Burleson figures to once again split time between first base, DH, and the outfield corners with St. Louis next season.
As for Raquet, the 29-year-old lefty will actually be making his big league debut if he gets into a game with the Cardinals. A third-round pick by the Nationals all the way back in 2017, Raquet worked in the lower minors with the Nationals through the end of the 2019 season but fell off the map after the canceled minor league season in 2020 before resurfacing as a professional in the independent Atlantic League back in 2023. He posted a 3.71 ERA in 24 starts with the York Revolution that year, and caught on with the Cardinals on a minor league deal last season.
Raquet has been working his way up the minor league ladder ever since, and now that he’s posted a 1.68 ERA between Double- and Triple-A as a reliever for the Cardinals this year he’ll get the opportunity to show what he can do at the big league level. As for Granillo, the rookie right-hander has just 14 MLB appearances under his belt while working as a multi-inning reliever, with a 4.71 ERA in 21 innings of work. He’ll head to Triple-A, where he has a sterling 1.50 ERA in 24 outings, to wait for his next big league opportunity to arrive.
Cardinals Designate Erick Fedde For Assignment
11:22am: The Cardinals have announced the moves.
11:17am: The Cardinals have designated struggling right-hander Erick Fedde for assignment, reports Katie Woo of The Athletic. Right-hander Andre Granillo is being recalled from Triple-A Memphis to take his spot on the roster, MLB.com’s John Denton adds.
A year ago, the resurgent Fedde was one of the most sought-after arms on the trade market. A former first-round pick and top prospect with the Nationals, he’d struggled for several injury-marred years in the majors before reinventing himself with an MVP-winning season in the Korea Baseball Organization. The White Sox signed him to a two-year, $15MM contract and received excellent value, as Fedde posted a 3.11 ERA in 21 starts for them before being traded in a three-team deal that brought Miguel Vargas and prospects Alexander Albertus and Jeral Perez. The Cardinals parted ways with utilityman Tommy Edman.
Fedde was solid but not quite as effective for the Cardinals down the stretch. Heading into the 2025 season, his $7.5MM salary looked like a bargain after he’d posted a combined 3.30 ERA, 21.2% strikeout rate and 7.2% walk rate in 177 1/3 innings between St. Louis and Chicago. With the Cardinals announcing an intent to take a step back to focus on player development and give young players an opportunity, Fedde looked like an obvious offseason trade candidate.
Instead, St. Louis wound up holding onto Fedde in hopes of getting some first-half innings and flipping him at the deadline. It now represents a missed opportunity. The Cards still have five days to trade him for a nominal return, but the legitimate trade value that Fedde had in the offseason has dried up with a shaky season that’s had a few highlights but far more low points.
Even early in the season, when Fedde was sporting a solid earned run average, his rate stats told another story. The right-hander’s strikeout rate has plummeted this season, while his walk rate has crept up. Fedde was masterful in a May 9 shutout of the Nationals, wherein he allowed just six hits and no walks against eight punchouts. He followed that with 5 2/3 shutout frames against a tough Phillies lineup, albeit with four walks against three strikeouts.
Much of the season has been a tightrope walk for Fedde due to his worsened command and diminished ability to miss bats, but the wheels really came off beginning in late June. Fedde served up seven runs in back-to-back starts on June 25 and 30. His results have only worsened since. Over his past five starts, he’s been shelled for 26 runs on 33 hits and 11 walks with only eight strikeouts through 17 2/3 innings.
Fedde is being paid $7.5MM this season. He still has about $2.7MM of that sum yet to be paid out. No team is going to claim his salary if he’s placed on waivers. The Cardinals will have five days to try to trade him, though they’ve presumably already been looking for matches and haven’t lined up on anything. If they’re willing to eat the rest of that salary, perhaps a team will take a low-risk flier on Fedde, but there’s a real chance he’ll simply be released. At that point, he’d be free to sign with any team and would only cost his new club the prorated league minimum for any time spent on the major league roster.
With Fedde out the door, the Cardinals will clear a permanent rotation spot for prospect Michael McGreevy. The 2021 first-rounder has pitched 28 1/3 MLB frames this year and logged a 3.49 ERA with a minuscule 2.7% walk rate. McGreevy’s 15.2% strikeout rate is one of the lowest in baseball, although he’s punched out 25.5% of his Triple-A opponents, so there’s clear upside for more missed bats. Add in that he’s also sporting a tidy 4.9% walk rate in Memphis, and it’s not hard to see why St. Louis is keen on getting him a look. The hope had been to trade Fedde for some minor league talent but that seems quite unlikely given the extent of the veteran’s struggles.
Cardinals Designate Ryan Vilade For Assignment, Select Andre Granillo
The Cardinals announced that they have selected right-hander Andre Granillo to their roster and also recalled outfielder Michael Siani. In corresponding moves, they have optioned righty Chris Roycroft and designated outfielder Ryan Vilade for assignment.
Granillo, 25, was selected by the Cardinals in the 14th round of the 2021 draft. Exclusively a reliever, he has climbed the minor league ladder while posting good strikeout numbers and also giving out a high number of walks. He has 233 1/3 minor league innings under his belt to this point, having allowed 3.74 earned runs per nine innings. He has punched out 32.2% of batters faced in that time while also giving out free passes at a 12.7% clip.
It seems he has taken a big step forward in terms of his control this year. He has thrown 29 2/3 innings over 18 appearances with a 1.82 ERA. He has only walked 6.9% of batters faced while still getting punchies at a huge rate of 39.7%. In May of last year, FanGraphs ranked Granillo as the #21 prospect in the system. That report gave the highest praise for his slider, though it also mentioned his changeup and his mid-90s fastball.
With Granillo seemingly taking a big step forward at Triple-A, the Cards will give him a chance to face major league hitters. But that required a 40-man spot, so Vilade will get bumped off. Vilade, 26, signed a minor league deal with the Cards in the offseason. He put up a strong .280/.375/.476 line in 48 Triple-A games and was added to the roster a couple of weeks ago when Jordan Walker landed on the IL.
Unfortunately, Vilade hasn’t been able to do much in his limited big league playing time. He has been sent to the plate 15 times and struck out in five of those trips. He drew two walks but recorded just one hit, a single. He now has a .141/.200/.188 slash in his 71 big league plate appearances for his career.
He will now head into DFA limbo, which can last as long as a week. The waiver process takes 48 hours, so the Cards technically could take five days to explore trade interest. Vilade’s major league numbers aren’t good but in a tiny sample. Dating back to the start of 2024, he has a .279/.355/.457 slash and 114 wRC+ in 156 Triple-A contests. He also stole 25 bases in that time while playing the three non-shortstop infield positions and all three outfield slots. Since he still has an option year, perhaps he could appeal to a club looking for extra position player depth.
Photo courtesy of Jeff Curry, Imagn Images