Cardinals Notes: Pham, Leone, Gregerson, Gomber, Martinez
The Cardinals’ decision to send Tommy Pham to the Rays caused quite some eyebrow raising among rival executives, according to Jayson Stark of The Athletic. (Stark also ran down a host of other interesting items heading out of the deadline in a subscription piece.) Some around the game see it tied to the fact that, after a lengthy run of success, the Cards are increasingly in flux. Pham had seemed a core piece as recently as this past winter, when the team dealt away other young outfielders, but is now the latest player on the move. The St. Louis club is still two games over .500, has plenty of controllable talent, and isn’t even out of the 2018 postseason picture. But one rival questions whether the organization has “a real understanding of where they are within their process.”
- One of those recent outfield swaps brought the Cardinals reliever Dominic Leone, who worked his first rehab outing for Triple-A Memphis yesterday, striking out two batters in an inning of work. That’s good news for the right-hander, who has been sidelined for much of the year with a biceps nerve problem. He’s still controllable through 2021, so the Cards have time to reap value from the 26-year-old.
- Meanwhile, it’s possible that veteran reliever Luke Gregerson won’t return to the majors this year, MLB.com’s Jenifer Langosch recently tweeted. Gregerson was sidelined with a shoulder injury when he suffered a torn meniscus that required surgery. The 34-year-old, who inked a two-year, $11MM pact with St. Louis over the winter, has only thrown 12 2/3 frames for the club this season. He allowed ten earned runs in that span, but more worryingly showed some other declines. Gregerson was working at about 1.5 mph less with his average heater than in 2017 while sporting a 12.6% swinging-strike rate that’s well off of his recent levels.
- In other pitching news, the organization has decided to bump rookie Austin Gomber into the rotation to take the place of Carlos Martinez, who just headed back onto the DL, per MLB.com’s Jenifer Langosch (via Twitter). The 24-year-old Gomber has thrown 22 1/3 innings of 3.22 ERA ball this year in the majors, though his peripherals (7.3 K/9, 4.4 BB/9, 33.3% groundball rate) aren’t quite so promising. As Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch notes on Twitter, the organization could soon face an “innings crisis” if it can’t get lengthier outings from its young arms while several veterans work back from the DL. Fortunately, as Langosch recently reported, there is some continued optimism that Martinez won’t require a lengthy absence, though it remains concerning that he has suffered a string of problems in his shoulder and back.
Cardinals Place Alex Reyes On DL With “Significant” Lat Strain
3:07pm: It’s a “significant” lat strain for Reyes, GM Mike Girsch tells reporters (Twitter link via Mark Saxon of The Athletic). There won’t be an exact timetable on his recovery until he receives a second opinion, per Saxon, though certainly that update from Girsch is far from promising. An MRI taken this morning revealed the injury, tweets Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
2:09pm: The Cardinals announced today that they’ve placed top prospect Alex Reyes back on the disabled list with a strained right lat muscle. St. Louis also optioned struggling outfielder Tyler O’Neill and right-hander John Gant to Triple-A Memphis. Filling those spots on the roster will be lefty Austin Gomber, righty Mike Mayers and first baseman Luke Voit, each of whom has been recalled from Memphis.
Reyes had Cardinals fans salivating as he tore through minor league batters in a rehab assignment, and he looked dominant in the first inning of yesterday’s return affair before slowly experiencing a dip in his velocity over the subsequent three innings. President of baseball ops John Mozeliak told The Athletic’s Jim Bowden last night that Reyes’ elbow was “fine,” and that appears to be the case, though the lat muscle presents a new issue for the vaunted young right-hander to overcome. While any injury to Reyes’ throwing arm is of course a cause for concern for the organization, it’s likely a silver lining that the issue is not specific to his surgically repaired right elbow.
With Reyes back on the shelf, the Cards will once again deploy a rotation consisting of Miles Mikolas, Luke Weaver, Michael Wacha and Jack Flaherty as they await the return of ace Carlos Martinez from a lat strain of his own. Martinez did go out on a minor league rehab assignment today, per the team’s transactions page, but while he’s nearing a return, it seems that fans will have to wait for the a highly anticipated 1-2 punch of Martinez and Reyes atop the staff.
[Related: St. Louis Cardinals depth chart]
As for O’Neill, he’ll head back to Triple-A and look to make continued strides on his approach at the plate and his bat-to-ball skills. While the 22-year-old flashed the power that has made him such an intriguing prospect, early proclamations of a new star’s arrival were proven premature. O’Neill struggled enormously to make consistent contact, whiffing in 43.9 percent of his trips to the plate and in 13 of his final 19 plate appearances before being optioned out.
None of that is to suggest that O’Neill doesn’t have the potential to develop into a regular middle-of-the-order threat for the Cards, of course. While contact issues had plagued him earlier in his minor league tenure, he whittled his strikeout rate down to a more respectable 23.3 percent in Memphis this season before being called to the Majors. His approach still needs some refinement, though, as was evidenced by a 2.5 percent walk rate in Triple-A and a near-identical mark in his brief MLB tenure this season. O’Neill has mashed 13 homers in 120 PAs with Memphis and three in the bigs, though, so there’s little doubting the legitimacy of his power.
With O’Neill in the minors, it’ll be Marcell Ozuna, Tommy Pham, Dexter Fowler and Harrison Bader splitting up the bulk of the outfield duties. Meanwhile, in the rotation, it’s possible that Gomber could step up and make a spot start as the team awaits the return of Martinez. If not, he’ll give the ‘pen a fresh lefty at a time when both Brett Cecil and Tyler Lyons have endured some considerable struggles. Gomber has made nine start in Memphis and logged a solid 3.60 ERA with a 63-to-17 K/BB ratio in 55 innings of work.
Mayers, meanwhile, will return for another stint to give the bullpen some depth. The 26-year-old has already been optioned to Memphis and incredible five times in the season’s first two months, and that seems likely to be the role he fills in St. Louis this season unless further injuries in the Majors carve out a more permanent spot for him.
The 27-year-old Voit is hitting just .243/.351/.348 in Triple-A so far in 2018, but he had a monster season there in 2017 and also hit .246/.306/.430 with four homers in 128 plate appearances at the Major League level. This’ll be his first appearance on the 2018 roster for the Cards.
Players Added To The 40-Man Roster
As detailed earlier this morning at MLBTR, the deadline for Major League clubs to add players to the 40-man roster in order to protect them from next month’s Rule 5 Draft is tonight. Because of that, there will be literally dozens of moves between now and 8pm ET as teams make final determinations on who to protect and who to risk losing in next month’s Rule 5 draft. This process will lead to smaller-scale trades, waiver claims and DFAs, but for some clubs the only necessary moves will simply be to select the contracts of the prospects they wish to place on the 40-man roster. We’ll track those such moves in this post…
- Heading onto the Blue Jays‘ roster, per a club announcement, are righty Connor Greene, lefty Tom Pannone, first baseman Rowdy Tellez, and catchers Dan Jansen and Reese McGuire.
- The Rays have selected the contracts of righties Brent Honeywell, Diego Castillo, Yonny Chirinos, and Jose Mujica, lefty Ryan Yarbrough, first baseman/outfielder Jake Bauers, and outfielder Justin Williams, according to Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times.
- The Diamondbacks placed lefty Jared Miller on the MLB roster, Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic reports on Twitter.
- A list of six players is heading onto the Reds‘ 40-man, per Zach Buchanan of the Cincinnati Enquirer (via Twitter): infielders Alex Blandino and Shed Long, outfielder Jose Siri, and righties Jose Lopez, Jesus Reyes, and Zack Weiss.
- The Padres and Brewers have joined the teams announcing their additions. For San Diego, lefties Jose Castillo and Brad Wieck are heading to the 40-man. Milwaukee has selected shortstop Mauricio Dubon, catcher Jacob Nottingham, and righties Marcos Diplan and Freddy Peralta.
- The Marlins and Yankees just struck a trade relating to their 40-man maneuvering, and each announced their selections shortly thereafter. Miami is placing outfielder Braxton Lee on the MLB roster along with righties Merandy Gonzalez, Pablo Lopez, and James Needy. New York, meanwhile, will select righties Albert Abreu, Domingo Acevedo, and Jonathan Loaisiga to the 40-man along with outfielder Billy McKinney and infielders Thairo Estrada and (last but not least) Gleyber Torres.
Click to check in on other teams that have selected players to their 40-man rosters …