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Cardinals Outright Alfonso Rivas

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May 23: Rivas cleared waivers and has been assigned outright to Triple-A Memphis, the Cardinals announced. He’ll remain with the organization.

May 20: The Cardinals announced Monday that they’ve designated first baseman/outfielder Alfonso Rivas for assignment. His spot on the 40-man roster will go to right-hander Ryan Loutos, whose previously reported selection to the MLB roster has now been confirmed by the club. Righty Chris Roycroft was optioned to Triple-A Memphis to open space for Loutos on the active roster.

Rivas was claimed off waivers out of the Angels organization back in January. The 27-year-old has continued to show his typical keen eye at the plate in Memphis this season, walking at a hearty 12.8% rate, but he hasn’t hit for his usual average or power. Overall, he’s batting just .246/.364/.323 in 158 plate appearances with the Redbirds.

The well-traveled Rivas played sparingly in the majors each year from 2021-23, spending time with the Cubs, Pirates and Padres. He’s a .243/.324/.349 hitter in 459 big league plate appearances to this point in his career.

Tepid as his output in Memphis has been, Rivas entered the season with a lifetime .313/.424/.492 batting line in parts of four Triple-A seasons. He’s walked in nearly 15% of his plate appearances across five campaigns at the Triple-A level, and while he’s more of a gap hitter than true slugger — 48 doubles to just 15 homers in nearly 800 Triple-A plate appearances — he’s nevertheless been quite productive there outside this season.

Rivas has primarily been a first baseman in the minors but has a few hundred innings of corner outfield experience as a professional. He’s in the final of three minor league option seasons and is still two seasons shy of even reaching arbitration eligibility. A club looking for a left-handed bat with strong on-base skills could potentially take a look. Rivas has been designated for assignment three prior times in his career but has never made it through waivers, so MLB clubs are clearly intrigued by his bat — even if he hasn’t yet been all that productive in the majors.

The Cardinals will have a week to trade Rivas or attempt to pass him through outright waivers. If they can succeed in getting him through waivers, they can keep him in the organization without needing to dedicate a 40-man roster spot to him. Rivas has neither the MLB service time nor the prior outright assignment required to reject an outright to the minors after going unclaimed on waivers.

Cardinals Select Chris Roycroft

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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.

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