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Cardinals Place Sonny Gray On 15-Day Injured List

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Veteran right-hander Sonny Gray’s first season with the Cardinals has come to a close, as the club has placed him on the 15-day injured list due to flexor tendonitis in his right forearm. Right-hander Kyle Leahy was recalled to replace Gray on the big league roster, and rookie Michael McGreevy is currently slated to take Gray’s place in the rotation as noted by Jeff Jones of the Belleville News-Democrat.

Gray, 34, joined the Cardinals after signing a three-year, $75MM deal with the club on the heels of a dominant 2023 season that saw him post an MLB-best 2.83 FIP as a member of the Twins and finish second in AL Cy Young award voting to Yankees ace Gerrit Cole. Gray’s start to the season was slightly delayed by injury but he started strong overall, with a 2.60 ERA and 2.84 FIP in his first nine starts with the club that made it look as though Gray might be able to deliver more of the dominance that he flashed in Minnesota with St. Louis this year.

The results have left something to be desired for Gray ever since the calendar flipped to June, however, as he posted a 4.92 ERA in a 15-start stretch from early June to late August before managing to finish the season strong with a 2.55 ERA and 1.91 FIP in his final four starts of the year. That leaves him with a relatively pedestrian 3.84 ERA overall in 166 1/3 innings of work, though the underlying metrics suggest he’s been a good bit better than that. After all, even that aforementioned stretch of 15 starts where Gray struggled saw him post a solid enough 3.63 FIP while striking out an excellent 29.3% of his opponents. Looking at his full season stats, he’ll end the year with a 3.13 FIP that ranks seventh-best in the majors, a 30.3% strikeout rate that’s tied with Tarik Skubal for the second-best figure in the big leagues behind likely NL Cy Young award winner Chris Sale, and 3.8 fWAR that’s good for seventh-most among NL pitchers this year.

Unfortunately, those promising peripheral numbers neither translated to elite production on the field for Gray nor wins for a Cardinals club that was recently eliminated from playoff contention and has a 77-77 record with eight games left to go in the regular season. With that being said, those strong underlying numbers do provide reason for optimism that better days ought to be ahead for the veteran in the future. That’s good news for fans in St. Louis, as Gray is sure to be a key fixture of the club’s starting five next year. As noted by Jones, Gray underwent an MRI recently that came back clean and would likely still be pitching if the Cardinals remained in the playoff hunt. That makes it seem unlikely that Gray’s current ailment will have any sort of impact on him when camp opens up for Spring Training next year.

Looking ahead to 2025, Gray figures to anchor a rotation that seems likely to include deadline addition Erick Fedde, veteran innings eater Miles Mikolas, and youngster Andre Pallante but still features some uncertainty due to the fact that the club holds team options on the services of both Kyle Gibson and Lance Lynn for next year. While both veterans have been perfectly serviceable back-end arms for the Cardinals this year, with the aforementioned quartet and Steven Matz all expected to return in 2025 it would hardly be a shock to see the club decline the options of one or both players in search of an upgrade to either the rotation or lineup elsewhere on the market.

As for replacing Gray in the short term, Leahy returns to the club’s roster as a multi-inning relief option after posting a 4.02 ERA and 3.62 FIP in 47 innings of work earlier this year. Meanwhile, McGreevy made his big league debut in a spot start back in July and impressed with seven innings of one-run ball and currently sports a 0.90 ERA in ten innings at the big league level along with a 4.02 ERA in 27 starts at Triple-A this year.

Cardinals Designate Giovanny Gallegos For Assignment

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TODAY: The Cardinals weren’t able to find a taker for Gallegos before the trade deadline passed, so he’ll hit the waiver wire.  Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch writes that the Cards will release Gallegos and eat his remaining salary if nobody makes a claim.

JULY 28: The Cardinals announced that right-hander Giovanny Gallegos has been designated for assignment.  Right-hander Kyle Leahy was called up from Triple-A in the corresponding move, and the Cards now have an open space on their 40-man roster.

The DFA underscores a disaster of a season for Gallegos, who has a 6.53 ERA over 21 appearances and 20 2/3 innings.  After emerging as a cornerstone of the St. Louis bullpen from 2019-22, some red flags appeared last season when Gallegos’ ERA shot up to 4.42 (in 55 innings) as his strikeout rate declined and batters suddenly started to make much more solid contact against his offerings.

Things got worse for Gallegos this season, as he has allowed six homers over his 20 2/3 frames and his strikeout rate (22.3%) and walk rate (10.6%) are both career worsts.  The sudden loss of control is particularly troubling, as even amidst Gallegos’ struggles in 2023, he still sat in the 92nd percentile of all pitchers in terms of walk rate.  Health could be an issue since Gallegos missed a month and a half due to a shoulder impingement, though he wasn’t pitching well either before or after his stint on the 15-day injured list.

Despite these significant struggles, Gallegos’ track record means that he’ll likely catch on with another team pretty quickly, if perhaps not via waiver claim.  A team that puts in a claim would assume the remainder of Gallegos’ salary — roughly $1.84MM in 2024 salary, plus a $500K buyout of his $6.5MM club option for the 2025 campaign.

Unless a trade is worked out during the DFA period and before Tuesday’s deadline, clubs might prefer to wait until Gallegos clears waivers and is then likely released by the Cardinals.  A new team would then owe Gallegos just the prorated portion of a MLB minimum salary, and St. Louis would be on the hook for the remaining money owed.  Since Gallegos has more than five years of MLB service time, he has the right to refuse an outright assignment from the Cardinals if he does clear waivers.

Led by star closer Ryan Helsley, the Cardinals have gotten solid results in general from their bullpen this season, with Gallegos uncharacteristically being the relief corps’ weak link.  St. Louis, like most contenders, was known to be exploring the market for some bullpen reinforcements heading into the deadline, and moving Gallegos (and freeing up a 40-man roster spot) would hint that some kind of plans are in mind for the Cards before July 30.

Cardinals Promote Gordon Graceffo

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June 28: The Cardinals have made it official today, announcing they have selected Graceffo to the roster. Righty Kyle Leahy was optioned to open an active roster spot while Matz was transferred to the 60-day IL to open a 40-man spot.

June 27: The Cardinals are planning to promote pitching prospect Gordon Graceffo before tomorrow night’s matchup with the Reds, reports Katie Woo of the Athletic (X link). The 24-year-old will be available out of the bullpen behind scheduled starter Andre Pallante.

Garceffo signed for an overslot $500K bonus as a fifth-round pick out of Villanova in 2021. The 6’4″ righty had a breakout season the following year, working to a 2.97 ERA across 139 1/3 innings between High-A and Double-A. He garnered some attention as a Top 100 caliber prospect heading into 2023, but his stock took a hit last year. Graceffo missed some time with a shoulder issue and wasn’t especially effective in his first crack at Triple-A. He allowed 4.92 ERA through 86 innings at the top minor league level.

Entering the season, Graceffo ranked in the back half of the organization’s top 10 prospects at both Baseball America and on Keith Law’s write-up at The Athletic. Both outlets wrote that Graceffo looked like a back-end starter last season after flashing mid-rotation potential during the ’22 campaign. Eric Longenhagen and Travis Ice of FanGraphs slotted Graceffo 25th among St. Louis farmhands in May, suggesting he may fit better in relief unless he recaptures the command he showed a couple seasons ago.

The 24-year-old has started 14 times for Triple-A Memphis this year. He owns a solid 3.84 ERA, albeit with pedestrian strikeout (21.4%) and walk (8.9%) rates. Graceffo hasn’t missed a ton of bats since he first reached the Double-A level. Working in shorter stints could improve that — either by pushing his velocity back to the mid-90s range he’d shown before the shoulder injury or allowing him to lean heavily on a slider that evaluators credit as an above-average to plus pitch. While Graceffo’s first MLB look will come out of the bullpen, the Cards could eventually send him back to Memphis to keep him stretched out for potential rotation work down the line.

Graceffo is not on the 40-man roster. St. Louis will select his contract tomorrow. Their 40-man roster is at capacity, but they can open a spot by transferring Steven Matz to the 60-day injured list after his recent setback. The Cards will need to take another pitcher off the active roster in a corresponding move.

Cardinals Place Steven Matz On Injured List Due To Back Strain

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The Cardinals announced that left-hander Steven Matz has been placed on the 15-day injured list, retroactive to May 1, due to a lower back strain. Right-hander Kyle Leahy was recalled in a corresponding move.

The Cards signed the southpaw to a four-year, $44MM deal going into 2022 but they’ve gotten little return on that investment so far. Matz battled shoulder issues for much of 2022 and only tossed 48 innings with a 5.25 earned run average. Last year, he struggled out of the gate and got moved to the bullpen. He got in a good groove and retook a rotation spot as they played out the string on a lost season, finishing strong enough to have a 3.86 ERA by season’s end.

The club was surely hoping he could carry some momentum from that solid finish into 2024, and he did for a brief moment. After three starts, Matz had allowed just three earned runs and had a 1.80 ERA. But he’s allowed 16 earned runs in his three most recent outings, swelling his ERA to 6.18 for the year.

Per Katie Woo of The Athletic (X link), an issue cropped up with Matz’s back after his April 23 outing. The club had an off-day on April 25 and then a rainout April 29, which meant Matz got some extra rest before taking the ball again on April 30. It was hoped that the extra time would help him get beyond the back problem, but that didn’t come to pass. His velocity was down in that last start and he was pulled after allowing four earned runs in 3 1/3 innings. He was sent for an MRI yesterday, per Woo on X, and it seems the club has decided to put Matz on the shelf for at least a couple of weeks.

That will leave the club with Sonny Gray, Lance Lynn, Kyle Gibson and Miles Mikolas as healthy starters, but they will need a fifth at some point. As of today, the Cards are playing 13 games in a row before their next off-day.

Drew Rom was recently transferred to the 60-day injured list and won’t be an option. Matthew Liberatore could be considered but he’s been in the bullpen and isn’t stretched out. Zach Thompson was in the big league rotation before being being moved to the bullpen and then optioned to the minors. He tossed 3 2/3 innings in his most recent Triple-A start.

Sem Robberse and Adam Kloffenstein are each stretched out at Triple-A on on the 40-man, though Kloffenstein has a 5.93 ERA this year. Robberse is in much better form with a 1.77 ERA through six Triple-A starts, though he just started last night and likely wouldn’t be called up before Tuesday. Prospects Gordon Graceffo and Michael McGreevy are also stretched out in Triple-A, but neither is on the 40-man and they both have worse results than Robberse so far.

Cardinals Select Kyle Leahy

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The Cardinals have selected the contract of right-hander Kyle Leahy and added him to the active roster as the 27th man for today’s doubleheader against the Tigers, reports Jeff Jones of the Belleville News-Democrat. Lefty Drew Rom has been transferred to the 60-day injured list in a corresponding move.

Leahy, 26, made his big league debut last season but pitched just 1 2/3 innings, yielding four runs in that brief look. The Cards passed him throughout outright waivers unclaimed following the season and retained the right-hander, whom they selected in the 17th round of the 2018 draft.

The Cards moved Leahy from a starting role to the bullpen in 2023 but didn’t get the desired results; he posted a 6.26 ERA in 83 1/3 innings at the Triple-A level (four starts, 42 relief appearances). He’s posted a similarly unpalatable 5.84 mark through his first 12 2/3 frames this year, but Leahy is sporting much-improved strikeout and walk rates of 26.4% and 7.5%, respectively. He’s already been tagged for four long balls, but if he can curtail that trend, the blend of missed bats, strong command and an above-average 45.5% ground-ball rate is interesting.

This is the second of three option years for Leahy. He has a good bit of work to do in order to carve out some staying power on the 40-man roster, but he’ll get his first opportunity of the 2024 season to do so today. If he ends up sticking on the roster, he’d be controllable for at least six seasons.

As for the 24-year-old Rom, he’s been sidelined by a biceps issue all season. Jones reported last week that the southpaw was ticketed for a visit with Dr. Keith Meister to further assess the injury. The results of that visit haven’t been made clear just yet, but given that he was still seeking additional opinions in late April, Rom’s move to the 60-day IL shouldn’t come as a major surprise. He’s still clearly feeling discomfort, so even if that visit revealed no additional injuries of note, the southpaw likely isn’t close to returning. His original IL placement was retroactive to March 25, and the “60-day” term includes all the time already spent on the shelf. He’ll be eligible to return in late May.

The Cardinals acquired Rom, Cesar Prieto and Zack Showalter from the Orioles last summer in the deadline deal sending Jack Flaherty to Baltimore. Rom made his MLB debut with St. Louis in the second half of the ’23 season but was rocked for 30 earned runs in 33 2/3 innings across eight starts. The former fourth-round pick has a career 4.75 ERA in 134 2/3 Triple-A frames. If healthy, he’d have been among the Cardinals’ depth options in the rotation to begin the season, but it’s not yet clear when he’ll be a realistic option for them.

Cardinals Outright Andrew Suárez, Casey Lawrence

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The Cardinals announced on Thursday that pitchers Andrew Suárez and Casey Lawrence have elected free agency after being outrighted off of the 40-man roster. In addition, the team sent three more players, right-hander Kyle Leahy and infielders Irving Lopez and Juniel Querecuto, outright to Triple-A Memphis.

The moves clear five spots on the team’s 40-man roster, bringing the total down to 35. Not so coincidentally, the Cardinals currently have five players on the 60-day IL who will need spots on the 40-man following the conclusion of the World Series: Dylan Carlson, Brendan Donovan, Packy Naughton, Wilking Rodriguez, and Guillermo Zuñiga.

Suárez appeared in 13 games for St. Louis this season, pitching 27.2 innings in a long relief role. The southpaw was little more than a mop-up man, posting a 7.16 ERA and a 5.67 SIERA, while walking nearly as many batters as he struck out. He did, however, look much more comfortable at Triple-A, posting a 4.08 ERA in 64 innings with the Memphis Redbirds.

Lawrence didn’t have much more success than Suárez, pitching to a 6.59 ERA and 5.05 SIERA in 27.1 innings of long relief. Those aren’t great numbers for the 35-year-old journeyman, but on the bright side, he did a good job limiting hard contact for the second year in a row, holding opposing batters to an 88.1-mph average exit velocity and finishing with a respectable 4.39 xERA.

Leahy appeared very briefly for the Cardinals in 2023, pitching in three games, facing 15 batters, giving up four runs, and recording five outs. He was optioned in mid-July, barely two weeks after making his MLB debut. Unfortunately for the 26-year-old righty, his numbers at Triple-A weren’t much more impressive than they were in the majors; he posted a 9.74 ERA and a 6.63 FIP through the final two months of the season.

Lopez has been in the Cardinals organization since 2017, when he was taken in the 19th round of the draft. After a strong showing at Triple-A, batting .315 with a 1.001 OPS in 19 games, the 28-year-old made his MLB debut at the end of September. He went hitless in 11 at-bats but recorded his first big league RBI on a sacrifice fly in the final game of the season.

Querecuto, a utility infielder, was a mid-September call-up, appearing in nine games and splitting his time between first, second, and third base. He went 2-for-20 with a single, a double, and a walk. Having been outrighted previously in his career – back in 2016 with the Rays – Querecuto could have elected free agency instead of accepting his outright assignment, but evidently, he has decided to remain in the Cardinals organization. After bouncing around between five organizations in his professional career, it makes sense that he’s interested in sticking with the team that gave him his first shot at big league action in seven years.

Cardinals Select Kyle Leahy

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The Cardinals announced that they have selected the contract of right-hander Kyle Leahy, with left-hander Matthew Liberatore optioned in a corresponding move. The club already had a vacancy on their 40-man roster after outfielder Óscar Mercado was designated for assignment earlier in the week.

Leahy, 26, cracks a big league roster for the first time and will be making his major league debut as soon as he gets into a game. The righty was selected in the 17th round of the 2018 draft and worked primarily as a starter in the earlier portions of his professional career but has transitioned into more of a relief role of late.

He’s spent all of this year in Triple-A, tossing 51 innings over 28 outings, three of those being starts. He has a 4.06 ERA in that time, striking out 22.1% of batters faced against a 10% walk rate. He’ll now get to try his hand at getting outs at the major league level.

The option of Liberatore seems to open the door for lefty Steven Matz to return to the rotation, a possibility that was recently covered by Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Matz had a rotation spot to begin the year but posted a 5.72 ERA through 10 starts and got moved to the bullpen. Since making the switch, he has a 2.81 ERA while Liberatore has posted a 6.75 for the year.

The Cards signed Matz to a four-year, $44MM deal going into 2022 but haven’t received much return on that investment yet. A shoulder impingement and a torn left MCL limited him to just 48 innings last year with a 5.25 ERA, which was followed by the aforementioned rough start here in 2023. But his recent work has been encouraging enough to get him back into the rotation.

The Cards have very little rotation certainty going forward as Adam Wainwright is set to retire after this year while each of Jordan Montgomery and Jack Flaherty are impending free agents. That leaves Miles Mikolas and Matz as the core of next year’s rotation, with depth options like Liberatore and Dakota Hudson potentially in the mix. The club will undoubtedly pursue pitching at this year’s trade deadline and in the upcoming offseason but it would be a big help to them if Matz could get back on track in the second half of this year, with two seasons still remaining on that deal.

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