Cardinals Rumors

Cardinals Renew Jack Flaherty’s 2020 Contract

By Mark Polishuk | March 8, 2020 at 6:06pm CDT

The Cardinals have renewed the contract of right-hander Jack Flaherty for the 2020 season, as per a team announcement. Flaherty was the only one of 25 pre-arbitration players on the Cards’ roster who didn’t agree to terms on a contract for the coming season, and thus the team will impose Flaherty’s salary for 2020.

That number will work out to $604.5K, according to Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The Cardinals’ internal formula for calcuating pre-arb raises based on merit awarded Flaherty some extra money beyond the $563.5K minimum salary for his outstanding numbers in 2019, including a special $10K bonus for his fourth-place finish in NL Cy Young Award voting. However, that $10K was canceled out by a $10K penalty that the Cardinals impose on any pre-arbitration player who doesn’t come to an agreement.

This is the second consecutive season that Flaherty has had his contract renewed rather than come to an agreement, which the righty told reporters was a matter of “principle.” As a reminder, whether or not a player agrees to his pre-arb salary or gets his contract renewed, it doesn’t have any bearing on his roster status. Flaherty will still be suiting up as the Cardinals’ probable Opening Day starter, and he doesn’t appear to have any hard feelings about the situation.

“It’s just kind of the product of the system that we have,” Flaherty told reporters. “Can’t really do much. They’re going to play within what they’re allowed to do in the system. It’s not them. I can’t fault them for doing that. The system is what it is, and it’s not the best.”

Perhaps more notably, it doesn’t seem like the Cardinals and Flaherty’s made any headway towards a long-term contract extension, let alone his 2020 pact. The two sides “were not able to find common ground for the discussion of an extension going into this spring training,” Goold writes. Flaherty is still under team control through the 2023 season, so there isn’t any immediate rush for St. Louis to get Flaherty locked up, though the right-hander’s long-term price tag will only go up if he enjoys another good season in 2020.

The lack of an agreement on a pre-arb deal also doesn’t necessarily mean that a multi-year extension isn’t eventually possible. Just last offseason, the Rays renewed Blake Snell’s deal for the 2019 campaign and then inked him to a five-year, $50MM extension only days later. The Cardinals have long been proactive in giving extensions, both early-career deals to impressive young players and then secondary extensions to veterans (i.e. Yadier Molina, Adam Wainwright) who have established themselves as franchise cornerstones.

Cardinals Release Yairo Munoz

By George Miller | March 7, 2020 at 9:10am CDT

The Cardinals announced this morning that they’ve placed infielder Yairo Munoz on unconditional release waivers. The move leaves an opening on the 40-man roster.

In an important detail, Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch adds that Munoz “left the team, flew home” without notifying the Cardinals. Manager Mike Shildt told Goold and other reporters that Munoz frequently complained about playing time last season. That’s certainly an interesting twist to the story, and it seems clear that Munoz wasn’t released for any baseball reason, but rather as a result of his own decision to excuse himself from camp.

As a matter of fact, Shildt stated that Munoz “had an inside track to a roster spot” as the team’s utilityman, according to Mark Saxon of The Athletic. Munoz, 25, has fulfilled a similar role for the Cardinals in each of the last two years, and he’s by no means been an unplayable Major Leaguer. There’s value in a player who can capably man six positions on the diamond, and Munoz has been just that over his first two big league seasons. That said, it would be hard to argue that Munoz, who owns a .273/.331/.391 career slash line over roughly a season’s worth of plate appearances, is deserving of the expanded role that he apparently coveted.

That’s especially true given the presence of established veterans in the St. Louis infield, which is where Munoz fits best. He had little chance of unseating either Matt Carpenter or Paul DeJong, the incumbent starters at Munoz’s two best positions. That starting combination has garnered four All-Star selections between them. The path to playing time in an outfield corner was perhaps less crowded, but even so: the team surely prefers Tommy Edman to Munoz after the former’s standout rookie performance; Dexter Fowler showed signs of life last year, and top prospect Dylan Carlson is waiting in the wings.

Munoz has five years of team control remaining, and that youth coupled with his positional versatility could make him an attractive free-agent option for several teams. It seems unlikely that Munoz is widely viewed as a starter in the short-term, so he may have to settle for a role similar to the one he played with St. Louis. It’s also fair to ask whether teams will hesitate given the circumstances surrounding Munoz’s release.

Quick Hits: Maeda, Dodgers, Angels, Cards, Royals

By Connor Byrne | March 7, 2020 at 12:26am CDT

The Dodgers dealt Kenta Maeda to the Twins last month, after which the right-hander seemingly indicated that he asked for a trade out of the Los Angeles organization. However, that’s not what happened, according to Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman (via Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register). While Maeda did make it known to the Dodgers he prefers to start (they often used him as a reliever from 2018-19), Friedman insists there was no trade request when the two met last season. “I saw the headline and then we had someone actually listen to it. And he didn’t in that meeting demand anything and nor did he actually say he did in that interview,” Friedman stated. For their part, the Dodgers didn’t enter the offseason planning to move Maeda, per Friedman, but they pulled the trigger when the Twins offered a Brusdar Graterol-led package. Maeda, meanwhile, will now have an opportunity to return to being a full-time starter in Minnesota.

The Angels fired visiting clubhouse manager Brian Harkins on Thursday amid allegations that he provided “illegal substances” to help opposing pitchers grip the ball better, Maria Torres of the Los Angeles Times reports. The news did not come as a surprise to the Angels, per Jeff Fletcher of the OC Register. “I think everybody knows that most guys are doing it,” left-hander Andrew Heaney said. “I don’t think it’s that surprising for anybody who knows baseball.” Pitching coach Mickey Callaway told Fletcher he expects Major League Baseball to ban hurlers from using pine tar and other such substances, but he believes it could have a detrimental effect because they help pitchers’ control – especially in cold conditions. “If I were a hitter, I’d be scared to dig into the box in Detroit on April 10,” he said. Manager Joe Maddon also weighed in, saying pitchers have been using substances to better their grip for “as long as I’ve been in baseball.” Maddon wonders whether MLB will eventually have to make changes to the ball, as the current one has become slicker.
Cardinals righty Carlos Martinez has been a starter for most of his career, but shoulder issues helped force the hard-throwing 28-year-old to their bullpen last season. He’s now back in the Cardinals’ rotation, though, and is showing off his old form this spring, as Rick Hummel of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch observes. “Everything’s been really good,” manager Mike Shildt said after Martinez threw five scoreless innings against Washington on Thursday. “That was a pretty dramatic display of, ‘Hey, I’m a starter.’ He’s established himself, for sure.” Martinez has been quite successful in a starting role, having recorded a 3.38 ERA/3.61 FIP in 712 1/3 innings from the Cardinals’ rotation. The reigning NL Central champions would surely be pleased if he can offer similar production this season, especially with fellow righty Miles Mikolas set to miss the beginning of the year with an elbow injury.
There is a growing likelihood that the Royals will use first basemen Ryan O’Hearn and Ryan McBroom in “a soft platoon” to open the season, Jeffrey Flanagan of MLB.com writes. As we touched on Friday, the left-handed O’Hearn is seeking a bounce-back year after logging horrid production in 2019. The right-handed McBroom was better with the Royals last year in his first season in the majors, hitting .293/.361/.350. However, it was only an 83-plate appearance sample, in which McBroom failed to hit a home run, struck out over 30 percent of the time and was the beneficiary of an unsustainable .440 batting average on balls in play. To his credit, though, McBroom thrived as a Yankees farmhand last season in Triple-A ball, where he slashed .315/.402/.574 and slugged 26 homers in 482 PA.

NL Central Notes: Flaherty, Urias, Reds, Williams

By Mark Polishuk | March 5, 2020 at 9:02pm CDT

Cardinals right-hander Jack Flaherty may be headed for a contract renewal for the second straight offseason since he has yet to agree to his 2020 contract, Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch writes. The Cards use a strict formula for giving salary raises for pre-arbitration players and Flaherty didn’t agree to his deal last year, leaving $10K in salary on the table and forcing the Cards to renew his 2019 contract for $562.1K, just $7.1K over the league minimum salary. “Flaherty wanted his disagreement with the Cardinals’ valuation of his salary noted, and that was worth the $10,000 penalty,” Goold wrotes.

As per the Cardinals’ formula, Goold reports that Flaherty is now in line for a salary close to $605K for the 2020 season — a 7.3 percent increase over the minimum salary, which is a new record raise since St. Louis adopted its formula. Still, such a raise is still very small potatoes considering Flaherty’s great 2019 numbers, and also indicative of how little leverage pre-arbitration players have in earning any extra money for outstanding performance. Flaherty is in line for a big raise once he enters the arbitration process next winter, though (barring an extension) the real big money won’t come until he hits free agency following the 2023 season.

NL Health Notes: Watson, A. Miller, Freeman, Dodgers

By Connor Byrne | March 2, 2020 at 9:43pm CDT

Giants reliever Tony Watson has been dealing with shoulder tightness this spring, but the left-hander said Monday (via John Shea of the San Francisco Chronicle), “It’s nothing I’m concerned about.” Watson, who threw his second bullpen session in three days on Monday, expects he’ll be set to go for the beginning of the regular season. However, it’s unknown when he’ll be ready to appear in a spring training game. The 34-year-old’s the elder statesman in a bullpen that has undergone significant changes since last season, when the normally reliable Watson turned in a career-worst campaign. Watson wound up with a 4.17 ERA/4.81 FIP and 6.83 K/9 against 2.0 BB/9 over 54 innings, but the Giants still brought him back on a reasonably priced guarantee ($3MM).

Let’s check in on a few more health situations from around the National League…

Cardinals southpaw Andrew Miller is having difficulty “getting a feel for the ball,” Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports. Nothing “physically hurts,” according to Miller, but Goold writes that he’ll undergo a “battery of exams” to determine what’s troubling him. That’s not the type of news he or the Cardinals wanted entering the second season of a two-year, $25MM contract. The 34-year-old didn’t deliver as hoped in Year 1, as he posted a 4.45 ERA/5.19 FIP with 11.52 K/9, 4.45 BB/9 and a 37.2 percent grounder rate in 54 2/3 innings. Miller pitched in 73 games, and with 37 more appearances this year (110 from 2019-20), his $12MM vesting option for 2021 will become guaranteed.
Braves first baseman Freddie Freeman has battled some discomfort in his surgically repaired right elbow, but as expected, he appears to be fine. After sitting out of action last week, Freeman returned Monday, saying (per David O’Brien of The Athletic, via Instagram), “I feel great,” and added that he’s not facing any restrictions. That’s excellent for Atlanta, which will likely need yet another outstanding season from Freeman if it’s going to rule the National League East for the third year in a row.
The Dodgers have temporarily shut down infield prospect Omar Estevez as a result of soreness in his right (throwing) shoulder, Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register tweets. Estevez has been in camp this spring as a non-roster invitee. It’s unclear how much time he’ll miss, but it’s the latest injury for a player who sat out roughly two months last season with a hamstring strain. When healthy in 2019, though, Estevez put up nice production in his Double-A debut, batting .291/.352/.431 in 336 plate appearances. He now ranks as Baseball America’s 16th-best Dodgers prospect.

Yairo Munoz Likely To Begin Season On Injured List

By Mark Polishuk | March 2, 2020 at 12:58am CDT

Cardinals utilityman Yairo Munoz suffered a hamstring strain while running out an infield single on Saturday, manager Mike Shildt told MLB.com’s Anne Rogers and other media. According to Shildt, “it’s going to be a while” before Munoz returns to action, meaning an injured list placement looms for the 25-year-old.

Originally acquired from the Athletics as part of the December 2017 trade that sent Stephen Piscotty to Oakland, Munoz has been a valuable bench piece over his two Major League seasons, getting significant playing time at six different positions — shortstop, third base, second base, and all three outfield spots. Munoz’s versatility has made him a nice part-time fill-in for injured or resting players, plus a late-game substitute on double switches.

While his minor league hitting numbers were decent but unspectacular, Munoz did some damage after being promoted to the Cardinals in 2018, batting .276/.350/.413 over his first 329 big league plate appearances. Both the production and the playing time diminished in 2019, however, as Munoz hit .267/.298/.355 over 181 PA. This dropoff put Munoz into a battle for a bench spot this spring, especially since the also-versatile Tommy Edman delivered an upgraded version (.850 OPS in 349 PA) of Munoz’s 2018 numbers in his own 2019 rookie year.

Edman can also play all over the diamond, and while St. Louis has him penciled into regular outfield duty for now, plans could change should one of the Cards’ many young outfielders — i.e. Tyler O’Neill, Lane Thomas, or even top prospect Dylan Carlson — step up to win a job. Veteran Brad Miller was also signed to a $2MM deal and figures to factor into the backup mix, especially since Miller hits from the left side, unlike Munoz and many other of the Cards’ top bench candidates.

Rays’ Centerfield Situation

By TC Zencka | February 29, 2020 at 8:26pm CDT

Kevin Kiermaier and Manuel Margot are hard-coded atop the centerfield depth chart for the Tampa Bay Rays, but both players come with question marks.

Despite Kiermaier’s statesman status as the longest-tenured Ray, the club has taken an aggressive approach to finding players capable of roaming the grass in center. He remains a defensive stud, but his health is perpetually in question and his offense has slipped over the past two seasons. His two-year slash line checks in at just .223/.280/.386 across 847 plate appearances. Despite roughly 21% less offensive production than average (79 wRC+), Kiermaier’s A-1 defensive abilities and plus baserunning skills maintain his viability as a starter. Margot fits the same profile, but five years younger and he bats from the right side.

The Rays know what they like, apparently, because they are continuing to experiment with power-shy Lucius Fox in centerfield, per Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times. Fox has been an infielder for most of his career, primarily at shortstop, though he’s gotten looks at second and third as well. Fox is a tremendous speedster, making him a fit for center from a raw tools standpoint, but he has yet to log any professional time in the outfield. It hasn’t clicked yet for Fox offensively with a .244/.337/.325 line across four seasons in the minor leagues.

Before acquiring Margot, the Rays also picked up Randy Arozarena in the Matthew Liberatore trade. Arozarena now seems likely to start the year in Triple-A, but he’s another option for center. He also happens to be coming off a monster year in Triple-A, where he hit .358/.435/.593 in 64 games after earning a promotion from Double-A. He excelled in a small-sample 19 games with the Cardinals at the end of the year, making their playoff roster as a speed option off the bench. Purely from a numbers standpoint, Arozarena could have the highest-ceiling of all their current options.

The Rays clearly prefer a gold glove roving-type in centerfield, but Austin Meadows could also fill in there in a pinch. It is telling, however, that he has only logged 13 innings in center since being acquired from the Pirates.

Cardinals Notes: Molina, Southpaws, Carpenter

By Mark Polishuk | February 27, 2020 at 6:10pm CDT

The latest out of the Cardinals’ camp…

Yadier Molina intends to finish his career as a Cardinal, though the longtime catcher won’t insist on a starting role throughout the life of a potential new contract with St. Louis. According to The Athletic’s Mark Saxon (subscription required), Molina “has informed club officials he would be willing to take a reduced role in the second season of an extension.” This would represent the 2022 campaign, as Molina is entering the final year of his current contract. Given that Molina will be 39 years old on Opening Day 2022, moving into a part-time or backup role at that late stage of his career isn’t really a surprise, aside from the fact that Molina has always been such a workhorse behind the plate. Molina has the seventh-most games played (1947) as a catcher in baseball history, and with three more seasons, could potentially pass Carlton Fisk (2226) for second on the all-time list. Andrew Knizner and Ivan Herrera are the two top young catchers in the Cards’ farm system, with Saxon noting that Knizner (who has already cracked the big leagues and would be 27 on Opening Day 2022) could still potentially become a trade chip if St. Louis feels Herrera is the better bet as Molina’s heir apparent.
The Cardinals have been working to add more left-handed pitching to their roster, with GM Michael Girsch telling the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Derrick Goold that “when we had the opportunity to make transactions, we sided slightly to the left if we could.” Some of the southpaws acquired in big and small moves over the last two years include Andrew Miller, Kwang-Hyun Kim, Genesis Cabrera, Tyler Webb, Matthew Liberatore, Rob Kaminsky, and Ricardo Sanchez, and several of those names are in the mix to play bigger roles for the Cards in 2020. Beyond the need for greater balance between lefty and righty pitching, there is also a specific strategic element at play, given all of the big left-handed bats in the NL Central.
Matt Carpenter missed Wednesday’s Spring Training game with what he described as a “super minor” back injury, MLB.com’s Anne Rogers writes. The back tightness wouldn’t have prevented Carpenter from playing in a regular season game, though perhaps even the fact that he reported the issue is indicative of how Carpenter is approaching his health and conditioning as he tries to rebound from a rough 2019 season. “Today would’ve been a great example of not saying anything, going out and played, and something happening….I think that is going to be big for me going forward, just being open to not push through stuff that can set me back for a month, and just say, ‘Hey, today I don’t feel as good,’ and it’s two days instead of two months,” Carpenter said.

Marcell Ozuna Discusses Cardinals, Qualifying Offer Decision

By Mark Polishuk | February 27, 2020 at 2:19pm CDT

Marcell Ozuna signed a one-year, $18MM deal with the Braves in January, after an offseason that saw the outfielder connected to multiple teams, including a potential reunion with the Cardinals. Though he turned down the Cards’ one-year, $17.8MM qualifying offer, “if I knew before it was going to happen like this, I would have taken it,” Ozuna told Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “But I wanted to make sure I had a chance (at a contract) for my career.”

As it happened, such an acceptable long-term offer didn’t materialize over the early weeks of the offseason, leading Ozuna and his representatives to pivot to the idea of a one-year deal and a quick return to free agency next winter without the burden of the draft pick compensation attached to his services for rejecting the QO. (Players cannot be issued more than one qualifying offer in their career.) Before taking Atlanta’s one-year deal, Ozuna turned several multi-year offers that were reportedly on the table, including a three-year/$50MM offer from the Reds.

There’s some obvious risk in Ozuna’s decision, as injury or a down year would erase his chances at landing another major long-term contract, and he’ll be re-entering the market heading into his age-30 season. But, the outfielder is choosing to bet on himself to deliver a better platform year than in 2019, when he hit a solid but unspectacular .241/.328/.472 with 29 homers over 549 PA for the Cardinals, and missed over a month recovering from a fractured finger.

Ozuna made no secret of his desire to return to St. Louis, and after extensions talks proved fruitless last season, he and his agency (MDR Sports Management) remained in contact with the Cardinals “every time something moved” in his market, Ozuna said.

“If they offer a good offer, I would get it. But they didn’t do it….I thought the Cardinals were going to offer something (early), but they didn’t do that after I rejected the qualifying offer,” Ozuna told Goold. “So, I got patient. And I waited. And I talked to my agent a lot of the time. We were waiting — and then Atlanta was the team that gave me the opportunity for the one year and a good deal. I had to do that.”

There don’t appear to be any hard feelings between Ozuna and the Cardinals, as he is “not disappointed” with how the winter played out. “I feel like they did not give me the opportunity, so I had to walk away. It’s business,” Ozuna said.

It ended up being a pretty quiet offseason for the Cardinals overall, who re-signed Adam Wainwright and Matt Wieters, and signed Kwang-Hyun Kim and Brad Miller but otherwise didn’t pull the trigger on any major moves, despite constant rumors. The club’s one notable trade was a multi-player deal with the Rays that saw the Cardinals actually subtract from their Major League roster, moving Jose Martinez and Randy Arozarena to Tampa Bay. At the time of that trade, there was some thought that St. Louis could be making room in its outfield to potentially accommodate Ozuna, but instead, the Cards were simply subtracting from an outfield picture that is still pretty crowded as we approach Opening Day.

It can certainly be argued that Ozuna represents a more proven MLB asset than any of Harrison Bader, Tommy Edman, Tyler O’Neill, Lane Thomas, Dylan Carlson, and Ozuna also seems like a better option at this point than veteran Dexter Fowler, who is entering his age-34 season and is coming three inconsistent years for the Cards. However, with so many outfielders in the mix, the Cardinals were seemingly more comfortable with counting on some members of this group to emerge than they were in offering Ozuna even a one-year deal.

It’s interesting to speculate on how the shape of the offseason (for the Braves, Cardinals, and the free agent market as a whole) would have been altered had Ozuna indeed taken the Cards’ qualifying offer. There was some thought last fall that he could be a candidate to take the $17.8MM deal, as two other notable would-be free agents — Jose Abreu (White Sox) and Jake Odorizzi (Twins) did with their respective teams. However, given that the Cardinals’ interest in retaining Ozuna seemed lukewarm at best, it could be that St. Louis might not have issued the QO whatsoever if they thought there was a truly serious chance that Ozuna would accept.

NL Notes: Kershaw, Martinez, Freeman, Farmer

By Jeff Todd | February 24, 2020 at 9:17pm CDT

Let’s take a look at the latest notes from the National League:

Dodgers great Clayton Kershaw was something of a surprise offseason Driveline Baseball student, Pedro Moura of The Athletic reports (subscription link). It’s by now common to hear of hurlers spending time at the renowned clinic, but the most accomplished pitcher of his generation? Kershaw says he was mostly intrigued by learning “how to create the most efficiency with your body, and how to create the most power with your body.” President of baseball ops Andrew Friedman calls it a testament to the superstar lefty’s curiosity. No doubt a devastating postseason exit played a role. It’ll be interesting to see how the effort translates as Kershaw attempts to continue to evolve as he ages. (Long-time division rival Mason Saunders prefers a somewhat different offseason regimen.)
The Cardinals seem hopeful that righty Carlos Martinez can return to being a quality rotation piece in 2020. Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch writes that the club still feels Martinez has exceptional talent. But it’s equally clear there’s still uncertainty. Manager Mike Shildt says Martinez is “out here giving himself a legitimate shot to compete” for a starting job, but notes that “what he does during the work and how he recovers between games that are going [to matter] as we start to ramp it up.” In other words, as Goold puts it, the organization believes Martinez must “embrace a more consistent between-start and pregame approach.” Whether Martinez can find his groove could make quite the difference in the Cards’ 2020 outlook, particularly with Miles Mikolas set to miss time.
We heard chatter about Freddie Freeman’s late-2019 elbow issues, but it seems the injury was a fair bit more debilitating than the Braves slugger let on. As Jeff Schultz of The Athletic reports (subscription link), Freeman dealt not only with pain, but with quite a lot of difficulties relating to his efforts to deal with the agonizing bone spurs in his joint. Schultz writes that the star first baseman relied heavily upon pain pills just to be able to play. But that came with other problems: “He had gotten into bad habits, cutting his swing short, because of the injury. The lack of sleep and accompanying stress made things worse.” The story speaks to Freeman’s determination, but it’s also a bit worrisome to read of his travails. Thankfully, it seems offseason surgery has eliminated the need for such drastic measures in 2020.
The Reds roster remains fun to watch even as Spring Training gets underway. The team placed some bat-first bets around the lineup but also installed Freddie Galvis at shortstop. He’s currently without a reserve complement, but the Reds are now looking to find one in a somewhat surprising place. As MLB.com’s Mark Sheldon writes, Kyle Farmer will be given a shot at adding reserve shortstop to his already lengthy list of responsibilities. The 29-year-old has plenty of amateur experience at the position and has spent a bit of time there as a pro, but he has primarily been tasked with playing behind the dish and at third base since being drafted. It seems the Reds are comfortable playing Farmer just about anywhere on the infield; he could be an interesting asset if he’s able to improve upon last year’s tepid offensive showing.

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