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Cardinals Option Stephen Piscotty To Triple-A

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The Cardinals announced on Monday that they’ve activated center fielder Dexter Fowler from the disabled list and optioned Stephen Piscotty to Triple-A Memphis to clear a spot on the roster.

[Related: Updated St. Louis Cardinals depth chart]

The move marks the third Opening Day regular to be optioned to the minors this season — both Randal Grichuk and Aledmys Diaz have been sent down in 2017 — and also makes this the second straight season in which St. Louis has optioned a recently extended player to the minors. In 2016, it was second baseman Kolten Wong that was sent down after struggling in the wake of signing a five-year, $25.5MM extension. Piscotty, 26, inked a six-year, $33.5MM pact prior to the 2017 season but has struggled to live up to the expectations that accompanied that deal thus far.

Piscotty batted .282/.348/.467 with 29 homers through his first 216 Major League games (905 plate appearances), prompting the Cards to make that show of faith just as the 2017 campaign got underway. However, he’s yet to find a groove at the plate this year and currently has just a .232/.340/.362 slash through 291 plate appearances. Piscotty has seen his walk rate spike to 12.7 percent this season, but his power has largely evaporated; he’s hit just six homers in 2017 and has an isolated power mark (.130) that is 54 points lower than his 2016 level (.184). He’s also missed time due to a hamstring strain and a groin strain through the season’s first four-plus months.

With Piscotty out of the picture for the time being, the Cards seem set to go with an outfield mix featuring Tommy Pham, Fowler and Grichuk. Jose Martinez, too, should factor prominently into the mix on the heels of his strong play in recent weeks. Some have even argued for Martinez to remain in the lineup on a regular basis, including Bernie Miklasz of ESPN 101, who made a lengthy pitch for the Cardinals to keep Martinez in the heart of the order earlier today.

Siegrist To Disabled List; Lyons Impressing In High-Leverage Sports

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  • Cardinals lefty Kevin Siegrist landed on the 10-day disabled list due to forearm tendinitis, as Rick Hummel of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch writes. Siegrist has been battling injuries “for a while,” per manager Mike Matheny, and his latest placement on the DL will give fellow lefty Tyler Lyons even more looks in higher-leverage spots. “We’ll be able to use him in big situations — lefty, righty, regardless,” said Matheny of Lyons. “…His stuff’s always been there. You could see him being effective in any role because the slider and curveball are that good. His changeup is really improved.” The 29-year-old Lyons is enjoying a career year with an 11.1 K/9 rate against 2.9 BB/9 and a 3.18 ERA through 34 innings in a short-relief role.

Cardinals Floated Trade Proposal For Sonny Gray

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The Cardinals “float[ed]” a trade proposal for Sonny Gray before the Athletics shipped him to the Yankees, according to MLB Network’s Ken Rosenthal. In concept, at least, St. Louis would have considered sending young outfielder Stephen Piscotty to Oakland along with a promising starter (Luke Weaver or Jack Flaherty), though it seems talks never got going. Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch looks closer at the Cards’ lack of action on deadline day. Top baseball decisionmaker John Mozeliak acknowledged “a level of frustration” that nothing got done, though he also said the team wasn’t inclined to make deals just for the sake of action. Ultimately, momentum never built toward a deal for Lance Lynn, and the club’s other chatter never materialized into a trade. You’ll want to peruse the lengthy column for all the details.

New Facebook Pages For Fans Of Yankees, Red Sox, Cubs, Braves, Cardinals

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For the past month, we have been attempting an experiment: five human-curated team Facebook pages.  Under the direction of JP Hadley, Jack Stockless, Stephanie Nevill, Chris Jervis, and Tanner Puckett, our Facebook pages for the Yankees, Red Sox, Cubs, Braves, and Cardinals have become engaging, informative, fun, and up-to-date.  Instead of the previous automated posting of MLBTR content, these pages have team news of all kinds, polls, infographics, interesting links, discussion, and of course hot stove rumors.  These pages have everything a fan could want.  If you follow any of these five teams, please give our new Facebook pages a Like today!

Eric Fryer Elects Free Agency

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  • Catcher Eric Fryer elected to become a free agent last week, the Cardinals announced.  Fryer was designated for assignment on July 21 and had been outrighted to Triple-A before opting to hit the open market.  The light-hitting catcher has played in parts of seven seasons in the bigs, most recently serving as Yadier Molina’s backup in St. Louis.

Midday Market Chatter: Nats, Dodgers, Lynn, Panik

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The Nationals have been linked to a variety of relievers even after adding two veterans earlier this month, and Chelsea Janes of the Washington Post tweets that the pursuit continues in earnest today. While it seems a variety of hurlers could be of interest, adding a pitcher capable of taking on closing duties remains a “priority,” per the report. Washington has been connected to Brandon Kintzler of the Twins today, along with a long list of other pitchers.

Here’s some more midday chatter as the non-waiver deadline looms:

  • Some Dodgers front office folks would like to see the club come away with a “wipeout left-handed reliever” today, ESPN.com’s Buster Olney tweets. That has been noted as a strong priority over recent weeks, of course, though the club has also been said to be eyeing top-tier starting pitching as well. At this point, it would seem, Zach Britton of the Orioles is the likeliest target among lefty pen pieces, though it’s still unclear whether he’ll end up being moved.
  • There’s industry chatter linking the Indians to Cardinals righty Lance Lynn, Olney tweets — a connection that was made a few days ago as well. And Cleveland also has some interest in discussing some of the excess young outfielders on the St. Louis roster, Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch adds on Twitter. The Cards are said to be willing to listen on some such position players — in particular, Tommy Pham and Randal Grichuk. It’s not immediately clear, though, whether the sides are engaged in earnest today.
  • The Angels have been rumored to be looking at second basemen of late, and recently spoke with the Giants about Joe Panik, per Olney (via Twitter). But those talks evidently did not materialize into anything the sides found worthy of further pursuit, and there’s no indication that Panik is in play today.
  • Both the Cubs and Red Sox appear to have made their moves at this point, per reports from Olney (via Twitter) and Sean McAdam of the Boston Sports Journal (Twitter link). Chicago is, however, still keeping an eye out for controllable pitching depth, while Boston will also “monitor [the] market” up until the deadline.

Astros Interested In Lance Lynn

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The American League-leading Astros have shown interest in a bevy of starting pitchers leading up to Monday’s trade deadline, and the latest is Cardinals right-hander Lance Lynn, tweets Jon Morosi of MLB Network. While the teams were recently embroiled in a hacking scandal that resulted in Major League Baseball forcing the Cardinals to send two draft picks and pay a $2MM fine to the Astros, the clubs are “comfortable” dealing with each other, per Morosi.

As Morosi points out (on Twitter), Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow is quite familiar with Lynn, having been in St. Louis’ front office when the team used a first-round pick on the hurler in the 2008 draft. Lynn has enjoyed a nice career with the Cardinals since debuting in 2011, but with his contract up at year’s end and the Redbirds sitting at 51-52 (3.5 games out of the National League Central lead and seven back of a wild-card spot), he could move in the next couple days.

With the exception of 2016, which he missed on account of Tommy John surgery, the 30-year-old Lynn has typically been good for 30-plus starts and at least 175 innings of strong work per season. That has been the case again this year in his return from the procedure, as Lynn has logged a 3.21 ERA, 7.98 K/9, 3.06 BB/9 and a 44 percent ground-ball rate across 120 2/3 frames (21 starts). Lynn has also registered an 11 percent infield fly rate, which ties him for 20th among starters, and posted a 9.1 percent swinging-strike mark that’s right in line with his career mark (9.2). Additionally, per Statcast (via Baseball Savant), Lynn’s terrific .305 expected weighted on-base average against is in line with his actual wOBA allowed (.298).

On the negative side, Lynn’s velocity hasn’t gotten back to its previous levels, and there’s some luckiness behind his stellar run prevention. FIP (4.83), xFIP (4.45) and SIERA (4.39) indicate there could be regression coming, and both Lynn’s .225 batting average on balls in play and 82.3 percent strand rate look likely to trend in the wrong direction as the season progresses.

Regardless of any red flags, Lynn’s track record and results this year have put him on several teams’ radars as Monday approaches. If the Astros win the derby for the $7.5MM man, he’d presumably join Dallas Keuchel, Lance McCullers and Charlie Morton to comprise their top four starters, though Brad Peacock and Mike Fiers have pitched so well out of their rotation over the past couple months that it would be unwise to discount them.

Latest On Lance Lynn

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Teams around the league are waiting for the Cardinals to give a clear indication that they intend to trade right-hander Lance Lynn, tweets ESPN’s Buster Olney. The impending free agent is among the most sought-after assets in a thin market for starting pitching, Olney adds. Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch suggests, though, that the Cardinals haven’t exactly made Lynn’s availability a secret. St. Louis is “in the process of generating a market and offers” for Lynn, according to Goold, though they’re also still trying to acquire a bat to put in the middle of their lineup. Goold speculates that once Sonny Gray is finally traded, other clubs may then pivot to the Redbirds and make their best offer for Lynn, who hasn’t had any substantive talks with Cardinals brass about an extension. The Yankees have interest in Lynn, per Goold, who also notes that the Dodgers and Indians have scouted St. Louis recently. MLB.com’s Jon Morosi tweets that the Royals have also had recent talks with the Cardinals about Lynn.

Nationals Scouting Tommy Pham, Trevor Rosenthal

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  • The Nationals have scouted Cardinals outfielder Tommy Pham along with reliever Trevor Rosenthal, according to Jon Morosi of MLB.com (via Twitter). As ever, it’s hard to read too much into this sort of report, but it does seem notable that the Nats would be putting any thought into an outfielder at this point. While the team has dealt with injuries — highlighted by Adam Eaton but also including Jayson Werth, Michael Taylor, and others — indications of late have been that outfield additions wouldn’t be pursued in earnest.

Yankees Could Consider Lance Lynn

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  • If the Cardinals ultimately make Lance Lynn available, the Yankees would have interest in the right-hander, though Sonny Gray remains New York’s top target. Lynn is a free agent at season’s end, and as such wouldn’t help fill any of the upcoming voids in the Yankees’ rotation after the 2017 season.
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