Steven Matz Has Rehab Setback, Won’t Return For At Least 4-6 Weeks
Steven Matz‘s time on the injured list has been extended after the left-hander hit a setback in his rehab work. As Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol told The Athletic’s Katie Woo (links to X) and other reporters, Matz came out his Double-A rehab start last Sunday with more tightness in his back, and the starter has now been shut down for two weeks. Marmol gave a 4-6 week timeline as a projected best-case scenario for Matz to return to the active roster, as Matz’s throwing program will have to more or less be started from scratch after his shutdown period.
It’s a tough break for Matz, who had banked three rehab starts already and was seemingly on track to be activated from the injured list around the start of July. Instead, he’ll now be sidelined for another month at the very least, and more realistically probably won’t be back until some time in August.
Matz made six starts and posted a 6.18 ERA over 27 2/3 innings before going on the IL in early May with a lower back strain, so it has been a rough season all around for the 33-year-old. All told, not much has gone right for Matz since signing his four-year, $44MM free agent deal with St. Louis in November 2021, as various injuries have limited the southpaw to 180 2/3 innings since Opening Day 2022. He looked to be turning things around with a solid 3.86 ERA over 105 innings last year, but neither the production or the good health has been there for Matz this year.
Since it doesn’t seem like Matz will make it back prior to the July 30 trade deadline, it only exacerbates the Cardinals’ need for rotation help. The club’s top four of Sonny Gray, Lance Lynn, Kyle Gibson, and Miles Mikolas has been more solid than outstanding, but the quartet has at least been reliably able to take the ball and eat innings. Finding a fifth starter has been an issue for the Cards, as none of Matz, Matthew Liberatore, Andre Pallante, or Zack Thompson have provided much help in what has become a bit of a revolving door of a rotation spot.
Like pretty much the entire National League, the Cardinals are in something of a holding pattern with more than a month to do before the trade deadline. St. Louis is an even 37-37 on the season, but the Cards are out of the last wild card spot on percentage points alone due to a lot of parity in the Senior Circuit — only four NL teams entered Saturday’s action with records above .500.
If this uncertainty continues over the next month, it will leave St. Louis and many other teams unclear about how aggressive they should be with their deadline shopping, and it wouldn’t be a shock to see the Cardinals explore selling if they hit a slump and fall out of the race. Given how the Cards are coming off a rare losing season, president of baseball operations John Mozeliak could possibly feel more pressure to “go for it” in order to get the team back to its customary dose of October baseball, though Mozeliak has traditionally made more mid-level deadline moves rather than true blockbusters during his tenure in the St. Louis front office.
Cardinals Place Ivan Herrera On 10-Day Injured List, Select Nick Raposo
The Cardinals announced that catcher Ivan Herrera has been placed (retroactive to June 19) on the 10-day injured list due to lower back tightness. Backstop Nick Raposo will replace Herrera on the active roster after St. Louis selected Raposo’s minor league contract. To create a 40-man roster spot for Raposo, the Cardinals moved Keynan Middleton from the 15-day IL to the 60-day IL — Middleton underwent flexor tendon surgery earlier this month and will miss the rest of the season.
With Willson Contreras already on the injured list, the Cardinals have had to dig deeper into the depth chart to replace both their starting catcher and now their top backup option in Herrera. The good news for the Cards is that Contreras might be back in action fairly soon, as he is already on a minor league rehab assignment after undergoing forearm surgery in early May. Contreras was behind the plate yesterday for Triple-A Memphis, and St. Louis manager Oliver Marmol told reporters (including Jeff Jones of the Belleville News-Democrat) that Contreras is slated to catch again today, to gauge how well he holds up to catching in consecutive games. A DH day is scheduled for Contreras tomorrow, so Monday represents the absolute earliest that he could return to the active roster.
Herrera has capably held the fort with Contreras sidelined, as Herrera has hit .279/.340/.378 over 192 plate appearances for a 108 wRC+. While his Statcast numbers don’t stand out on the whole, Herrera’s .359 xwOBA is well above his .319 wOBA, even if that number is somewhat balanced out by a .346 BABIP. St. Louis had been trying to find playing time for both Herrera and (as a DH) Contreras even when both were healthy, though the team’s attempts to use both in the lineup will have to wait at least until Herrera recovers from his back problems.
Pedro Pages has been working as Herrera’s backup and will now likely get the majority of starts until one of the Cardinals top two catchers gets healthy. Backing up Pages is Raposo, who will be making his Major League debut the first time he appears in a game. Raposo began his pro career by signing with the Cardinals in 2020, and went undrafted due to the pandemic-shortened five-round nature of the 2020 draft.
From there, Raposo made a pretty quick rise through the St. Louis farm system, playing at Triple-A Memphis in each of the last two years. He has batted a modest .204/.274/.340 over 275 PA at the Triple-A level, but the Cardinals aren’t expecting much from Raposo’s bat over what might be a cup of coffee stint in the majors if Contreras is able to return this week.
Cardinals To Recall Adam Kloffenstein For MLB Debut
The Cardinals will recall righty Adam Kloffenstein before tomorrow evening’s game with the Giants at Birmingham’s Rickwood Field, as first reported by Ari Alexander of KPRC-2 (on X). It’ll be the 23-year-old’s major league debut. Kloffenstein is already on the 40-man roster. He would have been eligible for the Rule 5 draft last winter, so St. Louis selected his contract in November.
Kloffenstein was a second-round pick of the Blue Jays out of a Texas high school back in 2018. He was pitching in Double-A last summer when the Jays packaged him alongside Sem Robberse in the deal to plug Jordan Hicks into the back of the bullpen. St. Louis prioritized upper minors pitching in their deadline swaps of Hicks, Jack Flaherty and Jordan Montgomery.
The Cards immediately pushed Kloffenstein to Triple-A Memphis. He finished last season with nine outings there, tossing 39 frames of 3.00 ERA ball. He has worked out of the Memphis rotation this year with similar results. Kloffenstein carries a 3.97 ERA over 77 innings. His 21.9% strikeout rate and 9.4% walk percentage are pedestrian, though he’s getting ground-balls at a solid 48% clip.
Andre Pallante gets the start tomorrow with Miles Mikolas and Sonny Gray closing out the weekend series. (The teams are off on Friday to travel from Birmingham to St. Louis for the final two games of the set.) That suggests Kloffenstein could get a look from the bullpen for his first MLB work. He has started all but two of the appearances in his minor league career. Baseball America ranked him 28th in the St. Louis system over the winter, writing that he profiles as a depth starter or grounder-oriented long reliever.
NL Central Notes: Contreras, Edman, Pirates, Bukauskas
William Contreras underwent concussion testing following the Brewers‘ 5-4 win over the Reds today, after the star catcher was involved with a collision with Stuart Fairchild on the game’s final play. Fairchild was thrown out at home plate trying to score from second base on a Santiago Espinal single, and Contreras was down on the ground for a few moments after being clipped by Fairchild’s forearm.
Placement on the concussion-related injured list would keep Contreras out of action for a minimum of seven days, though it isn’t yet clear if an IL stint is under consideration. It probably seems likely that he won’t be in Monday’s lineup for precautionary reasons, and the Brewers can only hope that the star catcher has avoided any kind of head injury. Contreras had two more hits today to raise his season-long slash line to .305/.367/.467 over 316 plate appearances, for an outstanding 137 wRC+ and 2.6 fWAR (17th in all of baseball).
More from around the NL Central…
- From one Contreras brother to another, as Willson Contreras‘ speedy recovery from forearm surgery might take another quick step with a minor league rehab assignment. Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol told Jeff Jones of the Belleville News-Democrat (links to X) and other reporters that Contreras might begin play at one of the team’s affiliates as early as Tuesday, if not necessarily Triple-A Memphis. Contreras hasn’t played since May 7 when his left forearm was fractured by a J.D. Martinez swing, and he has made remarkable progress considering the 10-week timeline initially projected after his surgery. The catcher has already been taking part in baseball activities for over a week.
- In other Cardinals injury news, Tommy Edman seems to be closing in on his first game action of the season, as the utiltyman is moving his rehab work to the team’s Spring Training complex in Jupiter, Florida. Edman had arthroscopic wrist surgery last October, and his recovery has been slowed by continued discomfort in his wrist. Today’s news is a good sign that Edman is finally starting to ramp up, even if a lengthy rehab process will still be needed after missing so much time.
- While the Pirates haven’t gotten much from their relief corps this season, GM Ben Cherington said the team won’t change its lower-cost approach to finding bullpen help. In his weekly radio appearance on 93.7FM (hat tip to Andrew Destin of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette), said “we’re going to keep taking shots on less-proven guys who have pitch qualities that we believe can translate to major league success…and over time, we’re gonna hit on enough of those and it’s gonna add up to a good bullpen.” These pitchers could come from both outside the organization and from within Pittsburgh’s own farm system. If Cherington’s tactics seem limited, it should be noted that virtually every team in baseball tries the same methods, given how reliever performance can vary so greatly from season to season and how unheralded pitchers emerge every season to become ace bullpen arms. This past winter actually saw the Bucs deviate from their usual plan by signing Aroldis Chapman to a one-year, $10.5MM deal, though Chapman’s shaky performance has led to a lot of second-guessing on that acquisition.
- Circling back to the Brewers for the final item, manager Pat Murphy told reporters (including Curt Hogg of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel) that JB Bukauskas will undergo an MRI after suffering a setback. Bukauskas has been out since mid-April due to a lat strain, and pitched in his first rehab outing last Thursday but emerged with continued soreness. Bukauskas has been in the Brewers’ organization since being claimed off the Mariners’ waiver wire in April 2023, though he has battled multiple injuries during his time in Milwaukee.
Cardinals Notes: Contreras, Matz, Rotation, Hence
Cardinals fans received some excellent news recently as injured catcher Willson Contreras told reporters (including Jeff Jones of the Belleville News-Democrat) yesterday that he’s been cleared to resume baseball activity after a CT scan revealed good news regarding his surgically-repaired forearm. Contreras has already caught a bullpen for right-hander Andre Pallante and today he resumed hitting. Contreras indicated that he hopes to return to big league action by the end of the month, telling reporters that “it won’t be July” when he returns.
It’s an incredibly impressive turnaround for Contreras, who was initially expected to miss ten weeks of action after a swing of the bat from J.D. Martinez collided with his forearm back in May. Instead, he was cleared to resume baseball activities just one month to the day after sustaining the injury, and appears to be ramping up fairly quickly. A return before the end of June would place Contreras’s return at just six or seven weeks after the injury, though manager Oli Marmol pumped the brakes on talk of a quick return in conversation with reporters (including those at MLB.com). Marmol noted that the club will monitor how Contreras progresses over the coming weeks and lean on the team’s medical staff as they determine a more specific timeline for his return.
Whenever Contreras ultimately returns, he figures to be a huge asset to the Cardinals. The 32-year-old slugger was slashing an incredible .280/.398/.551 with a 171 wRC+ in 128 trips to the plate at the time of his injury and stood out as the hitter leading a scuffling Cardinals team that fell to a 15-21 record on the day of Contreras’s injury. While their catcher has been on the mend, St. Louis has surged back towards .500 and now sports a 30-33 record that places them just one game back of the final NL Wild Card spot. If St. Louis can manage to hang around the Wild Card race over the next few weeks and Contreras picks up where he left off upon his return, the catcher could help to further transform their offense as they look to establish themselves as contenders ahead of the July 30 trade deadline.
Contreras isn’t the only player progressing towards a return for the Cardinals this month, as veteran southpaw Steven Matz is scheduled to make his second rehab start on Tuesday at the Double-A level as he works his way back from a lower back strain that sidelined him at the end of April. As noted by MLB.com’s Injury Tracker, Matz is slated to throw 40 pitches during his next rehab start, meaning that there still figures to be quite a ways to go until he returns to the big league club. The Cardinals are reportedly planning on stretching Matz out into the 75-80 pitch range before he comes off the IL and steps back into the club’s big league rotation, a goal that will likely keep him on the shelf until sometime near the end of the month if he continues building up at his current pace.
In Matz’s absence, the Cardinals have not been able to settle on a fifth starter to fill the void behind Sonny Gray, Lance Lynn, Kyle Gibson, and Miles Mikolas. The club has used both right-hander Andre Pallante and lefty Matthew Liberatore to follow up that quartet in the weeks since Matz was placed on the shelf, but the duo has combined for a 7.11 ERA across five starts in Matz’s absence. Those struggles have led Marmol to be non-committal regarding who will take the ball when the fifth spot in the rotation is due up tomorrow against the Rockies, though Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch notes that Marmol has noted the starter will be chosen from “options already on the roster,” indicating that they won’t look toward other alternatives beyond Pallante or Liberatore just yet.
Right-handers Sem Robberse and Adam Kloffenstein are already on the club’s 40-man roster and could theoretically be options to fill out the club’s rotation should St. Louis eventually decide to make a change, but the pair have ERAs of 4.46 and 4.50 respectively at the Triple-A level this year with no big league experience. Cardinals fans are surely hopeful that they’ll see right-hander Tink Hence, the club’s top prospect who has dominated the Double-A level during his age-21 season this year, impact the big league team at some point this year.
Fans hoping to see Hence in St. Louis this season were dealt a scare earlier this week when he was was pulled from his most recent Double-A start after just two innings. Fortunately, MLB.com notes that Cardinals president of baseball operations John Mozeliak told reporters that Hence’s removal was due to cramping rather than any sort of serious issue and that he should be ready to make his next start for the Double-A Springfield Cardinals. Through 11 starts this year, Hence has pitched to a 3.19 ERA with a 2.82 FIP in 53 2/3 innings of work while striking out a fantastic 32.4% of batters faced. It would hardly be a surprise to see those numbers earn Hence a promotion to Triple-A in the near future; after all, St. Louis promoted him from High-A to Double-A after eleven similarly excellent starts last year.
Keynan Middleton To Undergo Season-Ending Flexor Tendon Surgery
Cardinals right-hander Keynan Middleton will undergo surgery to repair his flexor tendon and will miss the entire 2024 season. Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch was among those to relay the news on X.
Middleton, 30, signed with the Cardinals this offseason on a one-year deal with a $6MM guarantee. He’s making a $5MM salary this year and there’s a $1MM buyout on a $6MM club option for 2025.
The Cards were hoping to install Middleton as a key piece of their relief unit after his strong 2023 season. Between the White Sox and Yankees, Middleton tossed 50 2/3 innings last year with a 3.38 earned run average. His 10.8% walk rate was a bit on the high side but he also struck out 30.2% of batters faced and got grounders on 56.6% of balls in play.
Middleton was undoubtedly hoping to build on that campaign and put another strong year together, but it will instead be a lost year for him. He was shut down in the middle of March due to a forearm strain and began the season on the injured list. He received a platelet-rich plasma injection while trying to recover and progressed far enough that he began a rehab assignment. But he then experienced renewed discomfort and was shut down. Now that it has been determined surgery is necessary, he’ll be sidelined for the remainder of the year.
Injuries have been an unfortunately common occurrence for Middleton in his career. He underwent Tommy John surgery back in May of 2018, wiping out the remainder of that season and much of the subsequent campaign as well. In later years, he made trips to the injured list due to a right biceps strain, right elbow inflammation, a right ankle strain and a sprained left great toe. Even last year, when he was healthy enough to make 51 appearances, he missed a couple of weeks due to right shoulder inflammation.
He’s already on the 15-day IL and will be transferred to the 60-day version whenever the Cards need his roster spot for some other transaction. He’ll spend the rest of the year rehabbing and the Cards will then have to decide whether or not they want to bring him back for 2025, a net $5MM decision. Flexor tendon surgery generally has a lesser recovery timetable than other major elbow surgeries and it’s possible Middleton will be healthy by next spring, but the Cards might just take the buyout and keep the $5MM available for other moves, as they could always circle back to Middleton later in the offseason if he’s recovering well.
The Cards have Ryan Helsley as their closer and will give setup work to guys like JoJo Romero and Andrew Kittredge for now. If the club stays in the playoff race for the next few weeks, they will likely pursue some bullpen help prior to the deadline.
Tony Scott Passes Away
Former major league player and coach Tony Scott recently passed away, per various sources, including Brent Maguire of MLB.com. Scott was 72 years old. A cause of death was not provided.
Scott was born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1951. He attended Withrow High School in Cincinnati and the Montreal Expos selected him out of that school in the 71st round of the 1969 draft. He eventually made it to the big leagues with the Expos in 1973, the first of 11 major league seasons he would play in as a speed-and-defense outfielder.
That first season saw him get into 11 games but mostly as a pinch runner or defensive replacement, as he only stepped to the plate once. It was fairly similar in 1974, as he got into 19 contests but only receive eight plate appearances.
He finally got somewhat regular playing time in 1975, getting 159 trips to the plate over 92 games for Montreal that year. He stole five bases but was caught six times and hit just .182/.258/.238. He was kept in the minors in 1976 but performed well for Triple-A Denver, slashing .311/.361/.503 while stealing 18 bases in 24 tries.
In November of that year, he was traded to the Cardinals alongside Steve Dunning and Pat Scanlon, with Bill Greif, Sam Mejías and Ángel Torres going the other way. Scott got fairly regular playing time in St. Louis, getting into 487 games during the 1977-80 seasons. He hit .258/.313/.343 in his 1,663 plate appearances and also swiped 77 bags.
Midway through the 1981 campaign, the Cards traded him to the Astros for Joaquín Andújar. Scott played a fairly similar role with the Astros for a few years before being released in 1984. He returned to his original organization by signing with the Expos in June of that year, spending a couple of months with them in what eventually turned out to be his final stint as a major league player. He finished his playing career with 991 games played and 699 hits, including 17 home runs. He batted .249 and stole 125 bases.
After his playing career ended, Scott pivoted to coaching. He worked as a minor league coach in the Phillies’ system from 1989 to 2000 and was a part of the major league coaching staff in 2000 and 2001.
We at MLBTR send our condolences to Scott’s family, friends, former teammates and coaches and all those mourning him at this time.
Keynan Middleton To Receive Second Opinion On Forearm Strain
Cardinals right-hander Keynan Middleton is set to receive a second opinion regarding his strained forearm, manager Oli Marmol told reporters (including MLB.com’s John Denton) yesterday. Denton added earlier today that Middleton is set to travel to New York to receive the second opinion from Yankees physician Dr. Christian Ahmad on Monday, with Denton noting that Ahmad is described as an “expert” on Tommy John surgery on his business website.
That’s certainly an ominous update regarding Middleton, who the Cardinals signed to be a key piece of their set-up mix this year but has yet to pitch a regular season inning in a Cardinals uniform due to the injury, which sidelined him during Spring Training. The 30-year-old seemed to be nearing a return in mid-May but the Cardinals relayed last week that he had suffered a setback and that the club was now concerned about damage to his ulnar collateral ligament. Surgery on Middleton’s UCL, whether it were an internal brace procedure or Tommy John surgery, would surely end the veteran’s season before it could begin while potentially impacting the 2025 campaign for the righty as well.
Prior to signing with the Cardinals on a one-year, $6MM deal this past winter, Middleton delivered an impressive 2023 campaign split between the White Sox and the Yankees where he pitched to a 3.38 ERA in 51 appearances. He performed especially well in 14 1/3 innings of work down the stretch with the Yankees last year that saw him post a 1.88 ERA while striking out 30.4% of batters faced. Last season constituted something of a breakout campaign for the 30-year-old, as he entered the 2023 campaign with a rather pedestrian ERA of 4.01 for his career across 143 2/3 innings of work with the Angels, Mariners, and Diamondbacks.
If Middleton were to go under the knife, it would be a tough blow for a St. Louis club that has also weathered injuries to Nick Robertson and Giovanny Gallegos in its bullpen mix. Fortunately for the Cardinals, they’re better situated to weather the loss of a high-upside relief arm than many clubs thanks to the fantastic performance the club has gotten out of closer Ryan Helsley, lefty JoJo Romero, and veteran Andrew Kitteredge at the back of their bullpen. That trio has combined to post a 2.26 ERA in 75 2/3 innings of work while racking up 75 strikeouts against just 16 walks as a group.
While the news regarding Middleton is certainly ominous, Marmol also provided a more positive injury update yesterday, as relayed by Denton (X link). Left-hander Steven Matz is set to throw what Marmol described as a “full intensity” bullpen session tomorrow, and if the veteran recovers well in the aftermath of that session he could head out for a minor league rehab assignment in the near future. That would be a significant relief for the Cardinals, who have been forced to turn to depth options like Matthew Liberatore and Andre Pallante to fill out the club’s rotation while Matz has been out nursing a protruding disc in his back. Matz had struggled to a 6.18 ERA in six starts with the club prior to going on the injured list but could be a valuable piece once healthy, as indicated by his 3.86 ERA (114 ERA+) and 3.75 FIP in 105 innings of work split between the rotation and bullpen last year.
Cardinals Place Lars Nootbaar On Injured List
The Cardinals announced Friday that outfielder Lars Nootbaar has been placed on the 10-day injured list, retroactive to May 30, with an oblique strain. Infielder Jose Fermin is up from Triple-A Memphis to take Nootbaar’s spot on the active roster. St. Louis also announced that reliever Giovanny Gallegos is headed to Memphis on a minor league rehab assignment.
Nootbaar, 26, missed the first two weeks of the season with a rib injury and will now head back to the injured list. He’s out to a .234/.337/.404 start to the season, with plenty of underlying indicators that improved performance could be on the horizon once healthy. Nootbaar’s 13.4% walk rate remains characteristically excellent, as does his 20.6% chase rate on pitches off the plate. He’s been slightly more aggressive on pitches within the strike zone this season, and Nootbaar’s 92.1 mph average exit velocity, 21.7% line-drive rate and massive 52.8% hard-hit rate are all career-high marks. Given the plate discipline and quality of contact, an uptick in his offensive output seems quite likely — provided this oblique injury doesn’t hinder him upon his return.
With Nootbaar headed to the injured list, the Cardinals will likely give more playing time in right field to Alec Burleson and Dylan Carlson. The switch-hitting Carlson is the vastly superior defender but has also posted a woeful .139/.244/.139 slash in a tiny sample of 41 plate appearances. Burleson is a poor defender but sports a far more impactful .289/.321/.428 slash with five homers in 160 turns at the plate.
Fermin was up with the big league club earlier this season but went just 3-for-18 with a trio of singles in that brief look. The 25-year-old has decimated Triple-A pitching this season, raking at a .346/.461/.615 pace with six homers and 10 doubles to along with a 10-for-10 showing in attempted stolen bases. He’s walked 19 times — a hearty 14.8% rate — against a minuscule five punchouts in Memphis this year (3.9%).
Gallegos, 32, allowed a dozen runs in nine innings this season before landing on the injured list due to a shoulder impingement. It was a wildly out-of-character showing for the typically solid Gallegos — one that included a career-low 92.5 mph average fastball. From 2019-23, Gallegos was one of the Cardinals’ steadiest bullpen arms, logging a combined 3.14 ERA with a very strong 30.7% strikeout rate against just a 6.4% walk rate in 238 1/3 innings.
Gallegos is in the second season of a two-year, $11MM contract that includes a $6.5MM club option. If he looks like his typical self in his return from the IL, that’ll be an easy call for the Cardinals to pick up, but the right-hander’s disastrous start to the 2024 season has rendered what looked like a straightforward call something of an open question.
Keynan Middleton To Undergo MRI Following Setback In Rehab
Cardinals right-hander Keynan Middleton is headed for an MRI on his right elbow and forearm this Friday, manager Oli Marmol tells the Cardinals beat (X link via John Denton of MLB.com). There’s now concern that he could require a repair or replacement of the ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow, Denton adds.
Middleton, 30, signed a one-year, $6MM free agent deal over the winter but has yet to pitch in the majors this season. He began the year on the injured list with a forearm strain suffered in spring training. The right-hander had recently progressed to a minor league rehab assignment, tossing four innings between May 14 and May 23. However, Middleton walked three of the six batters he faced and tossed a wild pitch in his final rehab appearance on May 23. He’s now headed for imaging after reporting renewed discomfort.
Any UCL procedure, be it a repair (likely an internal brace) or a replacement (Tommy John surgery) would sideline Middleton for the remainder of the season and prevent him from throwing a single big league pitch in a Cardinals uniform (barring a reunion on a minor league deal in the offseason). The Cards hold a $6MM club option with a $1MM buyout, but that’s sure to be declined if he winds up requiring elbow surgery. Even if Middleton is able to avoid going under the knife, the latest updates make it fair to expect a lengthy absence.
The Cardinals signed Middleton hoping he could be a key member of the bullpen. The former Angels setup man and closer took several years to get his career back on track following 2018 Tommy John surgery and only reemerged as a viable late-inning arm last season. From 2020-22, Middleton pitched just 60 major league innings and logged a 5.10 ERA with a 19.1% strikeout rate against a 10.7% walk rate. That led to a minor league deal with the White Sox in the 2022-23 offseason — a move that paid off handsomely for both player and team.
Middleton wound up pitching well enough with the Sox to emerge as a trade candidate. He was flipped to the Yankees in exchange for minor league pitcher Juan Carela, a now-22-year-old righty who’s tossed 66 2/3 innings of 3.24 ERA ball in High-A since the swap. Middleton continued to pitch well in pinstripes down the stretch, although he missed about three weeks in September due to shoulder inflammation. Ultimately, he finished out the season with a combined 50 2/3 innings of 3.38 ERA ball between the two clubs, fanning 30.2% of his opponents against a less-encouraging 10.8% walk rate.
For the Cardinals, Middleton is one of several bullpen arms on the shelf. Right-handers Giovanny Gallegos (shoulder impingement), Nick Robertson (elbow inflammation) and Riley O’Brien (flexor strain) are each on the injured list as well — the 60-day IL in the latter’s case. They’ve again leaned on strikeout machine Ryan Helsley in the ninth inning, but the setup corps doesn’t look the way the club expected with both Middleton and Gallegos out.
Offseason trade acquisition Andrew Kittredge has joined lefties JoJo Romero and Matthew Liberatore in picking up meaningful leverage work recently. Liberatore has also started three games but owns an 8.10 ERA out of the rotation compared to a 3.63 mark in the ‘pen. It’s possible Rule 5 pickup Ryan Fernandez could work his way into more prominent spots as well. The 25-year-old notched his first MLB hold and his first save within the past two weeks. He’s sitting on a 3.32 ERA, 28.3% strikeout rate, 8.7% walk rate and 44.6% grounder rate. That strong production, coupled with his recent late-inning usage, could be a portent for a bigger role as the season wears on.