The Cardinals have been surprisingly competitive this season compared to many preseason expectations. That’s not to say the team hasn’t had its struggles though. The Bullpen, Bench, and a few full-time starters haven’t played up to par, with many fans clamoring for replacement callups. The cardinals, though are in a very strange position with their 40-man roster that has made it much more difficult to make these moves than you may think.
Hitters
From the hitters side, Walker, Wetherholt, Herrera, and Burleson are lineup staples and aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. Same goes for Masyn Winn despite his down season at the plate. Nolan Gorman and Victor Scott II have struggled, and as much as a lot of fans would like to see them sent down, neither of them are on the 40-man roster bubble at risk of being DFA’d. Nathan Church and Ramon Urias have earned their spots when healthy, and both are starting their rehab appearances this week, so a 60-Day IL stint is off the table. Top prospects Jimmy Crooks, Leo Bernal and Joshua Baez’s spots are not at risk, and Thomas Saggese likely falls into this category as well, even with his MLB struggles. This leaves Brian Torres, Nelson Velazquez, Pedro Pages, Yohel Pozo, Jose Fermin and Cesar Prieto. Torres and Velazquez are recent MLB callups who have played well so far and should have some more runway. The Cardinals like Pages as their 3rd catcher and locker room guy and should keep him on the 40 and the 26. Pozo was a player the front office loved but now that he lost his MLB spot, there isn’t a whole lot of need for him on the 40 man, even if they’d love to keep him as a veteran AAA backup to Bernal. Jose Fermin is a utility option at the MLB level who wouldn’t seem like a DFA candidate to me as much, except he is out of options. This fact alone makes him an easy choice to open up a 40 spot. Cesar Prieto has always seemed like a bit of a AAAA guy for me, he doesn’t have a ton of power or play fantastic infield defense, he’s mostly a backup 3B/2B type. He got a short shot this season and was sent back down after not performing. He could be an easy player to part ways with if needed as well.
On the hitter side of things, there are some options. It’s a good thing there are with Nootbaar nearing a return from the 60-day IL and requiring a 40 man spot to be opened for him. Torres, Velazquez, Fermin, or Saggese will be sent down, all of whom play essentially the same positions, except Velazquez who doesn’t have infield flexibility. It will really just come down to preference on who’s spot Nootbaar gets. I would love to see Saggese go down and get some reps in AAA, but that would require Pozo or Prieto’s 40-man spot to get opened likely. Another option would be to DFA Fermin, opening the 26 man and 40 man spot at the same time, even though I am a fan of Fermin’s game, I do think this is the most likely option. I think I would DFA Prieto though, and have Saggese take his spot in Memphis for the time being. Although, Fermin’s roster spot could be tough to justify once Church and Urias return as well.
For all the fans wanting to see Blaze Jordan in STL, I hope this shows why that probably isn’t going to happen soon if it hasn’t already.
Pitchers
The hitter conversation was interesting due to players coming back from injury soon, but the real 40-man intrigue recently has been on the pitching side of the ball. The starting 5 feels pretty set, I don’t see Liberatore, McGreevy, May, Pallante, or Leahy being DFA’d, sent down, or sent to the bullpen any time soon, with the exception of maybe Leahy back to the bullpen if a different starter plays their way into the MLB rotation. As for the bullpen, O’Brien, Romero, Soriano, Stanek, and Graceffo seem pretty locked into MLB spots right now. This leaves Justin Bruihl, who has no options, and the duo of Ryan Fernandez and Hunter Dobbins who were both recent callups. The rest of the healthy 40-man members are Matt Svanson, Chris Roycroft, Brycen Mautz, and Tink Hence. Hence is former top prospect who has had an injury plagued career in the minors thus far, and even with everything going wrong for him so far this season, I don’t think he’s a DFA candidate. Svanson and Mautz were both recently sent down and can’t be called up again right now. Svanson was so good last year, they’re gonna give him some runway to figure things out before his spot is in jeopardy. Brycen Mautz is one of the more advanced starting pitcher prospects and will be next in line for a spot start if the opportunity arises, his spot is safe too. Lastly Roycroft has been an option over the last few years but he was pretty dreadful to start the year in the MLB. He’s probably most at risk on the roster.
If the 40-man feels a little small on the pitching side, that’s because it is. Richard Fitts, Tekoah Roby, and Cooper Hjerpe are all taking up 40-man spots as well. All 3 had long injuries and would be good candidates for the 60-day IL if they were major leaguers. The problem is, putting them there causes them to accumulate service time and losing the Cardinals a year of control. Hjerpe is nearing a comeback from his injury, but is probably the furthest of the 3 away from being MLB ready. There’s not really anything that can be done with them either, all of them are too highly thought of as prospects to have their roster spots at risk, at the end of the day, the Cardinals just have to work around it.
Adding Hence, who might as well be considered injured as he works through velocity dips and stamina issues this season, to the group above gives us just 3 pitchers outside the MLB on the 40-man. This is what has made moves so hard as often time some of these players weren’t eligible to be called back up again. This squeeze is even after the Cardinals gave up on rule 5 draftee Matt Pushard and sent him back to the Marlins, opening up another 26 and 40 man roster spot. When a spot is eventually needed it will likely come from giving up on Roycroft, or the DFA of Justin Bruihl, who hasn’t been a successful addition thus far.
This is also why Jared Shuster, a player not of fans were expecting, has gotten 2 MLB stints. He covers multiple innings, which is nice, but more importantly they can DFA him after and not care if they lose him, which can’t be said about many of the more interesting options.
Bruce Zimmerman, Quinn Mathews, Max Rajcic, Luis Gastelum and Scott Blewett all feel MLB ready or at least close to it, but finding them a spot is what gets challenging. It feels like the trade deadline may be the time that some of these roster spots get opened, with many of the MLB relievers being reportedly on the trade block.
Takeaway
The trade deadline is going to decide a lot, but if we were to trade no one at the deadline I think we would need to DFA a hitter or 2 to make room for more pitchers on the 40 man. We’ve lucked into good health from our MLB starters but a few short IL stints would really force this teams hand in a way I don’t think they’re well set up for at the moment.
Editor’s Note: At the time of writing the 40-man roster actually had 1 empty spot still due to the loss of Matt Pushard, which was used on Lars Nootbaar on Friday, June 5th, no corresponding 40-man move was needed at that time.
