From Where Will Cardinals Roster Replacements Come?

The Sunday news of starting pitchers Jaime Garcia and Michael Wacha joining second baseman Kolten Wong on the 15-day disabled list was a major blow to the St. Louis Cardinals.

On Sunday morning, the club added outfielder Shane Robinson from Triple-A Memphis to take Wong’s roster spot. As of yet, St. Louis’ replacements for Garcia and Wacha have yet to be announced. The club needs a Wednesday starter to take Garcia’s turn. While Carlos Martinez has been pegged to cover for Wacha, a pen backfill is still required, as well.

My question is from where will these replacement players be sourced?

Currently, from St. Louis through Class-A Peoria, a total of 23 players are on the disabled list. Every one of those five rosters is already down at least one player from the normal complement of 25 active – two at St. Louis, one at Memphis, one at Springfield, two at Palm Beach and one at Peoria.

In total, the full-season clubs are already seven healthy bodies short.

Only a very limited number of players can be borrowed from the larger rosters on short-season State College and Johnson City. Few may be ready for the step up in competition, especially if multiple levels are involved. Finally, teams and players can only endure so much roster churn as the domino effect of movement across levels may come into play.

Though Springfield opens its two-day Texas League all-star break Monday, looting the Double-A roster would only be a short-term maneuver at-best.

It will be interesting to see what happens. Though St. Louis will surely be restored to full strength, will the four top affiliate clubs have to play even shorter or will other solutions be found?

To monitor every transaction made across the entire Cardinals system and view all rosters by level and position, bookmark the Roster Matrix here at The Cardinal Nation blog. This is information you cannot find in a single location anywhere else.

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