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Did the Cardinals receive what was once termed as either, “an undisclosed amount of cash” or “cash considerations” during today’s flurry of activity? I mean, let’s face facts…Cash is king and is always the primary consideration simply because you can buy all kinds of stuff with it.
Cardinals receive what was once termed as either, “an undisclosed amount of cash” or “cash considerations”
They traded away some International cap, so that is cash they will not be spending.
They brought Dobbins up (I assume he was there traveling with the team) but also acquired Ferguson. When Ferguson arrives, a pitcher needs to leave. The Cardinals may tell him to wait a few days to report to give Dobbins another piggyback start before sending him back down. Other options are an option for Graceffo or Gastellum or a DFA of Stanek or Stryzecki. I’m curious which they choose.
That’s really disappointing as I was hoping to create some substantial cash flow during today’s proceedings. Seems the proverbial wolf is always at the door…Oh well, maybe we can apply for some government assisted aid and buy another one of those big TV’s…
All these trades are producing instant dividends as the Redbirds are making the mighty Yankees look bad in front of their loyal Big Apple fans.
I really like the May/Romero trade and that return looks great. I would have preferred to keep Nootbaar instead of trading him for that return.
Stanek did end up being so bad no one wanted him. They should just DFA him.
And speaking of DFAs I guess no one wanted to give something up for him to jump the waiver process for Tink Hence. Maybe he can get through waivers but I kind of doubt it. Some team that traded away some 40 man guys will try to claim him and stash him away.
Flaherty had performed horribly that year to destroy his value and the return on him was never stated to be good.
There wasn’t really a point in not trading May and Romero. They were going to be free agents and may as well get something for them.
Eagen looks interesting, and I’d slide him into that list of players ranked 7-20. Hard to see Arizona’s 5th prospect not being interesting. Not only are his numbers likely elevated by pitching in a hard place to pitch, he had a terrible April but seems to have pitched better since. ERA of 8.71 in April, then 3.79, 4.37, 3.24. And his walks dropped in July, just 5 in 25 innings, after 11 in 22 in June.
Santana seems like a lottery ticket for a lefty reliever.
We won’t know the names on the PTBNL. There are probably conditions where the player(s) we can pick from depends on what Noot does.
I can’t imagine them dropping Stanek. Getting Ferguson tells me they want to have some veteran bullpen work for the end of the season. They’ve seen enough games lost late, and I’d think that a weak bullpen has weighed on the offense.
I’d imagine either Strzelecki or Gastelum gets sent down. Is there something they’ve identified for Gastelum to work on in AAA for a bit?
I’m curious with Dobbins coming back which of the 6 starters goes to the pen. After the last game, and after getting a lefty reliever I don’t think it’s Libby, so Dobbins seems like the most sense, unless they decide to limit Leahy’s innings. But he’s only thrown 107 and he threw 88 last year, so seems like they would be a way from the point they’d need to limit his innings.
My first impression is I like what we have done. If you can get a couple of guys that will be in your top 10 prospect list for guys who are not signed after this year, that is progress. And none of May, Romero nor Nootbaar are big enough difference makers that they would put us over the top.
If May was more consistent, then he would be a guy you might want. But so far he has not been. My sense is he will be real good in Milwaukee down the stretch. That organization just seems to bring the best out in players. Good luck to those guys, and welcome youngsters!
As TLR said, they are men, not machines.
A message from Lars Nootbaar to Cardinals fans ❤️ pic.twitter.com/5ue4IaXd3T
— St. Louis Cardinals (@Cardinals) August 3, 2026
I watched that and was immediately sorry. It made me so sad. I knew it was coming, but you can never totally prepare yourself or check your emotions when it happens.
Bad example Rats. As Albert said, Flaherty’s value wasn’t high at the time. And despite our minor league system being far worse back then, none of those prospects we got back were top ranked in the Top 20 (I don’t think at least). We got Rom, who was not exciting at all, Prieto, who is still around and has been called up a couple times with poor results, and a lower level pitching prospect (name escaping me at the moment) who was interesting, but got hurt and became ineffective. I didn’t like that trade at the time because we watered down what little value Flaherty had for 3 fliers.
A better example to make your case is Jordan Hicks. In that trade, we got Sem Robberse and Adam Kloffenstein who both made it into the teens in our prospect lists. Kloffenstein threw one big league inning and was released the next season. Robberse hasn’t made it yet and has been hurt a lot. Basically no value for what at the time was an excellent bullpen pitcher.
The other big trade that deadline was Mo dealing Montgomery for Saggese and Roby. This one still could pay off but hasn’t yet. I didn’t really like this trade at the time. Roby looks fantastic when he’s healthy, which isn’t often. Saggese came over and won the MVP of the Texas League but hasn’t really done all that well in the big leagues. Another example of prospects being risky.
With prospects you have to know that most are not going to be major leaguers – much less stars.
You have to pile up the numbers, play the odds, and hope you read the tea leaves right plus that the injury gods don’t frown on you.
The organization is where it is.
Chip Carey must wonder if he’s ever going to get to call a playoff series – much less advance.
It is interesting that they bought the reliever instead of turning one of the starter prospects into a reliever for the duration. It makes me wonder what they are going to do for a pen next year, assuming there is a next year.
I found that interesting too BB. That one is a bit of a head scratcher. I’m not sure why they didn’t just give the job to Mautz and let him try.
In his last 7 outings, Mautz has given up 3, 0, 0, 2, 0, 3, and 3 runs. That’s 11 runs in 11.1 ip, with 12 walks. I’d guess they don’t think he’s ready, but think he has enough to offer that if they can let him develop more before throwing him to the wolves he might be ok.
Springfield has a 3 game lead in the 2nd half, and the 2nd place team doesn’t really count since they won the first half, so it’s really a 6 game lead.
Are they creating a core–Doyle, Franklin, Hjerpe, Eagen, Lin, Clarke when through rehab, maybe even bullpen guys like Santana and Clemente; position players Raniel, Je Baez, Ortiz, Ragsdale, Peete, Cho–to go for the Texas League championship this year and the International League championship next year, and then play in St. Louis as Memphis Mafia 2 in 2028?
A very close friend of mine played for the Beaumont Golden Gators. He claimed he was a better hitter than John Kruk, but that Kruk could drink more beer and eat more crawfish.
Gags said:
In his last 7 outings, Mautz has given up 3, 0, 0, 2, 0, 3, and 3 runs. That’s 11 runs in 11.1 ip, with 12 walks. I’d guess they don’t think he’s ready, but think he has enough to offer that if they can let him develop more before throwing him to the wolves he might be ok.
Agreed. In neither of Mautz’s most recent two outings, could he get three outs before being pulled. Over his most recent four appearances, he gave up eight earned runs for an ERA of 18.50.
That doesn’t scream “I’m ready” to me. In all fairness, Mautz has only been a reliever for three weeks so giving him more time to adapt to pitching more frequently seems a good idea. It’s not like there is any reason to rush him.
All Ferguson cost is international cap money that it looks to me like they weren’t going to use. He will be gone after the season and by then, perhaps Mautz will be ready. In the meantime, they are at least trying to replace Romero for the rest of the season.
However, Kyle agrees with those who want to see Mautz now. We discussed this very subject on the podcast.
re Sandro Santana, the 21-year-old reliever in the Nootbaar trade. A total of 892 minor league pitchers have thrown 100+ innings since the start of the 2025 season. Among those 892 twirlers, Santana ranks 14th with a 2.47 ERA. (With relievers I like looking at multiple years of data, sample sizes are so modest.)
Over those nearly two full seasons, left-handed batters in particular have struggled versus the undersized southpaw, with just 23 total bases in 128 at-bats. That’s a slugging percentage of .180. Even more impressively, this year, across High-A and Double-A, lefty bats have zero XBH against Sandro.
All in all, Santana is my 2nd-favorite acquisition today, after Frias. I would’ve never said that kind of thing about a relief pitcher 20 years ago, or maybe even 10. But bullpen guys are eating more innings every year, and it’s still trending in that unfortunate direction. I mean, less than a month ago a perfectly healthy Matt Liberatore was pulled after 6 shutout innings and a paltry 71 pitches. I’d wager you could count on one hand the number of times that happened in major league baseball history, prior to this season. And as insane as that was, Ollie Marmol is not that much crazier than the typical MLB manager, when it comes to aggressively pulling his starter.
May/Romero trade, A-
Noot, C+The chief concern with the Brewers trade — as others have noted — is that in general Milwaukee is much, much, much, much, much smarter right now than the Cardinals. In fact, they’ve been the smarter organization for a decade or so, at evaluating both their own talent and that of other organizations. So if the Redbird return on the trade seems too good to be true, then it probably is.
Hopefully the more prospects you have then some will break through…they are definitely gonna need arms both bullpen and rotation if there is a next season as I think it’s pretty apparent DeWitt is not going to be adding much to payroll anytime soon …I would expect the Cardinals payroll to be similar or a mirror to what the Brewers is going forward.
While prospects in trades don’t always workout there are some that do…I seem to remember the Cardinals picking up Marcel Ozuna from the Marlins for 3 prospects….Magnus Sierra, Zac Gallen and Sandy Alcantra….The Cardinals still have not recovered from the starting pitching prospects they gave up in this trade, and have been short on top of the rotation Starting pitchers ever since the trade
Mo went for high floor, Bloom goes for high cieling. Plus Mo did not apper to recognize where aa career level. Far too many acquisitions where a player wass on the downside of his career, and went further down as a Cardinal. St Lois media and team fans making Mo look better than he was. Of cours DeWitt could have caused some of tha. But Mo was better in his early years than his latter years. We will see hiw the angek gig turns out. The Adell trade will be a good insite.
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