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With Wainwright, Martinez and Wacha due to land back in St. Louis soon the Cardinals will be faced with some serious pitching decisions.
Currently starters are Mikolis, Flaherty, Gant, Weaver and Gomber with Ross a 6th/long man.
Hicks and Norris are set and Shreve and Cecil are without available options.
Total of 10. If you add Waino, CMart and Wacha you are at 13, and absolute maximum if you want to retain any offensive flexibility at all. And there is also Leone rehabbing.
Your choices to send out;
Hudson – 0.79 ERA, .79 WHIP 3-0 in 10 appearances. Appears to be establishing himself as the 7th inning go to guy.
Poncedeleon – 2.04 ERA, .96 WHIP, 17.2 IP, 8 hits in 17.2 innings.
Gomber – 2.89 ERA, 1.29 WHIP, 29 hits in 37.1 innings.
Gant – 3.74 ERA, 1.19 WHIP, 58 hits in 74.2 innings. Getting better with each outing.
Mayers – 3.83 ERA, 1.23 WHIP, and one save.
Weaver – Starter all year. Was dominant early on but has been off and on since.
Flaherty could also be optioned out but no way with his recent performances.
New injuries could change the picture but less likely in the 12 days remaining before the rosters can be expanded.
I think Wacha comes back as a starter and Waino and Martinez go to the pen.
Who would you send out? Some will come back Sept 1 but some will likely stay at Memphis for their playoff run. No question with the Cardinals back in the playoff hunt absolute priority will be with the parent club.
Dont forget Leone is coming back also and I believe he is out of options. Wacha shouldnt be back until after September 1st so that solves one spot. The others I dont know. Weaver has already been optioned this year so I consider him the next most likely. Gant has also been optioned. With the 10 day call up minimum you can option a player and he only misses one start. If you time right the starts of Weaver and Gant and with an off day Ross could cover the start each would miss. My guess is Mayers or Ponce would be the other casualty.
The first thing to realize is that the Cards are winning with what they have now.
With each pitcher sent down to Memphis a domino effect is created throughout the system.
Wainwright will probably not be ready until September., no problem. Wacha and Leone could come back before Sept. If I was GM, I wouldn’t add them until after the first. (rehabbing players don’t count against whichever minor league team’s roster they are on). Remember, we are winning without them.
Martinez will be back next week so that will mean that one player on the active roster will need to go down. That doesn’t present a big problem. Mayers or Ponce would be my guess, but either one will be back on the 1st. Brebbia is rehabbing at Memphis and may come up on the 1st. No problem.
Pitchers available to be added to the Card’s roster on the 1st: Gallegos and Webb (AAA, and a strong possibility), Bowman (hurt), and DGonzalez (AA). The domino effect will reverse and players at lower levels will be needed to fill the void created by prospects being moved up from Memphis.
And we’re only talking pitchers. There will be MiLB position moving up as well: Kelly-AGarcia-Williams?-Sosa. Again, the domino effect in reverse. I’m not sure if they will wait until the Memphis season is completed. The decisions for position players will be more crucial IMO.
But we’re winning without them right now.
Unless injuries dictate otherwixe, I hope they wait until the 1st to make moves. Another factor barring injuries is that Memphis will be in the playoffs and we may not get players like Garcia, Williams, etc. Munoz should be back soon, so Wisdom would be sent down for the Memphis playoffs.
Another way to look at it is that the pitchers who helped build that big lead for Memphis aren’t going to be there for the playoffs. I wrote about the impact of the roster churn for members today.
Not sure how many pitchers St. Louis needs in September.
I wonder how they will make room for Wainright and Leone coming off the 60m day DL? Moving Fowler to the 60 day DL is one possibility. Maybe DFA Bowman, as other relievers have passed him by on the depth chart.
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