A classic Cardinals trade deadline
It wasn't flashy, but what matters is if it gets the job done
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Monday morning I was sitting at the kitchen table and feeling particularly snarky and yet somehow resisted being harsh at the Cardinals’ front office and tweeting something about how rebuilders sell, contenders acquire, and pretenders stand pat. Because at that point the Cardinals hadn’t done anything besides shift around some assets and I know better than to get my hopes up about the organization making big deals.
And that will be the target complaint: that the Cardinals did not pay the price to acquire Juan Soto, missing out on a generational talent for a package of talent that the organization could have given up without setting back their farm system too far. But it was always going to be a long shot for the Cardinals to win any kind of fight for Soto. The way the front office operates makes those kinds of bidding wars very difficult to win.
Going into the deadline, I did not expect the Cardinals to make the big move, but I did want them to make enough additions that they were clearly better after it than they were before it. I didn’t want them to just patch holes, but to fill them and paint over them. Did they accomplish that? Let’s look at the deals.
SS Edmundo Sosa to PHI for LHP JoJo Romero
On Saturday the Cardinals traded Edmundo Sosa to the Phillies for LHP JoJo Romero. For the Cardinals, this trade was mainly about reallocating some assets. Sosa had a solid year with the bat in 2021 and looked like a solid backup option should Paul DeJong fail to re-establish himself as the team’s starting shortstop. Well, DeJong failed and then so did Sosa, hitting just .189/.244/.270 in 53 games.
The organization will be calling up Paul DeJong this weekend. DeJong has hit .267/.333/.644 with 15 home runs since the beginning of June in Memphis. The organization doesn’t need four guys who can play shortstop on the roster, so someone had to go. Sosa was the worst performer and out of options, so it was either cut him or deal him. The Phillies were willing to take him.
Coming to the Cardinals is LHP JoJo Romero. Romero has a 7.89 ERA in 21 2/3 big league innings, but there are a number of complicating factors that have contributed to that, including small sample size in appearances over three seasons.
Romero is coming off Tommy John surgery in May 2021 that ended his 2021 season and he returned to the mound less than two months ago. He posted a 1.54 ERA in 11 2/3 innings during his rehab stint before making his big league return on July 16th for the Phillies with a perfect 1-2-3 inning against the Marlins. A week later against the Cubs he’d get pounded for three runs.
As I said earlier, this move was about reallocating resources. They turned a shortstop into a left-handed pitcher with a few years of team control left. Looking ahead to next year’s bullpen, there will be opportunities for a left-handed pitcher.
I saw some people suggesting that this means that left-handed prospects Matthew Liberatore and Zack Thompson were going to be dealt at the deadline, btu I don’t see that. I think it means they’re more likely to stay. The organization wants Liberatore and Thompson ready to rotation roles, which means they need bullpen options to keep them there. That’s Romero.
RHP Johan Oviedo and 1B Malcolm Nunez to PIT for LHP Jose Quintana and RHP Chris Stratton
Keeping it all in Pennsylvania, the Cardinals notched their second deal of the deadline stretch on Monday evening, bringing in a much needed starting pitcher in Jose Quintana and relief arm in Chris Stratton.
While fans wanted Frankie Montas, Mozeliak & Co. went for Jose Quintana who is on a 1 year, $2 million deal this season. Quintana has a 3.50 ERA in 20 starts for the Pirates and has actually been pretty comparable to Montas this season. Montas has a 3.36 FIP in 104 2/3 innings with a 2.0 WAR. Quintana has a 3.23 FIP in 103 innings and a 2.1 WAR. For comparison, Miles Mikolas has a 3.69 FIP and Adam Wainwright has a 3.81 FIP. So he fits in.
They will also add Chris Stratton to the bullpen. While Stratton’s 5.09 ERA looks bad, outside of an appearance where he got tagged for five runs without recording an out, he has been on par with his previous three seasons with the Pirates. Since he joined the Pirates in 2019, Stratton has a 3.98 ERA in 196 2/3 innings of work. He also has one more year of arbitration eligibility before free agency.
Going to Pittsburgh is Johan Oviedo, who had made 19 starts for the Cardinals before working out of the bullpen this season. Since making that move, Oviedo has a 2.66 ERA over 20 1/3 innings, but has worked in a mop up role for the Cardinals. I’ve always felt Oviedo’s stuff worked much better in relief and was surprised the last couple years when the organization would use him as a starter, but that was likely to protect some other arms. The manager seems reluctant to put faith in him for higher leverage situations, despite his numbers, so instead he’ll get an opportunity in Pittsburgh to have more consistent innings.
They will also receive the Cardinals’ #10 prospect in Malcolm Nunez. The 21-year-old Cuban prospect is hitting .255/.360/.463 with 17 home runs in 85 games for Springfield this season, his first full season at Double-A. He’s been talked about as a third baseman but has gotten 90% of his defensive starts this season at first base. The book on him is that he’s a bat without a position, but Birds on the Black’s resident prospect expert Kyle Reis describes him as a pure hitter who just has an “innate ability to hit.” If the power can continue to come it, this is a player that could hurt to have traded away, but it’s still the right move for the 2022 Cardinals.
OF Harrison Bader to NYY for LHP Jordan Montgomery
Chalk this one up as one of the biggest surprises in baseball at the deadline. Neither player was expected to be traded and Bader is on the injured list.
Montgomery, a left-handed former fourth round pick, has been a quality Major League starting pitcher in each of his last six seasons in the big leagues. Last season he made 30 starts for the Yankees with a 3.83 ERA and 1.28 WHIP. This season he’s having a career year with a 3.69 ERA and 1.10 WHIP in a league leading 21 starts. While his strikeout rate is down, so is his walk rate as he’s become more of a ground ball pitcher, which will generally profile well with the Cardinals’ infield defense.
The Cardinals seemed to have seen an opportunity to pick up a starter from the Yankees following their trade for Montas.
When Bader signed a 2 year, $10.4 million deal to avoid arbitration earlier this year, it figured he would be the guy in the center field for the Cardinals. However, he has struggled with plantar fasciitis this year and his performance on both sides of the ball has fallen off.
There is an additional clause related to Bader’s injury that the trade will include a player to be named later if Bader does not return to the field this season. But I think he will be happy to go home to play.
So how did the Cardinals do? It wasn’t flashy, but there does appear to be enough substance there to have plugged the holes.
The Cardinals’ biggest need was in the rotation with injuries to Jack Flaherty and Steven Matz, the latter not expected to return to the mound this year at this point. Both Quintana and Montgomery should be able to give you comparable performance to Matz and hand the ball to the bullpen with an opportunity to win on a regular basis. And the addition of Stratton out there should give Oliver Marmol another arm to lean on.
The Brewers added a ton of bullpen arms but traded away their closer to the Padres in exchange for theirs. It was an interesting deadline for them, but bullpen options are not a bad thing, especially for a team leading their division. Getting some new arms in can be a big boost.
I do think the Cardinals will end up ruing not going had after Soto. I’m not saying anything everyone doesn’t already know. The type of player that Soto is doesn’t come available very often and you need to capitalize when they do, especially when you haven’t been able to develop an offensive star in-house in 21 years. Now, not only do you miss out on Soto, but you stand a good chance of him being between you and the World Series for at least the next three years.
I get it. And I don’t need John Mozeliak to tell me why the Cardinals didn’t get Juan Soto or any of the other top players who were available at the deadline, I know the answer already. It’s the same. This is just who the organization is.
Overall, the front office did what they needed to do. They needed pitching help and they got it. Putting Quintana and Montgomery in the rotation should free up Dakota Hudson and Andre Pallante to work out of the bullpen with Stratton and that makes everything deeper back there. Which sucks for Pallante because he just pitched the game off a lifetime.
But that should get them to the playoffs. However, winning them is still another story.