At the time the St. Louis Cardinals made the decision that continuing along their path with Dylan Carlson was untenable, it was unreasonable to think they were likely to get much more in trade than righty reliever Shawn Armstrong.
Moving out a player with no future in St. Louis in exchange for some short-term help is a reasonable process to follow, regardless of the result of that exchange.
On Tuesday, though, the Cardinals designated Armstrong for assignment after 12 and two-thirds innings spread over 11 appearances of entirely competent middle relief work, leaving the Cardinals with nothing left in exchange for a player who three years ago finished third in voting for the National League Rookie of the Year.
That Carlson’s value had plummeted is obvious; how that was allowed to happen is what raises alarm bells.
“In talking to (president of baseball operations John Mozeliak) he, one, wanted to give a runway to Riley (O’Brien) and see what that looks like at this level,” Marmol said Tuesday about the rookie reliever who replaced Armstrong on the active roster. “We’re going to be in a roster crunch here in a few days anyways with (Steven) Matz and Lance (Lynn) coming back, so it was inevitable. Doing it now allows for someone else to potentially pick him up and he’ll still be eligible for a playoff roster.”
O’Brien, strangely, is now tied to consecutive dumps of once promising Cardinals outfielders from whom the organization has very little left. When he was activated from the 60-day injured list earlier this month and optioned to Triple-A Memphis, the 40-player roster was full, and the club found a spot by designating Nick Robertson for assignment.
Robertson was half of the return received from the Boston Red Sox in exchange for Tyler O’Neill over the winter, and while he pitched well in his brief stint in the big leagues, he struggled in Triple-A and was subsequently claimed on waivers by the Los Angeles Angels. Whether Armstrong is claimed or eventually released, the Cardinals will receive no return other than salary relief.
That leaves the other half of the return from Boston, 23-year-old righty Victor Santos, as the only remaining asset the Cardinals received for either outfielder. Santos has recorded a 5.94 ERA in 69 ⅔ innings for Memphis this season while posting the highest walk rate and worst WHIP of his young professional career.
St. Louis has discarded enough major league outfield talent over the last five years to comprise two full sets of starters plus some depth.
Randy Arozarena, Harrison Bader, Tommy Edman, Adolis García and Lane Thomas all fall into that category along with Carlson and O’Neill. There were justifiable reasons for moving on from each at the times of their departures, and not all in that group have been long-term starters for winning teams. Arbitrage, after all, has been one of Mozeliak’s favorite buzzwords over his tenure leading the Cardinals’ front office.
Erick Fedde, John King and Matthew Liberatore are the remaining big league fruits of those moves. So too are top prospects Tekoah Roby and Thomas Saggese. Those two and King were acquired from Texas last summer in the trade which included Jordan Montgomery, who came to St. Louis in exchange for Bader. Fedde and Tommy Pham were acquired from the White Sox this summer in a three-way deal which sent Edman to the Los Angeles Dodgers, and Liberatore was the centerpiece in the Arozarena trade with Tampa.
Trade value is never linear and rarely as simple as matching up perceived values on a universally accepted chart. There are human factors which weigh heavily on the process. Has a player asked out? Is there acrimony between front offices? Has a player been allowed to show too much or perhaps not enough at the big league level? The depths of considerations which underlie individual transactions run much deeper than is broadly understood.
Still, John Mozeliak’s Cardinals find themselves turning their positional pockets inside out and hoping they can debit consistent play from those still in house.
Jordan Walker’s disappointing season is among the team’s highest concerns as they enter the winter confronting the challenge of figuring out how to maximize his prodigious natural talent. Lars Nootbaar needs to stay on the field. Alec Burleson has established himself as a threat against righties, but may well spend 2025 as the team’s primary first baseman. Both Michael Siani and Victor Scott II have been even better than advertised in center; both still need to take further steps at the plate to lock in their own futures.
When time brings necessity to move on from some or all of those players, there will likely have been a changing of the guard in the Cardinals’ front office. Whatever mistakes have been made in value preservation over the last half decade will be confronted by Mozeliak’s successor, and correcting them must be paramount.
Moving on from a pending free agent reliever in his mid-30s with an ERA approaching 5.00 should feel like standard operating procedure, not a noteworthy failure.
That Tuesday’s transaction is such a transparently bad look for the organization isn’t reflective of Armstrong and Carlson, but is another verse in the sad song that seems to echo endlessly throughout the front office.
The time has long since passed to skip to a new track.
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