Last week, the president of the St. Louis Cardinals stated, "We're going to trade people". This week, we'll look at some targets:
The Background of the Comment:
(Note: This section is the same as our Monday & Tuesday articles)
In 2022, the St. Louis Cardinals handedly won the NL Central, though the season had been another in a stream of recent disappointment. Not only did they see two homegrown future Hall of Famers retire in Yadier Molina and Albert Pujols (though Pujols did take a 10 year vacation away from St. Louis), but they lost in the NL Wild Card game/series for the 3rd straight season.
In the 11 seasons since their World Series win in 2011, the Cardinals had made just 1 other World Series, 3 NLCS series, 1 NLDS series, 3 wild cards, and missed the playoffs all together in 3 other seasons. For being the 2nd most winning franchise in the sport with 11 championships of their own, the last decade had shown promise with few results. In their last 7 years from 2016 to 2022 they made it to the NLDS once. During that stretch they saw a fellow NL Central team win the World Series (Chicago Cubs, 2016) as well as a former division rival in the Houston Astros win 2 (2017, 2022) and make 2 others (2019, 2021).
Luckily for the Cardinals, however they still had one of the best teams in baseball- on paper- coming into the 2023 season. They had the reigning 2022 NL MVP in Paul Goldschmidt, another yearly MVP contender and 6-time platinum glove winner in Nolan Arenado returning. They took an All-Star catcher in Willson Contreras from their division rival Cubs, and had a plethora of promising young talent to fill in with the likes of Lars Nootbaar, Nolan Gorman, Jordan Walker, and Brandon Donovan to name a few.
On the pitching side of things they had another homegrown and potential future Hall of Famer return with Adam Wainwright, as well as guys like Jack Flaherty (returning from injury), Jordan Montgomery, and Miles Mikolas for the rotation. The bullpen also looked okay, but with the abundance of other talent the team looked poised to make another great run.
Going into the 2023 All-Star break, the St. Louis Cardinals instead had a 38-52 record (.422 winning percentage) and were 5th in the NL Central. They hold the 6th worst record in the MLB, have a less than 1% chance to make the playoffs, and are 11.5 games back in their division.
It's so surprise that the president of the team, John Mozeliak stated, "We're going to trade people".
Could any of those people be of interest to the Yankees?
Jordan Montgomery:
It would be a short-lived tenure in St. Louis for Jordan Montgomery, after being sent to the NL Central in a 1-for-1 deal for Harrison Bader at the trade deadline last year, It was a move that baffled many Yankee fans as the starting pitching depth took a major hit for a player who was a big risk. Remember that at the time of the trade, Harrison Bader was injured and didn't have a set time table to return to action.
Jordan Montgomery has been a comfortably above-average pitcher since his MLB debut in 2017. That should come as no surprise to Yankees fans as a lot of talk around Montgomery was had during his 6 year tenure with the team between 2017 and 2022. Though he's not a top-of-the-rotation ace, he's a perfect option to head the bottom end of a rotation and his being a left-handed pitcher would be a much needed get for the Yankees.
In 7 career years through what he's done so far in 2023,Jordan Montgomery has pitched in 127 games with 126 starts, a 34-30 win-loss record over 669.1 innings with a combined 3.75 ERA (113 ERA+), a FIP of 3.77, WHIP of 1.216, and 635 strikeouts to 186 walks. Combined, this has led to a bWAR of +10.6 and an fWAR of +12.2.
In 2023, Jordan Montgomery is having his best season to date having started all 18 games he's been in with a 6-7 record over 103.0 innings, a 3.23 ERA (134 ERA+), 3.53 FIP, 1.223 WHIP, and 96 strikeouts to 27 walks.
Currently, Jordan Montgomery is in his final half-season of play before becoming a free agent for the first time in his career. He's owed just about $4 million over the final stretch of the season.
Trading for Montgomery:
I had high hopes for the Yankees going into their series with the Colorado Rockies, which instead of getting them back into a mode of being in a wild card spot, moved them into the last place in the AL East.
Thus, the idea of trading for a rental pitcher at the deadline has taken a major hit in terms of it being a potential option and being the smart thing to do.
The Yankees are in a very tough spot right now. They're sitting at the bottom of the AL East, yet hold a record over .500, promote themselves as a "playoff caliber team", but are behind the 8 ball on even making the playoffs.
Maybe it's to the point the Yankees should be selling off expiring contracts this trade deadline to re-tool a bit.
I'll see you tomorrow with another couple players of interest from the Cardinals- each with more than this season's worth of control!
