Roster Guess 2.0: Spring Has Sprung

It’s been a wonderful week for baseball, as pitchers and catchers (and reporters) officially reported, catch was played, batting practice—or, as the Cards are now terming what this week held, pitching practice since it wasn’t designed for hitters to swing—is being filmed and sent across the internet to folks that are ignoring the groundhog and believing it is spring already.

Since we last took a gander at what the 26-man roster might look at, there have been two trades—one big, one small—let’s use the formulation to talk about some things that have happened and what might still happen.

Catchers (3): Ivan Herrera, Pedro Pages, Yohel Pozo

Not much has changed here since last time except the fact that Herrera won’t be playing for the Panamanian squad in the World Baseball Classic due to the inability to get insurance to cover him. Which is not ideal reasoning, of course, since they deemed him a big health risk. That said, he’ll get to spend all spring with the team, which might allow them to get more comfortable with him behind the plate. I still think right now that they go three deep to start as they ease Herrera into more full-time pads action, but if the coaching staff is comfortable with him behind the dish faster than expected, Pozo might wind up in Memphis to add someone like Bryan Ramos to the roster.

Infielders (6): Alec Burleson, Jose Fermin, Nolan Gorman, Thomas Saggese, JJ Wetherholt, Masyn Winn

Ramos is the wildcard here, a player that the Cardinals claimed off waivers but has no options. He’s not gotten a lot of run in the big leagues, spending the last two years mainly in the White Sox minors. His numbers at Charlotte weren’t that exciting either, but he is just 23 (well, will be 24 in less than a month). If the Cardinals believe there’s upside in him, they well could take him north, demote Saggese, and let him get some ABs in the bigs, especially given that there is no real expectation for the season.

Outfielders (4): Nathan Church, Victor Scott II, Nelson Velazquez, Jordan Walker

Velazquez, like Wetherholt, would have to be added to the 40-man roster before Opening Day. For JJ, that’s about as much of a lock as you can get. Velazquez might be a little less likely, though currently probably not by much. A right-handed bat with pop has been one of the big needs of the team according to the front office and as the days go by, it seems less likely that they sign someone to fill that spot. (That said, we thought it was getting less likely there’d be a Brendan Donovan trade and, well…..) Assuming Nootbaar does start the season on the IL, it feels like Velazquez will get some major league team. I don’t think Joshua Baez could have a good enough spring to force the issue, especially given the results of the last few times spring training made roster decisions.

Starting Pitchers (5): Kyle Leahy, Matthew Liberatore, Dustin May, Michael McGreevy, Andre Pallante

With Hunter Dobbins likely out to start the season, I’m grudgingly putting Leahy in here. I’m still not sold on this project but it seems likely the Cardinals are going to try it out and it very well may have success. It would seem Richard Fitts might be the only real starter option that could make an impact here, maybe pushing Pallante back to the bullpen. For all the depth the Cards have acquired this winter, starting pitching is still a little thin given that much of the quality depth is probably months away, if not more like 2027.

Relief Pitchers (8): Justin Bruihl, Ryan Fernandez, Riley O’Brien, Matt Pushard, JoJo Romero, George Soriano, Ryne Stanek, Matt Svanson

The trade of Andre Granillo for Soriano this week was a puzzling one, at least when looked at in a traditional sense. Granillo has two options, had a better season last year, and while I don’t think he would have made the Opening Day bullpen, he probably would have seen some time on the Memphis shuttle.

Soriano has no options and as such either makes the team or has to try to go through waivers. Two other teams have already claimed him this winter, so the odds aren’t great he’d make it through. If he looks bad in spring, would the team cut him knowing they paid a controllable pitcher for him?

I think they would, but during my conversation with Bernie Miklasz on last night’s Musial, I realized that we need to probably think about bullpen usage differently this season. We are used to worrying about fresh arms, but it’s going to be a lot easier to script usage this year when you are worrying about development more than wins and losses. Normally, having only (in my scenario) three guys with options (and two, in O’Brien and Svanson, that aren’t likely to rotate if things are going well) might feel a little constricting. I don’t know that it will this season.

Soriano is a guy that the Cardinals have liked for a while and have been trying to get whenever he’s hit waivers. A guy like that probably doesn’t get tossed aside even if he has a bad spring because it’s about 6-7 innings. It’d be pretty stunning to me if he’s not on the opening roster.

If you wanted to argue Gordon Graceffo over Ryan Fernandez, I wouldn’t bicker with you too much. A bit of a coin flip for me, honestly. I also wouldn’t be absolutely stunned if they took both of those guys and let Bruihl go, depending on how the spring goes.

All of this season on Musial has been fun, but it’s been a real treat the last two weeks to talk with Jim Hayes and Bernie. Those are guys that have been through a lot of Cardinal baseball and have some thoughtful opinions on the state of things today.

Gateway to Baseball Heaven hit 15 years this week, though the first four of those were on the Seamheads Podcasting Network before we did our own thing. David and I should be back on there tomorrow night to talk about the opening of camps and the Soriano trade.

The great thing about the old Playing Pepper series that I used to do was that it introduced me to a lot of bloggers that went on to do some really neat things. One of those was Michael Clair, who has a book coming out at the beginning of April called We Sacrifice Everything to Baseball, telling the story of the Czech Republic’s 2023 World Baseball Classic run. I pre-ordered my copy this week because I’m sure it’s going to be a wonderful read. Michael's writing has always had humor laced through it and I’m sure this will be the same. If you are up for a new book to start the season, find your local bookstore and get this one ordered!

On the Star Wars book club front, this month we are reading Choices of One, which is a Legends book that was written by Timothy Zahn. I was pretty surprised that I didn’t actually have this one on my bookcase, but as I hunt up the link for you I see that I purchased it on the Kindle 12 years ago. Guess I have two copies now! I also obviously don’t remember much about it, but anytime you can get a story with Mara Jade and Thrawn written by Zahn, you’ll be doing fine.

My wife’s birthday is a week from Monday so the kids will be home next weekend to celebrate. Add to that the first Cardinals broadcast of the season (if I can get away to watch it) and there’s something to get me through the week. I went ahead and canceled my MLB.tv auto-renewal and purchased the MLB/Cardinals.tv combo pack. I’ve heard that ESPN+ Unlimited or something of that nature is supposed to be included with a free month trial, but I’ve not seen anything about that since I signed up. I need to find out so I can go ahead and cancel before I forget.

Spring is coming, folks. We’re very close to having a baseball game every day. What more can you ask for?