St. Louis Cardinals Acquiring Miami Marlins Reliever Steve Cishek
According to Fox Sports’s Ken Rosenthal, the St. Louis Cardinals are acquiring former closer Steve Cishek from the Miami Marlins. Reports had indicated that the Cardinals had interest in the righthanded, sidearm-throwing reliever in recent days. The Cardinals will send Double-A relief pitcher Kyle Barraclough to the Marlins in return for Cishek.
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The 29-year-old Cishek, a 6-foot-6, 215-pounder, was the Marlins’ primary closer from midway through 2012 until early in the 2015 season. Over that time, he had 91 saves in 105 opportunities. He began this season in a rut, blowing four of his first seven save opportunities and throwing for a 7.76 ERA over the season’s first two months. After spending 10 days with Double-A Jacksonville in early June to rebuild his confidence, Cishek has come back and been very effective, giving up just one earned run over 12.2 innings. While he still struggled a bit with allowing hitters to make contact in June, Cishek has been fantastic during July, holding hitters to a .182 average over his last six appearances.
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Cishek figures to be another late-inning option for a Cardinals bullpen that has been very effective this year but perhaps has been overworked, particularly eighth-inning setup man Kevin Siegrist and closer Trevor Rosenthal. His presence will likely eliminate the Cardinals’ need to rely on longtime minor-league journeymen like Miguel Socolovich and Marcus Hatley for innings, and assuming that Jordan Walden makes a successful return from the shoulder ailment he’s dealt with for much of 2015, the Cardinals will have a pretty intimidating late-inning group for the stretch run with Cishek, Walden, Siegrist, and Rosenthal.
The 25-year-old Barraclough, a 2012 seventh-rounder out of St. Mary’s, was having his best minor-league season to date. After beginning the year by allowing just one earned run on nine hits and nine walks through 15 innings at High-A Palm Beach, Barraclough was promoted to Double-A Springfield in mid-May and has also been effective there, posting a 3.28 ERA, 1.58 WHIP, and .211 opponent batting average with 28 strikeouts and 20 walks through 24.2 innings. While Barraclough is putting himself in good position to be a future big-league bullpen piece, it’s clear that he needs to improve his control before he’s ready to face major-league hitters.