St. Louis Cardinals Lose Tim Cooney on Waivers to Cleveland Indians
Cardinals castoffs continue to be popular on the waiver wire this offseason.
As SB Nation’s Chris Cotillo first reported on Friday afternoon, lefthanded starting pitcher Tim Cooney has been claimed on waivers by the Cleveland Indians. Cooney had been on the St. Louis Cardinals’ 40-man roster for the past two seasons and thrived during his rookie campaign in 2015, posting a 3.16 ERA and 1.21 WHIP with 29 strikeouts and 10 walks in 31 1/3 innings.
Cooney missed all of the 2016 season while dealing with a Bennett lesion in his throwing shoulder. Cooney underwent surgery late in the season, but obviously with that type of injury there’s no way to know for sure whether a pitcher will ever be able to make a full comeback or not.
Cardinals GM John Mozeliak had talked up Cooney as a possible rotation or bullpen option for the club in 2017, but with the Cards needing to add a cluster of minor-leaguers to the 40-man roster in order to protect them from the Rule 5 Draft, the organization obviously didn’t have enough confidence in Cooney to keep him on the 40-man roster.
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He’ll now go to an Indians organization that has a reputation for getting the best out of pitchers discarded by other clubs. Jeff Manship and Dan Otero were two of those scrapheap pick-ups who starred in the team’s World Series run this season.
Cooney is just the latest lefthanded pitcher in the Cardinals organization to see his career change in a major way this offseason. Zach Duke, who was expected to be one of the key cogs in the Cards’ 2017 bullpen, underwent Tommy John surgery in October that will keep him out for all of next season. Lefty Tyler Lyons had a setback with a knee injury that he first suffered this past summer, and he was forced to undergo a second surgery that could keep him out for the beginning of the 2017 regular season.
In addition, lefty Dean Kiekhefer was claimed on waivers by the Mariners in early November. With those developments in mind, the only lefthanders currently on the Cardinals’ 40-man roster that they can expect to have ready for the beginning of next season are Jaime Garcia (who just had his $12 million-dollar option picked up but could be a trade candidate this offseason), Kevin Siegrist, and Marco Gonzales. There have been rumors that the Cards could add lefties Ryan Sherriff and Corey Littrell, both of whom enjoyed successful 2016 campaigns at Triple-A Memphis, to the 40-man in advance of the Rule 5 Draft.
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Cooney is the sixth player that the Cardinals have attempted to outright off the 40-man roster this offseason; the first three moves were successful, as the team removed catchers Alberto Rosario and Mike Ohlman and reliever Mitch Harris from the 40-man. The attempts to keep Kiekhefer and outfielder Jeremy Hazelbaker in the organization, however, were unsuccessful, as Hazelbaker was claimed by the Arizona Diamondbacks.