St. Louis Cardinals Will Give Trevor Rosenthal a Chance to Start
In a semi-surprising twist, Trevor Rosenthal will get the opportunity to start for the Cardinals this spring.
Despite the fact that the St. Louis Cardinals hinted at the possibility of Trevor Rosenthal becoming a starter all offseason, there hadn’t been any sign that Rosenthal would actually get an opportunity to audition for a rotation role through the first couple weeks of spring training. Depth starters Luke Weaver and Mike Mayers received starts during the opening week of the spring schedule, but Rosenthal came out of the bullpen for his first appearance of the spring and is expected to do so again in Friday’s game against the Washington Nationals.
As the St. Louis Post-Dispatch‘s Derrick Goold wrote Friday, though, Rosenthal will get his opportunity to start in the coming days. As Carlos Martinez joins the Dominican Republic team for the World Baseball Classic, Rosenthal will take over his spot in the spring rotation. He’ll make his first spring start on Monday against the Twins.
Rosenthal, a former All-Star closer who is still just 26 years old, was bumped from the closer role midway through last season in favor of Seung-Hwan Oh.
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Even as a closer, he expressed a desire to return to the starting role that he filled through most of his minor-league career, and he gave an early indication that he might be able to succeed in that type of role in his final appearance of 2016, throwing three scoreless innings in relief of Michael Wacha as the Cardinals defeated the Pirates.
As of now, it doesn’t look like Rosenthal has any real chance of winning a rotation job. Alex Reyes‘s injury has all but locked Wacha into the fifth starter spot. If Wacha continues to deal with chronic shoulder issues like he has during two of the past three seasons, though, it will help to have Rosenthal as a depth option.
Even if he’s impressive in starting opportunities this spring, it’s unlikely that Rosenthal will be the first man up in the event of an injury, because the Cardinals have four starters with major-league experience–Luke Weaver, John Gant, Mike Mayers, and Marco Gonzales (who’s expected to return in May)–set to be part of the rotation at Triple-A Memphis.
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But if the Cardinals have a situation like in 2013, when we saw Carlos Martinez and Joe Kelly moved into the rotation at times after the Cardinals’ various other depth options faltered, it’s always good to have as much starting depth as possible.