St. Louis Cardinals activate Jhonny Peralta, send down Magneuris Sierra
The Cardinals swapped a .364-hitting rookie for a .120-hitting veteran before Friday’s game.
Based on the statements from St. Louis Cardinals GM John Mozeliak earlier this week, it was pretty much a foregone conclusion that infielder Jhonny Peralta would get another chance to prove his worth on the active roster, despite calls from fans and media alike for the team to designate the veteran for assignment upon his activation from the disabled list.
Even with the knowledge that Peralta was going to return and that hot-hitting rookie outfielder Magneuris Sierra was eventually going to return to the minor leagues, it was still pretty surprising to see the Cardinals option Sierra to Double-A Springfield on Friday while activating Peralta from the DL.
For one thing, it left the Cardinals with just three outfielders for Friday night’s game against the San Francisco Giants (and that’s not excluding any versatile utility guys…their emergency backup outfielders are Aledmys Díaz and Matt Adams). Secondly, even with all the advanced baseball knowledge that we possess in 2017, it was still rather shocking to see Sierra, who started his big-league career 11-for-30 with a .406 on-base percentage, demoted in favor of Peralta, who was 3-for-25 to start the year before collecting a pinch-hit single in Friday night’s loss.
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It’s not as if it was unexpected–the semantics were just shocking. It would have been much less jarring if reliever Sam Tuivailala was optioned on Friday–as he likely will be later this weekend–and then Sierra was sent down on Saturday or Sunday to make room for Stephen Piscotty.
But Sierra’s demotion to make room for Peralta illustrated one of baseball’s dark truths: that if you’re not the “right player,” then you’re always replaceable, no matter how much success you have. We’ve seen it plenty of times with the Cardinals over the past couple years.
In 2015, Miguel Socolovich was banished to Triple-A for the entire month of August, despite posting a 1.54 ERA in 21 big-league appearances up to that point, so that the Cards could make room for trade acquisition Jonathan Broxton, who had a 5.89 ERA at the time. Last season, after hitting .600 to begin the year, Greg Garcia was sent to Triple-A so that the Cardinals could make room for veteran shortstop Ruben Tejada, who had been released by the Mets during spring training. Later in the season, backup catcher Eric Fryer was DFA’d after hitting .368 with the Cardinals so that free agent signee Brayan Peña, who missed the first three months of the season with a knee injury, could be activated from the DL.
Fortunately for Sierra, all three of those players eventually ended up with steady gigs on this year’s Cardinals team, so he can take solace in the fact that if he performs well for long enough, he’ll likely be back in the majors on a more permanent basis.
Next: Cardinals activate John Gant, option him to Triple-A
It’ll be interesting to see what Sierra’s role is in Springfield. The Cardinals are already trying to develop two center field prospects in Double-A (José Adolis García and Oscar Mercado), and while Sierra is likely the best defender among the group, it’s likely that all three players will get some time in center. While Sierra is a more highly-regarded prospect than Mercado, it might make more sense to utilize Sierra at a corner position and Mercado in center the majority of the time, since Sierra has the skill set to thrive as a utility outfielder at the big-league level, while it’s likely center field or bust for Mercado, who converted from shortstop late last summer.