The Cardinals have finally returned to a traditional 12-pitcher, 13-position player roster alignment.
The St. Louis Cardinals announced on Wednesday afternoon that they’ve optioned righthanded relief pitcherJohn Gantto the Triple-A Memphis Redbirds and purchased the contract of outfielder/first basemanChad Huffmanfrom Memphis. The move returns them to a roster alignment of 12 pitchers and 13 position players, a departure from the 13-pitcher alignment that they’ve been rolling with for most of the season.
Gant, who was recalled last week afterJonathan Broxtonwas released, was thrown into a tough situation in his Cardinals debut on Tuesday night, being asked to throw in long relief after going more than a week without pitching. Still, though, he wasn’t exactly effective, allowing three hits (including two home runs) and two walks over 3 1/3 innings. Gant likely wouldn’t have been available for at least a couple days, so the move to send him down givesMike Mathenymore players he can actually use.
Huffman, a veteran of 12 professional seasons (including two in Japan), will be getting his first big-league action since 2010, when he played in nine games for the New York Yankees.
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He’s been good in 145 plate appearances for Memphis this season, posting a .292/.407/.508 slash line with four homers. While he’s delivered a pretty strong performance for the Redbirds, though, the fact that he got called up probably has to do more with the Cardinals not wanting to interrupt the development of Harrison Bader, Luke Voit, orCarson Kellythan it does with Huffman actually being the most worthy option.
The addition of Huffman to the 25-man roster further complicates the decision that the team will have to make when second basemanKolten Wongreturns from the disabled list–which he’s supposed to do this weekend. The Cardinals could easily option Huffman (though that would make the decision to add him to the 40-man roster for a two-day stint in the majors look really bad) to make room for Wong, though it’s probably more likely at this point that they’ll either release infielderJhonny Peraltaor optionPaul DeJongto Triple-A.
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Whatever the outcome, with a trio of minor-league journeymen including Huffman, José Martínez, andJohn Brebbianow in the majors, the Cardinals’ roster certainly looks a lot different than most people ever envisioned it to be going into this season.
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