The Cards just took a pretty serious blow in losing starting Short Stop Jhonny Peralta with a reported torn ligament in his left thumb. Peralta is traveling back to St. Louis to receive a second opinion on the injury and is contemplating surgery.
Any lengthy absence for Peralta would be a blow to a Cardinals club that some pundits felt was already light in terms of power production. The 33-year-old Peralta (34 in late May) appeared in 155 games for the Redbirds last season, batting .275/.334/.411 with 17 home runs. That line, while solid overall, masks what was a miserable second half of the season for the veteran infielder, though. Peralta was batting a robust .288/.345/.465 as late in the season as Aug. 4, and while the nature of that endpoint is entirely arbitrary in nature, admittedly, he slumped to a meek .246/.312/.291 batting line over his final 199 trips to the plate.
The Cardinals picked up Jedd Gyorko in an offseason swap with the Padres in part to help keep Peralta fresh and avoid a similar second-half decline. Gyorko has limited experience at shortstop but could be in line for significant playing time at the position in the event of a prolonged stint on the disabled list for Peralta. St. Louis also has infielder Greg Garcia as an option at short, and Aledmys Diaz, who signed a four-year deal as a free agent in 2014, could surface in the Majors after rebuilding his stock with a strong rebound campaign in 2015.
Unfortunately at this point in the season, there are few quality Short Stops available so the Cardinals may have to make due with what’s already in their system.
ScoutsEdit: Peralta did indeed have the thumb surgery, and is expected back around the All-Star break.
Fan Interference 
Rhats.
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Hanging your season hopes on Jedd Gyorko could be a particularly painful experience. He has a way of stinking it up through August and then putting on a late season surge to make himself look tolerable.
Not a direction I would think the Cards want to take.
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Not what the Bhest Fhans in Bhaseball needed to hear.
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Eh, aside from Simmons, not sure there was a decent SS available they would have acquired if this had happened in November. They may have picked up someone as a depth option, but it if he is expected to only miss 1/2 the season, they wouldn’t have done much to replace 3 months of production.
They likely still would have gone with a platoon of Garcia and Diaz. Jerko is likely 3rd on the depth chart for “starting SS”.
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Ian Desmond
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They wouldn’t have signed him…they weren’t giving up their first round pick for a 1 year deal or a guy that isn’t a clear upgrade over what they have in house….and again…it would be to replace 2-3 months of production and then he’d be on the bench. You don’t buy a new car because yours in the shop for a month…and then try to sell the thing or just store it in your garage.
Honestly, I put the likelihood of a Diaz/Garcia platoon out performing Desmond over 3 months at better than 50/50…Desmond is 30 and has had 3 shitty years and 3 good years.
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Number 3 is about where Gyorko belongs on anyone’s depth chart. I didn’t care much for that move by the Cards, but Gyorko’s pop gets the stats guys all bent out of shape.
I would tell you I think Desmond is the safer gamble, but he is very expensive.
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To clarify vis-a-vis Desmond….I’m not saying I wouldn’t have done it…but I don’t think the Cardinals would even consider it. They have routinely shown zero interest in players that would require them to give up their 1st round pick.
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If it’s 2-3 months from right now, then that’s not too bad considering that spring training just started. He might only end up missing the first month of the actual season. If it’s 2-3 months of the season, then that’s obviously worse.
Regardless, given the timing of this injury, they’ll probably have to make due with internal options. There’s just not many trade partners for them at the moment. The Cardinals aren’t likely to find help from other NL teams that would potentially be competing with them for the Wild Card. Sure, the Nationals could move Danny Espinosa and give Trea Turner the job, why would they want to help the Cardinals fill that hole? Pretty much the same for all the AL teams, since the general parity there means every team probably considers themselves a playoff contender at this moment.
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I think they would make due with internal options regardless…but that is a dumb trade philosophy for teams to have…if they have it.
You make trades to make YOUR team better. If you think a trade is a good deal for you, it likely helps you more than it helps them, which would be a net plus. Teams that refuse to trade within their division are essentially saying, “We have no confidence in our ability to evaluate talent because we are more worried about a deal looking bad in hind sight than we are excited about the opportunity to improve our club.”
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I’m not saying it’s a smart philosophy…but plenty of teams worry more about how their moves are perceived by the public than they should.
If teams didn’t care about that stuff, the Reds would have traded Frazier and Chapman at the deadline last year. (Of course, it’s possible that the Reds are an extreme outlier here, but I doubt it.)
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Yeah, but the Reds are run for shit.
People loved to rip the Astros for their, “we are doing our best to build a good baseball team as fast as we can and don’t give a shit what the public thinks” philosophy….but, you know, they got good really fast and still have a ton of money to spend and talent in the majors to get better and stay competitive.
Teams that make moves because of what their fans think make bad moves…..but, yeah, I think teams do that….like the Padres last year, as word was that ownership directed them to make moves to get the fan base excited and to try to make them relevant as quickly as possible.
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This cracks me up:
Mozeliak said general managers of other teams have already begun calling him since word of Peralta’s injury broke early this week, but he hasn’t placed a single call on available shortstops. Mozeliak characterized those calls as “ambulance chasing,”
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