The St. Louis Cardinals began their yearly bullpen revolution early this year as three of the team’s projected relievers are already off the active 25-man roster just a month into the season. Buckle up as another group of extremely young pitchers try to guide the team through the late innings.

Expected closer Jason Motte succumbed to an elbow injury in spring training and will now have Tommy John surgery, which will keep him out the rest of the season and possibly part of the 2014 season, so the Cardinals turned to 2012 right-handed setup reliever Mitchell Boggs to take his place.

Well, that didn’t work out so great. Boggs pitched in 14 games, blew two saves, walked 12 hitters in 10.2 innings and had a 12.66 earned-run average.

Meanwhile, left-handed reliever Marc Rzepczynski came in for nine appearances, gave up 13 hits in eight innings and had a 7.88 ERA.

Now both are pitching for the Triple-A Memphis Redbirds while rookies Seth Maness, 24, and Carlos Martinez, 21, get a chance at the big-league level.

So far, so good.

Granted neither pitcher has appeared beyond their one inning of work in Friday’s 6-1 win over the Milwaukee Brewers, but they also didn’t walk anybody. Martinez gave up a single, but he quickly erased that blemish with a double play on a groundball to the mound.

That sample size can’t get any smaller, but neither pitcher looked overwhelmed in their debuts, and both could become very important parts of the Cardinals bullpen as the season progresses.

Edward Mujica has locked down the closer’s role for the time being. He replaced Boggs for ninth-inning duties April 22 in Washington against the Nationals and has converted each of his seven save opportunities heading into play Saturday.

Rookie Trevor Rosenthal has also started to settle in after a rocky start in which he gave up runs in four of his first eight appearances, but he hasn’t allowed an earned run in his last four outings while striking out six hitters and could take Boggs’ 2012 role as the eighth-inning setup reliever for Mujica’s ninth.

However, that leaves the sixth and seventh innings in flux. Fernando Salas has been solid thus far. He has a 2.86 ERA in 10 appearances, and Randy Choate has a nice 2.25 ERA, but manager Mike Matheny has primarily used him as a left-handed specialist. The other middle reliever, Joe Kelly, has struggled, giving up 18 hits and 10 runs in 9.1 innings.

So Maness and Martinez will likely be put to work early and often in their rookie seasons. The Cardinals starting rotation has pitched extremely well so far this season, but eventually the team will have to rely on a bridge from the starter to the late-inning relievers as the rotation’s ridiculously good 2.06 ERA regresses to a more normal level.

And that’s where Maness and Martinez will be extremely important. The Cardinals have already seen how much a bad bullpen can constantly stunt a team’s success, and they have made borderline desperate moves by bringing up two rookie pitchers at the beginning of May.

It’s a move that could blow up in the team’s face. Maness and Martinez could eventually become overwhelmed by the stress and pressure that comes with being on a Major League Baseball team at such a young age, but it’s a move the Cardinals had to make.

If nothing else, it bought the Cardinals time while Boggs and Rzepczynski refocused in Memphis and tried to recover their typically good form. Both pitchers are a large reason the Cardinals didn’t put together a great record in April, but they are veteran pitchers and could still be valuable later in the season.

Maness and Martinez will likely also have a few struggles along the way, but if they can capitalize on their first big-league experiences, and Boggs and Rzepczynski come back strong, the Cardinals bullpen could actually become a strength by the end of the season.

At least that’s how it has worked out the past two seasons.

“Better get there quick, Big Boy.”

That quote has circled the blogosphere this week after St. Louis Cardinal General Manager John Mozeliak responded with those words after Josh Gilliam, of the great site Pitchers Hit Eighth, asked about seeing Carlos Martinez in Springfield.  Less than a week later, Martinez is on his way to Milwaukee to join the major league squad as struggling reliever Mitchell Boggs heads to Triple-A to join Memphis.

Boggs was in line to be the Cardinals’ eighth inning man going into the season when closer Jason Motte revealed an injury.  The easiest resolution to that, in manager Mike Matheny‘s mind, was to move everyone in the bullpen up a role and Boggs was thrust into the closer position.  His reaction was less than satisfactory and suddenly the bullpen, once thought to be a strength of the team, was in turmoil.  It seemed everyone was struggling and Boggs was, quite possibly, at the head of it all.

Mozeliak moved quickly in response, sending Marc Rzepczynski to the minor leagues and adding Seth Maness both to the major league and the 40-man roster.  The bullpen needed to be settled and Mozeliak aimed to do so quickly.  Edward Mujica found patience and settled the ninth inning going forward.  Trevor Rosenthal, while still not being perfect, has seemed to find a bit of a foothold.

Boggs, however, continued to struggle.  He would show moments of steadiness followed by loss of command and concentration.  He has shown improvement, but not enough to warrant a continued spot on the roster.  Memphis will provide a place to step away from the focus and the bright lights of major league baseball while Boggs tries to discover his former command and potential.

Martinez, meanwhile, has shown progress throughout a season that started a little late this season.  Due to some visa issues early on, Martinez was very late arriving to a spring training that might have led to his arrival in St. Louis on opening day.  Due to the late start, Martinez found himself in Springfield to start the season.  In three starts, the most recent of which was on April 29, Martinez has increasingly gone further and been more effective.  Over the course of just over 11 innings this season, he has surrendered 11 hits and one walk.  Conversely, he has struck out nine hitters and held opponents to just three runs.  He is not the most impressive of Cardinal minor league hurlers, but he shows enough promise to deserve the promotion.

To make room for Martinez on the 40-man roster, as founder of the United Cardinal Bloggers Daniel Shoptaw speculated, shortstop Rafael Furcal was moved to the 60-day disabled list.

The hard throwing right-hander arrives in St. Louis as a part of the bullpen solution.  His next challenges will surface as he is used more frequently and in higher pressure situations.  How he responds to that challenge will reveal his longevity at this level.

The future has arrived in St. Louis.  How bright it shines is about to become apparent.

Bill Ivie is the editor here at i70baseball.
You can follow him on Twitter by clicking here.

April 2^nd, 2012

Springfield, MO – The defending World Series Champion St. Louis Cardinals returned to the state of Missouri for the first time since their seven game series win against the Texas Rangers.  But it wasn’t at Busch Stadium; Hammons Field in Springfield was the spot and fans came out in full force to show their support for the champs.

The crowd of 10,079, the third largest in Hammons Field history and biggest since 2006, were starved for offense early as both starting pitchers, Tyler Lyons for Springfield and Trevor Rosenthal who are scheduled to both be in the Springfield rotation, each threw four scoreless innings.  Lyons matched Rosenthal’s four strikeouts and allowed just one hit.  Rosenthal threw four perfect innings.

After a scoreless inning from Sam Freeman out of the Springfield bullpen, St. Louis plated two runs against reliever Eric Fornataro.  Vance Albitz led off with a single and moved to third on a single by Matt Carpenter.  With runners at second and third, Tony Cruz grounded out to second scoring Albitz and Erik Komatsu followed with an RBI sacrifice fly to give the “Big Birds” a 2-0 lead.

St. Louis added another run in the 7^th off of Keith Butler when Palm Beach shortstop Ronny Gil hit a long home run to right to make it 3-0.

Springfield, who had just two hits both off of Kyle McClellan in the 5^th, got lead-off batter Kolten Wong on base thanks to a walk.  He would come around and score on an RBI triple by top prospect Oscar Taveras.  An RBI ground out by Xavier Scruggs put Springfield within just a run.

The 2^nd best prospect in the organization, Carlos Martinez who will begin the season in Palm Beach, pitched four sharp innings for St. Louis to earn the save.

Springfield received scoreless frames from Nick Greenwood and Jorge Rondon out of the bullpen.

As for the Cardinals Superstars, David Freese and Matt Holliday each played four innings.  Holliday was 0-for-1 with a walk and Freese was 0-for-2, but reached on an error.

Springfield will open the 2012 regular season schedule Thursday, April 5^th, as they take on the Frisco RoughRiders at Hammons Field.  5,000 fans will receive a Great Southern 2012 Magnet Schedule/Picture Frames. It’ll be the first of nine “Buck a Brat” $1 Johnson Bratwurst nights and everyone will enjoy a post-game Fireworks Spectacular thanks to AM Pyrotechnics.  Game time on Thursday is 7:08pm and tickets are available by visiting the Hammons Field Ticket Office, online atspringfieldcardinals.com or by calling (417) 863-2143.

Escape to Cardinals Baseball!

Now that the trading deadline has come and gone, we know that Ubaldo Jimenez, and not Edwin Jackson, was the best starting pitcher who changed teams this week, going from the Colorado Rockies to the Cleveland Indians.

Would it have been nice if the Cardinals had been able to trade for Jimenez? Certainly. But the reason they didn’t shows why they are not the Cleveland Indians, and why that is a very good thing.

To get Jimenez, the Indians had to trade four prospects, including two pitchers who rank among the elite young pitchers in the game, Drew Pomeranz and Alex White, their top picks in the 2009 and 2010 drafts. This would have been basically the same as the Cardinals giving up Shelby Miller and Carlos Martinez, plus two other minor-leaguers.

While the Cardinals had no interest in doing that, the Indians believed they had to make the move. Even though both teams went into Sunday’s games 1 ½ games out of first place in their respective divisions, the franchises are not equal.

The Indians have been to the playoffs only one time since 2001, winning the AL Central in 2007 and coming within one game of making it to the World Series. In eight of the other nine years since 2001, however, they have finished .500 or below.

As a result, the franchise that once set attendance records and sold out every game has been last or next-to-last in the AL in attendance the last two years. Going into Sunday, they ranked 12^th this year, ahead of only Oakland and Tampa Bay. They drew only 1.3 million fans in 2010. They have to give their fans some reason to start coming back to the ballpark and get a buzz going in the city about the Indians and they are hopeful another division title will do that.

Unlike the Cardinals, where making the playoffs and selling 3 million tickets is almost expected every year, getting to the postseason in Cleveland is a big deal. And that was why taking the chance on dealing two future stars for a proven No. 1 starter was worth the risk. Jimenez is only 27 and, with an option, is under the control of the Indians through at least 2014.

The Al Central, just like the race in the NL Central, is imminently winnable for the Indians, especially if Jimenez pitches as he did for the Rockies a year ago.

The Cardinals, of course, were not the only team who refused to give up their top pitching prospects in deadline deals. Neither did the Yankees, Braves or Tigers. Other than Pomeranz and White, the best pitching prospects who were traded were Zack Wheeler, going from the Giants to the Mets for Carlos Beltran; Robbie Erlin of the Rangers, going to San Diego in the Mike Adams deal, and Jarred Cosart, sent to Houston by the Phillies as part of the package for Hunter Pence.

One young pitcher not traded was St. Louisian Jacob Turner of the Tigers. The 20-year-old graduate of Westminster High School was called up by the Tigers from Double A Erie to make his major-league debut on Saturday against the Angels.

Turner knew ahead of time that his stay in the majors – now – was only going to be for the one start, but he acquitted himself very well in his five-plus innings of work.

“Some of you guys will be gone,” manager Jim Leyland told reporters after the game. “And I’ll be gone, but he will still be pitching here for a long time. He’s that good.”

Turner became the youngest pitcher to start a game for the Tigers since 1979. He allowed just three hits in 5 1/3 innings of work and two runs and was charged with the loss. Six of the 16 outs he recorded came on strikeouts.

“It was a dream come true,” said Turner, the Tigers’ first-round pick n the 2009 draft. “I definitely had jitters in the first inning, but I think that’s to be expected … It was an awesome experience.”

The highlight of the day for Turner might have been as he was walking off the field, when he received a standing ovation from the sold-out crowd at Comerica Park.

“Once they started cheering, I don’t really know how to describe it,” Turner told reporters. “My body felt like it went numb. That was just kind of the highlight of my day, to be honest.”

Angels manager Mike Scioscia was among those impressed by Turner’s performance.

“He has poise and command,” Scioscia said. “You have to be excited about everything that kid did.”

That’s something the Cardinals hope opponents are saying about Miller and Martinez sometime in the not-too-distant future.

Was Buehrle a possibility?

When the Cardinals first began discussing trading for pitching help with the White Sox, it would be interesting to know if Mark Buehrle’s name came up before that of Edwin Jackson.

Landing Buehrle likely would have come at a steeper cost than just Colby Rasmus for the Cardinals, since the White Sox, like the Indians and Tigers, are definitely in the race in the AL Central. But there are a lot of reasons why it would have made sense.

The left-handed pitcher, now 32, has made no secret of the fact that he would like to pitch for the Cardinals at some point before he retires. The native of St. Charles, Mo., is eligible for free agency at the end of this season and is pitching as well as he has in a long time. He held the Red Sox to two runs in six innings on Sunday, lowering his ERA to 3.21.

As a player with 10 years in the majors and five years with the White Sox, Buehrle would have had to give his consent to any trade. His contract also includes a $15 million option for next year which kicks in only if he is traded.

The Cardinals might have been a little scared off by that fact, but it seems possible Buehrle would have worked with his hometown team to reduce the cost for next year in exchange for adding another year or two onto the deal.

The White Sox seem to think there is no way Buehrle will leave as a free agent after the season, as they have not approached him yet about trying to work out a new deal. Since the Cardinals did not pursue him now, it remains to be seen if they will be interested this winter.

What the Blue Jays see in Rasmus

There is a growing belief among some people in baseball that Toronto GM Alex Anthopoulos is running a halfway house and not a major-league franchise. They cite his deals for shortstop Yunel Escobar from the Braves last year, Milwaukee prospect Brett Lawrie and Colby Rasmus, all of whom had problems getting along with their previous employers.

Anthopoulos goes along with the suggestion that the players should benefit from a change of scenery, but he told the Toronto Globe and Mail, “It’s not like we’ve brought in, I don’t know, Milton Bradley and Jose Guillen.”

If Rasmus can do what Escobar has done in Toronto, he will be very happy. Escobar leads all major-league shortstops in walks and on-base percentage and ranks second in batting average.

Escobar had a bad reputation with the Braves, but has been a key performer for the Blue Jays – exactly what they hope happens with Rasmus.

“What’s happened here, offensively, is that (manager) John Farrell has just let me play,” Escobar said through an interpreter. He added the difference in his game was “happiness.”

Said Anthopoulos, “I think we can get more out of him (meaning Rasmus) than we saw in St. Louis.”

Rasmus began his Toronto career 0-for-12 with five strikeouts before getting two hits and two RBIs in the win Sunday over Texas.

Trading deadline fallout

The general manager who had the worst trading deadline experience was Tampa Bay’s Andrew Friedman, who underwent an appendectomy Saturday night and worked the phones Sunday from his hospital room … The best moves at the deadline came from the Phillies (surprise), getting an impact player (Hunter Pence) for the third consecutive year, following deals for Cliff Lee in 2009 and Roy Oswalt last year; Texas, which got the bullpen help it wanted without giving up either of its best prospects; the Braves, who got the perfect player for their lineup in Michael Bourn of the Astros and held on to their top four pitching prospects; and the Pirates, who did not mortgage their promising future but still added major-league quality hitters in Ryan Ludwick and Derrek Lee … The biggest loser, at least in the short time, was the Astros. The deals for Pence and Bourn left them with only three position players in their starting lineup Sunday – Clint Barmes, Carlos Lee and Jason Michaels – who have more than 196 career games in the major leagues … The two most surprised players to finish Sunday still with their original teams were Heath Bell of the Padres and B.J. Upton of the Rays, whose names had been linked to numerous deals for more than a month but ended up going nowhere.

Head over to RobRains.com to read Rob’s notes from around baseball by clicking here.

Around midday Friday, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch ran a story that a contract extension for St. Louis Cardinals lefty Jaime Garcia may be in the works. The deal was not announced as being final by the end of the day Friday, but if the Cards do in fact sign Garcia to an extension they could be doing themselves a huge favor.

Garcia may only be in his second full season in the Majors, but his numbers both last year and this year are really solid. Garcia is nearly unhittable at Busch Stadium, and though his road splits are a bit alarming he still enjoys an 8-3 record with a 3.23 ERA and 7.7 strikeouts per nine innings. Not bad for a pitcher who also happened to turn 25 yesterday.

Age may be the biggest reason to extend Garcia, and health can probably be thrown in as well. Garcia is still young and learning, but he has already shown the poise and confidence needed to be a successful big league starter. And he already had Tommy John surgery, so Garcia may get stronger still over the next couple of seasons. He certainly is not likely to have elbow trouble anytime soon.

And the Cards have some big decisions coming up soon anyway. Yes, Garcia is just now arbitration-eligible after this season and, consequently should remain relatively cheap for a few years. But if he keeps pitching like he has, retaining Garcia beyond his sixth season may prove too rich for the Cards’ blood, especially since they may be paying Albert Pujols a lot of money by then. Additionally, the rotation figures to change dramatically over the next couple of seasons. Kyle Lohse and Jake Westbrook almost certainly will not be re-signed after their current contracts wear out. Chris Carpenter may be retained for a couple more years, but he is on the downside as well. Adam Wainwright—who the Cardinals should also extend beyond the two option years they currently need to act on—is the ace of this team. Shelby Miller and Carlos Martinez are proving to be quite strong prospects who will likely show up in St. Louis by September 2012. Garcia would be an integral part of a rotation featuring those guys and, by that time, may be the second in command veteran.

Now it’s time to get down to brass tacks. What kind of money and how many years? The number thrown around was $27-ish million over four years, plus possibly a couple of vesting options. Assuming any and all options would kick in, that would make Garcia a Cardinal until he is roughly 30 years old. And a pitcher of his caliber making $10 million or less in his 20s is pretty rare, especially as a free agent. This contract would eliminate at least one of those free agent years.

Neither side would deny the contract talk; they basically stuck to radio silence on the possible deal. But it would be no surprise to see this contract being announced in the next couple of days. And that’s good news for the Cardinals. They need rotation stability for the future. They need that anchor once Carpenter leaves (or retires). Garcia can be that player. Maybe he is not the bulldog Carpenter is, but Garcia certainly has the skill and drive to take that position. It is time to lock him in.

The St. Louis Cardinals called up Matt Carpenter and Mark Hamilton before Friday night’s tilt against the Chicago Cubs. That pushes the number of Minor League call-ups to four this week alone. The active 25-man roster now contains 16 players who were drafted/signed and developed by the Cardinals, and a couple others (Mitchell Boggs, Kyle McClellan) figure to be back in short order. And the Cards remain in first place, having just lost their first series since mid-April.

The bad news, of course, is that this influx is partially necessary because of injuries to key players like Adam Wainwright before the season started and Nick Punto, Matt Holliday, Gerald Laird, and David Freese currently. But those four will return at some point this season, and the experience their Baby Bird replacements gain now will only serve them and the franchise well.

The knock on the Cards’ farm system has always been that aside from guys like Albert Pujols, Yadier Molina, and Colby Rasmus, the Minor League ranks lacked true star-producing power. Recently, players like Brett Wallace and Chris Perez had to be moved elsewhere—sometimes, as in the case of Wallace, multiple times—before they could make the leap to Major League success. And there are some high-ceiling bright spots in the system now; Shelby Miller, Carlos Martinez, and Zack Cox come to mind. But everyone else projected as a role player, or a back-of-the-rotation/bullpen pitcher.

Surprisingly enough, those were exactly the types of players the Cardinals have needed in 2011. It never seemed right that baseball people would rank the Cards’ farm system in the lower third of Major League Baseball, but then the Memphis Redbirds would win their league championship. Something didn’t add up. And now it seems the answer is clear: even though the Cardinals’ Minor Leaguers lacked star power and name recognition, they still have Major League skills and know how to win as a team.

Obviously not every call-up this season has been crazy good, and it’s probably unrealistic to expect Allen Craig to continue to hit around .350 with a .970-ish OPS for four more months. But this team, as a whole, continues to battle adversity while numerous veteran stars are on the DL and a couple more (Pujols, Chris Carpenter, Ryan Franklin) continue to search for their groove more than two months into the season.

And perhaps some of the success of these players can be attributed to the environment. They have been thrust into a situation of being on a Major League team in first place in the division with a couple of teams in hot pursuit. Not exactly getting called up to the Baltimore Orioles in September, is it? That’s not to say prospects affiliated with bad teams dog it when they get the call-up. But coming into a situation where they are playing for a team in contention certainly ratchets up the stakes a bit.

As summer weather bears down on Cardinal Nation, the baseball mentality will heat up in parallel. It will be interesting to see what, if any, moves the front office makes as the trade deadline approaches. Because it goes without saying this Cardinals team has needs, and the blockbuster trade always captivates the fan base. But no one should be ashamed of this franchise’s minor league depth. What they lack in star power and name recognition, they make up for with the ability to win. And that bodes well for the St. Louis Cardinals both now and in the future.

Chris Reed also writes for InsideSTL Mondays and Bird Brained whenever he wants. Follow him on Twitter @birdbrained.