Cardinals added a new pitcher!

Cardinals added a new pitcher!

Just a couple of days ahead of the MLB winter meetings, the Cardinals announced Friday in addition to the 40man roster as they’ve made a claim on waiverss. We’ll tell you the name and what the role could be with the Cardinals in 2026 coming up on Bshave Daily. What’s going on everyone and welcome in to this edition of B Sha Daily. Brendan Schaefer with you. It’s Friday and we’ve got a little Cardinal news to discuss as the Cardinal announced earlier today that they have claimed off of waiverss right-handed relief pitcher Zack Kent from the Cleveland Guardians organization and added him to the 40man roster as one does when you make a waiver claim. Believe if my count is correct the Cardinals current 40man is at 39 now but I am pretty sure if I open this email they’ll tell me the answer. Yes. Why did I go through counting when I could have just opened the email? That would have been smarter. Cardinals 40man roster currently stands at 39. It’s funny to me that they Well, maybe not funny. Maybe just legitimate they list it as the 40 player major league roster because I guess in theory you could have a woman on there if uh they throw hard enough. Probably would be a pitcher, I think, if if if there was going to be any chance of that happening. Why am I talking about this? Anyway, Cardinals add Zack Kent via waiverss from Cleveland. He’s 27 years old and made his major league debut actually during the 2025 season. Had a 1-0 record, a 4.58 erra with 16 strikeouts over 17 and two/3 innings and that was across 12 relief appearances with Cleveland last season. Uh did not make any starts for Cleveland and interestingly enough finished 11 of the 12 games in which he appeared. Uh if if there is a better definition of mopup duty than that, I I don’t really know what it would be. It looks like he had some experience though in late inning situations in AAA. Had two saves to his credit, but finished 15 games of the 34 that he pitched in AAA Columbus last season. Now his numbers in AAA for 27y old pretty good. 2.84 erra, 38 innings, 50 strikeouts. like, all right. Went to the big leagues again, 12 appearances, 17 and two/3 innings, 16 strikeouts. Not quite a strikeout per inning, but I think that’s a good target for a relief pitcher. If you can strike out a guy per inning, you got some decent swing and miss stuff. 8.2 would be the Ks per nine that he had in that short stint with Cleveland last season. So, this is a guy that has worked his way up through the system, has spent a number of years in AAA. He ascended to Triple A as early as 2022 and was a starting pitcher back then in Round Rock. That was a little bit after I got back from living down there in the Round Rock area. Had some solid numbers there. Solid numbers in 2023 in that AAA organization. Did not perform well in the fall league that fall. Um, and obviously that’s a limited sample out there. moves over from the Rangers organization at that point to the Cleveland organization. Not good numbers in 2024 in AAA. Not sure of the guy’s history if he had injuries or whatever the case, but at least got on the radar probably for the first time in a legitimate way with some good numbers last year in AAA and then was able to at least hold his own 4.58 RA in the big leagues uh right-handed arm. So certainly somebody that I think when you talk about the depth of the Cardinals relief pitching unit uh could be somebody that you see for sure in 2026. In fact, I would be almost surprised if he’s still on the roster if we don’t see him as one of those guys who could easily be Memphis shuttled back and forth is got all of the uh team control that you could hope for given that he barely logged any service time in his Major League debut season last year. Interestingly enough, his full name listed on Baseball Reference Zachary Allen Kent. Zachary Z a C h a r y. Zachary. Nothing weird about that. But Zack Kent as it’s labeled is spelled zak. So for those who have hot takes on how Zach’s spell their name, I know I’ve got a buddy Zack who very much does look down on the Zak community, but that’s a heck of a choice with the the Zachary not having a K in it. So I’ll have to investigate what’s going on there. But, uh, Zack Kent, he’s just a depth piece, but a depth piece that I think you use like when you think about the John King maneuvering, and this doesn’t exactly fit because the Cardinals could still use, I think, a useful left-hander or two for the bullpen, especially if they end up potentially moving Jojo Romero, who’s in his final year, I believe, of team control coming up this season. And it’s possible if something happens between Brendan Donovan, uh, excuse me, between the Cardinals and the Mariners with regard to Brendan Donovan. Jojo Romero is reportedly a name that the the M’s are also interested in. And so, could the Cardless add Romero into a package, get a better deal in return, get something more out of Seattle? If that’s going to be the case, whatever the case, I do think Jojo Romero is a name that if he’s not traded this winter, given that the Cardinals are not going anywhere and they’re they’re getting there awfully fast, um by July, Jojo Romero would certainly be a name that would be tradable. I don’t really know why they didn’t want to do it in July of this past season when he arguably had more trade value. Um, I guess the only logic behind it, unless you were just worried that the Cardinals would stink so badly at the end of the season if they got rid of all of their relievers, which maybe they would have, but how much would that have really mattered anyway? By the way, some of those guys who stepped into relief roles did a pretty good job last year. Like now we know Matt Swanson is somebody that you can probably count on, rely upon to to give you some decent innings moving forward and is sort of uh suddenly a fixture out there for the St. Louis Cardinals in the bullpen, but they didn’t move Romero. Maybe it’s that they didn’t want Mos to be in charge of it. That could be a simple answer like let’s just let him do it. Yes, we might sacrifice a little bit of value because relief pitchers are always going to be more valuable, especially ones that are performing at the given time. Are always going to be more valuable at the deadline rather than in the offseason when teams like in theory we could be a contender, but we don’t really know it yet. Bullpen should be probably the last thing you build when you’re ready to contend and contending teams could have had Jojo’s arm for the stretch run last year and I think would have given up more to get him. But nevertheless, I’m talking in tangents here. Romero traded at some point. John King was non-tendered because he would have made like $2 million in arbitration. He’s just not worth that with the numbers that he put up. I mentioned the name John King not because it matches uh the Zack Kent acquisition from a lefty versus righty perspective. Kent is a righty, King’s a lefty, but the numbers seem like, yeah, guy with a four and a half or a five RA that’ll play like I think he’s cheaper John King if the handedness were to match. Um it doesn’t. So, it’s not a great example. It’s not a great analogy, but the types of arms that the Cardinals would be going for are the types of guys that can fill some innings for them at almost league average production. Kent was worth 0.1 wins above replacement last year. His 4.58 erra. Uh I don’t have what the ERA plus was because I’m looking at the minor league baseball reference page. The major league page suggested a 93 RA plus, which means he was 7% below league average. You’re just looking for relievers that can scrape and claw their way close to league average production and that’s enough for what I think the Cardinals are looking to get out of their bullpen. They need probably three or more guys just like Zack Kent. Sometimes they’ll be in the minor, then they’ll come up to the big leagues and round and round we go. Maybe they’ve got enough on their 40man roster already that they’ll be able to accomplish that even with a guy like Kyle Lehey potentially moving to a starter role, which I I say potentially. I think it’s a lock that Kyle Ley is going to be uh introduced as a starter and they’ll probably try to make that stick throughout spring training. I think that’s something they’re going to have as a point of emphasis if I had to guess. So that leaves guys like Nick Racket and Chris Royoft and Swanson that we mentioned. Riley O’Brien of course emerged after the trade deadline as a real late inning threat. Like those are the types of names that I think the Cardinals are going to be looking at. Andre Gio, you know, however many of these guys can be healthy, that’s your that’s your right-handed kind of side of the bullpen. And it could end up that if they don’t get the right lefties, the Cardinals just end up being very right-handed heavy in the bullpen. And they maybe don’t have great matchups as a result of that to to allow Ollie Marl to plug and play, but maybe that doesn’t matter that much, right? You’re going to have a rotation that certainly has some lefties involved in it with with Matthew Liberator. Um Bryson Mottz is a lefty. we end up seeing him uh come up to the big leagues in some capacity. Long relief offering another option from that side over there for Oie Marmal. I don’t know. But right now on the 40man, you’ve got Racket who is a left-hander. I I think I lumped him on the wrong grouping before. Uh Jojo Romero and Mottz are really the only candidates that are healthy. Cooper Jerpy I I think could return to form and and health early in the 2026 season. Does he need to be a guy that they consider for a relief role just because of the fact that we haven’t seen him throw a lot of innings in the minors and we’re getting more and more removed from when he was drafted by the team? Uh, ideally anybody can become and stay a starter. But could Jerpy as he’s on the 40-man roster end up if he looks good in the early portion of the season at DoubleA or wherever he may end up. Does he factor in as a lefty out of the bullpen? Not sure. But Zack Kent certainly going to factor in as a righty. And I think you’re going to see guy the guys uh like this continue to be added to the Cardinals roster as it’s appropriate to try and fill out what the bullpen could look like for next year. So, I don’t know if you’ll start the opening day roster on the team, but Zack Kent will pitch if I had to guess for the Cardinals in 2026. That’s my uh story and I’m sticking to it on Zack Kent. The Cardinals claimed him off of waiverss earlier today. That’s going to do it though for this quick edition of Bshave Daily. Appreciate you guys for listening and tuning in and we’ll talk to you next time on Bshave Daily. Peace.

The Cardinals claimed RHP Zak Kent off waivers Friday. What could the newbie bring to the bullpen for 2026?

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