The Mayo Clinic

The Cards add some Helman's to their bland roster

You want an indictment about how starved Cardinals fans have been for transactions this winter? I’m about to write a post—I’d say short, but we’ll see—about a man that probably will never wear the birds on the bat just because it’s an actual move. It’s not a move that makes us really reconsider our roster picks, but it might impact them on the edges.

Roster Machinations 1.0

After adding to their 40-man twice this season with waiver pickups, John Mozeliak put out a smidgen more effort today, bringing in Michael Helman from the Minnesota Twins for cash considerations. As far as trades go, it’s about as banal as it comes, but just like a pair of deuces beats ace high, so an actual trade beats a waiver move. Cash considerations—which might wind up just being that the Cardinals front office picks up the dinner tab for the Twins front office staff that might come down to Opening Day—still is more of an investment than nothing.

So does the addition of Helman mean anything? Likely no. Possibly yes.

First off, let’s talk about who Helman is. He’s a .300 hitter in the major leagues….going three for 10 last year as a September call up for Minnesota. He got a hit in his first game, a hit in his second, and then his third hit three games later. He went back down to AAA for two weeks, then came back up to end the season.

What did he do at St. Paul last season? Well, he spent a good bit of time on the injured list, so he only got into 72 games. In that time, he hit 14 homers and had a slash line of .271/.350/.487. He stole 12 bases in 13 tries and hit into just three double plays in 37 opportunities.

More importantly? He played shortstop.

To be fair, he played just about everything. He also saw time at second, third, all the outfield positions, and DH. Shortstop was his main gig though, starting 31 games there, more than any other position.

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So does this trade mean anything? If it does, it’s likely that the Cardinals aren’t satisfied with the line of succession should Masyn Winn not be able to fulfill his duties (or need a couple of days off). In our last post, we talked about how Jose Fermin might get the call to be the 26th man just because he might be the best backup shortstop option.

That’s probably not the case any more. If the deciding factor for who gets the last spot comes down to being able to play shortstop a couple of times a week, it’s going to be hard for Fermin to edge out Helman, I would think. Even if Fermin had a stronger spring, which is possible but no guarantees, the club has not ever really shown much confidence in Fermin playing the 6.

Of course, we’ve not seen Helman play yet. I saw a post from a Twins fan—I can’t find it now—that indicated he’s a good dude, hardworking player, all that. Which is something the Cardinals have often targeted as well, though I don’t know how much it played into this decision.

Right now, I’d swap out Fermin for Helman on my roster picks. We’ll see if Jupiter makes any impact on that.

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What this trade likely doesn’t signal is anything on the Nolan Arenado front. We’ve heard that the Cards and the Red Sox are still talking, but that feels more formality than anything. It could be that someone is going to give up on Alex Bregman, who is still holding out for a long-term deal, and give Mozeliak a call, but I don’t think this move is Mo laying in provisions before pulling the trigger.

After all, if Arenado gets dealt you probably wind up with Thomas Saggese on the roster instead, right? More opportunities for him to play, even if you aren’t wanting him to be at shortstop regularly. I think that Saggese could use the time in Memphis, but with an Arenado-shaped hole suddenly created in the roster, he probably gets a lot more consideration to starting in St. Louis.

Could we see Nolan moved in the next couple of days? Obviously nothing is out of the realm of possibility. Teams might be getting to the point where they want to wrap the winter and get their roster pretty much in shape. On the other hand, teams might be pretty content with what they have, willing to try out internal options before pulling the trigger on something else.

It makes logical sense to think that Arenado will wind up reporting to Jupiter, but I can’t shake the feeling that the club is going to do something—cave on a demand, put on a big press—and get him moved sometime before hitters have to report to spring training.

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It’s rough when Roddery Munoz, Bailey Horn, and Michael Helman are your winter moves. If nothing else, maybe you can commend the front office for sticking to their guns and looking at what they have. Doesn’t make for a fun winter, though.

I watched the first episode of Watson recently. I found it enjoyable, though we’ll see if there turns out to be a real reason that they tied this to the Holmes canon other than just the fact that people might watch it solely because of that. (Guilty on that charge, your honor.) It’s also going to have to make sure it stays different from that other Sherlock Holmes medical drama. OK, maybe House wasn’t set in that universe, but that’s basically what it was.

I was a little too old to really be absorbed in the X-Men cartoon in the early ‘90s. I finally finished watching them on Disney+ and while it was enjoyable, I think you had to be there to have it be such a revered show. I’m almost done with the first season of the X-Men ‘97 relaunch and it’s been a little more engaging. I’m not a huge X-Men person, though, so that’s probably a large part of it as well. I am looking forward to Captain America: Brave New World coming out next week. This looks like a good year for MCU movies.

Had a blast having Katie Woo on Musial this week in her traditional visit. The guest list doesn’t drop off in quality this week as Jim “the Cat” Hayes from FanDuel Sports Network will be stopping by. We might talk a little about his now-former co-worker, I imagine…..