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The St. Louis Cardinals are on monitor to have their worst season in many years, and one of many worst seasons within the historical past of the franchise.
A pitching employees that ranks twenty fourth within the main leagues in ERA coming into play on Sunday is likely one of the greatest elements in that disappointment.
It’s the efficiency of that pitching employees that makes us flip again the clock to a regrettable commerce the Cardinals made again in December 2017, once they despatched a handful of prospects to the Miami Marlins to accumulate outfielder Marcell Ozuna.
Two of these prospects have been pitchers Sandy Alcantara and Zac Gallen.
These names are distinguished as a result of there’s a probability — and an excellent probability — they may very well be the back-to-back Nationwide League Cy Younger Award winners.
Alcantara nearly instantly turned a high of the rotation starter for the Marlins and reached his highpoint throughout the 2022 season, when received the NL Cy Younger with a very dominant efficiency that resulted in a 2.28 ERA and a league-best 228 innings pitched. Whereas his 2023 season has been just a little underwhelming by the earlier customary he set for himself, he’s nonetheless a top-tier starter.
Gallen, in the meantime, is quickly rising because the 2023 Cy Younger frontrunner for the Arizona Diamondbacks (Miami traded Gallen for Jazz Chisholm). He completed fifth within the voting a 12 months in the past and has recorded an ERA+ of 158 and 141 the previous two seasons.
They’re each front-line starters and each within the prime of their careers, and it needs to be maddening for Cardinals followers to see that unfold. Particularly since Ozuna solely spent two largely forgettable years in St. Louis. He was not essentially unhealthy, however he was additionally probably not a game-changing participant for a pair of Cardinals groups that solely made one playoff look and by no means received greater than 91 video games.
He left in free company following the 2019 season for no return, signing with the Atlanta Braves.
There may be all the time a danger in buying and selling prospects for speedy assist, and generally it really works out in favor of the crew buying the established participant. Most prospects usually are not going to pan out as hoped. This is likely one of the uncommon circumstances the place the crew giving up the prospects ended up shedding the deal in the long term in a big manner.
Given how unhealthy the Cardinals rotation has been this season, they might actually use a few arms like Alcantara and Gallen on the high of it. Each crew may.
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