***Official 2020 STL Cardinals Thread***

[BigRedChief]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

My understanding is one day on the roster is technically a full year this season. So in that regard I guess it gets him one step closer to arbitration, etc...

So it makes him a little more expensive a little faster. But no, he doesn't have that much upside. He has 2 pitches to speak of and the breaking ball is something in between a slider and a curve that isn't really good at being either of them.

Fastball command is better than it was yesterday but by no means stellar.

Honestly, he's probably a reliever when all is said and done.

What they could have meant had more to do with options than anything. He wasn't on the 40 man, IIRC, and by adding him to the 40, they now have to use one of his option years if they want to send him back down. Additionally, as is Mozeliak's custom, he added Oviedo to the 40 man a year before he really needed to be on there.

He's not ready to be a big league starter and probably wouldn't have been next year either. So the Cardinals could've kept him off the 40 man altogether and he wouldn't have been exposed to the Rule 5. Then you pitch him in AAA in 2021 and maybe add him to the 40 next August if he shows he's ready. Call him up in September.

Then in 2022 you have him in his age 24 season with 3 full years worth of options and 6 years of service time.

Instead you've added him to the 40 in 2020, you'll need to option him next year in all likelihood (probably not this year) and you'll burn this year's service time. So instead in 2022 you have him with 2 option years and 5 years of service time.

Probably nothing critical, but there is some asset value wasted there. And obviously the worst case scenario is what happened with Reyes - a major injury that costs him 2 years when he's actually burning through big-league service time but not pitching, whereas had he been hurt in the minors, that's not big league time used up.

The Reyes thing was such a cluster****.

I hate it when they do that stupid hand wringing, he's such a talent, we cant put him on the field. Thats a Mo thing. The brilliant player sitting on the shelf is way better than actually playing on the field. We cant trade him, he's too valuable. Later he doesn't pan out. And we got shit to show for Mo's Faberge eggs.