St. Louis Cardinals sign LH reliever Dennys Reyes; righthanders shine
JUPITER, Fla. _ It was a good day for the St. Louis Cardinals’ bullpen today, both on and off the field.
After four righthanded relievers blanked the Dominican Republic team for the last four innings of a 4-1 exhibition victory, the club announced the signing of 31-year-old free-agent lefthander Dennys Reyes to fortify a weak southpaw side of the bullpen.
Reyes agreed to a two-year deal worth a total of approximately $3 million. But Reyes, who had a 2.33 earned run average and held opposing lefthanded hitters to a .202 average last year while pitching for Minnesota, won’t be available for a while. He will pitch for the Mexico team in the World Baseball Classic and could be away from Cardinals camp for two weeks or longer.
“He definitely solidifies our bullpen,” said Cardinals general manager John Mozeliak. “One of the things we tried to do in the off-season was upgrade from the left side. This gives us the ability to do that.”
Reyes has been in the majors 10-plus seasons with the Los Angeles Dodgers, Cincinnati, Colorado, Texas, Pittsburgh, Arizona, Kansas City, San Diego and Minnesota. He spent three seasons with Minnesota, and during that span had the lowest ERA (2.14) among lefthanded relievers in the majors.
Righthanded relievers Ryan Frankln, Chris Perez, Josh Kinney and Jason Motte blanked the Dominicans on one hit over the last five innings after righthander Todd Wellemeyer worked four innings of one-run ball. No Cardinals pitcher issued a walk.
(17 votes, average: 4.82 out of 5)
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Sweet. Between signing a solid lefty and the 68 degree day, I am really getting Spring fever.
Today’s pitching line helped that much more. I gotta admit, two months ago I would have thought that Franklin might be odd man out.
Wellemyer is going to be nasty this year. The whole staff will be. Stay tuned doubters!
Hallelujah! This definitely sounds like a step up from what we had.
Good signing Mo! A Reyes/Miller lefty combo should be pretty good for us this season.
Not what we “had”, what we have… i still think Manning, Ring, Otslund,Maekewa,Choi, ficke give us some nice depth down at AAA and below in case of injury…Mannign and Otslund still have some good upside and are young…which is fine for AAA…Maekewa and Choi are emergency types probably, but that was the thought on them when they came in..Fiske is a youngster… Ring is a vet tat could still find his way to the big league team if he shows off at AAA
I am sooo excited.
We passed up KRod, JJPutz & Fuentes for this AVERAGE Joe.
Get your abbacus out, we will need it to count all the blown saves we witness yet again this year.
Geesh.
Way to underwhelm Cardinal Nation Mo….
Mo is a mere Puppet for De”cheap”Witt to spin his ideas to the fans.
Diehardcardsfan is a fool. Mo, this is a huge pickup. Attaboy.
Good news!!
We needed another lefty.
Finally feel like we’re moving in the right direction.
Go Birds!
Last time the Cards signed a LOOGY who pitched for Mexico in the WBC, the poor goy took the money and pitched exactly zero innings thereafter. Fool me once shame on you. Fool me twice. . . . .
Hey diehardcardsfan…..Did you not read the part about the past three seasons with Minnesota he had the lowest ERA (2.14) among lefthanded relievers in the MAJORS! I believe best means better than all the other lefthanded relievers including KRod, JPutz, and Fuentes. I’m not real happy with MO and Dewallet either but this is an upgrade. Get off of lip street!!!
Great work, Mo. And thanks to the DeWitts for the cash. Our lineup is going to bring guys across the plate. Need to keep the other guys from doing the same and Reyes is a very nice play to keep that from happening.