Cardinals’ prospect Luis Perdomo taken in Rule 5
LAS VEGAS — The righthanded reliever the St. Louis Cardinals received in the Anthony Reyes trade with Cleveland was selected in the Rule 5 draft this morning by the San Francisco Giants. Luis Perdomo will be added to the Giants’ 40-man roster and taken to spring training where he will have the opportunity to make the major-league 25-man roster. He must be on that roster all season or be offered back to the Cardinals before he can be sent to the minors.
Perdomo was a likely loss after the Cardinals elected not to protect him from the draft by putting him on their 40-man roster. The players the Cardinals did protect were SS Tyler Greene and RHP Matt Scherer.
The Giants selected Perdomo with the sixth pick in the draft.
The Cardinals passed on their selection, opting not to take a player. Last year they selected OF Brian Barton with their Rule 5 pick, and he is now under their control after spending all of last season on the 25-man roster (or the disabled list).
Perdomo had a successful, though brief, turn in the Cardinals’ system after the trade with Cleveland. Perdomo struck out 82 in 72 1/3 innings spread over three teams at two levels of minor-league ball in 2008. He held opponents to a .190 average overall. Cleveland used him as a closer at its lower-level club, and he served as a setup reliever with Double-A Springfield to end the season. He was seen as a surefire bet for the Cardinals’ Triple-A bullpen in Memphis.
He could still be there eventually. He’ll just take a detour through San Francisco.
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(13 votes, average: 5 out of 5)
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Derrick Goold said he was going to Mizzou for capital-J journalism, but after growing up in the Time Zone Baseball Forgot he was really drawn to MU sitting between two major-league cities. Goold joined the Post-Dispatch in 2001 after working for The Times-Picayune and Rocky Mountain News, covering sports from LSU to NHL and every level of baseball in between. 
dg - Can you give me any reason that the Cards would protect Scherer over Perdomo? For the life of me I cannot think of any reason to protect Scherer, period. Much less at the expense of a reliever with considerably more upside.
What was the rationale behind not protecting Perdomo? The remnants of Anthony Reyes aren’t worth anything?
What the heck?! I have to second the questions already posted. Why didn’t the Cards protect him? Hope you can give us the scoop on this, DG.
I don’t know this for a fact but not putting him on the 40 man doesn’t mean the Cards don’t feel he has the upside. If a reliever isn’t ready for the big leagues this year, why not leave him unprotected and keep someone who might be of value to the big league club sooner. I don’t know that is the case with Scherer (not even sure I’ve ever heard of him before) but I’m sure there is a good reason. I have a feeling that Perdomo will be back in the fold before the end of spring training. I don’t see how the Giants can keep him in their major league bullpen all season, in which case he’ll be bought back. The way I see it, they are renting him out for spring and if I remember correctly, the cost to buy him back is about $25k less than what the Cards were paid the Giants to take him. I haven’t heard the numbers recently but for some reason I think I remember it being $50k to draft a rule V player and $25k to get him back if they try to send him to the minors.
Maybe leaving Perdomo unprotected was a gamble they had to make. It’s probably a touch decision on the last 5 or 6 names on the protected list. If Perdomo was toward the bottom on that list, it could have been the team had to protect the rights to a possible “player to be named later” from a previous trade. SO IS THERE ANYTHING LEFT TO SHOW FOR REYES?
FWIW, a few years ago, the Cards lost Tyler Johnson to the Oakland A’s in the Rule 5 draft. He didn’t make the A’s roster out of spring training and we got him back.
So it could happen that Perdomo returns.
Just got off a flight from San Diego to STL. Jake Peavy was on it. He got off here. This was his destination. I stood next to him when we got our bags. I don’t know if that means anything or not.