ST. LOUIS • Less than 10 days ago, Cardinals general manager John Mozeliak skipped to Peoria to see the play of the club’s lowest full-season affiliate. The Chiefs had a treat for him.
In the outfield, together for the first time all season that day, May 9, were three of the Cardinals’ youngest and top position prospects. Combined, their ages total 57. In right, stood second-round pick Bryce Denton, age 19, and manning center was first-round pick Nick Plummer, age 20. Out in left, well, that’s where the youngest of them all, 18-year-old switching-hitting Dylan Carlson, played.
The Boston Red Sox helped put him there.
Almost two years ago, at the trade deadline, Mozeliak made a move that quite literally upset the Cardinals clubhouse. There were tears. There was anger. There was purpose. He traded Allen Craig and Joe Kelly, two players who believed they would be part of the Cardinals’ firmament, to the Red Sox for prickly veteran John Lackey, minor-league lefty Corey Littrell, and cash. Mozeliak wanted to clear playing time for rookie Oscar Taveras by moving Craig and score needed innings for the rotation that Kelly wasn’t providing by acquiring Lackey.
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The trade paid off handsomely for the Cardinals and, with the bonus benefit of Carlson at Low-A, could continue to do so. It has mostly cost the Red Sox.
Who “won” the deal is clear.
Joe Kelly, for one.
“All around it was a good trade,” Kelly said Tuesday before his current team faced his former team in a brief, two-game interleague series at Busch Stadium. “Lackey pitched well here. Right now, I’m in the bullpen trying to put some good innings in there, trying to help us win. I’m a reliever now, not someone jumping back and forth from roles. I know what I’m doing day in, day out, and that’s definitely different. Could definitely be good.”
Of course, Kelly’s view could be a bit skewed about the deal. He’s the only one still with the big-league club that acquired him.
Lackey pitched eight strong months for the Cardinals, was a key to a 100-win season in 2015, and then vamoosed for Chicago and the opportunity to play with pal Jon Lester and win a championship at Wrigley Field. Craig never found his footing with Boston, and is now making $11 million as a part-time player for the Red Sox at their Triple-A affiliate. Roster and financial binds are likely to keep him in the minors until he can get free from Boston at the end of this season. Littrell is nearing the end of a 50-day suspension he received at the start of spring training for a positive drug test. Lackey left. Littrell hasn’t reached the majors. Craig can’t stay there. Only Kelly remains.
The righthander has been a lightning bolt out of the bullpen this season for Boston – throwing the fastest pitch of the season (102.2 mph) and serving as a setup man for uber-closer Craig Kimbrel. In 16 appearances this season, Kelly is 2-0 with a 1.89 ERA and 10 strikeouts in 19 innings. He hasn’t lost a game for Boston since he started 25 games for the Red Sox in 2015. Overall, he’s 20-8 for Boston with a 4.49 ERA and, for context, a 95 ERA+ (100 is average). He’s throwing 254 2/3 innings in 71 games (41 starts).
“Even my repertoire has changed,” Kelly said. “Here, I was trying to throw two-seamers at the bottom of the zone. Now it’s completely opposite. I’m a reliever, and as a starter it wasn’t max-effort on every pitch. I’m trying to get after it on the mound now. Hard curveballs. Hard sliders. Hard fastballs.”
Kelly, 28, has also altered his mechanics from the Cardinals days. He’s shorter. More compact. He shifted them to see if he could limit shoulder soreness that dogged him as a starter. He wanted to create less strain on the joint without sacrificing power, and so far this season he’s been able to do that. He, Trevor Rosenthal, and Aroldis Chapman are three of the leaders when it comes to pitches at 99 mph or swifter so far this season.
Kelly says he keeps in touch with Craig.
That’s more than the Red Sox can say.
Once a rising terror at the plate with an RBI reputation and a MVP’s knack for run production from the cleanup spot, Craig was undone by a foot injury. Boston was hyper-aware of his bat during the 2013 World Series, and officials apparently remained convinced that he could get it back after a difficult 2014. The Cardinals stuck with him, stuck with him, stuck with him, until Mozeliak made the move that removed Craig from manager Mike Matheny’s options and assured Taveras would get those starts in right field. In the next two years with Boston, Craig played in 65 games and hit .139/.236/.197 with two homers and five RBIs.
Craig, as much St. Louis-native slugger Ryan Howard, serves as a reminder of how essential the feet are to a hitter. Lose the base, lose the balance. Lose the balance, lose the strength. Lose the strength, lose …
“I hope he gets a chance to give it a go,” Kelly said of Craig, who hit four homers during the Cardinals’ 2011 championship run. “Hopefully he doesn’t hang it up. I think he could be a big-league player for someone.”
As a backup at Class AAA making eight figures, Boston has more reasons not to promote Craig than to do so at this point. Craig is no longer on the 40-man roster, and thus his salary does not count against Boston’s salary cap. The Red Sox are pressed up against the tax and have no reason to add such a hefty contract that could limit other moves or cost more.
And maybe that’s where the winner of this deal truly is measured.
In their time with the team after the four-player trade, each player’s contribution can be gauged by WAR, Wins Above Replacement:
CARDINALS
- Lackey (2014-2015) 5.3 WAR
- Littrell (MiLB) 0.0 WAR
RED SOX
- Kelly (2014-present) 2.0 WAR
- Craig (2014-2015) minus-1.2 WAR
Lackey alone carries the win for the Cardinals. Though, this deal was about more than that. This deal was also about value. Remember, the Cardinals were intrigued by Lackey because of a curious provision in his contract that gave them the right to pay him the minimum in 2015. (They did rework the deal so that Lackey received more than $2 million that year.) Lackey agreed to a contract with the Red Sox that included an option year for the major-league minimum if he missed a full season due to injury. He did. The Cardinals took advantage.
In his year on the minimum salary, Lackey led a historically good Cardinals’ rotation. He had a 2.77 ERA and went 13-10. Overall, the Cardinals got eight months of a bona fide veteran innings Clydesdale for the grand total of $6 million in base salary.
Boston, who has long since moved on from the GM who made the four-player swap with Mozeliak, owed Craig about $26 million.
On a per WAR/million rate, the Cardinals come out ahead:
- Cardinals – 0.88 WAR/million spent
- Red Sox – 0.03 WAR/million spent
Now, granted that does not include Littrell, and it’s entirely possible that the lefty reliever would have nicked the aggregate WAR total, or helped it. As he reached Class AAA Memphis last year, Littrell did thrive in a lefty specialist role and earn an invite to the Arizona Fall League to see if he was ready for the 40-man roster. Overall, Littrell had a 4.56 ERA in 51 1/3 innings for the Triple-A Redbirds. Beneath that line, however, he held lefties to a .177 batting average against and had more strikeouts (30) than he did hits and walks combined (23). The Cardinals have spent much on Littrell and, to date, haven’t received any major-league contribution.
That offers another way to measure the trade, albeit a bit extravagant. FanGraphs attempts to calculate how much a player’s production would earn him on the open market, and the valuations skew high. (So does the market, natch.) We can then add the money spent as a result of this trade and compare it to the production each team received in the majors, and that puts a net zero Littrell.
- Cardinals spent $6 million-ish, received $35.1 million in production.
- Red Sox spent $29 million, received $3.9 million in production.
But, Boston is still getting value, with Kelly.
The Cardinals must wait to see if there is more ahead for them.
Enter Carlson.
The Cardinals’ telegraphed their intentions to let Lackey go as a free agent. He was candid about his interest in playing for the Cubs, and the Cardinals were blunt about their reluctance to commit to two seasons for the veteran. The only question was whether the Cardinals would offer Lackey a qualifying offer. They did before the 2015-2016 free agent rush, and thus cost the Cubs a draft pick for signing him. The Cardinals received compensation – the 33rd overall pick in the 2016 draft. They took a switch-hitting prep outfielder from California. He’s the spoils of how well Lackey did for the Cardinals, in the same way Michael Wacha and Stephen Piscotty are compensation picks from Albert Pujols’ departure.
One of the youngest players in last year’s draft – he won’t turn 19 until October – Carlson has been pushed to a full-season club. In his first 90 at-bats for Peoria, he’s hit .211 with a .336 on-base percentage and a .344 slugging percentage. He had 36 strikeouts and 15 walks to go with three homers.
Carlson “has a really good baseball IQ,” Mozeliak told the Peoria Journal Star during his visit to the Chiefs game.
And, then it was time to watch Carlson ply his trade.
He singled twice.
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Derrick Goold
Derrick Goold is the lead Cardinals beat writer for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and past president of the Baseball Writers' Association of America.
