ST. LOUIS – The St. Louis Cardinals acquired reestablished starting pitcher Erick Fedde in a three-team trade on Monday, adding to a veteran-heavy rotation, but building mystery around its future arrangements.
Fedde, 31, was building a career season with a last-place Chicago White Sox prior to the trade, cruising to the tune of a 7-4 record, 3.11 ERA and 108 strikeouts over 121.1 IP. Amid his seventh MLB season, following a brief stint overseas in the KBO last year, Fedde is on pace for career highs in victories, games started, innings pitched and strikeouts.
The breakout campaign gives the Cardinals confidence to insert Fedde into the starting rotation. That said, if the Cardinals want to follow MLB’s traditional structure of a five-man cast, someone has to move out.
Cardinals manager Oli Marmol did not commit to rotation plans while discussing the Fedde trade on Monday, telling reporters, “We’ll address that moving forward,” without much more context.
Meanwhile, Cardinals lead executive John Mozeliak hinted at the possibility of moving fill-in fifth starter Andre Pallante back to the bullpen, despite holding his own with a 3.61 ERA and four quality starts over 10 starts.
“Obviously he’s going into our rotation, so it is going to affect somewhere downstream,” said Mozeliak. “I think we’ll allow the next few days to try to work out how that looks. I think the natural move might be putting Pallante back in [the bullpen], but we’ll see.”
Coincidentally, Pallante took the mound in Monday’s series opener with the Texas Rangers, keeping the Cardinals within striking distance of the defending World Series champs with three earned runs over five-plus innings.
Pallante’s production has arguably been the best among Cardinals starting pitchers since rejoining the rotation in late-May. Sonny Gray, Kyle Gibson, Miles Mikolas and Lance Lynn have a combined ERA near 5.00 since late-May and have all fallen behind early in various starts, leading to brief outings.
Adding Fedde could offer the starting core more rest when needed, particularly for the leader Sony Gray after navigating an early-season hamstring injury and some fatigue-altered starts.
“Things can happen. There are guys that are feeling it a little bit. We’ll take the next few days and see how things unfold,” said Mozeliak.
Fedde’s most recent start with the White Sox came last Saturday, so he should be at full rest by Thursday. It’s fair to guess he will make his Cardinals debut at some point in a four-game road series with the Chicago Cubs, which begins Thursday.
Mozeliak and Marmol alike believe that Fedde could be a gamechanger to the rotation.
“When he added the sweeper, that really changed his pitch profile,” said Mozeliak. “I think the other difference is he’s pounding the strike zone. When he was over in the KBO, we had a lot of interest with him when he was coming back [to MLB].”
“This is a guy that’s been steady all year and is going to really add to what we’re doing here,” said Marmol. “Coming back to the states, there’s a much more confident version [of Fedde], and with a mix that has played well this year. Adding him to what we have going on here is meaningful.”
If the Cardinals want to make a deadline move in addition to Fedde and fellow incoming teammate Tommy Pham, their time is running short. The trade deadline is 5 p.m. Tuesday.
