St. Louis Cardinals: Optioning Greg Garcia was wrong

Ruben Tejada was activated on April 18 and the St. Louis Cardinals sent utility player Greg Garcia packing to Memphis. In the eyes of this writer, this was the wrong move.

A quality shortstop, Ruben Tejada, was picked-up by the St. Louis Cardinals to fill the void left by the injured Jhonny Peralta. When this transpired, the utility players on staff- Jedd Gyorko, Aledmys Diaz, and Greg Garcia– certainly noticed the additional competition.

Fast-forward to Tejada’s injury at the start of the season and these three players spelled the starting middle infield (with the addition of Kolton Wong). Now, a month later, Tejada presented as well enough to come off the disabled list. In this move, however, someone needed to be sent packing.

The first possibility was to send Aledmys Diaz packing as he had made the major squad thanks in large part to the Tejada injury. This wouldn’t do, though, since Diaz was showing good-to-great skills in the field (while accounting for four errors on the other hand) and impressive offensive numbers (batting averages per game hovering around the .400 figure). In the end, Diaz remained.

The second possibility was to send Jedd Gyorko packing since his batting performance had been less than stellar. His defense, unlike Diaz, was solid and he had/has committed two fewer errors. Gyorko was likely kept on the pine in St. Louis thanks to the promise of power he possesses as a late-inning pinch hitter and thanks to his ability to serve as a backup for third, short, and second. So he remained too.

The third possibility (of the names filling where Tejada fits), and the one that stuck, was to send Greg Garcia packing. Garcia had not been party to as much game action as Diaz but had produced when called upon. Defensively, Garcia-at the point of his departure- had committed fewer errors than Diaz and fewer errors than Gyorko.

Offensively, Garcia saw fewer at bats (10) than Gyorko (25) or Diaz (32) at the time of his departure. These numbers, on the one hand, Garcia nevertheless posted great batting averages in this small sample size no lower than .500.

Garcia showed, much to my chagrin as I wasn’t a fan of his coming out of last season and this spring, his prowess this season as a utility player and a great solution to pinch-hit including a pinch-hit home run on April 8.

All of this aside, Garcia was the one sent packing but was this the right choice? Had you asked me last season, I would have 100 percent agreed. This season, I do not agree.

Since Garcia’s departure, Matheny has names like Brandon Moss, Matt Adams, Jeremy Hazelbaker, etc. to call on to pinch-hit depending on the day. While these names should be intimidating, none of them have been doing well in pinch-hit situations of late.

To-date, of interest, the St. Louis Cardinals lead the majors with the best pinch-hit batting average posting a .417 in twenty-four pinch-hit at-bats. Much of this success, remember, is/was due to Greg Garcia.