St. Louis Cardinals: Looking at the Jaime Garcia trade then and now

Another former St. Louis Cardinals starter is making headlines.

What a week it has been so far for former beloved St. Louis Cardinals players. Mark Reynolds had a two home run game to give himself 22 on the year and Matt Adams slugged a game-tying three run bomb off of Kenley Jansen with two outs in the ninth. Both of those occurred yesterday and today is Monday which leaves both men plenty of time to do more damage.

Now it is Jaime Garcia‘s turn to make it into baseball news as he was traded to the Minnesota Twins this afternoon. Apparently his grand slam off of the dominate Alex Wood was not enough to save him from the trade block.

After a rough 2016 season, the Cardinals decided to trade the injury-prone left-hander to the Atlanta Braves. In the deal the Redbirds received relief pitcher John Gant along with second baseman/shortstop Luke Dykstra and starting pitcher Chris Ellis.

This trade made sense as Garcia had a slim chance of making the rotation and was going to be owed $12 million after his club option was picked up.

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On the Braves’ side they got a starting pitcher who showed he could be productive when healthy without giving up a top prospect. Also, it would be added “youth” to the rotation as Bartolo Colon and R.A. Dickey made up forty percent of it.

Today, the Braves flipped Garcia as well as catcher Anthony Recker and cash to the surprising contenders in the Minnesota Twins. Atlanta acquired starting pitcher Huascar Ynoa who had an ERA of 3.38 in 35 starts in foreign rookie and rookie ball since 2015.

Currently, this is what the St. Louis Cardinals and Atlanta Braves got out of the Jaime Garcia trade (2017 numbers in parentheses):

STL: SP/RP John Gant (1 game, 5.40 ERA, 1.500 WHIP in MLB/11 starts, 3.45 ERA, 1.217 WHIP in AAA), 2B/SS Luke Dykstra (.226/.288/.566, 66 wRC+ in A+), and SP Chris Ellis (10 games, 4.19 ERA, 1.47 WHIP in AA/11 games, 7.88 ERA, 1.78 WHIP in AAA)

ATL: SP Jaime Garcia (18 starts, 4.30 ERA, 1.319 WHIP in MLB) and SP Huascar Ynoa (6 starts, 5.26 ERA, 1.636 WHIP in RK)

Next: Mismanagement of youth has cost the Cardinals

Right now it is hard to say who has won this trade as it is not even a year old. So far I would have to give the edge to the Atlanta Braves. Garcia is the only member of the trade to have a significant impact in the majors and the two prospects the Cardinals received in Dykstra and Ellis have struggled in their minor league system thus far.