St. Louis Cardinals: Waiver arms the Cards should consider claiming

The St. Louis Cardinals have the opportunity to add a pitcher who once gave them troubles.

When he pitched for the Houston Astros, as a starter, Bud Norris was kryptonite to the Cardinals batters. He is now serving in a pen role for the Los Angeles Angels and would be a nice addition to the St. Louis Cardinals pen.

After what looked like a great start to his career on his way to being an outstanding starter, Norris was traded at the deadline by Houston to the Baltimore Orioles in 2013. Baltimore eventually lost trust in Norris after he accrued his career-high hit-batters number of 14 in 2014 and they released him in August of 2015.

The San Diego Padres held Norris for the balance of 2015 but nothing beyond as Bud struggled to find his form through 16.1 innings and the Padres released him at the conclusion of the 2015 season.

He was signed to the Braves for the 2016 season where he appeared in 70.1 innings and remained around his 4.00 ERA (actually ending his Braves tenure with a 4.22 ERA). One month before the deadline of 2016, Norris was once again on the move in a trade. He was sent to the Los Angeles Dodgers where he struggled through 42.2 innings.

Norris was released by the Dodgers in September of 2016 after earning a 6.54 ERA. Despite his rough outings over the past few seasons, Norris is still well regarded as a strikeout arm. In 2016 he recorded 102 strikeouts out of the pen and has raked 56 Ks this season with the Angels.

On the down side of things, Norris has surrendered 23 earned runs of which seven were home runs this season. These negative stats have lead to his being placed on waivers and having cleared those waivers.

Could Norris, the one-time Cardinals kryptonite be the next St. Louis Cardinals reclamation piece? This free-agent-to-be would and could be looking to improve his numbers and the Cardinals could benefit from his return to the NL-Central. I doubt that the Cardinals would look to sign him beyond 2017, but he could be a nice addition to the pen for situational management.

I rank Norris fairly low on the likely scale, but his availability is one that the Cardinals should consider.