Cardinals convince NL's most desperate team to mercifully trade for Erick Fedde

Somehow, someway, someone decided to take Erick Fedde off the St. Louis Cardinals' hands!

Following Sunday's loss to the San Diego Padres, news broke from Robert Murray of FanSided.com that Fedde and cash considerations had been dealt by the Cardinals to the Atlanta Braves for a player to be named later or cash considerations. While it may come as a shock to many that someone traded for Fedde, as I'll get into in a moment, this return likely means the Cardinals basically just moved some of Fedde's contract for practically nothing in return.

The Atlanta Braves have traded for Erick Fedde, ending the Cardinals' nightmare situation.

The Braves, who sit 12 games back of the NL Wild Card with almost no hope of making the playoffs, were the most perfectly desperate team to make a deal for someone like Fedde. The Braves may sell some expiring assets over the next few days, but acquiring any players in "win-now" type moves would be organizational malpractice...unless it basically costs them nothing like Fedde did. Grant Holmes hit the 60-day injured list for the Braves earlier today, paving the way for this deal to happen.

With how bad Fedde has been for the Cardinals, all they could reasonably hope for at this point was salary relief, which it seems like they'll at least get a bit from the Braves here. There's a player to be named later or cash in this deal as well, but whenever that is the return for a player, it likely just means cash or a non-top 30 prospect in someone's system.

Fedde, whom the Cardinals refused to trade in the offseason with false hope that he would be a valuable piece for them this year, posted a 5.22 ERA for them this year and, over his last five starts, saw it go all the way up to a 13.25 ERA. His under-the-hood numbers were in a terrible place all year long, so it was only a matter of time before things blew up on him. The Cardinals finally designated Fedde for an assignment earlier this week, but the damage had already been done.

John Mozeliak fumbled this situation so badly, not only missing out on real value for Fedde in the offseason, but also allowing him to implode their season and put them further behind the eight ball as they tried to scrape a claw for a playoff spot. No, this cannot be chalked up as a small win that they moved him. This was about as bad a situation as we have seen under Mozeliak's leadership.