Cardinals have us scratching our heads with another questionable 40-man roster move

Baked into the excitement surrounding the St. Louis Cardinals' addition of Keynan Middleton this weekend was the realization that they would have to designate a player for assignment in a corresponding move. And as what almost always seems to be the case when it comes to the Cardinals' 40-man roster decisions, they designated for assignment a player that made little sense to.

While the Cardinals have been collecting first base/corner outfielders who will never play like Thanos and the Infinity Stones, they decided to designate for assignment reliever Guillermo Zuniga.

Here's the rub. I'm not someone who is here to convince you that Zuniga is going to be an incredible reliever at his next stop but to let go of an arm who has an intriguing future while holding onto a variety of position players who I do not see a path toward playing time is head scratching at the very least.

Just one look at the 40-man roster, and there are multiple names I'd identify as DFA candidates before Zuniga, including Jared Young, Buddy Kennedy, Michael Siani, and the recently claimed Alfonso Rivas.

Rivas was claimed last week off of waivers, resulting in outfielder Moises Gomez being DFA'd. Gomez passed through waivers so St. Louis was able to retain him, but I do not expect Zuniga to make it through waivers like Gomez did.

The Cardinals have added five relievers to their 40-man roster this offseason, so yes, they do have a lot more options than they did before. By my count, there are 13 different guys who I feel comfortable filling their bullpen on the 40-man alone, let alone other prospects, but I just don't get why any of those position players are worth hanging onto over Zuniga.

Sure, maybe one of Young, Rivas, Kennedy, or Siani play a role at some point, but having all four of them over Zuniga is just another example of the Cardinals not managing their 40-man roster in an effective way.