Cardinals news and notes: Hazelbaker, Rosenthal, offseason

The Cardinals lost a few from their 40-man roster yesterday. Dean Kiekhefer was claimed off waivers by the Seattle Mariners and Jeremy Hazelbaker was claimed by the Arizona Diamondbacks. After a hot spring training, Hazelbaker jumped out of the gate and posted a 167 wRC+ in April. He soon came back down to earth and settled into the reserve role where he’ll likely be for most of his career.

Still, Hazelbaker had some fine moments down the stretch, most notably when he broke up Kyle Hendricks’s no-hit bid in the 9th inning with a solo shot back in mid-September. The Cardinals still lost 4-1 but it was my favorite loss of the season.

Good luck to both Jeremy and Dean.

In other news, the Cubs held their enormous parade in downtown Chicago yesterday. Pending on the source, it was attended by anywhere from one million people to everyone on planet Earth. More notably, the Cubs have now joined the club of winning the World Series and commemorating it with truly awful hats.

It truly is a rite of passage.

Here’s what you may have missed yesterday at VEB:

Trevor Rosenthal

Using good relievers in high-leverage situations instead of traditional set-up or closer roles is getting a lot of play right now because of Terry Francona’s use of Andrew Miller the last few months. John Fleming looked at whether the Cardinals could benefit by using Trevor Rosenthal as a high-leverage, multiple inning-type reliever.

The Offseason

As mentioned, the 40-man roster is going to start to take shape over the next few months and Lil Scooter compiled everything that’s happened so far in this short offseason.

Enjoy your Saturday, everyone.