Earlier this off-season, St. Louis Cardinals General Manager John Mozeliak explained why the team had exercised the $12 million option for left-hander Jaime Garcia.
“A lot of people have been speculating, are you going to trade him or not?,” he began. “The answer is we don’t know. But having him be on our roster right now has value and in terms of what we end up doing, it’s hard to say. There are some scenarios where you could see us maybe moving a different pitcher and then having Jaime on our rotation moving forward, but there are scenarios too where I could envision us just simply trading him for something that could either help our club or maybe add a prospect to our system.”
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As it turns out, Garcia brought a return of not one prospect but rather three as the Cardinals have announced a trade with the Atlanta Braves.
Right-handed pitchers John Gant and Chris Ellis along with infielder Luke Dykstra come over from the Braves in exchange for Garcia.
The 24-year old Gant made his big league debut with Atlanta this past season and went 1-4 with a 4.86 ERA in 20 games (7 starts), striking out 49 batters in his 50.0 innings pitched. Drafted by the New York Mets in 2011, Gant also made 12 appearances (10 starts) for Triple-A Gwinnett in 2016, going 3-3 with a 4.18 ERA.
A 3rd round draft pick of the Los Angeles Angels in 2014, Ellis combined for 28 starts between Gwinnett and the Mississippi Braves of the Southern League (AA) in 2016. The 24-year old was a Southern League All-Star, going 12-9 with a 4.49 ERA between the two Braves affiliates, making 15 starts for Gwinnett and 13 for Mississippi.
Dykstra was a South Atlantic League All-Star in 2016 while batting .304 in 81 games for Rome (A). The right-handed hitting 21-year old is the son of former Major Leaguer Lenny Dykstra and was a 7th round draft selection by Atlanta in 2014 out of Westlake (Calif.) High School.
“We are pleased to be able to add Jaime García,” Braves general manager John Coppolella told MLB.com. “We had targeted him for a number of years and feel he will be an impactful part of a revamped rotation. It was tough to trade away three kids we really liked, but we want to win and we want to create competition for our young pitchers.”
MLB Pipeline has already ranked Ellis (24) and Gant (27) amongst the Cardinals top 30 prospects.
Drafted by St. Louis in 2005, Jaime Garcia compiled a record of 62-45 with a 3.57 ERA in 158 games pitched for the Cardinals.
photo credit: Bill Greenblatt/UPI
