There are a few teams in baseball that just don’t trade with each other, at least not in any meaningful way. The Cubs and White Sox don’t send impact players to their crosstown rivals. The Dodgers and Giants would rather do anything else besides strike a significant trade that might help the other, to the point where you only have to go back four trades between the two franchises before you find a deal that involved Jackie Robinson. Yes, that Jackie Robinson; the deal was voided when Robinson refused to report to the Giants.

Less well known, the Cardinals and Royals also mostly just ignore each other in trade talks. They’ve made four trades together in the last 21 years, involving immortal players like Jose Martinez (twice), Tony Cruz, Jamie Romak, Victor Marte, and Jason Ryan. Back in December of 1995, the Cardinals helped facilitate a three-way trade in which the Royals got Mike Remlinger from the Reds, a move so essential that Remlinger actually never pitched for Kansas City, as he was claimed back on waivers by the Reds before the 1996 season started.

Realistically, the last significant trade between the two franchises was in February of 1993, when St. Louis sent Felix Jose to Kansas City for Gregg Jefferies. Both players had been roughly average players the year before, but Jefferies turned in a +5.4 WAR season in 1993 for St. Louis, while Jose put up a -0.9 WAR season in KC. The Royals apparently decided the Cardinals were not to be trusted after that, and we’ve now gone 23 years without a significant move between the two organizations.

But in reading Jeff’s post yesterday, and thinking about what the Royals could do this winter besides just sit around and hope things break their way, I started to think that Dayton Moore and John Mozeliak should thaw the ice. It’s time for the Royals and Cardinals to make an interesting trade again.

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The St. Louis Cardinals sent lefty Jaime Garcia to Atlanta in exchange for a trio of minor leaguers this evening. Below are my thoughts on the prospects heading to St. Louis in the deal.

John Gant, RHP (Profile)

The good-bodied and eccentric Gant is probably the likeliest to yield big-league value of the triumvirate acquired by St. Louis tonight. He’s already spent time there, having thrown 50 major-league innings in 2016. As a rookie, Gant struck out nearly a batter per inning (recording a 22% strikeout rate) but also struggled with walks (9.5%). Gant’s fastball sits in the low 90s, mostly 90-93, but will touch as high as 96 and has a slightly above-average spin rate. His changeup is his best secondary offering and best pitch overall. It’s a plus, low-80s cambio that disappears away from lefties as it approaches the plate. Gant maintains his fastball’s arm speed throughout release. There are times when Gant makes a visible effort to create extra movement on the pitch, alters his arm action, and causes his change to flatten out. He also has a loopy, below-average mid-70s curveball. He’s had to use the curve more frequently than a pitch of this quality usually warrants in order to navigate his way through minor-league lineups multiple times.

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The Braves’ first few moves of the 2016-17 offseason — and, in particular, the acquisitions of both Bartolo Colon and R.A. Dickey — appeared to raise the floor for an Atlanta club team designed to survive, if not necessarily thrive in, 2017. The club’s most recent move might not help raise that floor any higher. What it could do, however, is heighten the team’s ceiling — and, at the very least, provide the club with an interesting trade chip for the July trade deadline.

Earlier tonight, the Braves traded three prospects to the St. Louis Cardinals in exchange for Jaime Garcia, who enters the final season of an extension signed back in 2011.

Here’s the trade in full.

Braves Receive:

• Jaime Garcia

Cardinals Receive:

• 2B Luke Dykstra
• RHP Chris Ellis
• RHP John Gant

When healthy, Garcia has been an effective pitcher. Over the course of his career, he’s produced a better-than-average FIP and ERA (both 8% lower than league average). Staying on the mound for any length of time has been the issue for Garcia, however. After recording 194 innings in 2011 — and earning a four-year contract extension (with two options) along the way — Garcia struggled to stay healthy. He managed only 220 innings over the next three seasons combined and began 2015 on the disabled list. His numbers were never particularly bad during that span — and were, in some cases, quite good. After thoracic outlet surgery in the middle of 2014, however, his career appeared to be in some jeopardy.

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The Cardinals had a few problems last season, and among them was unreliable relief pitching. As a means toward addressing that, they’ve given free-agent lefty Brett Cecil a four-year contract, worth $30.5 million. It also has a full no-trade clause! Very clearly, Cecil didn’t come cheap. A number of teams expressed a willingness to guarantee Cecil three years, so the Cardinals stepped up and went one extra.

It wouldn’t be hard to spin this in a negative way. Relievers feel like they’re unpredictable, right? So investing in them long-term might be a fool’s errand. And, last year’s average reliever had a 3.93 ERA. Cecil had a 3.93 ERA. He also finished with the eighth-lowest WPA among relievers, meaning he was even less valuable than his regular statistics. On top of that stuff, Cecil missed a month and a half with a lat injury. He didn’t have a banner first half.

Yet, he did have a much better second half. The healthy Cecil was dominant. Here’s his last pitch of the regular season:

That’s just in there for a pretty visual. Cecil finished the year effective, and he was effective in seasons previous. There’s been a certain response to this contract:

Already have heard from multiple executives and agents who think Brett Cecil’s four-year, $30.5M deal with St. Louis is a market changer.

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) November 19, 2016

But I just don’t agree with that. I don’t think this is the least bit strange or surprising. Cecil got four years and $30.5 million with a full no-trade. Last winter, the Orioles gave Darren O’Day four years and $31 million, with a partial no-trade. They’re very similar contracts, given to a pair of non-closers, and in this table, check out their numbers over the three seasons before signing:

O’Day has the edge in hit and run suppression. Cecil has the edge in peripherals, age, and velocity. While O’Day might’ve been the tougher pitcher to square up, Cecil has made it hard to just put the bat on the ball, and he also has the advantage of a few years of youth. I don’t see how Cecil’s contract, then, is a market-changer. Was O’Day’s contract a market-changer? If so, this one just falls right in line. It might come as a little startling to see a non-closer get four years guaranteed, but Cecil didn’t start this, and there was already emphasis being put on finding better non-closers before. This seems like it’s normal. Brett Cecil’s contract feels normal.

Now, it’s worth noting, perhaps, that O’Day wasn’t great in the first year of his four-year deal. Maybe that means all of this is unwise. But in reality, it’s not that relief pitchers are all that unpredictable. It’s that they just have smaller samples of playing time, and the reduced samples make them unpredictable. They still project like anyone else. And Cecil projects to be fine, and the Cardinals bullpen projects to be good. They can check that priority off the list.

Matt Carpenter did something special last night, on the final day of baseball’s 2016 regular season. I’ll get the anticlimactic part of this all out of the way right now: it didn’t matter. Of course, none of this actually matters, but through the lens of the St. Louis Cardinals’ year and postseason implications, what Carpenter did wound up not meaning a thing. It could’ve meant a thing; Carpenter and the Cardinals had everything to play for. Their only shot at a playoff berth came through a win, and what Carpenter did helped the Cardinals win one of their biggest game of the year, 10-4, over the Pittsburgh Pirates.

But the Cardinals needed some help alongside their win to potentially clinch that playoff berth, and with a loss to the San Francisco Giants, the Los Angeles Dodgers did not provide the necessary help. The win over the Pirates was for nought; the Cardinals were eliminated from postseason contention. Carpenter, though, did all he could — including pulling a trick out of his bag that he’d been waiting more than six years to use.

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With the exception of an eight-game stretch in April where he went 13-for-26, with seven extra-base hits, Jeremy Hazelbaker has had a fairly unremarkable rookie season. The St. Louis Cardinals outfielder is slashing .239/.300/.487, with a dozen home runs in 221 plate appearances. He spent parts of June and July in Triple-A.

For a time, it looked like he might be a minor-league lifer. Drafted in the fourth round out of Ball State University by the Red Sox in 2009, Hazelbaker was dealt to the Dodgers following the 2013 season. Eighteen months later he was released. St. Louis signed him last May and assigned him to Double-A Springfield. He finished the year in Triple-A.

Hazelbaker was 28 years old when he reported to spring training — he turned 29 last month — and the odds were against him earning a spot on the Cardinals roster. He beat those odds.

I’d followed Hazelbaker’s career. I’d interviewed and written about him a handful of times as he was coming up through the Red Sox system. I’d seen the tools, but I hadn’t seen those tools translate into consistent performance. I was skeptical that I ever would.

When I caught up to Hazelbaker in early August, I admitted as much. Being perhaps a little too honest, I began the interview by saying: “I didn’t think you’d make it. Why was I wrong?” Here was his response.

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Hazelbaker on proving me wrong: “Everybody has their opinion on guys coming up. There are things people don’t really get. Looking in from the outside, you don’t see how hard of a worker a guy is, or how much drive and determination he has. Do you want to call me an underdog story? You can if you want. Whatever you want to call it, I know there have been people skeptical of me — my path, my journey, my abilities along the way.

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Alex Reyes was only called up in August. He’s appeared in just 10 games, started just three and thrown only 35 of the Cardinals’ 1352.1 innings. He is certainly not the most valuable player on the team. He isn’t the most important, either. He’s not their best reliever (because of Seung Hwan Oh’s great performance), and he’s not the best starter on the team (that’s Carlos Martinez). When it comes to being in the right place at the right time, however, and taking on multiple roles out of the bullpen and, most recently, pitching seven shutout innings against a team also threatening for a Wild Card spot in the Giants, there is an argument to be made that Alex Reyes has saved the Cardinals’ season.

Reyes is the type of prospect over whom fans drool, and his arsenal has translated immediately to the majors. He’s already topped 100 mph on his fastball 18 times this season. He has a curveball with more vertical movement than any other pitcher in the big leagues. He has a changeup that averages 89 mph and earns a swing and a miss 25% of the time Reyes throws it. He’s far from the perfect pitcher, of course, and continues to struggle with command — both with the fastball and his offspeed offerings. The problems Reyes experienced with control in the minors — where he recorded at least a 10% walk rate at every stop — have carried over to the majors, where’s he’s produced a 13% mark so far this season. He doesn’t always have great command of his pitches, but thanks to a lack of homers, his FIP is still a quite low 2.76 while a low BABIP and high left-on-base percentage has left his ERA at an unsustainably low 1.03 on the season.

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We don’t talk much about Matt Holliday these days. It’s been awhile since he was one of the best players in baseball. Probably the last time you could have honestly made that claim was in 2014, when his 132 wRC+ was 28th-best in the game. However, with the news that Holliday has probably succumbed to his thumb injury for the rest of the season, I thought we would take a minute to talk about Holliday. Holliday can’t do most of the things he used to, but even after all this time can still hit.

Holliday has always had a special place in my heart because he got to Coors Field at the same time as I did. I started working for the Rockies in March of 2004, about a month before Holliday would make an unexpected major-league debut. He got the call when both Preston Wilson and Larry Walker came up lame in the first couple weeks of what would become (at the time) the bleakest moment in Rockies history. Technically, the team’s winning percentage had been worse in 1993, but in 1993 no one in the Rocky Mountain region had cared, because they had a major-league team for the first time.

That 2004 season was bad not just because of the team on the field, but because it was the year the team traded Larry Walker away — twice — getting far less in return the second time. The first time, when they tried to trade him to the Texas Rangers for Ian Kinsler, Walker had vetoed the deal. He was then sent to the Cardinals, which, in retrospect, was absolutely the right move for Walker, who would finally get to play in the World Series that fall. I’m pretty sure the Rockies would have rather had Kinsler than Chris Narveson, though. In any case, trading away Walker meant that any scant hopes the team would contend had totally and completely died. The “Todd (Helton) and the Toddlers” era had begun.

The most prominent “toddler” was Holliday. He would come along slowly, but he could always hit. As fate would have it, the season he put it all together coincided with Troy Tulowitzki‘s arrival and Todd Helton’s final good season, and the three helped lead the Rockies to their first and still only World Series berth. Holliday slugged .607 that season, and if that seems like a ridiculous number, it is. Coors Field might still be a hitting haven, but no Rockies player has slugged .600 since.

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Matt Bowman is having a solid rookie season in St. Louis. The 25-year-old right-hander — a Rule-5 pick out of the Mets system — has a 4.06 ERA and a 3.64 FIP in 50 games out of the Cardinals bullpen. He’s admittedly surprised by his success. As he explained to me six weeks ago, “It was a tough year last year.”

The numbers bear that out. Pitching as a starter for the Las Vegas 51s, Bowman went 7-16 with a 5.53 ERA. In 140 innings for New York’s Triple-A affiliate, his WHIP was a whiplash-inducing 1.68.

Bowman doesn’t attribute his turnaround to a mechanical tweak or an alteration of style. Nor does he point to an amended repertoire or an increase in velocity. Those things haven’t changed. What has changed is his environment. Bowman is no longer in a hitter-friendly ballpark in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League. It’s often said that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, and for Bowman that meant perplexity and poor performance.

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Bowman on leaving Las Vegas: “From a statistical standpoint, you would look at last year, and then at this year, and wonder how exactly that jump happened. People are usually like, ‘Add on a run for Vegas; that’s really all you need to do. Whatever that was, that’s how good he was.’ I think there’s probably more to Vegas than that.

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Last season, a 23-year-old Randal Grichuk put together a tremendous rookie campaign. He posted a 137 wRC+ on the strength of a terrific .272 isolated-power mark. Add into the mix that he could handle all three outfield positions and, on the surface, it looked like the Cardinals had themselves a solid young contributor to build around. However, his performance was not without red flags, the most prominent among them being a 6.3% walk rate, 31.4% strikeout rate, and .365 BABIP. If Grichuk wanted to sustain his success into the 2016 season, it was reasonable to expect he’d need to improve his plate discipline to balance the likely BABIP regression.

The good news is that Grichuk was up for the challenge. He practiced his pitch identification using methods outlined by Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch back in April. The early results showed that adjustments had, in fact, been made. Jeff Sullivan wrote at the time about the impressive decline in Grichuk’s swing rate on pitches out of the zone. A promising young player with a glaring weakness addressed and improved on that weakness! Fantastic! What could possibly go wrong?

In the first half, Grichuk’s strikeout rate fell all the way to 22.7% and his walk rate was up to 7.3%. Unfortunately, these improvements coincided with a massive drop off in his ability to crush baseballs. He hit just .226 in the first half thanks to a BABIP that cratered to .255 — and he posted a notably diminished .199 ISO — all of which left him with a terrifically disappointing 89 wRC+. In response, Grichuk has been demoted to Triple-A twice, once June and once at the start of August. Since his most recent return to the majors on August 11th, however, something has changed.

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