The St. Louis Cardinals announced this morning that they have acquired 1B/OF Brandon Moss from the Cleveland Indians in exchange for LHP Rob Kaminsky. This marks the third consecutive July that the Cardinals have made a deal with the Indians, acquiring Justin Masterson for James Ramsey last summer and sending them Marc Rzepczynski in 2013 for minor league second baseman Juan Herrara.
It took Cardinals’ GM John Mozeliak less than 12 hours after Matt Holliday aggravated his quad injury again for him to pull the trigger on a deal to help the offense.
This was the kind of trade I was afraid of when I tweeted last night that I would prefer the Cardinals just stood pat at the trade deadline. There was no trade that John Mozeliak could make that would make the Cardinals better than they were yesterday and that team was already in great need of offensive support.
Moss, 31, was hitting .217 with 15 home runs, 50 RBI, and a 91 OPS+ with the Indians so far this season. He has struggled lately at the plate, hitting just .167 over the past 28 days. Though really it hasn’t even just been recent struggles. He’s hit .201 with 17 home runs over the last 365 days.
Yes, Moss has power, having hit 20+ homers in each of his three seasons in Oakland (2012-2014), but without the other tools to his game he’s not the kind of player you want to have starting everyday. He is really just Mark Reynolds with a few fewer strikeouts.
Moss has one more year of team control remaining before free agency, so he will be arbitration eligible this winter. That creates a crowded St. Louis outfield next season with Matt Holliday, Jon Jay, Peter Bourjos, Randal Grichuk, and Stephen Piscotty. Then if you bring Jason Heyward back, that further complicates this as well.
The Indians will receive the Cardinals’ first round pick from the 2013 draft, LHP Rob Kaminsky. Kaminsky, 20, was 8-2 with a 1.88 ERA in 18 starts last season for Peoria. He took a step up to High-A Palm Beach this season and was 6-5 with a 2.09 in 17 starts. He improved both his K/9 and BB/9 as well as having thrown almost 95 innings without allowing a home run.
I’ve spent the better part of this morning trying to find the bright side to this trade and I’ve been unable to find one yet. It seems like an overpay. It seems like a trade for the sake of a trade. It seems like a very atypical move for Mozeliak to make.
It is very possible that this was the best Mozeliak could do and adding anything better was going to cost more than he was willing to spend. But when I look around the league, I see teams that have taxed their farm system by trade and still able to make big trades. I’m left to wonder if the perennially full cupboard of the Cardinals’ farm system actually hurts the valuation of those players on the trade market.
But if Moss was all you could get and it cost Kaminsky, I go back to the question I posed last night:
Why go out and pay for a player that won’t make you better than you were a day ago?
Jon Doble has been writing about the St. Louis Cardinals since 2010. You can follow him on Twitter at @JonDoble and catch him hosting UCB Radio on the fourth Wednesday of every month. Redbird Dugout is a member of the United Cardinal Bloggers.