Brendan Donovan to the Mariners deal is close (3 team trade with Rays)

[pioneer98]

Really liked watching Gray, Contreras and Donovan play baseball. I guess I still can, technically.

I think I’ll be watching Gray’s starts, then Cardinals games, then Red Sox games that don’t conflict with Cardinals games. I can’t watch Mariners games on MLB.TV because I’m in their TV territory but my cousin just gave me access to her YouTube TV for about half of what I was paying for Sling TV and I think I can get Mariners games on that. If so, I’ll watch Donnie play for the Mariners if their games don’t conflict with Cardinals games and Red Sox games (I’m more interested in watching Contreras than Donovan).

Seattle is a fun team to watch and Donovan adds another reason to watch

[CardsofSTL]

Need the Mike Shannon pronunciation of Jurrangelo Cijntje


I'm going to miss watching Donovan as a Cardinal. But I was already missing Contreras and Arenado so wth.

[CardsofSTL]

Lance makes fair points but on this circus of a team we need some freak show attractions. Give me switch pitching, catchers playing SS and OF, Yadier Molina randomly showing up as a coach, Savannah Bananas selling out the place. Bring it.

[st.lewis11]

So we received a novelty pitcher who's not really special with either arm, and 2 mediocre OF lefty bats, not what we needed, already basically have the same in Koperniak & Chase Davis.

EDIT: But because of the 2 comp picks, I do end up liking the deal.

[Fan_In_NY]

So we received a novelty pitcher who's not really special with either arm, and 2 mediocre OF lefty bats, not what we needed, already basically have the same in Koperniak & Chase Davis.

EDIT: But because of the 2 comp picks, I do end up liking the deal.

Some scouts disagree with Cijntje not being interesting from the right side - from the Fangraphs Mariners Top Prospect write up from last month

"Right-handed Cijntje is a Dude. He’s touched 99 mph and sits in the mid-to-high 90s with bat-missing carry. The slider and change both flash plus, and when he’s in a groove, he can pump strikes and move the ball around the plate. Catch him on the right day and you might put a no. 2 grade on him. But he’s inconsistent, perhaps not unexpectedly given how many reps he’s lost."

[Lesson]

So we received a novelty pitcher who's not really special with either arm, and 2 mediocre OF lefty bats, not what we needed, already basically have the same in Koperniak & Chase Davis.

EDIT: But because of the 2 comp picks, I do end up liking the deal.

It doesn't seem like he'll be throwing lefty per the Cardinals website:

Cijntje, who previously pitched with both arms while at Mississippi State and in the Mariners' system before vowing to focus only on throwing right-handed, is the centerpiece of the Cardinals’ haul and is ranked No. 91 by MLB Pipeline on its Top 100 Prospects list.

https://www.mlb.com/cardinals/news/card ... o-mariners

Edited to add: Article from 2/1 goes even in further detail about what the Mariners and Cijntje had in mind for him this spring:

Cijntje will continue to occasionally pitch left-handed -- but only in bullpen sessions for now. He will not throw with both arms in any Cactus League games, suggesting that this could be a semi-permanent move.

“We think that's his highest ceiling, is as a right-handed starter,” Hollander said at the club’s FanFest on Sunday. “I think as part of his routine and part of his sort of high-performance buildup and body management, having him continue to work left-handed is valuable. We may bring it back at some point. But for the start of camp and for the foreseeable future, he's going to pitch right-handed in games.”

https://www.mlb.com/news/jurrangelo-cij ... ba8921681d

[Slider]

Goold just tweeted these are our draft picks in ‘26 after this is complete:

13
32
50
68
72
86

@phins is this a deep draft? That is a lot of picks early in the draft.

[Magneto2.0]

From Fangraphs:

"To make that enormous upgrade, the Mariners sent the Cards two intriguing young prospects, Jurrangelo Cijntje and Tai Peete, as well as a Comp Round B pick. The headliner of the deal is Cijntje, a 2024 first round pick who is most notable for his switch-pitching. He has monster potential as a righty, sitting in the upper 90s with a nasty fastball and secondaries that flash very well at times. As a lefty, he’s more of a matchup guy; lower 90s, inconsistent shape on his secondaries, intermittent command problems. He’s a 22-year-old who is doing something that almost no one has ever done, so it’s hardly surprising that he’s still developing, but right now he looks like a righty starter plus a little novelty value. The Mariners were reportedly planning on using him as a righty to start spring training, and it wouldn’t shock me to see the same in St. Louis.

That’s an excellent addition to their stable of young pitching prospects, and I’d put him second on that list behind only Liam Doyle, the fifth pick in last year’s draft. Cijntje is a phenomenal athlete who has the capability to improve pretty much across the board, but he’s still a work in progress. As Brendan Gawlowski put it in Cijntje’s write-up for our recent Mariners prospect list, “Catch him on the right day and you might put a no. 2 grade on him. But he’s inconsistent, perhaps not unexpectedly given how many reps he’s lost. His velo can dip mid-outing, and… he’ll lose his release point and start spraying the ball everywhere but the target.” Despite his intermittent command, he racked up gaudy strikeout numbers in his first pro season by outstuffing people, to borrow Brendan’s phrase. If he doesn’t have the command to be a starter, he has the stuff to close as a righty, and then there’s still the whole switch-pitching thing. In other words, there’s a lot of variance in the future outcomes here.

Do I know how the Cardinals will use him? I don’t even have a clue. Seattle struggled with this exact question last year. While he’s clearly better as a righty, that still leaves a lot of options. Is he a righty starter plus a lefty reliever, but only one at a time? An ambidextrous closer? A righty starter who is his own LOOGY? A true switch-pitcher who wears a six-fingered glove to the mound and goes all Pat Venditte on guys? The most likely outcome is the boring one — a righty starter with minimal lefty pitching — but there’s a chance that he ends up being very fun. He’s a 50 FV prospect on The Board, and I like the odds of him developing a little bit better than that."

[jagtrader]

That's an encouraging write-up on Cijntje. If he's such a great athlete, maybe they can put him in CF or RF and he can break a .600 OPS. Take our upgrades where we can get them.

[phins]

Goold just tweeted these are our draft picks in ‘26 after this is complete:

13
32
50
68
72
86

@phins is this a deep draft? That is a lot of picks early in the draft.

It's a fine draft, but the flexibility from the extra bonus pool is also important. Not just for those picks, but all the way through it on how much you can actually spend. This draft has depth but lacks star talent up top. The number of 45 and up prospects in this draft is slightly higher than last year's at the moment.

Every $100K you grow your bonus pool, also grows the amount you can go over by $5K as well. Which, in all reality, isn't a ton of money, but being able to sign another player for $250K rather than $150K might be the difference in getting a lottery ticket player and an org player.