The Cubs have claimed reliever Shawn Armstrong from the Cardinals, reports Jeff Passan of ESPN ( X link ). St. Louis had designated the righty for assignment on Tuesday.
Neither team has announced the claim; the Cubs will need to make a 40-man roster move once the transaction is official. Armstrong’s DFA ended a brief run in St. Louis.
The Cards acquired him from the Rays at the trade deadline in a swap sending former top prospect Dylan Carlson to Tampa Bay. Armstrong pitched well in St. Louis, running a 12:2 strikeout-to-walk ratio while allowing only four runs in 12 2/3 innings.
That was quite a bit better than the 5.40 earned run average he’d posted across 46 2/3 frames with Tampa Bay earlier in the year. While Armstrong held up his end of the bargain, the Cardinals have had a tough month.
They’ve dropped six games back of the last Wild Card spot. The front office has conceded the unlikelihood of a playoff run by waiving Armstrong and Tommy Pham , the two impending free agents they’d acquired at the deadline. Doing so allows them to offload what remains of Armstrong’s $2.
05MM arbitration salary; they’d save the prorated portion of Pham’s $3MM deal if another team were to claim him. The Cardinals lose Armstrong to their rivals, who are only one game closer to a postseason spot. Chicago enters play on Friday five games back of the Braves in the Wild Card mix.
As with St. Louis, they’re long shots to get to the playoffs. The Cubs are riding a three-game win streak and kicking off a stretch of winnable games against the Nationals and Pirates.
The front office isn’t completely throwing in the towel, adding to a bullpen that has pitched well over the past six weeks. At 68-66, the Cubs had a higher waiver priority than any team that currently occupies a playoff spot (plus the Mariners, Red Sox and Mets). They’ll assume roughly $330K in salary commitments, plus another $66K in estimated luxury tax payments, to plug Armstrong into the bullpen for the season’s final month.
Assuming the claim is officially processed tomorrow, he’d be eligible for Chicago’s playoff roster if they made a furious push to snag a spot. This article first appeared on MLB Trade Rumors and was syndicated with permission..
