President of Baseball Operations Chaim Bloom has said that he wants to add a veteran arm to the St. Louis Cardinals pitching staff. According to a new report, that might be free agent pitcher Griffin Canning who the Cardinals have been in contact with.
MLB Trade Rumors just dropped the word that the St. Louis Cardinals, the Chicago White Sox and the New York Mets are interested in Griffin Canning. That’s apparently based on a report by John Heyman of the New York Post. He spent several seasons in the Los Angeles Angels organization before signing a one-year deal with the New York Mets last season. He suffered a a torn Achilles tendon which cut his season short. Before that setback, he had greater than 55% groundball rate and decent strikeout and walk rates, too.
Griffin Canning was drafted by the Colorado Rockies in the 38th round of the 2014 MLB June Amateur Draft from Santa Margarita Catholic High School and later by the Los Angeles Angels in the 2nd round of the 2017 MLB June Amateur Draft from University of California, Los Angeles. He has a major league record of 32-37 for his career with an ERA of 4.65.
Assuming that Griffin is fully recovered from his Achilles injury, you’d have to think he would be a prime bounce-back candidate and/or trade deadline arm. He might just be the affordable veteran arm that Chaim Bloom said he would welcome.
