Hot Stove Edition: Where do the Cardinals go from here?

So What Now?

Welp, the Cardinals still have to deal with the issue of arbitration for several players:

Daniel Descalso

Jon Jay

John Axford

Descalso and Jay are likely to get offered deals to remain as bench players. Axford’s future with the team is a little less certain, as it will likely depend on Jason Motte’s recovery from Tommy John surgery. Should the Cardinals choose not to make an offer to Axford, he will become a free agent.

Barring any ridiculous trade offer, the Cardinals’ roster appears to be mostly set going into 2014. The biggest questions as far as roster space are going to revolve around injuries, namely Oscar Taveras, Jaime Garcia, and Jason Motte.

In Other News

The Cardinals have also made a handful of minor league moves in addition to the aforementioned moves:

– Rob Johnson, Brock Peterson, and Adron Chambers were outrighted from the 40-man roster. Each player’s elected free agency

– signed Scott Moore, a journeyman utility player, to a minor league contract. Moore’s made a handful of appearances in the majors since 2006, but he’s never played more than 72 games in a season.

– signed catcher Ed Easley to a minor league contract. Easley came up in the Diamondbacks organization but has never played above AAA.

– signed Joey Butler from Texas. Joey managed four hits in 12 at-bats at the major league level last season, but he’s mostly been a career minor leaguer. He’ll likely provide depth at Memphis should one of the outfielders get injured.

– outrighted pitcher John Gast and third baseman Jermaine Curtis to AAA Memphis.

– Meanwhile, former Cardinals have been on the move as well. Skip Schumaker’s heading to Cincinnati after signing a two-year deal.

– Dave Duncan’s heading to Arizona as an assistant to the GM / pitching advisor. Joining him will be former Cardinals first base coach Dave McKay, who left the Cubs to join Arizona as their first base coach.

– Houston’s doing everything possible to become the Cardinals of the AL. Already possessing former first-round pick Brett Wallace, they hired Jeff Luhnow (one of the men who helped draft the majority of the Cardinals’ roster) to be their GM, then hired Joe Pettini to be their bench coach, then traded for Cardinals castoff Tyler Greene (now in Atlanta’s minor league organization) AND pitcher David Carpenter (also with Atlanta). Now they’ve signed Brent Strom, the Cardinals’ minor league pitching coordinator, to be their pitching coach, and also signed Cardinals infielder Ryan Jackson.