The Cardinals introduced that they’ve signed infielder/outfielder Ryan Vilade to a minor league contract. The Icon Sports activities Administration shopper additionally receives a non-roster invite to main league spring coaching.
Vilade, 26 in February, has some slivers of main league expertise. He acquired into three video games for the 2021 Rockies after which 17 video games for the 2024 Tigers. He has a .157/.200/.216 batting line in 56 plate appearances within the large leagues. He was outrighted by Detroit on the finish of the season and elected free company.
These numbers are clearly not spectacular, but it surely’s additionally a tiny pattern dimension and the Playing cards are absolutely trying extra at his minor league monitor report. He acquired into 108 Triple-A video games in 2024, slashing .278/.346/.449 for a 105 wRC+ in his 442 plate appearances at that stage. He additionally stole 20 bases whereas lining up defensively in any respect three outfield spots and the three non-shortstop infield positions.
Vilade additionally has a little bit of prospect pedigree, as he was a second-round decide of the Rockies in 2017. He hit effectively within the decrease ranges of the minors within the early levels of his skilled profession, getting ranked by Baseball America as considered one of Colorado’s high ten prospects from 2018 to 2022. However he didn’t hit a lot on the Triple-A stage in 2021 or 2022, so the Rockies put him on waivers. The Pirates put in a declare and ran him via waivers, with Vilade then happening to have one other lackluster Triple-A season in 2023.
He was capable of elect free company going into 2024 and signed a minor league take care of the Tigers. As talked about, he didn’t do a lot in his transient main league time however acquired again on monitor a bit on the Triple-A stage, sufficient to intrigue the Cardinals.
St. Louis is planning for 2025 to be a reset 12 months, the place they are going to be extra centered on upgrading their participant growth pipeline than on short-term rivalry. As such, it’s attainable that they might contemplate trades of gamers with restricted long-term worth. Nolan Arenado looks as if he may very well be on the transfer since he’s turning 34 and needs to play for a contender. Brendan Donovan and Lars Nootbaar have three years of membership management left and are believable candidates to be out there. Nolan Gorman nonetheless has 4 years of membership management remaining however appears to have fallen out of favor with the Playing cards, making him a change of surroundings candidate. Paul Goldschmidt is already gone by way of free company.
Vilade’s capacity to play a number of positions signifies that he may take up a number of the taking part in time that may shake unfastened because the membership shuffles the roster. If he will get a roster spot at any level, he nonetheless has one possibility 12 months remaining and solely has a couple of days of service time, that means he can doubtlessly be cheaply retained into the longer term.
