I know the team had to find a spot on the 40-man roster when it called up Marco Gonzales. But, moving Joe Kelly to the 60-man, which was only the second-strangest move of two today.
OK ... why not Keith Butler, and last week? That was what everybody was assuming would be the move when Marco came up. As to why Pete Kozma have to be DFA-ed as well, I initially had a brain fart, and was only counting space on the 40-man roster, not the 25-man active big-league roster. Anyway, I've edited some parts of this post to reflect that.
A spot had to be found somehow, and although the Cards first looked at sending down a pitcher, they didn't want to do that, after the recent bullpen work. By the time they had to find somcbody, it was too late to just run Kozma through waivers, so they had to designate him for assignment.
Derrick Gould has details. Although the decision not to send down a pitcher started for other reasons, it surely became more expedient because of uncertainty about the degree of back problems of Shelby Miller, which Gould also discusses.
Miller says it's not a big deal, his back, and if he's telling the truth, then such a move isn't needed. But ... if he's not? Couldn't the team have waited a day or two to make sure it didn't need yet another pitcher call-up? Couldn't it have scrounged together a one-start fill-in and taken its time on thinking through other moves? I'd say yes, including with why Shane Robinson was recalled before Kozma (or, a theoretical Greg Garcia) in the first place.
The whole roster seems to be in both flux and confusion right now. And, although the 60-day DL can be backdated to include all 15-day DL time, still, does this mean that Kelly is even further away from 100 percent health than we've been told in the past week or so? This is why a lot of fans lambaste Mozeliak's lack of transparency, even compared to other GMs at times.
However, through the twists and turns, Bernie Miklasz has faith in the leadership of Mike Matheny. So, Bernie-haters on NBC et al? Listen up.
And, with Kozma getting the DFA, Cards fans, if you want to immortalize him, spread the idea of the Kozma Line, a sabermetric version of the "Mendoza Line," named by me after Mario Mendoza and his struggles to bat more than .200 for several different years in his career.
That said, Kozma has cleared waivers (and he was still recalled instead of Greg Garcia?) and it's off to Memphis.
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