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The St. Louis Cardinals acquired Juan Nicasio from the Philadelphia Phillies in one of the weirder post trade deadline deals.

Initially the Pirates placed Juan Nicasio, their second best reliever, on revocable waivers giving National League teams first dibs at claiming him from worst to best.

A “direct competitor” of the Pirates did claim him, but let Pittsburgh no they had no interest in making a deal and only claimed him to block another National League team from acquiring him. It’s not known exactly who that director competitor is, but one would think it was the Brewers or the Cardinals. Perhaps Milwaukee when the Cardinals had passed them in the standings.

The Pirates then pulled him off revocable waivers and put him on outright waivers. Which give priority to the reverse of the entire MLB standings based on winning percentage. This was in hopes of an American League playoff contender making a claim.

Instead, Nicasio never made it passed the Phillies who made a claim on him. The Pirates let the Phillies have him to get the remaining $600k of his salary off the books. And the Phillies then turned around and dealt him to the Cardinals. A “direct competitor” of the Pirates.

All-in-all the Cardinals gave up fringe prospect Eliezer Alvarez for 10 or so innings of Juan Nicasio this season. And he’s not eligible for postseason play were the Cardinals to make it to October.

Of course Matheny still has to use him. Friday in a 1-0 game in the 8th Matheny turned to Sueng Hwan Oh who actually got a lefty out, but then gave up a 2 run homer to a righty to put the Cardinals behind 3-0. They then lost in the 9th with bases loaded. Call me crazy, but a 1-0 game in the 8th seems like the perfect time to go to your new reliever. Not the guy who has been struggling for 140 games.

Around the Horn

ICYMI: Our Week 1 NFL Picks are up. We all nailed game 1. And by that I mean we all got it wrong. But we can turn it around the rest of the season!

On this day in history Mark McGwire hit number 62 breaking Roger Maris’s record.

Speaking of homeruns, Giancarlo Stanton continued his own push for 62 making it to 53 homer with this shot off a camera in the right field corner.

In more homerun news, the Arizona Diamondbacks J.D. Martinez joined Scooter Gennett shudder in the 4-homerun in a game club.

The Red Sox used Apple Watches to steal signs against the Yankees, got caught, then said the Yankees use a camera to record their signs.

The Rams are tracking their players to keep them healthy and bad at football.

ESPN has the Rams predicted to win 3 games this season. Progress!

Harper is going full Rasmus with the hair. Never go full Rasmus.

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