The Chicago Cubs have claimed right-handed reliever Shawn Armstrong, picking up the veteran pitcher off waivers from the St. Louis Cardinals. Armstrong, 33, was recently designated for assignment by the Cardinals, who had traded for him back in July.
Armstrong was pretty good during his short stint in St. Louis, posting a 2.84 ERA and 1.03 WHIP in 12.2 innings. The righty allowed four earned runs in a span of three outings with the Cardinals, but then settled in and ended his time there with 6.2 scoreless innings.
At the trade deadline, the Cardinals sent outfielder Dylan Carlson to the Tampa Bay Rays in exchange for Armstrong only to release hime four weeks later.
Armstrong will be a free agent following the 2024 season.
The veteran pitcher has had an up and down career that began with the Cleveland Indians in 2015. The right-hander has also pitched for the Seattle Mariners, Baltimore Orioles, Miami Marlins to go along with two different stints with the Rays before he was traded to the Cardinals.
While Armstrong has primarily pitched out of the bullpen, he did make 16 starts since the beginning of 2022, with Tampa Bay. Most of those were short outings, essentially serving in the “opener” role for the Rays.
Armstrong isn’t too far removed from having his best season in the majors. In 2023, Armstrong made 39 appearances with the Rays and recorded a 1.38 ERA and 0.90 WHIP, while striking out 54 batters and walking 11 in 52 innings of work. He held hitters to a .188 batting average and only gave up two home runs in those 52 innings.
Overall in his career, Armstrong has a 4.13 ERA with a 24.2 strikeout rate.
Seeing as the Cubs are already operating over the first luxury tax threshold, adding Armstrong is purely a move to provide the bullpen quality depth to close out this season. That being said, Armstrong isn’t making a huge dent to the payroll anyway, as he agreed to a salary of $2.05 million to avoid arbitration this year. The Cubs will be responsible for the remainder of that amount.
