Cardinals non-tender Maness to have flexibility

ST. LOUIS — Though there was uncertainty about whether Seth Maness would recover from elbow surgery in time for the start of the 2017 season, the Cardinals’ decision to not tender Maness a contract on Friday had more to do with a roster crunch than it did concerns about future performance, general manager John Mozeliak said.

Maness, once the bullpen’s double-play specialist who is now a free agent, became a strong non-tender candidate just 24 hours earlier when the Cardinals completed a trade with the Braves. In that trade, St. Louis sent starter Jaime Garcia to Atlanta in exchange for three prospects. One of those prospects, John Gant, had to be placed on the 40-man roster. That put the Cardinals at full capacity.

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Mozeliak desired more roster flexibility heading into next week’s Winter Meetings and felt Gant provided added relief depth for next year. All that made Maness expendable.

“This was really sort of a numbers issue,” Mozeliak said. “It really became more of a roster management issue than anything else.”

The Cardinals did tender …

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