The Cardinals have voided the contract of Wagner Mateo over his vision issues. The are voiding it over “pre-existing injuries and physical defects”.
Here is the info from Bernie’s Press box:
HOUSTON, TX, Sept. 22, 2009 – The St. Louis Cardinals announced today that they have terminated the contract of outfielder Wagner Mateo with whom they agreed to terms on July 2.
Mateo’s contract was contingent on a physical exam. Results of the physical exam discovered pre-existing injuries and physical defects that led to today’s decision by the club.
UPDATE: Makes you feel really bad for Wagner and re-emphasizes the risk involved in the Latin American market. From Bernie’s twitter:
The kid Wagner Mateo apparently has a degenerative condition that will greatly impact his vision…pretty serious.
UPDATE 2: Here’s the update from Mateo’s side from Ben Badler’s twitter. Truth is probably somewhere in the middle.
Mateo’s camp says Mateo has 20/30 vision in his right eye but does not have a degenerative eye condition or nerve damage.
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Wow, that sucks.
Supremely disappointing to say the least. System now is devoid of a top-shelf position prospect to bookend with Shelby Miller. Here’s hoping the organization takes that $3.1 million saved, sock it away in a high-interest account, and apply that toward the highest-ceiling player available at their draft slot in 2010.
Yep, very disappointing. At least they caught it but like Shanky said, they need to reinvest it into young talent next year
There’s always a good way to reinvest that money … in Miguel Angel Sano…. :)
wow, this really sucks. hope the kids OK & can have a normal life.
that stinks for both sides.
is it possible the cards will sign him for a lesser bonus or are they pretty much done with the kid?
Looks like it will be harder for the Cardinals to sign him to a lesser bonus than the other MLB teams. Just the agent doesn’t want to accept a lesser deal from the team that just voided their big money deal.
Possible, but not probable for the Cardinals.
Is this a situation where the agent and the player thought they could slip on past the goalie, or is this a condition that was just recently discovered?
Either way, sad end to a short career. Some of us just get dealt a bad hand in life.
I like Jeff’s idea of revisiting Sano. It also looks like there might be a few more high draft picks next year if any of the following (Hollliday, Piniero, DeRosa) leave. On a personal note, I hope Wagner will be OK–I feel bad for the kid.
What do the Cardinals do with this money now? Add it to the Matt Holliday fund or set it aside for next years draft?
Also, anybody in the know, what are the odds of the Cardinals now making a push for Sano? I know there are some age discrepancies and issues with his ability to get a visa, but I would assume that if we sign Sano and he turns out to be older than he says he is or is unable to get a visa, we can void his contract like we did with Mateo, no harm no foul.
Lastly, you have to feel incredibly sorry for a kid with this much talent and such a bright future that is ruined by an injury or disability. Is there any possibility of the Cardinals signing him for a small bonus and actively promoting him through the system in an attempt to get the most value from him as a player before his condition becomes too severe to play with? I have a friend with a degenerative eye condition, I’m not making the assumption that it is the same as Wagner’s, but doctor’s have told my friend that he won’t notice any negative changes in his vision until he is past age 30. If that is the case with Wagner, depending on how quickly he is able to more through the minors, we could get 6-8 quality years out of him before he is 30 and possibly a small time beyond that depending on his condition.
Sano has age verifcation issues, that is why he is still out there. No team feels comfortable that he is as old as he says he is. From the Cards end the only negative is that they lost some traction in the Latin America market but by catching it at least they save the money. The real story is you have to feel sorry for the kid. 16, thinks he’s set for the rest of his life and now he has some doctor telling him his vision will eventually keep him from being a baseball player. The Cards doctor might have been the first doctor he’s ever seen in his life for all we know, definately the first eye doctor probably. I’m sure he had no idea his vision was an issue.
It will suck if Mateo signs elsewhere and has a good career – the problem obviously isn’t affecting him much now and has mentioned above it might not for a while or it might be correctable or it might be a mis diagnosis.
Also hope that this doesn’t taint the Cardinals in the eyes of other LA prospects who have yet to sign.
I feel sorry for the kid but I cannot blame the Cards for doing this. 3.1mil for a 16yr old with vision issues is just too much risk. With the possibility of so many extra picks next year I would assume the Cards bank this money rather than spending it on Sano who has risks as well.
To me it sounds more like the Cards realized the Latin market wasn’t what it usually is (the top end guys aren’t getting huge dollars) and were looking for a way to back out of a contract that is probably overpriced in comparison to the market. You have to doubt Sano is getting $3mil at this point. The Latin market makes me very nervous. The fact that these kids who are very raw and may not be scouted as much as draft-eligible players are getting more than 1st round money is a little absurd unless they are a one of a kind type talent. I don’t think Mateo was that. It’s somewhat disappointing but we’ll allocate the money elsewhere.
I feel bad for him and hope that someone will take a chance on him. He won’t get the big contract off the bad but hopefully he gets to the Bigs and have himself a good career. Would rather actually just have it be a mistake and have him not have an eye issue.
Hopefully the Mateo situation, plus the fact that Robert De La Cruz sucked up a storm in the GCL this summer, doesn’t scare off the Cards further in the LA market.
i thought de la cruz turned it around towards the end?
this really sucks for mateo….why did it take so long to catch it?
de la Cruz overall numbers kinda sucked, but they were a lot worse with a month left in the season. He has a shot.
Carioca makes a good point about losing credibility in the Latin market. We sucked up big time to get a prize stallion out of the Born to Play stable and now we back out. The team doctor said Trever Miller had a bum shoulder, but he has pitched well. We have to hope this is a good diagnosis with WAgner. It will be interesting to see what Wags gets as a signing bonus from his next team, after his eyes are re-examined by another doctor. Later, it will be interesting to see how high he rises in pro ball.
Did the Cards make other July signings this year? They may have saved all the Latin budget for Wagner and lost a cycle of signings.
After reading everything there are a couple lines about his eye condition being related to other injuries. I wonder if he doesn’t have the type of glaucoma that is related to nerve injury. I am thinking that he took a hit to the temple at some point and it was never treated properly. So the doctors found bone damage and started looking into his impaired vision more.
like i take anything our crack medical staff says @ face value anymore.
FP, I had a similar thought about the Cards’ potential motives in voiding the deal. I hope his agent is the one who’s not telling the truth.
I doubt that they would been able to void the contract if the eye issue isn’t as serious as they’ve been saying. While the eye condition was discovered during the physical exam, the Cardinals sent Mateo to a number of specialists before making this decision (as per Goold). This isn’t a case of one doctor with one diagonsis.
Also, the team doctor found issues with Trever Miller’s shoulder (injured during his previous season) that might have turned into a major problem, which is why they reduced the contract to trial size. Just because the best-case scenario actually happened for once doesn’t mean the issues weren’t there.
i think its great they voided the contract. they should use the money to try keep holiday and resign pujols. Instead of throwing it away on a guy that could very well never make it to the big leagues, and he is probably 18, not 16 as well.
Loogy, I understand what you’re saying, but I think it’s important that we have a presence in LA. Signing any prospect is a roll of the dice. Personally I like the Cardinals making an occasional splash with a highly-regarded prospect, whether it’s in LA or the June amateur draft. I’m just hoping the Mateo situation doesn’t ruin our credibility in LA.
For those who do not frequent the STLtoday.com, here is a link to the long awaited Strauss article on the voiding of Mateo’s contract.
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/sports/stories.nsf/cardinals/story/0BA812DEE2B94FDB8625763D007E8F73?OpenDocument
The thing that jumped out at me was that he has uncorrected vision of 20/200 that, with contacts, corrects to 20/30. “Damage caused by ill-fitting contacts to his eyes represented an injury. Mateo was not deemed a fit for Lasik surgery, according to sources familiar with the club’s medical findings.”
Why do the Cardinals seemingly get surprised by medical issues over and over?
The Cardinals weren’t given the opportunity to do a physical prior to his signing. If you read toward the end of the article, this difference is explained between most players encompassed in the traditional draft and those coming out of Latin America. It’s a shady situation in many regards.