{"id":466997,"date":"2026-02-11T01:25:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T01:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/466997\/"},"modified":"2026-02-11T01:25:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T01:25:09","slug":"cardinals-ambidextrous-pitcher-makes-mlbs-must-watch-list-this-spring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/466997\/","title":{"rendered":"Cardinals’ ambidextrous pitcher makes MLB’s ‘must-watch’ list this spring"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week, the St. Louis Cardinals<\/a> made yet another trade. This time, parting ways with Brendan Donovan.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It ended up being a three-team trade<\/a>, involving the Seattle Mariners<\/a> and Tampa Bay Rays<\/a>. Seattle got Donovan while St. Louis received Jurrangelo Cijntje (SEA No. 7 prospect), Tai Peete (SEA No. 11 prospect), Colton Ledbetter (TB No. 24 prospect), and a 2026 Competitive Balance Round B pick (No. 68 and No. 72).\u00a0<\/p>\n

For Tampa Bay, they received Ben Williamson from the Mariners.\u00a0<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0Cardinals trade proposal swaps 2.07 ERA lefty reliever for Blue Jays .797 OPS outfielder<\/a><\/p>\n

Cardinals’ ambidextrous pitcher makes MLB’s ‘must-watch’ list this spring.<\/p>\n

While Brendan Donovan was the big name in the trade, St. Louis got some good talent in return, specifically with Jurrangelo Cijntje. He is a rare breed in that he is ambidextrous, meaning he can pitch with both arms.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The switch-pitcher made the move to Miami from Curacao at 16 and made a name for himself in high school. He was a switch-pitcher and switch-hitter and played shortstop.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Milwaukee Brewers<\/a> selected him in the 18th round of the 2022 MLB Draft as a shortstop. He didn’t sign and instead went to play for Mississippi State Univeristy where he became an All-American during his sophomore season.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He would then go on to be drafted by the Mariners with the 15th pick overall in the 2024 MLB Draft.\u00a0<\/p>\n

St. Louis fans will get their first chance to look at him this spring, and MLB.com’s David Adler<\/a> puts him on his list of “must-watch pitchers” this spring.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Cijntje can pitch both right-handed and left-handed — one of the rarest qualities in baseball history, something we’ve only seen Pat Venditte do in the modern era of MLB. But before he was traded, the Mariners were planning to have Cijntje focus on pitching right-handed this season. The Cardinals might be leaning that way, too, although president of baseball operations Chaim Bloom seemed to at least leave the door open to Cijntje keep[ing up his pitching from both sides. We want to know what’ll happen, so we’ll be watching him at Spring Training for sure.”<\/p>\n

While Seattle was looking to limit him from pitching from the left side, it is unclear if Bloom will look to do the same.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Whether he pitches with both arms or not, he will be one that Cardinals fans will want to get familiar with. He could have a huge role in the starting rotation in the near future.<\/p>\n

More MLB news:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last week, the St. Louis Cardinals made yet another trade. This time, parting ways with Brendan Donovan.\u00a0 It…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":466998,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,82],"class_list":["post-466997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=466997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466997\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/466998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=466997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=466997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=466997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}