Pete Kozma was the Cardinals’ Opening Day shortstop last season and a not-insignificant number of people misguidedly believed that he had long-term upside based on paying more attention to his flukey 26-game stint in 2012 rather than his lengthy track record of mediocrity.
Kozma went on to hit .217 with one homer and a .548 OPS in 143 games last season, at which point the Cardinals demoted him to Triple-A and moved on to Jhonny Peralta at shortstop.
Earlier this week the Cardinals called up Kozma from Triple-A because they needed some short-term bench depth and now they’ve designated him for assignment to clear roster room for other moves.
There’s a decent chance that some other team claims Kozma off waivers, because he’d be a reasonably decent utility infielder, but any notion of him being a quality regular should have been squashed a long time ago.
Trust multi-year track records, y’all.
UPDATE: Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post Dispatch reports that Kozma passed through waivers unclaimed and will be assigned to Triple-A by the Cardinals.