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5) Royals Trade AAA outfielder/first baseman Jose Martinez

The KC Royals announced they had traded outfielder/first baseman Jose Martinez to the St. Louis Cardinals for cash.

The Royals had designated Jose Martinez for assignment in order to move utility man Whit Merrifield to the 40-man roster before calling him up last week. According to major-league rules, the Kansas City Royals would have to expose Martinez to waivers before they could assign him to a minor league team. 

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Instead, the KC Royals dealt him to the Cardinals. The 28-year-old Martinez, who was playing in the independent Frontier league as recently as 2014, made a splash in 2015 by winning the Pacific Coast League batting title with the highest batting average in modern history by hitting .384 in Omaha last season. Martinez earned a shot to earn a job this spring, but the Royals picked Reymond Fuentes to open the season with Jarrod Dyson on the disabled list to being the year.

Martinez then suffered a slow start in AAA Omaha, while fellow outfielders Brett Eibner and Jorge Bonifacio mashed the ball.

At this point, Martinez was caught in a numbers game.

Instead, Martinez goes to a St. Louis Cardinals organization that needs outfield depth. He probably has a better shot at getting into the bigs this season in St. Louis than he did in Kansas City.

Next: Jonny Gomes