Fermín wound up being the final cut from Cardinals camp as the club finalized it’s season-opening roster. Barrero turned some heads this spring as a non-roster invitee and might get a look with St. Louis at some point later this year.

Fermín has never homered in 140 major league plate appearances. He’s never even had a barrel, though today’s would have qualified. He homered eight times in 61 Triple-A games last year, and he has hit a ball as hard as 105.7 mph in the majors and 109.0 mph in Triple-A, so he’s not entirely without power. Still, contact is the name of the game for the 25-year-old; he struck out just 9.2% of the time in Triple-A last year and has come in at 13.6% so far in the majors. Assuming that they follow through on demoting the loser of the center field battle between Victor Scott II and Michael Siani, there will be one spot on the Cardinals bench open for Fermín or José Barrero. Fermín is likely the better player of those two, though he might not get many chances to prove it.

Fermín has been terrific in Triple-A, hitting .311/.424/.500 with 18 steals and just 22 strikeouts in 240 plate appearances, but it hasn’t translated to the majors thus far. He’ll probably be a backup for now, but if he puts together a couple of good games, he might make inroads at second and push Brandon Donovan back to the outfield.

With Lars Nootbaar coming off the IL, the Cardinals decided to send the 25-year-old Fermín back to the minors. He could provide infield depth for the team later in the season but figures to remain off the fantasy radar.