The St. Louis Cardinals closed the book on their August 3 trade with the Arizona Diamondbacks on Thursday, naming right-hander Brian Curley as the player to be named later.
The announcement, posted by the club’s player-development account, completes a deadline deal that sent outfielder Lars Nootbaar to Arizona and brought back Curley along with right-hander Daniel Eagen and left-hander Sandro Santana.
Curley is 23 and from Midlothian, Virginia. Arizona took him in the third round of the 2025 draft, 92nd overall, out of the University of Georgia, and he made his professional debut this season.
He opened the year in High-A, working 69⅔ innings over 15 appearances, 13 of them starts, and struck out 90 batters with a 4.52 ERA. Arizona moved him to Double-A Amarillo in mid-July.
The step up was harder: across 10 starts and 46⅓ innings he struck out 40 and posted a 6.41 ERA. The Cardinals are acquiring a young arm still finding his footing above Class A, not a finished prospect.
Nootbaar had spent his entire major-league career in St. Louis before the deadline. He debuted in 2021 and, over six seasons with the Cardinals, produced 9.8 wins above replacement, a .241/.340/.402 slash line, 61 home runs and 210 RBI.
In Arizona he was serviceable down the stretch, hitting .244/.353/.409 with five home runs and 17 RBI.
The Diamondbacks finished with 86 wins and narrowly missed the postseason, so the outfielder’s first weeks in Phoenix did not come with October baseball.
He remains under club control through 2027 and is earning $5.25 million this year.
The timing of the announcement, on the first day of October while other clubs are already in the postseason, is mostly bookkeeping.
Players to be named later are a standard way to finish a deal once medical reviews, roster math or minor-league assignments are settled.
For St. Louis, the return is three pitchers, two of them already identified in August and Curley now officially in the organization. For Arizona, the trade supplied a known major-league bat for a stretch run that ended just short of the playoffs.
Whether Curley becomes more than organizational depth will depend on how his stuff plays after a Double-A season that raised his strikeout total but also his ERA.
The Cardinals have added a recent college draftee with a full professional season behind him. Arizona has the remainder of Nootbaar’s control. Thursday’s note simply made the exchange official.
