Baseball's happiest man no longer plays for the Cardinals.
Or, to be more accurate, Brayan Pena no longer never plays.
The Cardinals granted their backup catcher his unconditional release on Monday, which came as no surprise since the club designated him for assignment last week. Pena is now a free agent again, but he still gets the rest of the $5 million deal the Cardinals gave him nearly a year ago today. What a different that deal looks from one November to the next.
Signing Pena to back up Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina made a lot of sense at the time.