The Cardinals remain in contact with a few free agent relief pitchers, writes Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. St. Louis has been in the market for a veteran reliever all offseason after losing Andrew Kittredge in free agency.
St. Louis is the only team that hasn’t signed a single free agent to a major league deal. The Cards have had the quietest overall offseason in MLB. They declined options on Kyle Gibson, Lance Lynn and Keynan Middleton. They allowed Kittredge and Paul Goldschmidt to walk. Whatever designs they had on trading Nolan Arenado, Sonny Gray and Willson Contreras were impeded by those players’ no-trade clauses. They’ve been puzzlingly resistant to trading affordable rentals Ryan Helsley and Erick Fedde.
The Cardinals are using 2025 as a transitional year. John Mozeliak is entering his final season running baseball operations. He’ll turn things over to Chaim Bloom at year’s end. The Cards intended to slash payroll alongside their looks at younger players, a move at least partially in response to reduced TV revenue. They’ve cut spending organically by not replacing any of their free agents. RosterResource calculates their payroll around $148MM, down $35MM from last year’s year-end mark. The initial goal was to offload more salary in trade, but it seems they abandoned that after failing to line up an Arenado deal.
There aren’t many more unsigned relievers who are going to command big league deals. David Robertson is probably the top free agent regardless of position. He could command close to eight figures on a one-year deal, likely with a team that has a better competitive outlook than St. Louis does. Phil Maton, Craig Kimbrel, Brooks Raley, Will Smith, and Middleton are among other unsigned bullpen arms.
Helsley will be back in the ninth inning. He could be the best reliever traded this summer, as there seemingly haven’t been any extension talks. Ryan Fernandez looks like a quality setup type after a strong showing as a Rule 5 pick. JoJo Romero and John King are solid lefty middle relievers. The Cards are otherwise light on experienced middle innings depth, especially from the right side. Nick Anderson is in camp on a minor league deal and has a decent shot to break camp.
The excuse of giving Bloom future flexibility when he takes over in a year seems pretextual. The owner just wants to cut payroll. Yes, it can be revenue related, and therefore understandable. But the amorphous excuse of cleaning the roster out for the next executive seems to treat Cardinals fans as if they unable to understand what is actually taking place.
My miserable brothers in Missouri: its March and you haven’t made a single move. You need to be “monitoring” your own pulse before anything else.
The Cardinals’ quiet offseason strategy represents a strategic overhaul under Mozeliak’s tenure, laying the groundwork for Bloom’s era
“Still”
Think they are waiting to see what they have with the younger guys before they tool up (next year earliest)
No point in spending another 50m on a couple of vet FAs if the likes of Gorman and Walker are replacement level. So run them out for 2025 and see what happens.
Oddly the pitching looks much better going forward with Pallante, Matthews, Hence, McGreevy, Graceffo, and Roby if his body holds up. Could easily have 3 cost controlled starters out of this group for 3-5 years which is a fine building block
walker and Gorman are both hitting .125 with 8 k’s a piece in spring training. I say we run them out of town.
Small sample size alert.
You could be proved right by June of course, though
going by last season, they are in midseason form.
Wow. Walker is 22 years old and you are ready to move on? Another Walker (Larry) hit .170 at 22 years old and .241 in his 23year season. He turned out to be pretty solid. Give JW some time before we ship him off for a middle reliever.
Poor off-season plan. Execution of the plan was even worse than the plan itself. Nudge it with the stick, not going to move. Yep, terminal under Mozeliak.
Frankly, I don’t see Kimbrel in an MLB uniform unless a team gets hammered with injuries. The guy isn’t even a shadow of what he once was.
Whoa. Calm down Mo! Don’t go too wild this offseason.
“Monitoring” free agent market…for players who will agree to an MLB minimum? Look, it’s a strategy not to commit present dollars. Maybe they should have been clearer to their fans. A bigger question going forward is do you sign (or extend) players who want no-trade clauses, because without them, this would be a very different-looking team right now. And, what’s the cost in potential talent if you insist?
Lance Lynn is open to relief work.
If a team does not sign a single free agent they get a complaint lodged against them by the mlbpa.
I wonder if Dave Robertson acting as his own agent is now complicating his chances of being signed? It’s easier when a player is in demand and he has multiple offers coming in. Is he sitting back waiting on a $10MM+ deal that’s never coming? An agent who constantly talks to teams might help him build his market by gauging his market better.
He’s probably at the point where he’s OK retiring unless he gets a certain number
13 months since Middleton was signed, not a dime spent since. Waiting to sell. Good luck on the next Middleton type.
Doge is auditing cards management. They have until tmrw to respond what they have done in the past 5 years. Nothing happens until Benny Hill leaves the building.
This is a baseball site.
Relief market for Mozeliak: Tylenol, Aspirin, Advil, Motrin, Aleve.
Relief market for Cardinals fans: Whatever antidepressant you can find.
Trade Fedde and you’ll probably get an arm or 2.
Or, keep the chips to flip, and prioritize stadium revenue short term. Player value risk vs cash, currently, with a trade return being secondary. StL has always been built on attendance.
Weirdly there is some logic to the current situation- have a product that will at least put some bums on seats, then sell off at the deadline when you will probably get the same return for fedde and helsley
Risk is regression or injury, but it’s not completely dumb even if I’d rather see what mcgreevy can do already
The risk is that Fedde and Helsley get hurt or don’t perform as anticipated.
Oops, I see that you included that. My apologies.
Like many other mlb ownership groups, they are cleaning up the balance sheet and stockpiling $$ to prepare for the impending lockout.
If Matz or Palante struggle, one goes to the pen and McGreevy gets his shot
You’re right. Money, greed, and yanking the fans chains have nothing to do with baseball.
Dewitts have made billions on the cardinals and are playing their fans for schmucks. This whole situation is ludicrous.
I have to truly wonder if the Cardinals are secretly for sale? There are people with very deep pockets in Nashville Tn. & Okc, Ok. that would love a baseball team. Remember the Rams!
Can’t see them being much worse than a year ago. If healthy the pitching will be middle of the league. Might get one of the young guys to step in and pitch well. It seems like theyre going to sink or swim with Walker, Gorman and Noutbar. With Bloom taking over next year its probably their last chance to show they are MLB level.
Your talking about the,
Hall of Fame Gm guy.
Johnny MO hasn’t won a thing without Tony LaRussa and Dave Duncan.
He ran out of coat tails to hide behind.