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Steven Matz

Cardinals Expect To Field Interest In Steven Matz This Offseason

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As the Cardinals look to trim payroll and shift towards focusing on young players in 2025, they’ve widely been expected to look to trade a number of their more expensive, veteran players. It seems as though that won’t come to pass with Willson Contreras and Sonny Gray, both of whom seem unlikely to waive their no-trade clauses to facilitate a move elsewhere. Third baseman Nolan Arenado is seemingly open to a move, however, though his own no-trade protection means that he would need to approve of any deal as well. One veteran player who lacks no-trade protection, however, is southpaw Steven Matz. That could leave the Cardinals motivated to part with him this winter, and Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch suggests that the club plans to “field interest” on both Matz and closer Ryan Helsley this winter.

MLBTR’s Anthony Franco discussed Helsley’s trade candidacy earlier this month, and previous reporting from Goold suggested that the Cardinals figure to set a high asking price for their closer. By contrast, Matz figures to be a more affordable player for teams to acquire who the Cardinals figure to be more motivated to move. The 33-year-old is entering the final year of his contract in 2025 and is due $12.5MM for next season. By offloading Matz’s contract, St. Louis’s payroll projection for next year (courtesy of RosterResource) would drop from just under $147MM to just $134MM. After the club spent $183MM on payroll in 2024, that type of drop off should be more than enough to accomplish their goal of reallocating funds away from payroll into their player development apparatus, and could even open the door to the club making some modest upgrades in free agency, whether that be a reunion with veteran right-hander Kyle Gibson or bringing a new arm into the organization.

While the Cardinals would surely like to offload the final year of Matz’s contract, that may be easier said than done. The lefty has had an up-and-down tenure with St. Louis since signing with the club prior to the 2022 season. He’s struggled with injuries and ineffectiveness throughout his time there, totaling just 197 1/3 innings of work during that time. Of his 52 appearances with the Cardinals, he’s started 34 while pitching out of the bullpen for 18.

His results have been roughly league average overall when he’s been healthy enough to take the mound, with a 4.47 ERA (95 ERA+), a 4.01 FIP, and a 21.9% strikeout rate. That production has been somewhat unsteady, however, with most of it coming during his mostly-healthy 2023 season. That year, Matz posted a 3.84 ERA (114 ERA+) with a 3.75 FIP in 105 innings of work. That solid work is sandwiched between two campaigns that saw him post an ERA north of 5.00. That includes this past season, where Matz struggled to a 5.08 ERA with a similar 4.88 FIP in 44 1/3 innings. He struck out just 17.4% of opponents this past year while posting a 7.9% walk rate that was his worst since 2018.

That’s not a particularly enticing body of work for potential trade partners, though that doesn’t mean Matz is impossible to trade. Notably, Matz has pitched substantially better in his relief outings with the Cardinals than he has during his time in the rotation. In 163 frames for the club as a starter, Matz has posted a 4.91 ERA. Meanwhile, his 33 1/3 innings as a member of the bullpen saw him post a much more intriguing 2.43 ERA. While the lefty’s overall results and durability as a member of the rotation leave his contract with little if any surplus value, it wouldn’t be a shock to see a club intrigued by his work out of the bullpen acquire him to act as a versatile reliever capable of stepping into the rotation if necessary. It’s a role some pitchers such as Nick Martinez, Jakob Junis, Spencer Turnbull, and Michael Lorenzen have found success with in recent years, and a team that values that sort of flexibility on their pitching staff like the Giants or Rangers could be a good fit for the lefty’s services.

Latest On The Cardinals’ Offseason Plans

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As the postseason nears its conclusion, we’re rapidly nearing the proper start of the offseason for all thirty clubs. Among the first decisions to be made for any club during the offseason is whether or not they’ll exercise club options for the following season. Those decisions are due five days after the end of the World Series, but clubs generally have an idea of where they stand before then. The Athletic’s Katie Woo discussed the Cardinals’ plans for the three club options they hold for 2025 this morning, and noted that the club is “not expected” to exercise its $12MM option ($1MM buyout) on veteran righty Lance Lynn or its $6MM option ($1MM buyout) on reliever Keynan Middleton.

Neither of those decisions are necessarily a surprise. Previous reporting indicated that Middleton was expected to land elsewhere this winter, and while Lynn’s status was more up in the air it’s long appeared that the club may prefer to retain right-hander Kyle Gibson on his team option, which comes with identical terms to Lynn’s, in 2025. That said, Woo makes clear that even Gibson’s option being picked up isn’t a guarantee. Instead, Woo suggests that the club would be “almost guaranteed” to trade either right-hander Miles Mikolas or southpaw Steven Matz this winter if Gibson’s option does end up getting picked up. Woo notes that the odds of Gibson’s option being picked up will “increase” if the Cardinals feel confident they’ll be able to move one of the two this winter, but that’s far from a guarantee.

Matz is surely the more tradable of the duo, even as he’s coming off a largely lost season on the mound that saw him pitch to a lackluster 5.08 ERA amid injuries that limited him to just 44 1/3 innings of work on the mound. While that production is unlikely to entice much in return on the trade market, the increasing price of starting pitching in recent years makes the remaining one year and $12.5MM on Matz’s contract a bit more palatable than it otherwise would be. Overall, the southpaw has been roughly league average (95 ERA+) while swinging between the bullpen and rotation for the Cardinals and figures to be a generally solid serviceable back-of-the-rotation starter in 2025. It’s also possible a club could look to convert him to full-time relief work after the lefty posted sub-3.00 ERAs out of the bullpen in each of his last three seasons, albeit in small sample sizes that total just 33 1/3 innings of 2.43 ERA ball.

Mikolas, however, figures to be quite difficult for the club to move. Woo notes that the 36-year-old is among the club’s many veterans (including Sonny Gray, Willson Contreras, and Nolan Arenado) who holds a no-trade clause that will restrict their availability to be dealt this winter. The Cardinals will need to have conversations with all of those players about their futures, but even if Mikolas agrees to waive his no-trade rights to play elsewhere its unclear how interested rival clubs would be in his services. Mikolas just endured the worst season of his Cardinals career in 2024 as he pitched to a subpar 5.35 ERA in 171 2/3 innings of work.

A hurler who will turn 37 in August with three below average seasons by ERA+ over the last four years and a $17.67MM salary for 2025 seems unlikely to garner much interest on the trade market unless St. Louis is willing to pay down a significant portion of his salary. That being said, there are some silver linings in Mikolas’s profile. The veteran’s 4.24 FIP and 4.28 SIERA in 2024 were far better than his actual on-field results, and he remains one of the most durable starters in the game today. Over the past three seasons, Mikolas has made 100 appearances (99 starts) and thrown 575 1/3 innings. That’s good for the sixth-most innings in baseball over that time, behind only Logan Webb, Aaron Nola, Corbin Burnes, Logan Gilbert, and Framber Valdez. If the Cardinals were willing to pay down a portion of Mikolas’s salary, it’s at least feasible that a team in need of innings could take a flier on the veteran in hopes of a bounce-back.

Cardinals To Activate Lance Lynn On Wednesday

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The Cardinals are planning to activate right-hander Lance Lynn from the 15-day injured list on Wednesday, as noted by The Athletic’s Katie Woo. Lynn will take the ball for a start against the Reds in St. Louis when he returns to action. The veteran right-hander has been on the injured list for just over a month due to a bout of knee inflammation.

Lynn, 37, pitched decently enough for the Cardinals in 21 starts prior to going on the IL. In 106 1/3 innings of work, he posted a roughly league average 4.06 ERA (105 ERA+) with a 4.46 FIP and a 20.8% strikeout rate. Lynn pitched quite well for St. Louis throughout the first half but his numbers took a sharp turn for the worse in July, when he pitched to a 6.27 ERA and 7.04 FIP in just 18 2/3 innings of work across four starts.

Even with that ghastly performance in his last four starts before hitting the IL, however, his overall numbers this season are much better than they were in 2023 and roughly comparable to the 2022 campaign, when he posted a 3.99 ERA (99 ERA+) and 3.82 FIP in 21 starts. While the veteran right-hander is no longer close to the same pitcher who posted a sterling 3.26 ERA (146 ERA+) and 3.39 FIP with a 27.5% strikeout rate and three consecutive top-6 finishes in AL Cy Young award voting from 2019 to 2021, he’s still proven to be a capable back-end rotation option after a disastrous 2023 season where he struggled to a 5.73 ERA (77 ERA+) with a 5.53 FIP in 183 2/3 innings of work.

Given Lynn’s value as a steady back-of-the-rotation arm and the Cardinals’ lack of starting pitching depth headed into 2025, it’s no surprise that the club would want Lynn to make a few starts down the stretch as they evaluate whether to pick up their $12MM option on his services for next year or decline the option in favor of a $1MM buyout. They have an identical decision on their hands regarding fellow veteran righty Kyle Gibson, who has pitched to a 4.39 ERA (97 ERA+) with a 4.26 FIP in 26 starts with the club during his age-36 season this year.

With those decisions looming after the season comes to a close, the Cardinals also figure to use the last few weeks of the season to evaluate right-hander Andre Pallante’s viability as a long-term rotation option for the club. The 25-year-old’s 4.07 ERA (105 ERA+) and 4.08 FIP aren’t especially spectacular, but he’s looked very impressive since moving from the bullpen to the rotation in late May with a 3.81 ERA and 4.00 FIP in his last 87 1/3 innings of work spread across 16 starts. Staff ace Sonny Gray and longtime veteran Miles Mikolas both appear to be entrenched in their current rotation roles as well, and that’s left southpaw Steven Matz as the odd man out of the club’s rotation picture.

According to Woo, the lefty is set to be available out of the bullpen starting tomorrow, after making just one start since returning from a lengthy trip to the injured list that wiped out four months of his 2024 campaign. The 33-year-old signed with the Cardinals on a four-year, $44MM deal prior to the 2022 season but that contract hasn’t panned out as he’s struggled to a 4.61 ERA (98 ERA+) despite a solid 3.98 FIP. He’s also been limited to just 185 1/3 innings of work over the past three years by injuries and multiple moves to the bullpen, and figures to act as a back-end rotation option and long relief arm for the club once again in 2025, depending on the needs of the roster and the lefty’s performance.

Cardinals To Activate Steven Matz From 60-Day IL Tomorrow

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The Cardinals are poised to activate left-hander Steven Matz from the 60-day Injured List tomorrow, manager Oli Marmol told reporters (including Jeff Jones of the Belleville News-Democrat) earlier today. A corresponding 40-man roster move won’t be necessary after the club’s recent losses of outfielder Tommy Pham and right-hander Shawn Armstrong on the waiver wire opened up 40-man space, and tomorrow’s roster expansion means a corresponding active roster move also won’t be necessary.

Matz’s return to action after a four-month layoff due to back issues that were aggravated further by a setback during his first comeback attempt back in June. He’s now made six outings at the Triple-A level this month without any further setbacks, however, and has pitched to decent results with a 4.29 ERA and 18.9% strikeout rate in that time. Now, Matz appears ready to step back into the Cardinals’ pitching staff, though it’s not entirely clear yet whether he’ll do so as a starter or a reliever.

The 33-year-old southpaw has experience in both roles but has mostly been a starter throughout his career, including in his six starts early in the year before being sidelined by injury. He’s maxed out at 85 pitches in the minors to this point, suggesting he’s stretched out enough to take a role in the rotation, but the club’s rotation is already full at this point with Sonny Gray, Erick Fedde, Andre Pallante, Miles Mikolas, and Kyle Gibson all currently pitching as starters. Pallante has pitched in relief before and is the least experienced of the group, but he’s arguably been the club’s best starter since the All-Star break with a 3.29 ERA and 3.34 FIP in his past seven starts.

If the club wants to use both Matz and Pallante in the rotation, other possibilities include moving to a six man rotation or moving Mikolas, who has struggled to a 6.12 ERA over his last eight starts, into a bullpen role. Of course, the impending return of veteran righty Lance Lynn from the injured list figures to further complicate St. Louis’s rotation picture, giving them plenty of options to sort through in the coming days.

Matz won’t be the only player joining the Cardinals’ roster tomorrow, as they’ll need to add another position player to their mix when rosters expand as well. That player could be center fielder Michael Siani, who Jones describes as a “strong candidate” to be activated tomorrow. The 25-year-old has been shelved due to an oblique strain for almost the entire month of July but is currently in the midst of a rehab assignment and appears to be on the verge of returning. The game where Siani was injured brought to a close a 12-game hitting streak during which he raked to the tune of a .432/.488/.460 slash line while playing his typical elite defense in center and going 4-for-4 on the basepaths.

That sort of electric play has been sorely missed by the Cardinals in recent weeks, as they’ve put together a lackluster 11-14 record in his absence while relying on Victor Scott II to cover center field. Scott has been decent enough at the plate since returning to the majors for the first time since his disappointing cup of coffee to open the season, but his .243/.274/.400 (86 wRC+) slash line in August hasn’t compared to the fantastic stretch Siani was in the midst of prior to his injury.

Cardinals Notes: Matz, Lynn, Siani

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Veteran lefty Steven Matz has missed most of the 2024 season due to back issues, including a setback in his rehab back in June as he was building up his pitch toward a return to the big leagues. Fortunately for the Cardinals, however, it appears the southpaw is once again nearing a return.

As noted by MLB.com’s John Denton, manager Oli Marmol told reporters yesterday afternoon that Matz, who had pitched four scoreless frames on 76 pitches the night prior, was nearing a return to the big leagues. Lynn Worthy of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch added that the Cardinals currently plan to have Matz return to St. Louis to be evaluated by the team’s medical staff before they decide whether or not he should return to the big league staff immediately, though (per Denton) Marmol indicated that the veteran is likely to make one more rehab start before returning to the majors.

The 33-year-old could provide some relief for a rotation that has struggled somewhat this season, with only Sonny Gray providing consistently above-average performances. Gray has posted decent results with excellent peripherals as the club’s top starter, with a 3.93 ERA (109 ERA+) and a 3.14 FIP in 22 starts this year. Andre Pallante has been another bright spot, impressing in 13 starts this year with a 3.75 ERA and nearly-matching 3.76 FIP since entering a rotation role in late May despite a lackluster 18.8% strikeout rate in those contests.

Looking beyond that duo, however, the results have left much to be desired. Miles Mikolas has posted a 5.41 ERA that’s 21% worse than league average by ERA+ and is the worst figure he’s posted in a season since returning to stateside ball in 2018 following a stint in Japan, while Lance Lynn had struggled to a 4.78 ERA with a 4.66 FIP in his last ten starts before going on the injured list with right knee inflammation at the end of July. St. Louis had spent much of this season leaning on Kyle Gibson for back-of-the-rotation consistency and attempted to fortify their rotation by adding Erick Fedde at the trade deadline, but the pair have posted ERAs of 6.11 and 5.63 respectively since the calendar flipped to August.

Of course, Matz is hardly a sure bet to provide quality innings out of the rotation himself. The lefty’s Cardinals tenure has been a bumpy one, as he posted a 5.25 ERA in 48 innings during his first season with the club and followed that up with a 5.72 ERA in his first ten starts last year. Those struggles ultimately left him demoted to the bullpen last summer, though he managed to pitch his way back into a rotation role down the stretch and posted excellent numbers (a 1.84 ERA and a 31.2% strikeout rate) in seven starts after being reinstated as a starter. That strong finish last year left plenty of reason for optimism regarding Matz entering this year, but in six starts before being sidelined back in May he struggled badly with a 6.18 ERA.

While some of those difficulties can surely be attributed to the small sample size and an inflated .362 BABIP posted by Matz’s opponents this year, that Matz struck out just 13.7% of batters prior to going on the shelf is cause for at least some concern. If Matz looks good upon his return, it’s easy to imagine him sticking in the club’s rotation mix for the rest of the season, although it’s also possible he’ll find himself back in the bullpen at some point.

Lynn’s impending return, which could potentially come even more quickly than that of Matz, also figures to play a role in the Cardinals’ rotation decisions. The veteran right-hander has been sidelined for nearly three weeks by knee inflammation but is slowly approaching a return to action, with Marmol telling reporters (including Worthy) that Matz is expected to throw a live bullpen session early this week. That’s a notable step forward for the 37-year-old, particularly because Marmol left the door open (as noted by MLB.com’s Injury Tracker) for the righty to return to action later in the week without a rehab assignment if his upcoming session goes well.

With both Lynn and Matz seemingly nearing returns to action, the Cardinals figure to have an excess of rotation options from which they can decide how best to line up for the stretch run as they look to push their way back into postseason contention after going just 4-10 so far in the month of August. In addition to the pitching reinforcements the club expects to get, Denton notes that the club’s run prevention apparatus could be getting a lift in center field in the near future as standout defender Michael Siani has already resumed swinging a bat after being sidelined by an oblique strain just two weeks ago. Siani recently received a platelet-rich plasma injection in his abdomen to aid his return to action, which could come before the end of the month if he continues to progress quickly.

Cardinals Notes: Edman, Brebbia, Matz, Kloffenstein

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While the Cardinals are looking to buy at the deadline as they chase an NL wild card slot, the team could also pursue some strategic selling, as the Athletic’s Fabian Ardaya reports that the Dodgers have interest in Tommy Edman’s services.  The versatile Edman could provide depth or even a starting role at multiple positions for an injury-riddled Dodgers team, and it be can argued that St. Louis already has enough position-player depth to make Edman expendable.

Of course, the chief obstacle to a deal is Edman’s own health status, as he has still yet to play in a big league game this season.  Edman underwent wrist surgery last fall and the rehab process has taken considerably longer than expected — his recovery has been delayed by a couple of shutdowns due to recurring wrist soreness, as well as a sprained ankle.  He has played in seven games during his rehab assignment with Double-A Springfield, but only as a DH, rather than any action in the field.

The Cards would certainly be selling low on a player who generated 5.4 fWAR as recently as 2022, between Edman’s strong glovework all over the diamond and an above-average (106 wRC+) performance at the plate.  However, 2022 represented the high-water mark of Edman’s offensive production over a full season, as he had an 89 wRC+ in 2021 and a 92 wRC+ in 528 PA last season.

The two-year, $16.5MM extension Edman signed last January also puts a significant price tag on his services, with about $2.4MM still owed to him this season and then $9.5MM owed in 2025.  The Cardinals would almost certainly have to eat a big chunk of that money to accommodate a trade, unless they perhaps swapped Edman to the Dodgers or another team for another unfavorable contract.

Such a creative move might in some way address the Cardinals’ other deadline needs, which Jeff Jones of the Belleville News-Democrat outlines as a right-handed hitting outfielder, starting pitching, and some bullpen depth.  For this latter goal, Jones reports that the Cards have interest in White Sox reliever John Brebbia.

It would be a reunion between the Cardinals and the veteran reliever, as Brebbia broke into the big leagues with St. Louis in 2017 and quickly established himself as a workhorse.  Brebbia posted a 3.14 ERA over 175 relief innings over the 2017-19 season, but a Tommy John surgery kept him sidelined for the entire 2020 season, and the Cards non-tendered him following that lost year.  He re-established himself pitching for the Giants from 2021-23, and signed a one-year free agent deal with the White Sox this past winter that pays him $4MM in salary, with a $1.5MM buyout of a $6MM mutual option for 2025.

Brebbia’s work with the Sox has been a lot better than his 5.22 ERA might indicate, as a .352 BABIP has inflated the righty’s bottom-line numbers.  In terms of secondary metrics, Brebbia has a strong 29.5% strikeout rate and a 5.8% walk rate, as well as above-average hard-contact numbers.  With the White Sox in clear sell mode, Brebbia is a likely candidate to be on the move before the deadline, and St. Louis could among several terms intrigued by Brebbia’s Statcast line rather than his misleading ERA.

The Cardinals figure to land pitching even some internal arms are on the mend, as Steven Matz is tentatively slated to begin a minor league rehab assignment later this week (as per the St. Louis Post-Dispatch).  Matz’s injury-plagued tenure with the Cards has now seen him miss almost three months due to back problems, with the southpaw posting a 6.18 ERA over 27 2/3 innings in April before being sidelined.  Since Matz’s rehab work has already been shut down twice by recurring back pain, this next rehab assignment doesn’t represent a clear sign that the veteran is fully on the road to recovery, but he did log two simulated innings in a throwing session on Saturday.

In more concerning injury news, Adam Kloffenstein has discomfort in his right shoulder, manager Oliver Marmol told Jones and other reporters.  Kloffenstein is currently on the minor league injured list as testing is being done to determine the nature and extent of the problem.  Acquired in the Jordan Hicks trade with the Blue Jays last summer, Kloffenstein has a 4.74 ERA in 89 1/3 innings and 17 Triple-A starts this season, and he made his Major League debut in cup-of-coffee form with one inning in the Cards’ 6-5 win over the Giants on June 20.

Cardinals Promote Gordon Graceffo

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June 28: The Cardinals have made it official today, announcing they have selected Graceffo to the roster. Righty Kyle Leahy was optioned to open an active roster spot while Matz was transferred to the 60-day IL to open a 40-man spot.

June 27: The Cardinals are planning to promote pitching prospect Gordon Graceffo before tomorrow night’s matchup with the Reds, reports Katie Woo of the Athletic (X link). The 24-year-old will be available out of the bullpen behind scheduled starter Andre Pallante.

Garceffo signed for an overslot $500K bonus as a fifth-round pick out of Villanova in 2021. The 6’4″ righty had a breakout season the following year, working to a 2.97 ERA across 139 1/3 innings between High-A and Double-A. He garnered some attention as a Top 100 caliber prospect heading into 2023, but his stock took a hit last year. Graceffo missed some time with a shoulder issue and wasn’t especially effective in his first crack at Triple-A. He allowed 4.92 ERA through 86 innings at the top minor league level.

Entering the season, Graceffo ranked in the back half of the organization’s top 10 prospects at both Baseball America and on Keith Law’s write-up at The Athletic. Both outlets wrote that Graceffo looked like a back-end starter last season after flashing mid-rotation potential during the ’22 campaign. Eric Longenhagen and Travis Ice of FanGraphs slotted Graceffo 25th among St. Louis farmhands in May, suggesting he may fit better in relief unless he recaptures the command he showed a couple seasons ago.

The 24-year-old has started 14 times for Triple-A Memphis this year. He owns a solid 3.84 ERA, albeit with pedestrian strikeout (21.4%) and walk (8.9%) rates. Graceffo hasn’t missed a ton of bats since he first reached the Double-A level. Working in shorter stints could improve that — either by pushing his velocity back to the mid-90s range he’d shown before the shoulder injury or allowing him to lean heavily on a slider that evaluators credit as an above-average to plus pitch. While Graceffo’s first MLB look will come out of the bullpen, the Cards could eventually send him back to Memphis to keep him stretched out for potential rotation work down the line.

Graceffo is not on the 40-man roster. St. Louis will select his contract tomorrow. Their 40-man roster is at capacity, but they can open a spot by transferring Steven Matz to the 60-day injured list after his recent setback. The Cards will need to take another pitcher off the active roster in a corresponding move.

Steven Matz Has Rehab Setback, Won’t Return For At Least 4-6 Weeks

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Steven Matz’s time on the injured list has been extended after the left-hander hit a setback in his rehab work.  As Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol told The Athletic’s Katie Woo (links to X) and other reporters, Matz came out his Double-A rehab start last Sunday with more tightness in his back, and the starter has now been shut down for two weeks.  Marmol gave a 4-6 week timeline as a projected best-case scenario for Matz to return to the active roster, as Matz’s throwing program will have to more or less be started from scratch after his shutdown period.

It’s a tough break for Matz, who had banked three rehab starts already and was seemingly on track to be activated from the injured list around the start of July.  Instead, he’ll now be sidelined for another month at the very least, and more realistically probably won’t be back until some time in August.

Matz made six starts and posted a 6.18 ERA over 27 2/3 innings before going on the IL in early May with a lower back strain, so it has been a rough season all around for the 33-year-old.  All told, not much has gone right for Matz since signing his four-year, $44MM free agent deal with St. Louis in November 2021, as various injuries have limited the southpaw to 180 2/3 innings since Opening Day 2022.  He looked to be turning things around with a solid 3.86 ERA over 105 innings last year, but neither the production or the good health has been there for Matz this year.

Since it doesn’t seem like Matz will make it back prior to the July 30 trade deadline, it only exacerbates the Cardinals’ need for rotation help.  The club’s top four of Sonny Gray, Lance Lynn, Kyle Gibson, and Miles Mikolas has been more solid than outstanding, but the quartet has at least been reliably able to take the ball and eat innings.  Finding a fifth starter has been an issue for the Cards, as none of Matz, Matthew Liberatore, Andre Pallante, or Zack Thompson have provided much help in what has become a bit of a revolving door of a rotation spot.

Like pretty much the entire National League, the Cardinals are in something of a holding pattern with more than a month to do before the trade deadline.  St. Louis is an even 37-37 on the season, but the Cards are out of the last wild card spot on percentage points alone due to a lot of parity in the Senior Circuit — only four NL teams entered Saturday’s action with records above .500.

If this uncertainty continues over the next month, it will leave St. Louis and many other teams unclear about how aggressive they should be with their deadline shopping, and it wouldn’t be a shock to see the Cardinals explore selling if they hit a slump and fall out of the race.  Given how the Cards are coming off a rare losing season, president of baseball operations John Mozeliak could possibly feel more pressure to “go for it” in order to get the team back to its customary dose of October baseball, though Mozeliak has traditionally made more mid-level deadline moves rather than true blockbusters during his tenure in the St. Louis front office.

Cardinals Notes: Contreras, Matz, Rotation, Hence

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Cardinals fans received some excellent news recently as injured catcher Willson Contreras told reporters (including Jeff Jones of the Belleville News-Democrat) yesterday that he’s been cleared to resume baseball activity after a CT scan revealed good news regarding his surgically-repaired forearm. Contreras has already caught a bullpen for right-hander Andre Pallante and today he resumed hitting. Contreras indicated that he hopes to return to big league action by the end of the month, telling reporters that “it won’t be July” when he returns.

It’s an incredibly impressive turnaround for Contreras, who was initially expected to miss ten weeks of action after a swing of the bat from J.D. Martinez collided with his forearm back in May. Instead, he was cleared to resume baseball activities just one month to the day after sustaining the injury, and appears to be ramping up fairly quickly. A return before the end of June would place Contreras’s return at just six or seven weeks after the injury, though manager Oli Marmol pumped the brakes on talk of a quick return in conversation with reporters (including those at MLB.com). Marmol noted that the club will monitor how Contreras progresses over the coming weeks and lean on the team’s medical staff as they determine a more specific timeline for his return.

Whenever Contreras ultimately returns, he figures to be a huge asset to the Cardinals. The 32-year-old slugger was slashing an incredible .280/.398/.551 with a 171 wRC+ in 128 trips to the plate at the time of his injury and stood out as the hitter leading a scuffling Cardinals team that fell to a 15-21 record on the day of Contreras’s injury. While their catcher has been on the mend, St. Louis has surged back towards .500 and now sports a 30-33 record that places them just one game back of the final NL Wild Card spot. If St. Louis can manage to hang around the Wild Card race over the next few weeks and Contreras picks up where he left off upon his return, the catcher could help to further transform their offense as they look to establish themselves as contenders ahead of the July 30 trade deadline.

Contreras isn’t the only player progressing towards a return for the Cardinals this month, as veteran southpaw Steven Matz is scheduled to make his second rehab start on Tuesday at the Double-A level as he works his way back from a lower back strain that sidelined him at the end of April. As noted by MLB.com’s Injury Tracker, Matz is slated to throw 40 pitches during his next rehab start, meaning that there still figures to be quite a ways to go until he returns to the big league club. The Cardinals are reportedly planning on stretching Matz out into the 75-80 pitch range before he comes off the IL and steps back into the club’s big league rotation, a goal that will likely keep him on the shelf until sometime near the end of the month if he continues building up at his current pace.

In Matz’s absence, the Cardinals have not been able to settle on a fifth starter to fill the void behind Sonny Gray, Lance Lynn, Kyle Gibson, and Miles Mikolas. The club has used both right-hander Andre Pallante and lefty Matthew Liberatore to follow up that quartet in the weeks since Matz was placed on the shelf, but the duo has combined for a 7.11 ERA across five starts in Matz’s absence. Those struggles have led Marmol to be non-committal regarding who will take the ball when the fifth spot in the rotation is due up tomorrow against the Rockies, though Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch notes that Marmol has noted the starter will be chosen from “options already on the roster,” indicating that they won’t look toward other alternatives beyond Pallante or Liberatore just yet.

Right-handers Sem Robberse and Adam Kloffenstein are already on the club’s 40-man roster and could theoretically be options to fill out the club’s rotation should St. Louis eventually decide to make a change, but the pair have ERAs of 4.46 and 4.50 respectively at the Triple-A level this year with no big league experience. Cardinals fans are surely hopeful that they’ll see right-hander Tink Hence, the club’s top prospect who has dominated the Double-A level during his age-21 season this year, impact the big league team at some point this year.

Fans hoping to see Hence in St. Louis this season were dealt a scare earlier this week when he was was pulled from his most recent Double-A start after just two innings. Fortunately, MLB.com notes that Cardinals president of baseball operations John Mozeliak told reporters that Hence’s removal was due to cramping rather than any sort of serious issue and that he should be ready to make his next start for the Double-A Springfield Cardinals. Through 11 starts this year, Hence has pitched to a 3.19 ERA with a 2.82 FIP in 53 2/3 innings of work while striking out a fantastic 32.4% of batters faced. It would hardly be a surprise to see those numbers earn Hence a promotion to Triple-A in the near future; after all, St. Louis promoted him from High-A to Double-A after eleven similarly excellent starts last year.

Keynan Middleton To Receive Second Opinion On Forearm Strain

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Cardinals right-hander Keynan Middleton is set to receive a second opinion regarding his strained forearm, manager Oli Marmol told reporters (including MLB.com’s John Denton) yesterday. Denton added earlier today that Middleton is set to travel to New York to receive the second opinion from Yankees physician Dr. Christian Ahmad on Monday, with Denton noting that Ahmad is described as an “expert” on Tommy John surgery on his business website.

That’s certainly an ominous update regarding Middleton, who the Cardinals signed to be a key piece of their set-up mix this year but has yet to pitch a regular season inning in a Cardinals uniform due to the injury, which sidelined him during Spring Training. The 30-year-old seemed to be nearing a return in mid-May but the Cardinals relayed last week that he had suffered a setback and that the club was now concerned about damage to his ulnar collateral ligament. Surgery on Middleton’s UCL, whether it were an internal brace procedure or Tommy John surgery, would surely end the veteran’s season before it could begin while potentially impacting the 2025 campaign for the righty as well.

Prior to signing with the Cardinals on a one-year, $6MM deal this past winter, Middleton delivered an impressive 2023 campaign split between the White Sox and the Yankees where he pitched to a 3.38 ERA in 51 appearances. He performed especially well in 14 1/3 innings of work down the stretch with the Yankees last year that saw him post a 1.88 ERA while striking out 30.4% of batters faced. Last season constituted something of a breakout campaign for the 30-year-old, as he entered the 2023 campaign with a rather pedestrian ERA of 4.01 for his career across 143 2/3 innings of work with the Angels, Mariners, and Diamondbacks.

If Middleton were to go under the knife, it would be a tough blow for a St. Louis club that has also weathered injuries to Nick Robertson and Giovanny Gallegos in its bullpen mix. Fortunately for the Cardinals, they’re better situated to weather the loss of a high-upside relief arm than many clubs thanks to the fantastic performance the club has gotten out of closer Ryan Helsley, lefty JoJo Romero, and veteran Andrew Kitteredge at the back of their bullpen. That trio has combined to post a 2.26 ERA in 75 2/3 innings of work while racking up 75 strikeouts against just 16 walks as a group.

While the news regarding Middleton is certainly ominous, Marmol also provided a more positive injury update yesterday, as relayed by Denton (X link). Left-hander Steven Matz is set to throw what Marmol described as a “full intensity” bullpen session tomorrow, and if the veteran recovers well in the aftermath of that session he could head out for a minor league rehab assignment in the near future. That would be a significant relief for the Cardinals, who have been forced to turn to depth options like Matthew Liberatore and Andre Pallante to fill out the club’s rotation while Matz has been out nursing a protruding disc in his back. Matz had struggled to a 6.18 ERA in six starts with the club prior to going on the injured list but could be a valuable piece once healthy, as indicated by his 3.86 ERA (114 ERA+) and 3.75 FIP in 105 innings of work split between the rotation and bullpen last year.

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