The St. Louis Cardinals are at a crossroads this offseason.
St. Louis concluded 2023 with a record less than.500 for the first time since 2007 and as the NL Central’s bottom club for the first time since the division’s inception in 1994.
Coming into the season with hopes of reaching their fifth straight postseason appearance, the 2023 Cardinals never quite got their stride and were forced to sell at the trade deadline.
St. Louis will need to overhaul its pitching staff and find a method to get its MVP hopefuls back to playing at an All-Star level now that their core has had a bad year.
Whatever additions are made, the rotation will see a changing of the guard, as Cardinals icon Adam Wainwright has officially retired following his 18th season with the team.
People are constantly asking if I’m officially retired. So, here’s my formal retirement papers, which we submitted to the @Cardinals and @MLBPA. Retired? Yes, for all the best reasons. Will send more later. I adore you all. pic.twitter.com/yxCvgFjFdz
St. Louis will not lose many players to free agency this winter, and if their stars rebound and they make the correct pitching moves, the Cardinals may be right back in contention in 2024. So, let’s take a look at what the 2022 NL Central champions can accomplish this winter to get back into the playoff race.
Contract Resolutions
Wainwright, Drew VerHagen, Taylor Motter, Jacob Barnes, and Tres Barrera are the only players leaving St. Louis. After pitching 61 innings in relief in 2023, VerHagen may be the only one of the five with a chance to return to the squad in 2024.
The Cardinals are also expected to have eight players eligible for arbitration.
Miles Mikolas, Steven Matz, Zack Thompson, Dakota Hudson, Matthew Liberatore, Drew Rom, Connor Thomas, Tink Hence, and Gordon Graceffo are among the internal alternatives for 2024.
This is where the bulk of the work will be done this offseason.
With Wainwright retiring and the Cardinals trading Jordan Montgomery and Jack Flaherty at the trade deadline, it appears that the Cardinals will need to sign at least three starters from outside the organization.
Steven Matz pitched well before being placed on the disabled list at the end of the season, posting a 1.86 ERA and 2.84 FIP after being reintroduced to the rotation in August. So, the Cardinals have Matz and Mikolas as internal choices, but there aren’t many options that inspire outside of those veterans.
Potential free agent targets: Sonny Gray, Aaron Nola, Jordan Montgomery, Eduardo Rodriguez, Marcus Stroman, Blake Snell, James Paxton, Kyle Gibson, Michael Lorenzen, Shota Imanaga, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Rich Hill
Choose a free-agent starter this summer, and you’ll have a pitcher that will most likely fit in St. Louis.
The Cardinals have named Nola and Gray as two arms they will investigate, according to Katie Woo of The Athletic.
Either might fit at the top of the team’s rotation, but neither would be enough to transform the team from the second-worst in 2023 into a viable postseason threat. Of course, there will be some free-agent acquisitions, but the Cardinals might also leverage the depth of their outfield core into a vital starter.
Shane Bieber, Dylan Cease, and Tyler Glasnow are just a handful of the names who could be traded this winter.
Along with the Cardinals’ offense, their defense suffered a setback in 2023. The team dropped from fourth in DRS (67) and fourth in OAA (26) to twentieth in DRS (-7) and nineteenth in OAA (-5).
Meanwhile, only four St. Louis pitchers with more than 40 innings pitched (Jordan Hicks, Chris Stratton, Giovanny Gallegos, and Zack Thompson) had a strikeout percentage of more over 25%. Thompson, of course, is the only one of the four to have made any team starts.
So, if the Cardinals’ defense does not perform at its 2022 standards, the team will be eliminated.
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