The Cardinals started the youth movement — and the significant salary cuts that come with it — with a series of trades last season. Still, they’re right in the middle of the Wild Card race, perhaps as surprising to their front office as it is to many outside observers. Baseball president Chaim Bloom has made it clear they won’t deviate too much from their long-term vision, but that still leaves questions about how to walk the line between being soft buyers or sellers.
St. Louis pitched a ninth inning to drop the series opener last night at Angel Stadium. They will play the Halos two more times before a home game at Busch Stadium against the Diamondbacks. The Reds are in town this weekend for a three-game set, then will play a series with the Cubs and Blue Jays until the deadline. It should be manageable for the Cardinals to stay in the Wild Card picture on August 3. Despite dropping three in a row, they currently hold the last NL playoff spot with five teams hanging less than three games behind them.
That will lead to the Cardinals going on both sides of the line. They have a few veteran assets they can acquire for future value without feeling like they are giving up hope of competing in 2026.
Record: 51-48 (24.4% playoff odds, via FanGraphs)
For other entries in this series, see this post.
Sell Mode
Upcoming free agents: Dustin May, JoJo Romero, Ramón Urías
St. Louis only has three free agents, or they will have four if they decline their $6MM option on the setup man. Ryne Stanek. He’s getting nothing for Urías, who missed a lot of time with tennis elbow.
Romero is having a great season, posting a 3.35 ERA with league average strikeout and walk rates while recording 21 catches. He’s throwing strikeouts at a career-low 8% rate, however, and recently went on the injured list after requiring treatment for appendicitis. He sports a salary of $4.26MM which is almost perfect for a controller like this. The Cardinals may get him a center fielder, but that return probably isn’t enough to move the strongest arms out of a weak bullpen.
May is their biggest candidate for a rental trade. He makes $12MM in salary and will collect a $500K option purchase at the end of the year. The Cardinals could make him a qualifying offer at $23MM, but that’s rich for a pitcher of his caliber. May looked like the team’s best starter in a few months. He hasn’t gone six innings since pitching a one-hitter against San Diego on June 15.
The sinkerballer averages a 4.78 earned run average in 98 innings. His slightly above-average strikeout and walk profile and 97 mph fastball are very appealing. Other teams may see May as having more results than a fifth-place finisher. Still, he won’t be anyone’s top target, and the Cardinals will be looking at a few middle-of-the-pack prospects if they move him.
Regulated Exchanges: Lars Nootbaar, Nolan Gorman, Riley O’Brien, Ryne Stanek, Andre Pallanteholding depth (eg Jimmy Crooks, Leo Bernal)
Nootbaar is the main piece of this team, which is otherwise a mishmash of cheap but flawed role players. St. Louis probably would have traded their left fielder last season if he hadn’t needed surgery to correct Haglund’s deformity (bone growth at the back of the heel) in both feet. Nootbaar was subject to two years of arbitration control, the same contract window Brendan Donovan he was there when the Cards traded him.
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