photo: Tommy Edman via Zoom (Brian Walton/The Cardinal Nation)
St. Louis Cardinals release
The St. Louis Cardinals announced today (Thursday, January 11) that they have reached agreements on one-year contracts for the upcoming 2024 season with outfielder Dylan Carlson and pitchers Ryan Helsley, John King, Andrew Kittredge and JoJo Romero, avoiding salary arbitration. Financial terms of the deals were not disclosed.
The team will exchange salary arbitration figures with infielder/outfielder Tommy Edman.
Brian Walton’s take
Amounts to complete the table below will trickle out in the upcoming hours and days, both for the contract settlements and the two sides of the Edman figures. (Update: It is now complete, excepting the result from the upcoming hearing for Edman.)
Estimates below come from MLB Trade Rumors.
| 2024 Cardinals | Arb Year | Est ($MM) | Team file | Player file | Actual ($MM) | Source |
| Andrew Kittredge | 3 | $2.3 | $2.625 | Derrick Goold | ||
| Tommy Edman | 2 | $6.5 | $6.5 | $6.95 | Jeff Passan | |
| Ryan Helsley | 2 | $3.0 | $3.8 | John Denton | ||
| Dylan Carlson | 1 | $1.8 | $2.35 | Derrick Goold | ||
| John King | 1 | $1.0 | $1.005 | Mark Feinsand | ||
| JoJo Romero | 1 | $0.9 | $0.86 | Mark Feinsand |
Edman’s arbitration hearing will be scheduled sometime between January 29 and February 16. Unless the player and team agree in the interim on a multi-year deal (which we do not know is being offered), this case will go to hearing, per the Cardinals’ “File and Trial” policy. Coming out of the hearing, only one of the two submitted amounts will be selected, with no compromise.
The details of the salary arbitration process were negotiated between MLB and the Players’ Union and are part of their five-year Collective Bargaining Agreement.
A big reason Dakota Hudson, Andrew Knizner and Jake Woodford were let go (non-tendered 2024 contracts) by the Cardinals was the size of salary increases they were expected to receive via this process. After leaving the Cardinals, Hudson found a new home with Colorado, but at a salary about half of his estimated amount had he gone through arbitration. Woodford accepted a minor league deal with the White Sox and Knizner signed with the Rangers on Thursday for $175,000 less than his arb estimate with the Cardinals.
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