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Smaller side or not, Matsui has excellent swing and miss stuff. Which, if we can read the tea leaves, the Cardinals are highly coveting in their biennial “change the entire organizational philosophy in reaction to the media narrative around how to build a successful team” switch.
Cardinals Plan To Add "At Least Two" Relief Arms This Offseason https://t.co/7mKKxKn9dh pic.twitter.com/4Mz2qrMzKu
— MLB Trade Rumors (@mlbtraderumors) October 31, 2023
If they sign Matsui, they will have Matsui, Romero, King, and it looks like Liberatore from the left side, assuming Naile and Naughton don’t make the cut. And Drew Rom will be competing for a bullpen slot.
From the right side they’ve got Helsley and Gallegos, with Pallante, VerHagan, and W. Rodriguez competing for a spot. VerHagan stands to make at least $3M, so I’m guessing that they save some money by not resigning him. Pallante needs to show some improvement at Spring Training or he could lose his spot. W-Rod will be in the mix if the Yankees don’t take him back. And Graceffo will get a hard look.
So, from the left side its:
Matsui (probably…. based on rumors)
Romero
King
Liberatore (I like Libby in the pen, but he could wind
up in the rotation at some point,
especially if they get Glasnow from the
Rays)
Rom (Rom gets to determine his own fate)and, from the right side:
Helsley
Gallegos
Pallante, W-Rodriguez
new acquisition by trade or free agencyIf they acquire Matsui, and bring in a RH free agent reliever, then Rom, Pallante, W. Rodriguez, and maybe Graceffo will be competing for the last spot in the bullpen.
Where did Zack Thompson get off to?
The rotation, presumably.
mud, Some of those guys probably won’t still be here. Maybe quite a few won’t be here.
VerHagen is a free agent. I guess he will be officially dropped from the roster a few days after the world series. I doubt he will be brought back even though he was better than Pallante in 2023. Pallante is cheaper.
bb – I don’t see any pitchers in the organization that can replace the bullpen pitchers we had in 2023. In fact, they might have to bring VerHagan back. If they trade Liberatore or Helsley, and if they can’t sigh Matsui, they might have to bring Naile and Naughton back, also.
They might stay wih many of them, but I think middle relief types could be found. I hope there is quite a bit of turn over.
I think they should sign Matsui, Hicks, and Stephenson. Or trade for an equivalent version of those 3. I think they need 3 guys for the pen
Gallegos
Helsley
Romero
Liberatore
LH FA1
RH FA2
RH FA3
(King)
(Pallante)
(Woodford)They could drop any of the bottom three. Doesn’t really matter to me. None of them are striking out guys at an acceptable rate for the bullpen.
I’d be worried about Gallegos he look fried last year…not sure the WBC helped him much….seems like he has pitched a lot the last 3 years
King and Pallante have been okay. Just make sure they have someone better before dropping either of them. Woodford has probably run out of runway in St. Louis, but I think another team will pick him up. There sure isn’t a pitcher at Memphis who looks close to ready. If W-Rod shows up healthy at Spring training, he’s got a chance to make the team.
Gallegos has lost his spin rate and some velocity. I think he is done as a pitcher.
Maybe the FO can find a knuckleballer or forkballer,or better yet a flamethrower that will pitch INSIDE to hitters.I think Mo tweeked the algo to obsess on swing and miss. So we will probably see guys with a high K rate. But the bargains will come with a high WHIP as well.
Adam Kloffenstein.
I’m not sure what the 4.8 BB/9 in AAA will translate to in MLB, but I think its the kind of thing we are going to be seeing. Guys with a high K/9 and high BB/9 in AAA are not that hard to find.
King and Pallante have been okay.
I don’t think Pallante has been ok. His overall 2023 numbers are depressing to look at.
I think Pallante’s 2023 numbers are more of an indictment on our infield or positioning than on Pallante. Pallante got ground balls at somewhere around the 2nd highest rate ever (or at least in the last 25 years). It’s crazy how many ground balls he gets. But a lot of them leaked through the infield. To me, that’s on our coaching for positioning our infielders and on those infielders to make most of those plays. Yes, sometimes those are going to be base hits. But it should have been a lot less. Those rarely go for doubles and triples. And he doesn’t give up many home runs. For Pallante, he’s doing what he’s supposed to do, which is all we can ask of him.
He did have an elevated walk rate that tended to hurt because he would walk a guy to lead off the inning and then give up 2 ground ball singles in the process of getting 3 outs. In 2022, a lot of times he got a double play on those. He does need to continue to fine tune his control. That’s the main criticism other than trying to see him strike out a few more guys.
My point is that it’s not like he was Jake Woodford out there where every hitter squared him up and hit the ball on a line drive over 100 mph. Pallante did what he is paid to do – the reason he’s at the mlb level – he got ground balls. Generally, that’s a good thing. It’s on the coaches and other players to take advantage of that skill set.
Looking closer at the FA reliever market, there are quite a few pitchers that were former closers that don’t look like they’d hit the bank account too hard.
David Robertson and Trevor May are two. Liam Hendriks and Aroldis Chapman are a couple others.
Former Cardinal Joe Kelly really pitched well for the Dodgers as did alumnus Jordan Hicks for the Blue Jays.
Kelly ended the year with the second highest K-rate among FA RPs behind Chapman.
Wilking Rodriguez off 40-man roster.
https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2023/11/wilking-rodriguez-elects-free-agency.html
My guess is that Hicks will get more on the market than the Cards offered him when they had the chance to keep him. After Hader, he could be the best relief arm out there. Someone will pay for his upside, hoping he will put it all together. He is still only 27.
Have to hope that Kloffenstein and Robberse will be enough to compensate.
Righthanded relief looks like it’s going to be very competitive next spring with Granillo, Robertson, Fernandez, Wilking Rodriguez, and Pallante, all trying to earn a spot.
Actually, in looking at this, these are all wish and a prayer guys, even though the potential seems to be there. They still need to find somebody to help Helsley out in late innings. Romero was pitching at times like a late inning reliever. I thought Liberatore showed he had the mindset of a late inning guy a couple of times in 2023. Yuki Matsui?? Not sure if he could handle late innings. Emmanuel Clase?? No doubt Cleveland’s asking price for Clase is sky high, or Mo would have already traded for him.
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