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With Wainwright retiring and perhaps both Flaherty and Montgomery leaving either via a deadline trade or off-season free agency the question begs to be asked:
Who will be in our rotation next year in 2024?
Anybody down at AA or AAA that might get a September call-up that could win a rotation spot?
Who are the free agent starters this coming off-season?
My apologies if this has been discussed in another thread but I didn’t see any.
r/Esteemed Rat
I guess Mikolas will be in the 2024 Rotation. And perhaps Lavatory.
But, other than that, who are we possibly looking at? At least at this point?
Oh yeah completely spaced Mikolas.
So probably
Mikolas
Liberatore
?
?
?Keeping Matz in the pen where he is actually doing ok.
Mo will end up trying to sell us on Mikolas, Liberace, Matz, McGreevy and Graceffo. It will be a disaster.
If this season remains in the crapper, even Mo will know better than to trot that rotation out there unless he has a total sell off at the deadline.
If this year’s team somehow rallies and makes the playoffs then he might flex on the fan base and do it.
Either way, from playoffs to dead last, I expect the Cardinals to add at least one and probably two new starters to next year’s roster.
Hopefully at least one of them will be on the level of Goldschmidt & Arenado.
Mikolas and Liberatore
One of Matz, Woodford, Hudson, Graceffo, McGreevey, Paniagua, Thompson, or Thomas. It’s hard to guess which one at this point. At the start of this season, I think we thought we’d get 2 from this group by next season. Right now though, I think one might even be a stretch. At least a stretch to be good anyways.
2 free agents (or trades) with the others above serving as #6 and #7 starters
It’s also possible that at some point during next season, any of Hence, Bedell, or Hjerpe could be starting some games. But it’s highly unlikely that any of them is ready by the start of the season.
I’m not putting a lot of faith in any of these 3 as starters. I kind of think all 3 end up in the bullpen long term, but right now they are all starters (Bedell has done both starting and relieving this season).
Well, I meant who are the free agents other than the Cardinals free agents? The free agents from the other teams. Who is going to be available?
Who are the free agent pitchers that are going to be available this off-season?
Ohtani, Nola, and maybe Giolito are the only high quality starters available but will be out of our price range.
It will be:
Mikolas
Liberatore
Then some combo of starters currently at Memphis and a mid-level trade acquisition.Hopefully Matz will be stored in the bullpen until his contract mercifully runs out.
Scherzer, Ohtani, Stroman, Ryu, Kershaw, Martin Perez, Urias, Nola, Alex Wood, Giolito, Gray, Montas, Snell, Jordan Montgomery, Flaherty
Those are probably the biggest names. There are some others with player or club options that I’m not sure if they will be available or not. Plus there’s also 15 or so bargain bin guys.
The Cardinals have passed on Scherzer so many times I doubt they go after him this time.
I don’t see us paying for Ohtani, Nola, or Giolito.
Kershaw will either stay with the Dodgers or retire.
Urias is a quality pitcher but will be out of our price range. Probably stays with the Dodgers.
Stroman could be a possibility but won’t be cheap.
The others mentioned are mid-range or back end starters.
I don’t see us making a splash in free agency for pitching. It will probably be trades or promotions from Memphis.
I find it hard to believe that the Cards would skip on upgrading the rotation after this year’s debacle.
I expect some combo of trades and free agency to help fill the gaps.
1 controllable starter via trade, 1 front end free agent starter, a rental type trade or a couple of #5s for depth/competition.
It will probably be Mikolas and Liberatore for sure, then maybe one or two from among Pallante, Woodford, Thompson, and Matz. And maybe they can somehow entice Montgomery to stay, although he will likely do better elsewhere as the Cardinals will probably try the home town discount approach.
As for outside guys, who knows. The bigger name guys are unlikely. And whoever they would bring in, I do not trust this management team to get the right guy. Their history of signing pitchers in free agency is not good.
Maybe they can luck out again from one of the Asian leagues and get a guy like Mikolas or Kim who will at least be good for a year, maybe two.
A guy like Yoshinobu Yamamoto would make a lot of sense…he’s pretty certainly a #3 or better starter. Yet the coastal teams always seem to sign those guys, so it’s probably not realistic at all.
Nola has not had an amazing year, which could stabilize his price a bit. Giolito is a very solid #2 type who might come cheaper than Nola. If Stroman hits the market it’s hard to not see him as a fit still. Monty could be in play for a resign. I don’t think we would be interested in Urias. Frankie Montas looks like a guy who could get a pillow deal unless he comes back effective this year. Sonny Gray is out there and pitching really well. Severino could be our new Cmart. Blake Snell is looking solid. Ohtani… yeah right. It’s a nice free agent class, still.
For trades, Bieber is always out there as a candidate. The Mariners have a number of young arms that would probably match up with us in trading our surplus of bats (a reverse Marco for Tyler deal, if you will). Would the Marlins be in the same boat?
Any way you look at it, I think we need three starters at minimum. Mikolas is set, Libby and Matz are options for the back end. Unless McGreevy or Graceffo really speed up their time line, I think the best case scenario for them to help the big league club is second half 2024.
Bills comfort zone is more like re-signing VerHagen on the cheap and following thru on his possible starter status next season.
To make sure he has depth, drafting another rule5 guy you’ve never heard of this winter fits the model.
I think we are all feeling a bit jaded, yet is it realistic to think that a team with three starters on the roster, two of which are rookies or ineffective, would really rely on #5/6 starters?
I just don’t see how it would work. We will have the money…Edman, Helsley and Carlson are he only Arb guys I’m sure we will keep, and the rest are all non tender candidates. With all that, I project the Cards to be around $125-130M of payroll. Would $50-60M be realistic to spend? Even $25-30M would be bare bones spending and should get us more than some chaff off the pile.
I don’t see Montgomery resigning. Not with the way the club has barely scored for him and the clubhouse surely isn’t all roses. And we no longer have the “great defense behind you” card to pull in negotiations
I think we are all feeling a bit jaded, yet is it realistic to think that a team with three starters on the roster, two of which are rookies or ineffective, would really rely on #5/6 starters?
I would say that the Cardinals have demonstrated time and time again that their “puke point” is much lower than that of the fans. I just don’t have any expectation that they will get into a free agent bidding war for an elite level starter. Now would they spend on a back end rotation guy like Matz or Leake? Sure, but elite starters are beyond their comfort zone. That is why I think a more likely scenario is some kind of trade for a relatively good pitcher that costs more in player capital than in raw cash.
GScottar – I agree with you that they won’t sign a high-priced free agent starter and I agree with the Cardinals that they shouldn’t. Why invest a giant sum of your budget in a bet that only breaks even about 20% of the time? Rarely do teams “win” in these kinds of deals. You are paying for past performance and pitchers get hurt a lot. There are certainly some examples of these pitchers pitching to near the value of their deals, but not a lot of them. Very few examples of pitchers exceeding the value of these deals.
The Cardinals will either try to trade for a valuable starter (like with Montgomery), try to find value in a middle of the road starter (like with Matz), and continue to try to home-grow their own starting talent (like with Liberatore). I don’t fault them for taking this path. It makes sense. Spend the large sums of money on position players like Goldschmidt and Arenado that affect the game every day and are less susceptible to injuries.
Pitchers are the most risky acquisition, so it does make sense to stay away from a huge commitment. But then again, you have to take a risk now and then to compete.
I don’t think it has to be either/or. It doesn’t have to be spend $200M on an elite starter or go after a lower tier guy like Matz, who has been a disaster. Bieber is making $10M this year and will be arb eligible again next year. His salary? Maybe $15-$17M. That isn’t too bad for a guy who won the Cy Young three years ago. The cost would be in player capital initially then if you want to extend him it would get costly cash wise.
There are probably other guys like that out there we could trade for. I am not big on free agent pitchers either but if you are going to do it you should go big or go home. Signing “value” guys like Matz or Leake is like flushing the money down a toilet.
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