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Mud, I agree about Graceffo. He has the pitches to bea starter. He should be in the mix for next year.
The Cardinals are so loaded with young talent. And their big league roster is almost full now. If you consider that Saggese or Jesus Baez look like they’re ready to handle 3B full time, the roster is definitely full now.
I think they could give Graceffo a shot next year similar to what Leahy got this year. I suppose he would be under an innings limit though.
The Cardinals bottomed out their payroll in 2026. Their current CBT payroll is $109M, which ranks 28th in MLB. 28th! Their 2027 CBT obligations are currently $53M. I don’t think they will go “big” in 2027 but I think they should strive for incremental progress. We are going to finish with around 78 wins this year. It would be nice to get to 85 in 2027 then 90 in 2028. Is that going to require them to bring in an outsider or two? Yes it will. I know that a certain segment of the fanbase would like all of the 40 man spots to be homegrown but that isn’t realistic.
Does it take more gumption to stick to their plan to develop from within or consider shortcuts to try to compete sooner than expected?
A shortcut to compete doesn’t have to be an albatross contract (or a bunch of smaller Mo style deals) to block them from doing other things forever. It could simply be crafting a usable bullpen, which we all knew would be their challenge this year and has easily been the difference between playing meaningful games right now and playing out the string, as they are currently doing.
They could plan to giving guys like Baez (x2), Bernal, etc. every chance to prove their mettle next year while making a move or two to strength the bench, the rotation and the bullpen and it wouldn’t crush their payroll. They owe very little going forward. A stopgap starter in the May mold, a pen arm in the Romero mold, and a bench platoon bat wouldn’t cost all that much.
I’m all for doing what’s best for the rebuild. But that doesn’t mean squeezing every last penny. They need to spend a bit on the bullpen and maybe a May type deal. I think they will. They’ve shown they want to protect their young pitchers arms and those moves are needed to do that. And let’s not completely forget the fans in this whole deal. Even though it’s still a rebuild year, we need to show some incremental improvements in order to have a better wl record.
It’s been my experience that teams that are genuinely interested in winning don’t covet pitchers like May, but instead seek out pitchers with names like Sale, Gray, Skubal or Griffin.
I don’t think they will sign a May type starter. The rotation on opening day could be the same as it is now. Liby, Pallante and Leahy should do OK early in the season. Things would get interesting later in the year. Injuries obviously could speed that up, but we will have internal options for a stop gap guy or two.
The pen will likely see some turnover, but again, mainly internal options. I hope Bloomster can avoid having to go low hanging fruit shopping.
I could see a trade or two to sort things, maybe affecting the ML roster around the edges. No big FA there either though. Later in the year maybe some position players will be kicking down the door.
I do wonder if they might stay 100% internal other than maybe 1 bullpen guy signing. Even if a salary floor gets adopted, it may not take effect immediately. And, if it does, they could get there with extensions. By the look of things now, if all the prospects keep developing at the same pace as they have been, they should be major league average or better at every position by 2028 so I could understand the logic in not investing in a single free agent who blocks advancement.
I think CF carries the greatest internal risk of not getting someone by 2028 so if they did sign a free agent to more than a one year deal, I’d expect it to be there. Unlikely, but to me the most likely of all the unlikelies.
For the starting rotation though, I don’t think they need to sign anyone. If they could find a Dustin May, then sure. But those deals often don’t pan out so it would be hard to replicate that success. They have 5-7 guys now who can start in 2027, plus they should have an incredible 5-6 starters at Memphis who all just need between 2 months and 6 months before they should be good to go.
I think it makes sense to trade for a starter instead of going after a Dustin May type free agent. We have some trade chips we could use that wouldn’t drastically derail the rebuild.
I would go after someone like Will Warren who is a proven starter but is still cheap with multiple years of control and would still be here when we are ready to contend in 2028. We also need a LH stopgap 3B who could platoon with Saggese until Baez is ready. How about Herrera and Libby for Warren and Ryan McMahon?
We would be trading 1.7 WAR while receiving 1.3 WAR plus the Yanks would have to chip in some money to offset McMahon’s salary. McMahon is a very good defender. We would have the best defensive infield in MLB while Warren, Pallante, McGreevy, Leahy, and Mathews would be a solid rotation.
How about Herrera and Libby for . . .
A catcher who can’t catch and a pitcher who can’t pitch. Funny.
A catcher who can’t catch and a pitcher who can’t pitch. Funny.
A cheap DH who can hit and a cheap number 5 starter with multiple years of control. Realistic.
I think it makes sense to trade for a starter instead of going after a Dustin May type free agent. We have some trade chips we could use that wouldn’t drastically derail the rebuild.
That’s another option. In addition to Warren that you mentioned, the Mariners might be someone to go back to. They have Anderson up and Sloan coming quickly so they may be willing to talk about one of their other righties.
I decided to see where our starting pitchers fell by # this season. To make it a perfect 1-5, I had to find the right number of innings to get as close to 150 qualifying pitchers as possible. 90 innings as a threshold gets us close enough as 152 pitchers crossed that threshold this season (with 4 games remaining as of this post). We will just ignore Mikolas and Zack Littell who brought up the rear and call them an each a #6 starter. How did we do? Any top 30 guys who were #1’s by definition? No, but we did better than you might expect.
Buoyed some by pitching roughly half their games at Busch Stadium, the Cardinals essentially had 3 #2 starters, 1 #3 starter, and 1 #4 starter. Here’s where they placed by FWAR on a list of 152 starters:
May – #36
Pallante – #38
Leahy – #53
McGreevey – #77
Liberatore – #108I’m not sure Liberatore’s start last night is counted in there yet. The others should all get one more shot to improve or fall back.
The starting rotation was a decently bright spot this year. I’m not sure I would expect them to pitch as well next year or beyond, but they weren’t the biggest reason that we won’t be seeing any October baseball once again. I think you could feasibly run it back, but I’m hopeful that they add at least one outside arm (to replace Liberatore) and we have several of Doyle, Franklin, Cijntje, Molina, Davis, Eagen, etc. putting pressure on some of the guys who aren’t tied down by the end of next year. In a dream scenario, they sign a legit top of rotation guy after 2027 (such as Logan Gilbert) and fill in with the home grown talent in a good rotation.
FYI – Gilbert was #42 on the list, behind May and Pallante. Is he a legit top of the rotation guy?
Yes. Some franchises have a big detrimental effect on their players, and the Mariners are one of them. I see Gilbert as having a Kevin Gausman or even Zack Wheeler like career into his 30s. Get them out of the losing mentality and into a successful organization and see them blossom.
I see Logan Gilbert not as a #1 starter, but more as a Skinny Lance Lynn type — which is quite valuable as well. Gilbert logs lots of innings (4th-most in MLB over the past five seasons) and gives you a better than average ERA year after year. And he’s still in his 20’s.
The trouble is, what would Seattle want in return? They have no use for our backstop surplus, with Raleigh on a massive contract for the next 4 or 5 campaigns. The Mariners always need hitting, but if we trade Herrera or Burly, we may be hurting our team as much as helping. So it would likely come down to trading away top Redbird prospects, or maybe a three-way trade incorporating another franchise that badly needs a catcher like Leo Bernal, whose MLB audition is going great, save for those errors.
Considering 3 of those errors by Bernal are on catcher’s interference, I am not concerned by his 5 errors. That is very correctable.
It was great to see Liberatore have such a good outing the last time out. Gives him something to hold onto during the offseason.
It’s going to be interesting to see how the rotation gets sorted out during spring training with so many near ready prospects in camp.
I agree with stl25 100%.
Its a good conversation to speculate about ’27 but the matter will be settled during spring training.
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