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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.
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