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Don’t forget Wilking Rodriguez from two years ago! He was a Rule 5 pickup and was injured virtually the whole year, and was re-signed to a minor league contract during the offseason (and has been hurt virtually the whole year!). Lots of roster decisions to be made after the season is over! Maybe a few of the decisions made recently were preparing to add players to the 40-man so they won’t be taken by other teams this December!
64 – He’s easy to forget because he’s always hurt. He’s looked good for a couple weeks now in Memphis since he returned. I don’t think he will be added to the roster prior to the Rule 5 draft – at least that’s the way I feel right now but there’s a few weeks left for Memphis.
Wilking Rodriguez and Packy Naughton may both get to choose free agency if they aren’t rostered. And if they are rostered, neither has any options left (along with Zack Thompson, Ivan Herrera, John King, and Riley O’Brien). I suspect that fact will make several of these guys expendable. In a few weeks from now I’ll take some time to guess at everything I believe will happen.
I don’t see retaining any of those mentioned except King. The lack of options is the deciding factor. For various reasons they have not secured a place on the ML roster and are running off the end of the runway. I guess they are trying to see if O’Brien might stick in the ML pen next year, as if a month tells them anything, and as if he can be expected to stay healthy.
Mo traded for a bunch of guys who were facing that situation with their organizations, and Mo had a 40 man slot for them. Lot of good it has done. I guess he didn’t want to trade off our guys in the same situation, or he couldn’t. Some may end up back in Memphis next year with no options. They might get selected for an emergency call up and then DFAd. We’ve seen that. Its a sorry spectacle.
Thanks for doing this, jnevel. I found myself wondering about this very topic this morning.
The Cards now have 40 on the 40-man roster, including guys on the 60 day DL. I’d guess the following won’t be back:
Carpenter
Goldschmidt
Lynn
Rom
Kittredge
MiddletonI think I’d protect all of the six you flag except Granillo, and I’d leave one spot for a Fernandez-style pick of someone unprotected by other teams.
Gags, great to see you posting.
From the 60-day IL, Matz will turn the current 37 to 38 tomorrow. Middleton and Rom are the other two. They may keep Rom to see what he can do post surgery. Or if there is a crunch, see if they can pass him through waivers. Shoulder surgery is generally a red flag.
Hi Brian-
Good to post. I think I was around more this year than last, and hope to be more in the future. That was an overly busy last decade, and I hope for this next stretch to be slower.
Agreed re Rom. With the shoulder surgery I think you take a chance on waivers.
I find myself second guessing on Goldie. I think he should go, but I wonder if they will work something out. And I especially wonder what has clicked with his bat and if that’s sustainable.
I said I’d circle back to this article as we got towards the end of the season. I’m starting about a week earlier than planned, but I think it will be ok. I like to wait as long as possible because guys are still playing and their play impacts their value and whether or not another team might take them in the Rule 5 Draft. There’s still one player that maybe could change his fortunes in the next 2 weeks and that’s Tekoah Roby, but I’ll get to him when I reach that section.
This is not just an article about Rule 5. It’s also going to naturally lead into roster construction. A team has 40 major league roster spots. A certain number of those spots will be still occupied by current incumbents next season barring a trade of those players. Disclaimer – this is not a trade post. I cannot predict or assume trades, but they are always possible and they could reshape how the roster looks. For instance, one of Pages or Herrera seems somewhat likely to be traded in the offseason unless Contreras becomes a full-time first baseman. But I have no way of knowing if the return will be someone on the major league roster or someone in the minor leagues so I’m just going to say those spots are full for the moment. In this case, there’s still likely to be 3 catchers on the 40-man roster even if the 3 we have today aren’t the 3 we have next season so it really won’t matter much that I’m counting all 3 of them.
I think I’ll do this article in 2 or 3 parts not counting this post I’m doing now. We’ll start with where the roster is now and work our way back to where it will likely end up in November.
Please feel free to look back at any information already posted about how the Rule 5 Draft works.
Part 1a: Current Roster Construction and Upcoming Decisions
The current 40-man roster is at 38 players. The Cardinals released Pham and Armstrong even though they didn’t need to. Part of that was giving these 2 an opportunity to play elsewhere. Part of it is that it saves a bit of cash. But there’s one other sneaky reason for the Armstrong release that I discovered when doing this exercise. It allows O’Brien to keep his 1 remaining option that can now be used in the future. You see, a player can be sent to the minor leagues for up to 20 days before it counts as an option used. Since O’Brien started the season on the big league roster and got hurt, all of that injured time counts towards big league service time. Then, he came back and went through rehab, which also counts as big league service time even though he was rehabbing in the minors. Following that, he was officially “optioned” to Memphis. He was pitching well there. That’s when the team decided to release Armstrong at the deadline to allow O’Brien to have a spot in the Cardinals Major League bullpen since O’Brien was coming up on the 20 day mark I mentioned earlier. They could have sent down Leahy instead, but that would have left them with fewer choices later since Armstrong was up against the window to be put on waivers. All of this preserves O’Brien’s one remaining option (assuming they don’t send him to the minors for the rest of this season).
OK. Back to where we were. 38 players on the major league roster. There are also 2 players (Rom and Middleton) who are still on the 60-day injured list. That really makes the total 40 as those players will be considered back on the major league roster 5 days after the World Series ends. So that’s our starting point – 40 players and a full roster.
First, we’ll examine free agents. The Cardinals have 6 of them – kind of. Three of those 6 players has a team option that if picked up, it would put them back on the roster for 2025. The easy three to talk about are the ones without options. Goldschmidt, Carpenter and Kittredge will become free agents after the season ends. The Cardinals could resign them in free agency, but for now I’m going to assume they are all leaving. That puts us at 37 on the 40-man roster. Now for the other 3 players . . . let’s go easiest to hardest . . . Lance Lynn would cost $11 million. The Cardinals should not pick that up. They might because it’s Lance Lynn. But they shouldn’t. I’m going to assume they don’t. Keynan Middleton would cost $5 million. He’s coming off an injury where he missed the entire season and might not be ready to go immediately next season. I don’t think they pick this one up. But a $5 million reliever with a solid track record isn’t a terrible investment, even if he is coming off injury. The last one is Kyle Gibson. He would cost another $11 million. This one really depends on what direction the Cardinals are going with for the starting rotation. There’s plenty of forum discussion on this already so I’ll just leave it as I think they will pick up Gibson’s option.
That’s 5 free agents leaving and one getting resigned so now we are at 35 on the 40-man roster.
The next step is to look at players who might not be given a new contract. I don’t see too many here. John King is possible because he’ll be a 2nd year arbitration guy. However, when I did my research on this entire topic, I noticed that the Cardinals brought John King back up at the beginning of the season just in time to save his 1 remaining option. That makes him a little more valuable so I think they hang onto him. They could DFA O’Brien, but like I said above, with him saving his 1 remaining option, he’s also more valuable. I think he stays. Herrera is out of options. But I talked about the catcher situation above so I’m not counting anything for him. That leaves 2 guys left. Those are Drew Rom and Zack Thompson. Rom has been hurt all year. I think the Cardinals will DFA him and try to pass him through waivers. Thompson is out of options and hasn’t really been good in Memphis. However, the Cardinals could keep him and see how he pitches in Spring Training. I think that’s what they’ll do.
That leaves us with 34 left on the 40-man roster.
I’m going to pause here for the moment before I get into the heart of the discussion.
Great work jnevel. I like how you describe things. It makes it easy to follow.
One minor clarification on Lynn and Gibson. If their options are picked up they would cost $12M each towards the 2025 payroll, however each has a $1M buyout, so yes technically they would each be $11M in added expense over what is already obligated.
Part 1b
We landed at 34 players on the roster. I also want to clarify that I think there’s a very good chance that Zack Thompson gets a DFA as well if the team gets into a situation where they need a roster spot. Until they do need that spot though, I think he’ll stick around until Spring Training just to see how he is pitching – likely in the bullpen. He’s out of options though so the team can no longer send him down without putting him through waivers.
Note that Leahy, Liberatore, Roycroft, Loutos, O’Brien, and King all still have at least 1 option remaining. They may each be more towards the fringe of the roster (Loutos in particular), but those options make them valuable because they can ride the Memphis shuttle when needed.
I talked about the Rule 5 Draft in my original post back up at the top of this thread. Since some time has passed between then and now, I have a few tweaks that I want to make. To reiterate, the Cardinals have a LOT of players eligible for the Rule 5 draft this season. I’m going to break them into the same 4 categories that I used above.
Players who will be taken if not added to the 40-man roster
Tink Hence
Thomas SaggeseThese two are getting added. That will take our total from 34 to 36.
Players who easily could get taken, but are far from sure losses
(I am putting them in the order of riskiest to least risky from my point of view)
Ian Bedell
Tekoah Roby
Matt Koperniak
Andre Granillo
Darlin Saladin
Matt Svanson
Jack Ralston
Jeremy Rivas
Edwin NunezI think the first 2 are at serious risk and I’d hate to lose them. If I’m the Cardinals, I think I protect both Bedell and Roby. That would bring the roster to 38. I’m willing to risk it on all the others. You know I’m a huge Granillo fan, but when he works more than one inning, he gets seriously wild and his ERA has been blown up lately to the bad category at Memphis. I also love Ralston. But he’s older now and still at AA. Plus he has some injury history and he’s a little bit wild himself. I doubt anyone grabs him. Saladin just seems too far down in the organization and really just has a great fastball. Still, one of the bottom dwellers could take the risk and stick him in their bullpen, but I think he’ll pass through. Koperniak is an all around solid player at everything. There’s definitely some risk with him. But in the end, I’m willing to lose him because I think he’s replaceable. Rivas is young and can’t hit (especially for power) and Nunez is a wild mess. The risk is very low with both of them, but it is possible.
Players that have under a 5% chance of getting taken in the Major League Rule 5 Draft, but who would definitely get taken in the minor league phase if not protected on the AAA Roster
Mike Antico
Alex Cornwell
Conner Thomas
Brandon Komar
Trent Baker
Hancel Rincon
Jose Davila
Juan Salas
Bryan Torres
Wilking RodriguezIf you want a better description of the Minor League phase, you’ll have to go back to one of my earlier posts in this thread. These are all solid players with some chance of making it to the big leagues, but it is unlikely going to be as an impact player. Also, there’s probably more guys for this list that I haven’t added because I’m unsure about their eligibility to be minor league free agents. Those are guys like Packy Naughton, Nick Raquet, Gavin Collins, Jacob Bosiokovic, and Arquemides Gamboa.
The 4th group is all the other minor league players that are eligible. I’m not going to list them, but there’s quite a few. Some could get taken in the Minor League phase of the Rule 5 Draft.
As a minor aside to this discussion, these are the players who I believe will be minor league free agents. I don’t see any of them getting added to the 40-man roster to save them: Nick Dunn, Victor Santos, Leonardo Tavares, Inohan Paniagua, Roy Garcia, Wilfredo Pereira, and Dionys Rodriguez. There are others, but these are ones who have a least been seen as prospects at some point in their careers.
All of that to get us to 38 roster spots filled going into free agency and the Rule 5 draft. Now, what are they going to do with those 2 openings? That will be Part 2. But I honestly need to think about it some more before I get to that phase. Sorry for being long-winded. There’s just a lot of gives and takes that goes into this process to get us to a reliable number. But as you can see, 38 spots likely means no Lynn and no Goldschmidt returning. There are far better investments to make.
I didn’t mention Robberse, Kloffenstein, Graceffo, or McGreevey. I think all 4 of these guys are still seen as potential starters at the MLB level someday or at a minimum solid relievers. McGreevey is more or less ready now. Because we have all of them, guys like Loutos and Roycroft are on shaky ground. If we need roster space, I think Thompson would get the first DFA, then Loutos, and then Roycroft. I don’t see any of those 3 as critical to 2025. They are just nice depth to have to cover when injuries happen or when you need a fresh guy.
Interesting post(s), Jnevel. Thorough and well thought out, as usual for you. Looking forward to Part 2.
Thanks Mud and Gscottar. I appreciate the support. It’s nice to know someone takes the time to read all of my meandering work!
Some people like talking trades, some team leadership, some draft picks, some lineups, some in-game management, and some solely like discussing Alec Burleson. For whatever reason, I love roster management and player development. Articles like this help me sort through what I anticipate the team will do. For example, as soon as I completed this, it began to dawn on me that they will have way too many pitchers on the roster. Therefore, I’m definitely going to talk through that in Part 2. I do think though that 38 is a pretty accurate number for what they take into free agency.
It is defintiely interesting reading to me. My main interest is payroll management and budgeting but that pertains to roster management as well. Good stuff.
Jnevel….. Thanks for taking the time to put this all together. I have a lot of faith in your opinions and this is all realistic and a great help to me in the near future. Right now I’m keeping an eye on Palm Beach’s soon to be Championship season. Then S-Cards start their run next week. I plan on seeing two trophies.
Thanks 14NyquisT for the kind words.
I’ve been thinking a lot about where the team might be headed. They have limited budget which may fall. They have ok starting pitching, but it’s aging fast so there’s a lot of risk in bringing back 4 of our current 7 starters. They have a solid bullpen, although losing Kittredge might put a crack in the armor. Their offense has been painfully bad. Their defense has been pretty bad. If not for Siani, the defense would be pitiful from an OAA standpoint. They also don’t really have a pipeline that currently can produce anything but catchers and #4/5 starters or middle relief. That’s a lot of problems. Given all of those problems, I really don’t know where they’ll head. One path says blow it up and make a ton of trades and cross your fingers the team gets better. The other path is roll back out most of the same players and hope that experience and age helps the offense to improve and cross your fingers our young pitchers can replace the old ones. Both of those methods is fraught with a lot of finger crossing and hope, which I’ve been told is not a plan.
In order to build a better plan, let’s first analyze what we have. This might take some time so bare with me.
C – Contreras – He’s awesome at offense, good at throwing out runners, and fairly poor at framing pitches and defense. But overall, he’s a valuable player. His age is starting to get to a point where you worry though. He could be moved out of catcher to help that and be made a FT first baseman or DH, but we have so many of those running around that it just isn’t possible. Therefore, we have to take the risk and leave him at catcher and accept that injuries will likely rise.
3B – Arenado – Slightly better than average defense, that seems to be declining quickly with age. Maybe marginally slightly better than average offense, which is also declining with age. But we have him for 3 more seasons with a no trade clause and other than the final season, he is paid like a star player. There’s really no advantage to moving him off the position so I feel like for at least the next 2 seasons, he’s your starting third baseman like it or not.
SS – Winn – Ahh . . . the bright spot in the room. Great defense. Good offense, especially for a SS. We just need to keep him healthy and he should be a fixture for multiple years to come.
2B – ???? . . . Gorman, Donovan, Saggese . . . Gorman is not a second baseman. He’s been bad at defense this year. He was ok last year. But we need to look at him and have an honest conversation about whether or not he’s ever really going to be a fit at the keystone. Probably not. Gorman’s bat is about average, but he just does it in a way that is infuriating to the fan base. So many strikeouts followed by a few streaky home runs. He needs to learn how to hit first and then allow his power to put the ball over the wall instead of leaning into the power so much. Donovan has been pretty good at 2B. He also hits very well for a second baseman. Saggese is unproven, but has the potential to be the best defender of the 3 at 2B, although I’d bet on Donovan to provide the best offense.
1B – Probably Burleson although I think a Burleson/Baker platoon might maximize each other’s strengths. They both give you average-ish defense which is to say less than the standard that’s been set by Goldschmidt. But combined as hitters in a platoon, they might make a really good first base bat.
LF – Nootbaar – Fine. OK defense. OK to slightly better offense. He’s hurt too often. If he could stay healthy, he’s probably a little above average overall. But he can’t, so he’s not.
CF – Right now it’s Siani. In his Cardinals career, Siani has the lowest OPS of any player from the team with 300+ plate appearances since 2000. Yes, that includes a string of backup catchers. He’s a bad hitter. He’s a brilliant defender. Maybe the best in baseball in CF. But that OPS is unplayable on a team that is not scoring runs. Victor Scott likely gives you a bit worse defense with better offensive potential, but the offense is still not likely to be good. At least not yet from where Victor is at. The team desperately needs a center fielder who can hit.
RF – Jordan Walker – We are all dismayed at the mess the team has created with Walker. First he could hit, but was the absolute worst outfielder defender by a large margin in baseball. They worked on his defense and his swing. Now he seems to strike out more and produce less results. His defense is playable, but he’s still one of the worst defenders in baseball in the outfield. I think the defense gets better over time. But where’s the peak? Can he ever be average? I’m not sure. I once thought so. The hitting is the really scary piece now. I sure hope they focus on hitting this offseason and fix that. If he can OPS 800, then I’ll live with the poor defense. He does have a cannon for an arm though so that helps.
DH – Probably a combination of Baker/Gorman right now if I had to guess. Gorman doesn’t fit at 2B so if he can hit enough, then he might be the primary DH. Baker is plan B on days when he’s not filling in for Burleson. Both guys have power in big ways. But can they execute on that power?
That’s a lot of holes right now. I feel fine or good about C, 3B, SS, and LF. If Gorman is moved off 2B, I feel good about that position too. I think I’m ok with the Burleson/Baker platoon at 1B if that’s the route we go. The other 3 offensive spots are serious question marks. CF is the most glaring need if we want to improve the offense. That and fixing Walker’s bat (again).
OK. That’s where I’m starting. I’m probably going to do this with the pitchers too so be patient with me. Or don’t read it at all. I’m just trying to lay out where the team is heading based on where they are now.
We aren’t really strong anywhere, to be honest. Even at SS Winn makes too many throwing errors and next year he won’t have a GG at 1B bailing him out. Catcher is as always a back up or fill in guy. 2nd is where they stick somebody whose bat they want in the lineup. The outfield is a problem all across. Noot is marginal and Donovan is a UT better suited for infield work. No center fielder that would fly on a good team. Walker is a train wreck. There is no depth. So anything we trade opens a hole. There is nothing at AAA.
Bling, would it hurt to just one time add something just slightly uplifting? Like maybe after saying all that above you could add “But I do think the fourth guy on the left pulling out the tarp on the rain delays really pulls his weight.” I mean surely there’s something at least semi-positive you could find?
Thanks JNevel. I think you laid out realistically what will be happening with the ML club. The rule 5 stuff is important to understand when analyzing moves that happen with injuries and performance issues. I agree 100% with your analysis of centerfield. I think it was a mistake to send Scott down. Siani’s offense just isn’t playable. Wainwright was a better hitter. Scott at least has potential.
Bling is always good for a laugh although likely unintentionally. The sky is falling comments always get me. The Cards aren’t a complete dumpster fire and yes we have trade value that we can spare. Every single MLB team does including the horrendous White Sox.
Is everything perfect for the Cards? Absolutely not. But we do have players we can trade for acquire talent from other teams without the team falling apart. We also have bright spots like Winn and Contreras that maybe all but a handful of teams would upgrade the respective positions with them.
Nice player synopsis jnevel. I have no quarrels with any of it it but I would like to expand on your thoughts regarding Arenado. I think you accurately describe who he is as a player and I agree it is unlikely that he is traded but I don’t think the no-trade clause is as big of a barrier as people make it out to be.
First of all we need to what path the Cardinals intend to take and what their budgetary limits really are. Are they still going to be using the company line of being a playoff contending team or will there be an acknowledgement of a “reset” or retooling”? Rebuilding is an ugly word although Mo has already used the word “recalibrating”. At this point we really don’t know what they are going to do and I am not sure they know. I’m not even sure they know who will be making those decisions.
But IF they decide to get aggressive in shedding payroll Arenado would have to be high on the list. Do we really know if he would veto a trade to a contending team? Maybe it depends on who that contending team is but the reality is Arenado will be 34 next April and I would think he would want to have another crack at a deep playoff run before retiring. Is that going to happen in STL?
Well, if he gets another chance at a playoff run, he’d be well served to amp up his own performance if his desire is to advance into the latter portion of the post-season. He’s made playoff appearances in four separate seasons while placing a collective BA of .152 into the books. He also botched a defensive chance in the 9th inning of the first game of the ’22 NLWC. Maybe he’ll dial up a bit more focus and determination next time.
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