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According to Cot’s Arenado is owed $34.3M over the next two years (they factor in deferred money). I think the Cardinals would have to eat at lest half of that plus find a team interested plus find a team he would accept. It isn’t impossible but Bloom has his work cut out for him. Gorman’s fate pretty much hangs in the balance
When it comes to decluttering the OF I’m not sure there is a definite right answer or wrong answer. There are endless different scenarios. I still lean towards wanting more defense but if we want to emphasize offense we could trade Noot and go with an OF of Donovan, Scott, and Burly. Walker could be 4th OF or sent back to AAA. In that scenario we try to tolerate two more years of Burly in the OF then when Contreras contract expires Burly could move to 1B.
The thing about Walker is that he has not earned an everyday job in STL. He also has very little trade value. The smart move might be to just let him play in AAA next year. Some claim that he doesn’t have anything to prove at AAA but I beg to differ. Let him hit in Memphis for a minimum of three months and see if he can put up an OPS of .750 to .800. If he can’t do that in AAA then we know what we need to know.
The Cardinals had a chance to trade Arenado for Stroman last year, they rejected it. Stroman only pitched 39 innings this year, which means his option didn’t vest, which means the Cardinals would have been out of their financial obligations after the season (other than the deferred money they owe Arenado through 2041).
The Cardinals need to trade Burleson so they aren’t tempted to use him in the OF, and they need to commit keeping Walker in AAA all of 2026.
That means they will need to get a rental bat to play RF in 2026.
Some claim that he doesn’t have anything to prove at AAA
I don’t know who is making those claims. He has never hit at the AAA level. His highest OPS at AAA is .753.
Trading back on our short term contracts is CB’s best option.
Any budget funds will be limited and the draft is glacial slow.
Our best bet is Chaim excelling at “trader Joe”. The PR Juniors junior recently released was more of the same. Apple – tree.
Most likely, Walker will be in AAA until (and if) he consistently hits well above an .800 OPS there. Weatherholt will be the starter at 2B. Donovan will start in the OF with Nootbaar and one of Scott or Church – probably Scott. Pages and Crooks will have a timeshare at C. The Cardinals will do their best to trade Arenado and put Gorman at 3B. Herrera will learn to play better as a corner outfielder as a sub but still mostly DH. Burleson is again kind of the odd man out and again should be traded as he would be more valuable to someone else than he is to the Cardinals. Expect a bench then of Church, Saggese, one of the catchers, and maybe a free agent power bat (if Arenado and Burleson are gone).
The one caveat to the above is if Herrera can play at least average defense in LF, then Donovan could move back to super sub and the DH could rotate or potentially be Burleson’s every day when there is a right handed starter.
Don’t expect reinforcements anytime soon. Blaze Jordan could potentially be a bench bat at some point. Maybe Baez is ready for OF duty by July. Bernal could be a replacement catcher. That’s about it. I expect a few of the bottom dwellers on the 40-man roster to be gone this offseason.
JJ – yes, the other option is to go the Trader Joe route and trade Donovan and Burleson for high potential prospects. Arenado can be traded too if he’s willing but we’ll eat around $20 million of what is remaining to move him.
I do think that Bloom will approach Contreras and Gray about a trade. There’s a lot of cost to each. And with Contreras, we already have backups. If they traded Gray, they would have to pick up another free agent starter. I’m not sure that would be worth it in the end so my guess is Gray will be back. But Contreras may be moved if he’s willing.
Trading back is what bottom budgets do. Short-termers stay packed!
Weed thru our own for a few seasons while ownership preaches “we’re better than we’re playing”. Sure buddy.Most likely, Walker will be in AAA until (and if) he consistently hits well above an .800 OPS there.
An .800 OPS at Memphis translates to roughly a .650 OPS in MLB. They need to aim higher.
The Cardinals had a chance to trade Arenado for Stroman last year, they rejected it. Stroman only pitched 39 innings this year, which means his option didn’t vest, which means the Cardinals would have been out of their financial obligations after the season (other than the deferred money they owe Arenado through 2041).
True but then the team would have been lambasted all year for how horrible Stroman was/is.
I don’t know who is making those claims. He has never hit at the AAA level. His highest OPS at AAA is .753.
There are folks out there who believe he shouldn’t go back to AAA but I think they are fewer than they used to be. His numbers are hard for anyone to justify.
Burleson is again kind of the odd man out and again should be traded as he would be more valuable to someone else than he is to the Cardinals.
True but this is why I posted a couple of weeks ago that the NTC’s are one of the biggest impediments to the rebuild. Gray really isn’t blocking anyone but Arenado is obviously blocking Gorman and in my opinion Contreras is blocking Burleson. I am not complaining about Contreras’ production or leadership but I am pretty sure that a rebuilding team would rather pay an Arb 1 salary vs $18M/yr.
JJ – yes, the other option is to go the Trader Joe route
Aboslutely. There is little doubt in my mind that Bloom will be active in the trade market this winter. It will be our best opportunity to weed out the position player redundancies while beefing up our pitching pipeline.
Hanging on to bad contracts and lost causes is The Cardinal Way. A guy with no defensive value has to hit better than Walker is ever going to hit. But they will keep beating the dead horse until he gets into arb money. Then they will off him for a sore arm minor league pitcher who will have otherwise somewhat sane people getting all lathered up until he gets released.
Giants Expected To Show Interest In Sonny Gray This Offseason https://t.co/0cVydL4zxn pic.twitter.com/wkCBe8VAlO
— MLB Trade Rumors (@mlbtraderumors) September 8, 2025
How much would the Cards have to eat? $10-15M, probably? I would rather just have Gray in the rotation rather than keep the $20M as we need more pitchers like Gray or better, not less.
Including the buyout for 2027 Gray will be owed $40M after this season. I suspect the Cards would have to kick in at least $15M and maybe $20M.
I agree that the Cards should just keep him then guage the situation at next year’s deadline. He is literally blocking no one and we are desperate for innings.
The Cardinals are 20-9 in Gray’s starts this year. The record is 52-63 in the other games.
Gray will be owed 11.67mil at the 26′ deadline, plus the 5mil option, but how relevant is the buyout to the SFG?
If they want both years they are looking at 35 and 30mil. Bought down by 15mil is 2/50mil for SFG, which is Grays original AAV. Bet we’d like the trade return too from anyone wanting two years.
I agree GScottar. $15 million is about right and for that we get nothing in return. We save $20 million next season but have to get a pitcher. Then we save $5 million the year after. If the team is willing to invest around $20 million per year for 5 years on a good starter, then ok. But that doesn’t seem likely. Given that fact, I’d prefer to just keep Gray.
We need a two yr buyer for the best return and it washes away the buyout. The first season was backloaded by 15mil. I like GS number on this one.
The only way I see Nolan A. traded is for Chaim to sit down with him and tell him that BIG $ contract or not, he is a starter only if he plays up to it. If not, he will be a part time player, DH, 1b, PH making a lot of money.
Hopefully he will then extend his market of teams.
Of course the Cardinals NOT playing the contract, (see Dex, Paulie D. etc.) may not be a starter with ownership. If a guy stinks it up, play someone better, no matter the contract.
I have had the same thought C4Ever. The NTC might prevent the Cardinals from trading Nado but that doesn’t mean they are required to play him. Let him know that he is going to see the filed once or twice a week and he might expand his approved trade list. Of course as you mentioned BDW would have to approve having big money sitting on the bench.
Thanks for the feedback on Gray. One thing to keep in mind is that I believe the entire $40M remaining for Sonny would technically count towards 2026 even the $5M looks like it counts toward 2027. I recently had this discussion with the guy who runs the Cot’s site and he convinced me that is how teams operate.
Arenado is probably a 1.5-2.0 WAR player in 2026. I don’t see Gorman doing any better. Arenado has been better than him this year WAR-wise, even with his horrid year at 1.0 WAR. I wouldn’t give up on Gorman, but he needs to prove it and not be handed the position.
Alternatively, maybe you go with some combo of Wetherholt, Winn, or Donovan in the infield, which opens LF for Herrera, Burleson, or Nootbaar. The 2nd guy gets RF, and the 3rd guys gets DH.
These aren’t slam dunk options either – Nootbaar: 1.8, Burleson: 1.7 WAR, Herrera: 1.6 (Herrera is a bit higher on Fangraphs) Also none of the infielders mentioned are really suited for 3B.
I just don’t see the value in pushing Arenado out since it would be a DFA at this point, not a trade.
gscottar
Thanks for the feedback on Gray. One thing to keep in mind is that I believe the entire $40M remaining for Sonny would technically count towards 2026 even the $5M looks like it counts toward 2027. I recently had this discussion with the guy who runs the Cot’s site and he convinced me that is how teams operate.
If they could trade Gray, I would assume they would kick in $5M for the buyout. Likely $15-20M. But again. I don’t see the point. We don’t have the starters to push him out and DeWitt isn’t going to use the ‘saved’ salary to sign any additional free agents. Just eating contracts to play barely-average ‘young’ players doesn’t make sense to me.
We should make trading Arenado priority one, two and three, again. It’s good PR to cover up doing nothing all winter.
We have a superstar salary we can’t dump on anyone. Lucky us.
why is Wetherholt not suited for 3B?
He hasn’t been playing 3B in the minors for long. Do we really want another guy learning a new position on the fly at the big league level?
For the record, I’m ok with an Arenado/Gorman platoon next year. Gorman has weirdly hit lefties better than righties this year, but he doesn’t have much of a split in his career. Gorman starts about 2/3 of the time against RHP and Arenado against the LHP, Nado is your defensive replacement. If Arenado won’t accept that, then he can loosen his no trade restriction and make it easier on us all.
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