How the Cardinals might approach Mo’s final season
For those of you that read my recaps and comments after, you’ve heard I am going to continue to contribute content in the off-season. For my first piece (or three), I am going to do a deep dive on how the Cardinal’s might approach 2025 off-season planning. Now that the management side of things has been publicized, we can start to explore the player side. Personally, I consider the management side a lot of palace intrigue but not much more until I see definitive change. As Joe Strauss would say, pay attention to what they do, not what they say.
I built a list of the key questions I expect them explore in order to cobble together a strategy for the 40-man roster. A deep dive on key questions will, by necessity take more than one article. This is Part 1 of a series, then. This one will be lighter on the metrics, but we’ll get deep into the data before it is all done.
Who will be on 40-man roster and a look at 2025 Payroll
Looking at the evolving 40-man roster is a starting point, where a management team can say “this is where we are at today”. None of the history matters. We can think along and look for clues as how what their overall strategy will aim to be.
Let’s start with who is going to leave the 40-man roster through normal attrition processes (ie. via Free Agency, released off the roster or exposed to the Rule V draft). The Cardinals got an early start on this. Already gone are: Gallegos, Edman, Carlson, Bosiokovic, Robertson, Crawford, Pham and Armstrong. But more will depart.
The Free Agents
For starting out purposes, we will project all FAs will depart the roster. I’m expecting none to come back. That would consume a roster spot and more payroll space then I think they will want. How they deal with these guys will tell us a fair bit about how they view 2025 and 2026 and give us an early indication about their strategy (retool, rebuild, etc.).
The Free Agents to-be are: Goldschmidt, Gibson, Lynn, Carpenter, Kittredge. Age is an issue with all five players. For the record, they are “losing” a total of 3.8 fWAR off their roster, or 1-2 wins. Harshly said, they aren’t losing much.
I could see the old regime re-signing Goldy. Or I could see the new one not. With both features in place through 2025, this one is hard to call and will likely not be decided for a while. I think the age (37) and cratering walk and K-rates will give them great pause.
Although there are reports that the Cardinals will approach Kittredge about staying, I anticipate he will move on for bigger $$ to a team that can afford reliever volatility (Yankees, anyone?). Plus, if the $$ resource pool (see below) is as shallow as it seems to be, I believe they will choose to find more value elsewhere than the set-up relief role.
If they were to bring back the aging pitchers (unlikely), consider that their unspoken (negative) evaluation of their AAA pitching talent. With Lynn and Gibson, they have options to be renewed 5 days after the World Series ends, so we will know quickly. Expect that the options will be declined.
What about the 60-day IL dudes
Drew Rom and Kenyan Middleton. Rom was hurt the whole year, on the MLB 60-day IL. Expect he will be activated and designated for assignment right after the World Series. Too much risk here to give him a roster spot. A team with more payroll headroom and risk tolerance would likely activate Middleton from the 60-day IL and exercise his option for 2025, and even more likely try to renegotiate it into a 2-year deal that carries into 2026. The Cardinals have neither payroll headroom nor risk tolerance, so expect this relationship to end.
Who must get added to be protected from Rule V draft
In mid-November, 40-man rosters must be set for the Rule V draft. The rules are complex and sometimes an individual’s Rule 5 eligibility can be hard to track, so I might miss on something here. For more depth on this, Gabe discusses Rule V guys here.
Tink Hence must be protected. It’s a no-brainer a talent like this will be added to the 40-man roster. Tekoah Roby falls in this category, too, although his medicals might cause management to re-think. Expect him to be added.
The Cardinals typically go into the Rule V draft with 39 players. Given their current situation, expect this again. Based on the sheet below, it looks like they have a couple spots available (labelled pitcher 1 and 2 and player 1 and 2 at the bottom, below). Remember, the Cardinals try to maintain a balance between players and pitchers, so some spots won’t go to pitchers even though there may be some they’d like to protect. I’m anticipating only or two of Bedell, Granillo, Santos and Saladin will be protected by a 40-man roster spot. Gabe had a couple more names, but I think the roster crunch will exclude them. Bedell, Granillo and Santos would be eligible only for the major league portion of the draft, since they are in AAA. I think the Cardinals tend to be quite clever about which guys to leave unprotected.
Saladin might be the oddball here. He pitched in Low- and High-A this year. I could see them moving him to the AAA roster so that he’d only be eligible for the MLB portion of the Rule V draft. Doubtful any teams would take an A-ball pitcher and roster him on the major league team all year. But this guy might be good enough for someone like the White Sox or A’s to try that. I’m going to anticipate they put him on AAA and hope he skips through. If they roster Saladin over someone else, consider that a strong endorsement of how they see his potential. Don’t be shocked.
The net-net of Changes
After the post-World Series subtractions and Rule V adds, here is how the starting point 2025 roster and payroll appear, and they illuminate the headroom the Cardinals have to operate with.
I projected Arb awards based on prior MLBTradeRumors.com estimates. JP Hill went into more depth here. Helsley’s award is hard to nail. Suffice to say, 2024 is his platform year. Only Helsley’s moves the payroll needle, so I figure these numbers are good enough for trying to follow what the Cardinal’s might do.
Based on reporting, some of their late season actions and the end of the season presser, I think it fair to assume a reduced payroll for 2025 compared to 2024. They came into the 2024 season with a $175m payroll (using Cot’s methodology). Using the same methodology for comparison’s sake, they will be committed to ~$142 million before any off-season signings or trades. It has been noted in some quarters that the larger end of the payroll spectrum is not necessarily the most productive end. Expect this to change.
All told, that leaves about $32 million in payroll head room (or less, if payroll is actually reduced) and 1 or 2 roster spots, depending on who they leave unprotected. So, the roster is tight, but not unworkably so. Nothing new there. They do have a bit more flexibility roster-wise, as I believe they have a few players vulnerable to being traded for prospects that don’t require a 40-man spot or perhaps outright dumped.
The No-Options Guys
Players with no remaining options must come out of spring training on the MLB 26-man roster OR be exposed to waivers before an assignment to the minors. These guys are: O’Brien, Thompson, Herrera. If the Cardinals aren’t confident these guys can win a spot in Spring, cutting or trading one or more of them in the off-season to open a roster spot only accelerates the decision making by a few months. Up to 3 spots here add flexibility. They don’t make these moves until they have the deals for the better players done and then only if they need the space.
Herrera is unique. I think they have enough data to evaluate that his bat plays at the MLB level. That .800 OPS is not a mirage. But being out of options, and not really have a clear defensive position puts him into a cluster of DH-only types that must be sorted. Tough decision on this one.
The AAA / depth players
A couple of guys appear vulnerable if they can swap out better talent, or if they want to keep more of the Rule V guys. A real backup shortstop could make Fermin vulnerable to release. Baker and Loutos probably are vulnerable as they are aging out as prospects. Baker less so because there aren’t position players in need of protecting. Loutos on the other hand may go. These spots don’t create any payroll flexibility, you just might see the swap of one AAAA player for another who is a better fit (ala a Shortstop or a RH bat who can actually field a position).
The bottom line
As we roll forward and dissect the Cardinals needs and strategies, we might keep an eye on these numbers and ask … where can the Cardinal’s best allocate 1-2 (or more) roster spots and no more than ~$32m in payroll (and probably less) to best improve this roster as listed? Given the needs, and constraints, this will be no easy task. In a future article, we’ll get to the specific needs. Then we will cycle right back here to the roster and the budget.
The challenge
If the Cardinals want to project as a team with a mid-to-upper 80’s win total (big if), they need to add something in the neighborhood of 15 WAR to this roster and/or get better performance from internal options. I know folks would like them to shoot higher, like trying to win the division. Given the end-of-the-season presser, I’m not convinced that upper 80’s is a target for them, either. Maybe more of a target for 2026 than 2025.
That said, at the going contract rate on the FA market (~$8m/WAR), they have payroll headroom to add about 4 WAR via free agency. That won’t get them where they’d want to be, which serves to explain their “reset” strategy. Real improvements are going to have to be Arb and Pre-Arb guys acquired via trade, or improvement by the in-house options.
I am curious how they evaluate the in-house options. Gorman, Walker would seem like guys who could add 2-3 WAR each if their offense comes up to prior expectations. Can they reasonably expect this, or is this more of a Hail Mary? I’d love to be a fly on the wall during their internal assessments of these players. But their actions will tell us. If they believe in Gorman and Walker, they will invest elsewhere. If they are unsure, they may go more toward a Donovan/Saggese 2b combo and acquire a RF stopgap and keep “some dry powder”, to coin a phrase. Things to watch for.
I also wonder how they assess their young pitching. Has it improved enough to at least replace Lynn and Gibson? Also, would they expect to get 2.5-3 WAR out of Fedde and 4 out of Gray? Do they think Pallante has improved enough to turn into a 2-3 WAR pitcher? Will they get anything out of Matz? Could they still get 2 WAR year out of Mikolas? Could Hence and/or Matthews be ready by mid-season? If the answers are all yes, you might see a couple additional WAR out of the group they have. But only if you squint. And only if you forget that the answers to all these questions are never all “yes”.
An area of opportunity
While the Cardinals appear payroll constrained in 2025 (due to broadcasting revenue concerns?), they have a very small number of players who will hit their higher end arb-eligible years in 2025 or 2026, and more departing players with unproductive contracts, so they have some flexibility to add a multi-year contract that has some heft to it without breaking the 2025 budget or in the out years. Other than Helsley they don’t foresee any real talent drain to free agency at the end of 2025. To be harsh, again, they won’t be losing much, so they can envision a bit more payroll flexibility in 2026.
They might be comfortable taking on a more backloaded contract this offseason. As best as I can see, only Gray’s contract is meaningfully backloaded ($25m in 2025, $35m in 2026). They could go above 4 WAR through FA acquisition, and push the dollars into future years. An opportunity. This might be out of their comfort zone, though.
Some things to look for
JP Hill outlined a position on what he thinks the Cardinals choices are and where he thinks they should go. Following, and building on, his terms:
Here is what a tank/fire sale would look like: Not re-signing any of the FAs (Goldy, Gibson, Lynn, Kittredge), plus offloading multi-year contracts for nothing (Contreras, Arenado, Gray). Yes, I know about those pesky NT clauses! The guys in their final year would stay (Matz, Fedde, Mikolas) because the Cardinals aren’t going to pay cash to other teams to free up spots that will come free on their own in 12 months. They’d trade Helsley. I don’t see them pursing this aggressive of an approach. It’s possible, but I don’t expect a full-on fire sale.
A rebuild (or reset)? Now that might be more interesting. It would start with none of the FAs re-signing. They could unload Contreras and rely on Pages/Herrera to man the C position and re-allocate that contract elsewhere. Side note: In 2024, the Cardinals played 9 game over .500 during the times Contreras was on the IL, and were 6 under when he was active. FYI. Nootbar may go, and probably Donovan. These guys have real trade value. Helsley probably goes. Use the talent acquired in those deals to fill in roster needs and re-shape the roster (more athletic, more speed, better defense, or a starter or two). Combine that with the contracts rolling off at end of 2025, you could get a pretty full roster re-shape in time for 2026. At that time, Winn would still be pre-Arb, as might Walker. Crooks and/or Bernal might be ready to ascend, along with Weatherholt. Hence and Matthews might be in ascendance. If rebuild (reset) is their play, above is what it might look like. Gives you things to watch for early in the off-season. With a new management structure coming into view, this could well be the way they go.
A retool? If management stays conservative, this is where I think they could land. Think of it more as a tepid, conservative rebuild. Bring back Gibson to pair with Fedde, Gray and Pallante to form a core of a rotation (“core” in the broadest sense of the term). Nootbar and/or Donovan might go. Probably not both. A catcher could go. Gorman could go, as the Cardinals might not stomach $2m for a player who struggled hitting AAA pitching. Use these $$ to do a little reshaping of the roster (perhaps a RH hitting CFer who can play defense AND hit?). Bring in a player to add RH thump on a mid-tier contract (think: Teoscar Hernandez). Nothing crazy, keeps most of the band together another year, keeps payroll pretty flat while relying a bit more on the young guys (that’s their org strategy after all, isn’t it?). This might allow Goldy to come back if he is willing to take a haircut on the salary. This would be so Cardinals, wouldn’t it? Before the new POBO was announced, I’d have bet this was the path. Now? Not so sure.
A tweak? Seems doubtful. If they re-up the guys with options, that will be the sign this is their direction. I view this possibility as so low that I won’t really even assess it. They have too many things that need tweaked. Or maybe not. They only need to improve 4 areas: pitching, hitting, defense and baserunning.
To be continued…