Cardinals need offense but pitching, too. What potential moves could be in the works?
No professional baseball team has ever said definitively in November they have sufficient pitching coverage for the coming season. Or, at a bare minimum, they’ve never made that declaration and been correct.
Despite the numerous options on the roster and in the organization — and despite the need for offense which again defined their exit from the playoffs — the Cardinals are not the exception to that rule, and may indeed find outside pitching help to be their most direct path to improved fortunes in 2023.
“I’ve sat up here before with eleven (starters) that we could name, and that worked out well,” said a typically-dry President of Baseball Operations John Mozeliak at his end of year press conference. “We know we can add to this, and that’s how we’re going to approach it.”
If the Cardinals don’t currently have 11 starters in the system, they’re not very far off. With Adam Wainwright having signed an extension for his final season, he joins Jack Flaherty, Jordan Hicks, Dakota Hudson, Matt Liberatore, Steven Matz, Miles Mikolas, Jordan Montgomery, Andre Pallante and Jake Woodford as pitchers on the 40-man roster who, at one time or another, were part of the St. Louis rotation in 2022.
Even if Hicks is fairly removed from the equation as a starter, lefty Zack Thompson rose through the minors in that role, and lefty Connor Thomas is a lock to be selected to the 40-man roster after a dominating performance in the Arizona Fall League.
Oh, and Mozeliak identified righty Gordon Graceffo — who was briefly at least contemplated as an option to be called up from High-A — as perhaps the team’s most rapidly ascending prospect heading into the winter.
Where, then, is the place to add? Certainly the Cardinals have a sufficient number of bodies to throw at a potential innings gap, but health is never guaranteed and performance is too often elusive. Hudson, for instance, was optioned to Triple-A in September. He provided one stellar start, one solid bullpen outing, and one atrocious start in his three appearances after being optioned and enters the winter with perhaps more questions about his fit than any other pitcher on the roster.
“I think Dakota can be a starter at the major league level,” Mozeliak said. “I think when he picks up his pace, when he throws the ball over in the strike zone, he’s amazingly effective.”
Rule change to benefit Hudson?
With a mandatory pitch clock being introduced to MLB in 2023, Hudson may well stand to benefit. His troublesome pace was addressed multiple times throughout the season and was a point of emphasis during his demotion. Without a choice but to speed up moving forward, he’s likely to find himself forced into increased effectiveness.
Still, Hudson’s primary weapon is a sinker that bites down hard on bats to induce a larger-than-average proportion of weak ground balls. The club’s desire for more swing and miss out of its pitching staff was another common 2022 theme, borne out by the end of season results — dead last in strikeouts in the National League.
The Cardinals averaged 7.4 strikeouts per nine innings as a club, or just about half of free agent Jacob deGrom’s 14.3 in the same category. If a record-breaking average annual value paired with persistent injury concerns gives the club pause, they might instead consider Carlos Rodón. His 12 strikeouts per nine innings led all qualified pitchers in the big leagues, and the lefty who will pitch next season at age 30 seems to have established himself firmly in the game’s upper echelon of starters after overcoming his own injury concerns.
Ultimately, the pledge from the Cardinals to increase payroll in 2023 seems to point inexorably toward the free agent starter market. Rodón especially seems like a solid fit, and the Cardinals thought so as well as recently as this past summer, having explored his availability in trades with San Francisco.
More about Flaherty, Montgomery
From there, a path opens to perhaps trading from strength to address obvious weaknesses. For all of the crowding in the rotation heading into the 2023 season, it’s set to all but empty out next winter. Flaherty and Montgomery will have reached the end of their team control, Mikolas will reach free agency, and Wainwright is headed for retirement. Prospects like Graceffo and Liberatore may be poised to graduate, but they’ll have a heavy burden to help Steven Matz shoulder.
If extensions aren’t in the offing for either Flaherty or Montgomery, could either or both become highly valuable trade chips? Would the Cardinals be willing to take that risk, having seen first hand the peaks to which each is able to climb when at his best? If such a move was made, freeing up even more salary, how much would they value the resulting flexibility?
More than five pitchers will start for the Cardinals in 2023. If history is a guide, it’s likely more than 10 will. Selecting those arms — and sorting through the rest — is a perpetual riddle that no team ever truly solves.