St. Louis Cardinals need pitching, yet are willing to dump their capable arms. Here’s why

There is seemingly a contradiction at the heart of what the St. Louis Cardinals have advertised as their strategy for the approaching trade deadline.

With all focus on improving for 2024 and a central theme of, as president of baseball operations John Mozeliak put it, “pitching pitching pitching,” it seems certain the Cardinals will be one of the premiere donors of pitching talent to the market. They have arms primed to go out the door in the hopes others will come in.

So, why not just hold on to the guys they have?

If the team was unilaterally able to impose contract terms on its veteran arms — as they can with pre-arbitration players — considerations would be different. If there was still significant compensation offered to teams in free agency for players lost, perhaps they might roll the dice on some extra negotiating time.

If any of Jack Flaherty, Jordan Montgomery, Jordan Hicks or Chris Stratton was a sure thing, perhaps they’d be more eager to pay market prices for an off-market extension.

Instead, with the clock ticking increasingly loudly every day, the arbitrage is set to get underway. The Cardinals’ pitching clearinghouse is fully open for business, and here’s why.

The Qualifying Offer

The current version of the qualifying offer can only be extended to players who have never received the offer previously in their careers and who stay on one team for the duration of the season before free agency. Each of the four free agent pitchers meet the first standard; each could meet the second if kept.

That offer, while not yet finalized for 2024, exceeded $19 million in 2023 and will tick up. That means the Cardinals would have to be prepared to pay each of those four pitchers at that rate for one season before making such an offer. Both Hicks and Stratton would certainly accept and try their market luck a year later; neither would be a serious candidate to be qualified.

Montgomery, who will play next season at age 31, will seemingly be the second-most sought after lefty starter on the market, following San Diego’s Blake Snell. Given his age and his recent run of success, this is seemingly his best opportunity to cash in on a significant contract. The value of the deal he’ll sign this winter should far out-strip the one year pro forma offer, and he’d be unlikely to seriously consider.

Flaherty, who will play next season at 28, might be more tempted. Given the murkiness around his recent medical history, accepting a one-year deal at a high price tag and then hitting the market still before he’s 30 would seemingly have some merit. But the same youth that makes such a gambit possible will also make him alluring to other teams when the winter comes, and finishing this year in strong form will seemingly be enough.

For the Cardinals, the reward from a declined qualifying offer would be a draft pick (for each such offer) following Competitive Balance Round B in next year’s MLB draft. This year, those picks began at number 68. For a team that professes a desire to compete in 2024, two of the approximately 70 best picks in the draft doesn’t offer near the help that a deadline bounty should provide.

Contract Negotiations

Whatever attempt the Cardinals made at inking Montgomery to an extension prior to the season went poorly, and the lefty has shown no interest in re-opening those talks in the midst of the season. For better or worse, that window seemingly closed when the curtain opened on 2023, and there doesn’t seem to be much movement afoot.

Flaherty represents a much more interesting case, though the aforementioned uncertainty also makes an extension more complex. Undoubtedly his representation will seek a deal commensurate with his ceiling, which has shown in fits and starts wrapped around years mostly lost to injury. The Cardinals, obviously more familiar with his medical history than any other team, will have to hedge that against their confidence in what he can reliably deliver. That seems a difficult gap to bridge.

An extension for either of the two relievers might be trivial, but almost certainly would come in at an uncomfortably high price point. Hicks in particular is going to be widely coveted; for all the strides in pitching development, it remains elusive to teach a pitcher to throw 103. The Yankees, in 2016, paid Aroldis Chapman $86 million to do so for them; Hicks won’t reach those heights, but his final total may well shock some.

Maximized Value

In this era where everything in baseball is monetized — including and especially the people — players aren’t just players anymore. In the eyes of those operating front offices, they are investment instruments; teams pour in money and effort in hopes of returning more of primarily the former, which comes at its peak during the postseason.

This Cardinals team will not play in the postseason. It certainly won’t win a championship. If those things are true and there are contractual or compensatory reasons to keep a player in uniform for the rest of the season, then things become cut and dried.

Sympathy is common, but it doesn’t pay the bills. For the better part of two decades, the Cardinals have been able to limit their in-season callousness by virtue of the hope of postseason magic. That dream, this season, is dead. The piper has been paid, and it’s time for them to get their rebate.

This story was originally published July 25, 2023 at 11:48 AM.