In Cardinals’ plan to purge payroll, what players are the most likely to be traded?
The St. Louis Cardinals have five players under contract for the 2025 season who are set to make at least $10 million in salary.
A sixth, reliever Ryan Helsley, is certain to reach that plateau in arbitration, lumping him in with starters Sonny Gray, Steven Matz and Miles Mikolas, catcher Willson Contreras and third baseman Nolan Arenado.
Not all of those players are likely to be traded this winter. At least some almost certainly will be. Such is the nature of a payroll dip and a team doing everything it can to rebuild without saying “rebuild” out loud.
Of that group, Helsley would likely carry the most value. Given the aversion most teams have to long-term commitments to relievers, acquiring the major league leader in saves on an arbitration salary and coming off of far and away the best season of his career would be a tempting proposition.
Indeed, Helsley’s high trade value contributed to arguments made this summer that the then-selling Cardinals should be sure to gauge his market even as they added reinforcements.
The volatility of relievers also seemingly pushes in the direction of Helsley finding himself on the trade block. The reason that teams are broadly skeptical of extended commitments with closers is that results can swing wildly from one season to the next, and Helsley already has the sort of medical history that comes simply as the result of pitching but which might scare teams away.
So too would the comparables he would draw in free agency. Josh Hader received five years and $95 million from the Astros last winter, and Edwin Díaz received a guaranteed five years and $102 million from the Mets in November of 2022, including an opt out after 2025. Those are significant price tags, and they represent the end of the market in which Helsley’s representation will likely position him; talent acquisition cost for teams may be easier to assume than the raw dollar figures.
Gray would perhaps be next in the pecking order, though he carries a price tag of at least $65 million guaranteed over the next two seasons. Many of his peripheral numbers improved during his first season in St. Louis; his strikeouts per nine innings were up, his walks were down, and despite missing four starts due to injury, still recorded 200 strikeouts in a season for the first time since 2019.
He did, however, allow a career-high 21 home runs, a huge leap from the eight he allowed as the AL Cy Young runner up for Minnesota in 2023. And he also ended the season on the injured list with tendonitis in his pitching arm.
Gray described the injury at the time that everyone deals with while pitching, and insisted that he would have a normal winter and that he would continue to pitch if the team had still been in contention. He also holds a no trade clause and is likely to be persnickety about his potential destinations, given the emphasis he placed last winter on being close to his Tennessee home.
Contreras, coming off perhaps his best offensive season but limited by freak injuries, and Arenado, coming off definitely his worst offensive season but still a stalwart at third, both present intriguing possibilities. Both also have full no-trade clauses, though as with Gray, might be more likely to use that leverage as a pass to a preferred destination rather than an all-encompassing desire to remain in St. Louis.
Both are under contract for three more seasons, with the team holding an option on a fourth year for Contreras. Arenado is owed $64 million over those seasons, though the Colorado Rockies still have two more installment payments of $5 million each to make and there are some deferments at play with his salary. Contreras is owed a similar amount; $59.5 million over the remaining life of his deal, with $5 million of that covering the buyout of what would otherwise be a $17.5 million team option in 2028.
Fits for Contreras would likely depend on whether an acquiring team would be comfortable with him continuing to catch as he ages, though he has improved by many measures defensively over his two seasons in St. Louis. Acquiring Arenado might depend on whether a team views his defensive prowess as sufficient to put them over the top and whether they believe his offensive decline can be reversed by getting out of a suppressive Busch Stadium environment.
Matz and Mikolas make for even more complicated trade options, though Matz is owed only $12.5 million next season and has shown proficiency as a left-handed reliever. Even if teams are scared off by his seeming lack of durability – he’s made only 34 starts and pitched less than 200 innings over the last three seasons – his repertoire remains enticing enough that teams would likely be willing to take on his salary, especially given the cost of pitching on the open market.
Mikolas, coming off a second straight dreadful season, will be harder to move. While he led the National League with just 1.3 walks per nine innings this season, too many of the strikes he threw were in the middle of the plate and hammered. His ERA+ of 78 (100 is league average) was the second-worst of any qualified starter, besting only Washington’s Patrick Corbin.
Owed a hair less than $18 million in 2025, Mikolas is the most likely of the sextet to return, if for no other reason than it’s difficult to imagine either a team taking on that burden or the Cardinals swallowing it themselves without hope of any return.
