Lack of action at Winter Meetings foreshadow a quit offseason for rebooting Cardinals
At an event defined by quiet conversations and private negotiations, the St. Louis Cardinals executed their only official business of MLB’s annual Winter Meetings through microphones on stage in a cavernous ballroom inside the sprawling Hilton Anatole complex.
Tuesday evening saw them jump forward a surprising eight spots to the fifth overall selection in the 2025 MLB Draft, and Wednesday’s Rule 5 draft saw them bring in four minor leaguers and lose seven. That includes the selection of lefty Connor Thomas in the major league portion of the Rule 5 by the Milwaukee Brewers.
The Rule 5 is business as usual. The draft lottery represents a unique opportunity in franchise history. Since the first MLB amateur draft in 1965, the Cardinals have never selected inside the top 10 in consecutive years. That will change this year, following last year’s pick of shortstop JJ Wetherholt at seventh overall.
“I was getting butterflies,” Cardinals assistant general manager and amateur scouting director Randy Flores said. “It was kind of like shock, right? You just want to prep yourself for it being around where you draft, and then all of the sudden, things started happening.”
Last year, Flores was under lockdown with other team and league officials as a witness to the drawing of the lottery balls which determine the order of the first round of the draft. This year, with only a 0.82% chance of being drawn for the first overall pick, the Cardinals didn’t send a representative to the drawing and dispatched Flores to represent the team on stage for the televised reveal of the results.
The Rule 5 draft, in which teams select players from other organizations who have reached a certain level of experience without advancing, is an opportunity to add roster depth. The Cardinals, again up 13th, passed on their major league selection after players they might have considered came off the board before their turn.
“We’re going to give our young players chances,” Flores said. “Often times, with young players, you also have the flexibility of [minor league] options, and you’re absent that in this market on the major league side, [which] kind of was a further constraint on us in pursuing that.”
Thomas, 26, posted a 2.89 ERA for Triple-A Memphis in 90 ⅓ innings last season, the first in which he was used primarily as a reliever. The Cardinals selected him to the 40-player roster following 2022 in order to protect him from that year’s Rule 5 draft, but later designated him for assignment and sent him outright to Memphis. That left him vulnerable, and the Brewers made him their pick.
Players taken in the major league portion of the Rule 5 must remain on the active roster or injured list of the team which selects them for a full season or be offered back to the team from which they were taken. Righty Ryan Fernandez was under those restrictions for the Cardinals last year, which president of baseball operations John Mozeliak referred to this week as, “a little tougher to navigate” and “a little bit of a handcuff.”
Arguably the headliner among the Cardinals’ four minor league selections is lefty reliever Oddanier Mosqueda, who has 498 strikeouts in 399 ⅓ minor league innings spread over eight seasons.
He was signed as a teenager from Venezuela by the Boston Red Sox and played seven years in their system, including all three under incoming Cardinals president of baseball operations Chaim Bloom. He spent last season under contract with the New York Yankees, pitching for Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.
The Cardinals also selected right-handed pitchers Ángel González (Chicago Cubs) and Jawilme Ramirez (New York Mets), as well as outfielder Miguel Ugueto (Boston).
The six players they lost in addition to Thomas are right-handed pitchers Henry Gomez (Athletics), Trent Baker (Minnesota), Brandon Komar (Cincinnati) and Augusto Calderon (Philadelphia), catcher Aaron McKeithan (Pittsburgh) and shortstop Lizandro Espinoza (Atlanta).
A quiet week in terms of official action for the Cardinals was still an active week in negotiations as they continue to work toward a trade of third baseman Nolan Arenado. Movement in the free agent market continues to define possible destinations for the all-world defender, and some teams which have inquired about a trade have gotten word that they’re out of the running.
While it’s not believed that Arenado has presented St. Louis with a firm list of destinations to which he’ll accept a trade, the Cardinals are aware of his preferences and have worked toward consummating deals with teams who meet his criteria.
Mozeliak said Monday that he expects the Cardinals to wrap up their pressing roster business before the sport goes largely dormant over the Christmas holiday, and all indications are that a move involving Arenado will be finalized in the coming days.
The Cardinals are also working to finalize hires of new field coordinators to be dispatched throughout the minors, and some of those additions will help define the minor league coaching staffs, which have not been finalized. They will also need to hire a general manager for Low-A Palm Beach, as Andrew Seymour has departed the organization for the Frontier League Mississippi Mud Monsters.
Thus far, the team’s stated commitment to opening up opportunities for the younger players in house has not been abated. While there are likely to be depth additions later in the winter, the players the Cardinals have now will largely comprise the roster which takes the field this spring.
A quiet Winter Meetings is an expected symptom of that reset, as well as their position bobbing in the current of the winter transactional wave.
This story was originally published December 12, 2024 at 5:00 AM.
