2024 - 2025 Off-Season Planning - Part 6 - The summary

11/16/2024 11:00 AM

The grand finale

I'm back for Part 6 – Completing the round trip from roster and payroll analysis, down to needs and talent analysis, then back to roster and payroll. Last one, I promise. Then we get to sit back and see how all this shakes out. A few things have shaken out since I started the series. We'll look at that, too.

In the prior articles, going all around the organization, I covered:

Decisions on the 40-man roster

· Free Agent Options - These mostly played out as expected. They kept Rom.

· Protecting young players - TBD yet. Announced next week.

· A brief look to the end of 2025 season and those Free Agent situations - Mikolas, Matz, Fedde, Helsley

The challenges related to internal evaluation of prospects

· Gorman and Walker

· The young pitching

Selecting the strategy (borrowed heavily from jp)

· Tank/fire sale?

· Reset/rebuild

· Retool

· Tweak the edges

So far, it seems like the conservative rebuild is the approach. Too soon to tell, for sure.

Problem Areas/Challenges

· Highest paid players are not the most productive

· Run prevention (pitching and defense) needs to advance some more

· Run scoring (hitting and baserunning) needs a serious upgrade

Stable Areas/Opportunities

· Winn, Arenado, Donovan make a good core group in the IF

· Contreras, Pages, Herrera provide depth at C (along with emerging prospects), and good offense in Contreras and Herrera's cases. - They've re-assigned Contreras to first, which solves two problems.

· Untouched, the starting is cromulent, if lacking depth

· Untouched, the bullpen is pretty good.

Specific talent gaps

· Offense – OBP at top of lineup, ISO in the middle (particular of the RH variety)

· Defense – too many sub-standard defenders play too many innings

· Pitching – a bridge reliever (RH) and a solid starter (and an emerging starter gap in 2026)

· Baserunning – overall athleticism, base stealing ability

As you look at the position player side, there are a few themes:

1. There are high-dollar, multi-year contracts (Contreras, Arenado) that MIGHT be moved, this year or next. - This is still in the realm of possible outcomes.

2. There is a plethora of cost-controlled players with significant variance in their future projections. They need to see what they have.

3. There is a handful of lower-level talent that needs at least another year to emerge.

4. They have an over-abundance of DH-types, guys who have hitting pedigree but don't play any position very well.

5. They are, at present, LH heavy and vulnerable to LH pitching as a result.

6. Overall, they need an infusion of athleticism and speed.

On the pitcher side, it's a different story.

1. There are several contracts with negative surplus value (Gray, Mikolas, Matz) that theoretically could (and should?) be moved, but might not be that movable. Of course, cash fixes everything, right? But this is a cost-reducing era for this team, so cash is not in abundance.

2. There is a curious question of Ryan Helsley. A topflight closer on a team that really doesn't need one (or does it?). ~$7m arb award expected. Not onerous for 2025. Closers don't usually bring back much in prospects. Hanging on to him through 2025 puts them at a decision point … offer the QO (to gain the draft pick and $$) and chance that he'd accept $21m, one year deal?

3. Like the position side, there is a plethora of cost-controlled players, but without the significant variance in projections. Most of these guys are middling prospects. Top side of #4-5 starter or low-leverage relievers.

4. There are a few emerging pitchers (Matthews, Saladin, Hence, Roby) who might have somewhat higher ceilings, but they are likely a bit away from emergence and ascendance. Another year might be on the short-side of the timeline for this group.

5. They really need an upper-end starter to either emerge or be acquired. They will also need a closer. There is an old LaRussa/Duncan debate about whether you should build your staff from front to back, or back to front. In the Cardinals case, the need for 2026 is both ends, moreso than the middle.

So, that sums where they are at, what they need, what they have.

One of the key questions that is difficult to gauge right now is – how aggressive will the Cardinals be in resetting/rebuilding their roster?

The tear-it down approach would clean out multi-year contracts and players with 1 year of control (Arenado, Contreras, Gray, Mikolas, Matz, Fedde, Helsley, Romero, King). Each of the contracts could be dispatched if they bring back either cost savings or prospects. Plus, they'd move Donovan and Nootbaar to gain maximum return value as they have 3 years of control remaining. This is the cold-hearted, tank-rebuild approach where clearing roster space and acquiring any value at all is the only consideration. Straight out of "Wall Street". This would require multiple horrible seasons and a departure from the culture they've worked to develop and actively sell to free agents willing to consider fly-over country. I don't see them making this choice. It's not who they are and not who they want to be.

A slightly less aggressive rebuild could lead to departures of Gray, Arenado, Contreras, Matz, perhaps Helsley. Basically, clearing the larger and/or multi-year contracts. All but Hels would require the departure of significant chunks of cash to offset the negative surplus value of their contracts. Combine this with the departures expected at the end of 2025, the Cardinals would have quite a bit of payroll headroom next off-season to accelerate a rebuild. They'd postpone decisions on Noot and/or Donovan til next off-season. The below-replacement level replacements would turn this back into 70-win team for at least 2025. This option exists, but I don't see it happening. I don't believe they've changed their spots that much. I could be proven wrong.

A still less aggressive approach would simply result in current FAs going away, plus could lead to the departure of players that don't project to the 2026 roster that won't require much cash to move, and/or might bring back something. This could include Helsley, Fedde, Matz (if movable), possibly King and/or Romero. Gray, Arenado and/or Contreras will go if they can move the contract without huge $$ going the other way AND if those players want out enough to be flexible with the NTC. Any or all of them might be more valuable to keep until the trade deadline. Then, with an eye toward next off-season, Arenado's contract would be much more movable (especially if his performance base holds). Fedde, Mikolas and Matz will just ease away into the night. Donovan and Nootbaar will then be Arb2 (ready to make real money) and it will be clearer to see if they are keepers. This would be a deliberate 2 off-season reset, with the target being to have cleared most/all of the under-performing long-term contract before the free agent period next year, plus have a much better idea (hopefully) of where they stand with their own players, plus having given their development system another year to reinforce the internal talent pipeline. Without necessarily tanking the next two seasons.

My read of this group is that they will take this less aggressive approach. It's difficult to predict exactly who will go and who will stay because the market itself is hard to predict – who views these players as acquirable talent? Who else is available? But the strategy they will approach the off-season with does come into view a bit.

One interesting twist to this. The 2025 roster projection is not awful. Lots of low-cost, controllable talent with some upside. A new wave coming (hard to say if it is low-low tide or a tsunami, but it's coming). If you look at 2026/2027 projections, there is an argument to be made that the Cardinals should be in talent acquisition mode, if the opportunity arises. Do you suppose they can pull off being both in seller and buyer mode? Just wondering. I kind of doubt it, myself. It's a sexy strategy (to borrow a phrase), but not really their thing.

Under the conservative reset they might take, below is what such a roster might look like. Arenado, Romero and Helsley go (Arenado only if he chooses to). Hard to say what, if anything, comes back. Most likely, either prospects that don't require a 40-man spot or guys who can fill the holes observed.

Interestingly, in this view, they'd only need to acquire a RH hitting OFer, plus add some depth in the pitching. This would meet the description BDW had of NOT being a teardown and NOT relying on replacement level payers.

This roster would be ~$54m less costly than the original projection I started with in Part 1. Crazy, but it wouldn't be that much lower in projected WAR than the original, if they got some MLB players back. Some of that $54m savings would probably be reinvested in the roster. Likely the spots with the (?) in them, and possibly a bullpen arm, but nothing burdensome. This roster leaves room for younger players to ascend mid-season (Davis, Hence, Matthews) when the inevitable performance failures and injuries arrive.

Then, next off season could be spent bolting in improvements where needed, with another $40 million in unproductive contracts coming off the books to provide even more flexibility. If the revenue uncertainty is erased between now and then, the Cardinals could be "opportunistic".

This sounds like the Cardinals I know. Let's watch and see as this unfolds.

That concludes the clinical look at the Cardinals roster, good and bad. Where they need to go and how they might consider getting there, given who they are as an organization.