- On the heels of a 91-loss season that saw his club finish dead last in the NL Central, Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol is entering the final year of his contract in St. Louis. According to Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the sides have not discussed an extension at this point, leaving Marmol poised to enter the 2024 campaign as a lame duck. For his part, Marmol told Goold that he wasn’t concerned about the lack of security, “This industry is pretty simple,” Marmol said, “If you’re good, they keep you. If you’re not good, they don’t.” President of baseball operations John Mozeliak, meanwhile, expressed confidence in his manager entering the final year of his deal with the club, suggesting that he’s “very optimistic” that Marmol will be with the club “for a long time.”
Cardinals Rumors
Cardinals Expect To Add Bullpen Help Via Free Agency
The Cardinals have made no secret of their desire to add to the bullpen. Having accomplished their goal of bringing in three starting pitchers, St. Louis is prioritizing the relief corps.
President of baseball operations John Mozeliak suggested this evening the organization is likelier to add to the bullpen via free agency than in trade (relayed by Katie Woo of the Athletic). That’s a little surprising considering the Cards have been open about their willingness to trade a position player — Mozeliak candidly admitted they’re fielding offers on Tyler O’Neill yesterday — for pitching help.
Of course, noting that a free agent acquisition is more probable than a trade doesn’t close the latter avenue completely. The front office is surely exploring both paths. On the free agent front, reports have loosely linked St. Louis to Phil Maton, NPB closer Yuki Matsui and old friend Jordan Hicks.
Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports (on X) that the Cards have also discussed KBO pitcher Woo Suk Go. The LG Twins have made Go available to MLB teams via the posting system. A 25-year-old righty, Go turned in a 3.68 ERA over 44 innings this past season. He struck out an excellent 31.1% of opposing hitters but walked an elevated 11.8% of batters faced.
Go has until January 3 to decide whether to sign with a major league club or stay in South Korea. He’s not expected to command the same level of contract as either Maton or Matsui (and certainly won’t approach what it would cost to reunite with Hicks). The Cardinals project for a payroll in the $180MM range, according to Roster Resource. That’s a little above this year’s approximate $177MM Opening Day mark.
Mozeliak has previously suggested the Cards would keep their payroll steady, so they could be fairly close to their budgetary limit. The front office head unsurprisingly confirmed last night that the Cards were not going to top the $237MM luxury tax threshold (via Jeff Jones of the Belleville News-Democrat). Roster Resource projects the franchise’s CBT number around $208MM, a fair bit south of the base tax tier.
Mozeliak: Cardinals Listening To Offers On Tyler O’Neill
3:40pm: In addition to O’Neill, both Carlson and Alec Burleson have drawn trade interest to some extent this offseason, writes Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Both stand as plausible trade candidates themselves, though Mozeliak hasn’t taken the step of publicly declaring that with either player as he did with O’Neill.
In an appearance on MLB Network’s Hot Stove this morning (video link), Mozeliak again touched on his trade talks regarding the outfield, admitting that it would be “a surprise” if some trade involving one of his outfielders doesn’t come together. Specifically, Mozeliak said he hopes to upgrade his bullpen next, whether via the trade of an outfielder or other means.
10:29am: Tyler O’Neill’s status as a potential trade candidate isn’t exactly a well-kept secret. Heading into the winter, it’s been widely expected that the Cardinals would listen to trade offers on both O’Neill and fellow outfielder Dylan Carlson. Cardinals president of baseball operations John Mozeliak removed any doubt about the likelihood of an O’Neill trade in an appearance on MLB Network Radio on SiriusXM from this week’s Winter Meetings (video link).
“In the outfield, right now, if we were to play tomorrow it’d likely be [Lars Nootbaar], Tommy Edman and [Jordan Walker],” said Mozeliak. “Our fourth outfielder would be Dylan Carlson. … Tyler O’Neill is somebody that we are listening to on trades.”
Mozeliak added that he’s received “a lot of hits” on his outfielders in general, but O’Neill was the only one he specifically highlighted as a potential trade piece. The Cards have been against moving Nootbaar for some time now, and it stands to reason that there’s similar reluctance to consider moving Walker, who entered the 2023 season as one of the game’s top-ranked prospects and posted a .291/.358/.478 slash following the trade deadline.
O’Neill, 28, has ostensibly become an odd man out of the group. While the Cardinals could play Edman in the infield and thus open more playing time for O’Neill, the arrival of prospects like shortstop Masyn Winn, second baseman Nolan Gorman and utilityman Brendan Donovan have crowded the infield outlook as well. Winn, 21, didn’t hit well in last season’s MLB debut (.172/.230/.238), but that came in a sample of just 137 plate appearances — and Mozeliak specifically mentioned him in his MLB Network Radio appearance when describing his infield mix as “pretty solid” with Winn at short, Gorman/Donovan at second base and veterans Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado at the corners.
All signs seem to point to a potential trade of O’Neill, who as recently as 2021 slashed .286/.352/.560 with 34 homers and Gold Glove defense in left field but has since mustered just a .229/.310/.397 slash in 169 games. Injuries have played a significant factor in those struggles; O’Neill had an IL stint due to a shoulder impingement and a pair of IL stints for hamstring strains during the 2022 season. His 2023 campaign included a trip to the 60-day injured list for a lower back strain and a later return to the IL for a foot sprain.
There’s little doubt that a healthy O’Neill has game-changing power, but O’Neill simply hasn’t been healthy enough in his big league career. He played in 50 games during the shortened 2020 season and 138 games in 2021 but has otherwise rarely been on the field for the majority of a given season. That 2021 campaign is the only time he’s ever reached 100 games played or reached 400 big league plate appearances.
O’Neill is slated to become a free agent at season’s end and is projected by MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz to earn $5.5MM this coming season. The power is clearly legitimate, but he’s been a bit below average at the plate overall throughout these two most recent, injury-riddled seasons. He still grades as a plus defender in left field and is an above-average runner. As far as change-of-scenery candidates go, O’Neill is a fairly appealing one, but the litany of injuries, minimal club control and limited recent track record at the plate will all coalesce to tamp down his value in a trade.
Latest On Cardinals’ Pitching Pursuits
The Cardinals entered the offseason looking for three new starting pitchers, and that goal has already been accomplished with the signings of Sonny Gray, Lance Lynn, and Kyle Gibson. To this end, president of baseball operations John Mozeliak indicated that the club has done a lot of the heavy lifting on its efforts to upgrade the rotation, yet he didn’t rule out more additions.
“We feel like we have a strong five right now,” Mozeliak told Gregg Palermo of Spectrum News. “We feel like we have three or four guys that could give us depth throughout the season as well, so it’s not like a front-line priority but you never say never because something may pop up and make sense.”
In discussing the club’s tactics as a whole, Mozeliak said “we were very aggressive in the free agent market which was strategic. We did not think we were going to be able to acquire what we were looking for via trade, at least where we didn’t feel like we were going to give up something that we were comfortable with, and so now that we do have some starting pitching we are going to be looking at things for our bullpen and be open-minded because there could be something that we haven’t thought about.”
Technically, St. Louis now has a rotation surplus given all of the younger arms behind the projected starting five of Gray, Lynn, Gibson, Miles Mikolas, and Steven Matz. It isn’t to say that the Cardinals are necessarily itching to deal from their starting depth since the team very likely wants to have as much depth as possible on hand to withstand another spate of injuries, not to mention the fact that only Gray had a clear-cut quality season in 2023.
However, it does make sense that the Cardinals would be open to moving one or two of their younger arms if it means bringing in more top-of-the-rotation help. In addition to their interest in White Sox starter Dylan Cease, the Cards have “discussed internally what a potential trade for Tampa Bay ace Tyler Glasnow would look like,” Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch writes.
This isn’t really surprising news given that front offices routinely consider scores of free agents and trade candidates, and it seems similarly likely that the Cardinals probably at least checked in with the Rays about Glasnow as a matter of due diligence. Perhaps most notably, Goold made specific mention that the Cardinals were weighing how Glasnow’s $25MM salary for 2024 would fit their payroll picture, which is currently projected to be slightly above their $178MM payroll from 2023.
While the Rays have stated they are comfortable carrying a larger payroll than usual for 2024, the general feeling is that Tampa will still try to move some salaries between now and Opening Day. This could manifest itself as trades of other players (i.e. Harold Ramirez, Manuel Margot, or maybe even Randy Arozarena) rather than Glasnow, yet the right-hander’s $25MM salary is easily the highest on Tampa Bay’s roster, and he isn’t seen as a long-term fixture given that Glasnow is eligible for free agency next winter. This short-term appeal makes Glasnow an interesting fit for many teams, including St. Louis if the Cardinals are okay with a one-year payroll bump, or if they look to shed some salaries themselves either as part of a Glasnow trade, or in other deals.
Turning to the bullpen, Jordan Hicks and Yuki Matsui are a couple of the names already reported as players of interest for the Cardinals, and Goold adds Phil Maton as another target. Maton has been an effective workhorse out of the Astros pen over the last two seasons, posting a 3.42 ERA and spectacular soft-contact numbers over 135 appearances and 131 2/3 regular-season innings. A broken pinkie finger kept Maton from participating in Houston’s World Series run in 2022, but he has an outstanding playoff resume nonetheless, with an 0.83 ERA over 21 2/3 career postseason innings.
Maton (who turns 31 in March) went to high school in Chatham, Illinois, around a 90-minute drive away from St. Louis. As Goold notes, geography also played a factor in the signings of Gray and Gibson, so the Cardinals might look to continue this trend to lure another semi-local product in Maton. There hasn’t been a lot of buzz about Maton’s market to date, yet the relief pitching market as a whole hasn’t really gotten cooking, as teams have been primarily first focusing on starters.
Cardinals Still Showing Interest In Dylan Cease
Even after revamping their rotation with a rapid-fire trio of free agent signings, the Cardinals are still in the mix for White Sox righty Dylan Cease, reports Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. President of baseball operations John Mozeliak said at the press conference to introduce Sonny Gray that he “doubted” his next move would be to add more starting pitching but conceded that he remains “open-minded” to further rotation additions (link via Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch).
The Cardinals, of course, signed Gray, Kyle Gibson and Lance Lynn in just over a week’s time, adding a trio of arms who combined for 97 starts in 2023. The addition of Gray added a front-end presence to the St. Louis rotation, while Lynn and Gibson at the very least provided some reliable bulk innings on the back end. It seems clear that the Cards prioritized some stability after years of injury-related starting pitching crunches at Busch Stadium, and Cease would be a fourth addition in that vein.
In terms of pure results, the 27-year-old Cease (28 next month) has been on both ends of the spectrum recently. In 2022, he finished runner-up to Justin Verlander in AL Cy Young voting, while his 2023 campaign saw his ERA more than double from 2.20 to 4.58. Cease’s velocity dipped by a mile per hour, his strikeout rate fell three percentage points, and he yielded far more hard contact than he did during that elite 2022 campaign. What remained constant, however, was the righty’s availability. Cease made 33 starts this past season — his fourth straight year with a full slate of starts. Since 2020, Cease leads all MLB pitchers with 109 games started.
As things stand, the Cardinals project for a five-man rotation of Gray, Miles Mikolas, Lynn, Gibson and Steven Matz. Mikolas and Matz are both signed through 2025 — Mikolas at a total of $32MM and Matz at $24MM. There’s been some speculation about the possibility of an eventual Matz trade, but the Cardinals are also surely reluctant to thin out their depth too much after being burned by a lack of depth in multiple seasons recently.
Cease would give the Cardinals even more bulk innings but do so while carrying more upside than perhaps any member of their current staff. He’d surely benefit from a move out of the White Sox’ homer-happy stadium and away from their poorly ranked defense. With two years of club control remaining, a projected $8.8MM salary in arbitration (courtesy of MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz) and clear Cy Young-caliber upside on the mound, bidding for Cease’s services will be fierce.
Already this winter, he’s been connected to the Braves, Dodgers, Reds and Orioles. That’s surely just a fraction of the teams who’ve at least reached out to the ChiSox to gauge the asking price. The Cardinals’ recent free-agent activity might lessen their urgency relative to some of those other suitors, but it’s nevertheless of note that they remain in the mix at all.
From a payroll perspective, they can likely make a Cease acquisition work without even dramatically raising their spending from last year’s levels. The Cards backloaded Gray’s three-year, $75MM contract such that he’ll be paid just $10MM in 2024. Roster Resource projects a $180MM payroll right now, which is only narrowly higher than last year’s Opening Day mark. And the Cards could yet trade arbitration-eligible names like Tyler O’Neill and Dylan Carlson, which would impact that payroll projection.
Someone like O’Neill — a free agent at season’s end — isn’t likely to hold much appeal to the White Sox, who’ll be looking for controllable talent to build around in the near future. But generally speaking, the Cardinals have a bevy of young, MLB-ready talent that could interest Chicago. Names like Carlson, Brendan Donovan, Nolan Gorman, Alec Burleson, Luken Baker and Matthew Liberatore all have at least three seasons of club control remaining, and that’s not even counting some interesting upper-minors prospects who’ve yet to debut but are relatively close to the Majors (e.g. Gordon Graceffo, Tink Hence).
As for the timing of a potential Cease trade, reports on the matter are conflicting in nature; MLB.com’s Jon Morosi suggested just yesterday that Cease’s market was heating up and a trade could come together by Sunday evening. Not 18 hours later, Rosenthal reported nearly the opposite — that Sox GM Chris Getz has been indicating to teams he prefers to wait until after the top free-agent names have come off the board.
MLBTR Podcast: Sonny Gray, Kenta Maeda and Offseason Questions
The latest episode of the MLB Trade Rumors Podcast is now live on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts! Make sure you subscribe as well! You can also use the player at this link to listen, if you don’t use Spotify or Apple for podcasts.
This week, host Darragh McDonald is joined by Tim Dierkes of MLB Trade Rumors to discuss…
- Sonny Gray signing with the Cardinals (1:40)
- Kenta Maeda signing with the Tigers (11:45)
- Dodgers, Braves, Orioles and Reds missed on Aaron Nola (14:30)
Plus, we answer your questions, including…
- Could someone like Frankie Montas as a one-year rental bounce back and/or Brandon Woodruff coming off an injury be of interest to the Orioles as a starting pitcher? (15:25)
- The Reds seemingly have a lot of payroll flexibility. However, I’ve been a Reds fan my whole life and I don’t want to set myself up for disappointment. Realistically, how much do you think they’ll spend? Has to be at least 35 to 40 million, right? Right? (19:10)
- Farhan Zaidi and the Giants are once again claiming to be “all-in” on the free agent market. Do you think that players not wanting to play in San Francisco, for a variety of reasons, is a substantial factor in past and future failures to bring in star caliber talent? (27:25)
- What would it take for the Mariners to sign Juan Soto to a long term contract if they can acquire him via trade? (33:55)
Check out our past episodes!
- Aaron Nola, Non-Tenders And The Pace Of The Offseason – listen here
- Top Trade Candidates, Bryce Harper at First Base and the Braves’ Raising Payroll – listen here
- Top 50 Free Agents Megapod (with Tim Dierkes, Steve Adams and Anthony Franco) – listen here
Details On Sonny Gray, Kyle Gibson Contracts
The Cardinals finalized their three-year, $75MM contract with Sonny Gray yesterday. It came with a club option for the 2027 season which reports had pegged at $30MM with a $5MM buyout.
That deal is heavily backloaded. As reported by the Associated Press, Gray is set for a modest $10MM salary in 2024. He’ll make $25MM in ’25 and $35MM in the final guaranteed season, with the buyout bringing the guarantee to $75MM.
The ’27 option is not strictly a team provision; if the Cardinals exercise the option, Gray would have the right to opt out. If either side declines the option, the buyout would be paid in $1MM installments between 2027-31. Gray also receives full no-trade protection, per the AP.
In the short term, the backloaded nature of the deal might be most meaningful for the organization. Had the contract been paid out fairly evenly, the team’s 2024 commitments would have jumped into the $190MM+ range. With the relatively low sum for 2024, Roster Resource projects the Cards’ player spending for next season around $180MM.
St. Louis opened the ’23 season with a payroll around $177MM, as calculated by Cot’s Baseball Contracts. President of baseball operations John Mozeliak indicated at the beginning of the offseason that the club figured to remain in that general area for next season. There still might not be a ton of remaining spending room, although the signings of Gray, Kyle Gibson and Lance Lynn have checked off the team’s primary goal of adding three starting pitchers.
They’re also looking to add to the bullpen but could accomplish that via trade and/or free some payroll capacity by trading a veteran player. Tyler O’Neill (projected by MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz for a $5.5MM salary) and Dylan Carlson (projected at $1.8MM) are each into arbitration. Steven Matz, due successive $12.5MM salaries for the next two seasons, was pushed into the #5 spot in the rotation and could potentially be a trade candidate if St. Louis felt confident in any of their younger arms to take a step forward.
The AP also provides specifics on Gibson’s contract. Initially reported as a $12MM guarantee, it’s actually a $13MM deal. Gibson will make a $12MM salary next season and is ensured at least a $1MM buyout on a $12MM team option for 2025. The righty would receive a $1MM assignment bonus if traded and would lock in a $500K incentive for reaching 175 innings in either year of the contract.
Cardinals Sign Sonny Gray To Three-Year Deal
The Cardinals have added their desired top-of-the-rotation starter. St. Louis announced the signing of right-hander Sonny Gray to a three-year guarantee with a club option for the 2027 season. It’s a reported $75MM deal, while the option is valued at $30MM and comes with a $5MM buyout (which is included in the overall guarantee).
Gray, who celebrated his 34th birthday earlier this month, hit free agency on the heels of a dominant 2023 campaign with the Twins that saw him earn his third career All Star appearance and finish as the runner-up in AL Cy Young award voting behind Yankees righty Gerrit Cole. The veteran hurler posted a sterling 2.79 ERA (54% better than league average by measure of ERA+) along with an MLB-best 2.83 FIP in 184 innings of work across 32 starts. His 24.3% strikeout rate was a top-25 figure among qualified starters this season, while his 47.3% groundball rate ranked ninth among that same group. Only Framber Valdez, Zach Eflin, Justin Steele, and Kyle Bradish posted better figures in both stats this year.
The deal will be the first free agent contract of Gray’s 11-year major league career, as the 18th overall pick of the 2011 draft signed an extension with the Reds upon being traded to Cincinnati in early 2019 that covered the 2020-22 seasons, with a team option for 2023. At the time of the three-year, $30.5MM deal, Gray was coming off a brutal 2018 campaign with the Yankees that saw him post a 4.90 ERA (86 ERA+) with a 4.17 FIP. Fortunately for both the Reds and Gray, the righty quickly turned things around with a 2.87 ERA, 175 1/3 inning performance during the 2019 season. Altogether, Gray posted a 3.22 ERA (138 ERA+) and 3.34 FIP over the life of his extension, though the final two seasons of the deal were spent with the Twins after the righty was shipped to Minnesota in exchange for right-hander Chase Petty just before the 2022 season.
Strong as Gray’s platform season in 2023 was, there were some potential red flags in his performance. Most notably, Gray allowed a microscopic 5.2% of his fly balls to leave the yard for home runs, by far a career low that flies in the face of his career-high 6.9% barrel rate. That disparity leaves Gray with expected stats that are significantly less impressive than his actual production last season, including a 3.64 xFIP and a 3.95 SIERA. While those are both still top-20 figures among qualified starters this season, it’s reasonable to be concerned that Gray’s elite home run prevention figures may not hold up over time, particularly as he enters his mid-thirties. Of course, a move from the Twins’ home ballpark of Target Field (which has played slightly homer-friendly in recent years) to the Cardinals’ home field of Busch Stadium could help alleviate those concerns to some extent. While Busch played as an essentially neutral ballpark in terms of home runs in 2023, the stadium has been among the best for suppressing the long ball in recent years.
Though a deal for Gray comes with its fair share of risk, it’s hard to imagine a team better situated to enjoy the benefits of his services than the Cardinals. St. Louis starters posted a collective ERA of 5.02 in 2023, the fifth-worst figure in the majors. The club’s struggles with starting pitching this season led president of baseball operations John Mozeliak to announce the club’s desire to add three starting pitchers this winter to a rotation that included little certainty beyond veteran righty Miles Mikolas headed into 2024. Between deals for Lance Lynn, Kyle Gibson, and now Gray, St. Louis has accomplished that goal before the calendar flips to December.
Lynn and Gibson both pitched to the results of a back-end starter in 2023 with ERAs of 5.73 and 4.73, respectively. Adding Gray to the mix gives the Cardinals a bonafide, front-of-the-rotation arm to whom they could confidently assign a playoff start to as they look to turn things around on the heels of a 91-loss season that saw them finish dead last in the NL Central this year. Gray was among the top free agent starters this winter, coming in at the #9 spot of MLBTR’s Top 50 MLB free agents list with a projected four-year, $90MM contract. That projection ended up a year and $15MM above the contract Gray received, though our $22.5MM projected average annual value was actually slightly below the $25MM figure Gray ultimately received.
It’s possible the deal completes the club’s 2024 rotation with a projected starting five of Gray, Mikolas, Gibson, Lynn, and left-hander Steven Matz. That would make for a rotation entirely comprised of veteran arms well past their 30th birthdays; Matz, 33 in May, would be the youngest of the group. That being said, it’s at least feasible the club could look to add a younger arm to the rotation later in the offseason. Matz has seen considerable use out of the bullpen during his two years in St. Louis, leaving a plausible path to a fourth rotation addition should the club to make one. In addition to Gray, the Cardinals have been connected to both NPB ace Yoshinobu Yamamoto and a potential reunion with southpaw Jordan Montgomery this offseason.
That being said, it’s unclear whether the signing of Gray will preclude the club from adding either of those arms from a payroll perspective. It’s worth noting that Mozeliak has indicated payroll could stay relatively stagnant compared to last year’s expected figure prior to their sell-side moves at the trade deadline. That would likely leave the Cardinals with around $40-50MM of payroll space to work with this offseason, $22MM of which has already been dedicated to the signings of Gibson and Lynn. Between the $25MM reported cost for Gray and the Cardinals’ reported desire to add multiple arms to the bullpen this offseason, the club seemingly has minimal financial wiggle room for other moves of significance going forward.
In addition to the $75MM the Cardinals are committed to Gray, the club stands to lose their second-highest pick in the 2024 draft and $500K in international bonus pool space from the signing of a qualified free agent. The Twins, who extended Gray a qualifying offer earlier this month, are in line to receive a compensatory draft pick after the first round in next year’s draft, as Gray signed for more than $50MM. It’s the second consecutive offseason during which St. Louis has signed a qualified free agent after the Cardinals signed catcher Willson Contreras away from the Cubs last winter.
The Cardinals weren’t the only known suitor for Gray’s services this winter, as the Braves have frequently been connected to the right-hander in recent weeks. It’s unclear whether the Braves ultimately made an offer to Gray, but the veteran righty represents the second front-of-the-rotation arm Atlanta has shown interest in who ultimately signed elsewhere this offseason. The club reportedly offered right-hander Aaron Nola a deal worth $162MM over six years prior to him landing with the Phillies on a seven-year, $172MM deal. While there’s still plenty of front-of-the-rotation caliber arms available this offseason, it’s worth noting that Atlanta’s financial outlook is somewhat murky and the club has already signed Reynaldo Lopez to a three-year deal with an eye toward stretching him out as a starter.
Jon Heyman of the New York Post first reported the Cardinals and Gray were likely to finalize a contract. Ken Rosenthal of the Athletic reported it would be a three-year, $75MM guarantee. Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported the option value.
Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.
Andre Pallante Discusses Offseason Regimen
- Cardinals right-hander Andre Pallante was among the club’s most valuable rookies in 2022, when he posted a 3.17 ERA and 3.98 FIP in 108 innings split between the rotation and bullpen. Though Pallante posted a below-average 16% strikeout rate that season, he made up for it with a fantastic 63.9% groundball rate. Things didn’t go so smoothly for Pallante in 2023, however, as the righty’s ERA soared to 4.76, 8% worse than league average by measure of ERA+ despite an even stronger 77.8% groundball rate in 68 innings of work as a full-time reliever. Daniel Guerrero of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch writes today that Pallante, 25, has already begun working on pitch shapes and mechanics this offseason after spending time at a sports performance facility in North Carolina. If the adjustments help Pallante recover his 2022 form, it would be an excellent turn of events for a St. Louis club hoping to turn things around after a 91-loss season and a last-place finish in the NL Central as the young righty looks to contribute to the club’s late-inning mix alongside Ryan Helsley, Giovanny Gallegos, and JoJo Romero.
Cardinals Had Longstanding Interest In Kyle Gibson
- The Cardinals’ signing of Kyle Gibson this week ended a very long pursuit, as Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch noted that the team’s interest in the right-hander dated all the way back to Gibson’s 2009 draft year. “Multiple times since, the Cardinals have attempted to sign or trade for Gibson” Goold wrote, before finally landing Gibson on a one-year, $12MM deal. The local connection was obvious, as Gibson played his college ball at the University of Missouri and he already lives in the greater St. Louis area during the offseason. The righty’s results have been up-and-down over his 11 MLB seasons, but Gibson’s ability to eat innings should be very valuable for a Cardinals team badly in need of rotation depth before Gibson and Lance Lynn were brought on board.