Cardinals Still Monitoring Free Agent Relief Market

The Cardinals remain in contact with a few free agent relief pitchers, writes Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. St. Louis has been in the market for a veteran reliever all offseason after losing Andrew Kittredge in free agency.

St. Louis is the only team that hasn’t signed a single free agent to a major league deal. The Cards have had the quietest overall offseason in MLB. They declined options on Kyle Gibson, Lance Lynn and Keynan Middleton. They allowed Kittredge and Paul Goldschmidt to walk. Whatever designs they had on trading Nolan Arenado, Sonny Gray and Willson Contreras were impeded by those players’ no-trade clauses. They’ve been puzzlingly resistant to trading affordable rentals Ryan Helsley and Erick Fedde.

The Cardinals are using 2025 as a transitional year. John Mozeliak is entering his final season running baseball operations. He’ll turn things over to Chaim Bloom at year’s end. The Cards intended to slash payroll alongside their looks at younger players, a move at least partially in response to reduced TV revenue. They’ve cut spending organically by not replacing any of their free agents. RosterResource calculates their payroll around $148MM, down $35MM from last year’s year-end mark. The initial goal was to offload more salary in trade, but it seems they abandoned that after failing to line up an Arenado deal.

There aren’t many more unsigned relievers who are going to command big league deals. David Robertson is probably the top free agent regardless of position. He could command close to eight figures on a one-year deal, likely with a team that has a better competitive outlook than St. Louis does. Phil Maton, Craig Kimbrel, Brooks Raley, Will Smith, and Middleton are among other unsigned bullpen arms.

Helsley will be back in the ninth inning. He could be the best reliever traded this summer, as there seemingly haven’t been any extension talks. Ryan Fernandez looks like a quality setup type after a strong showing as a Rule 5 pick. JoJo Romero and John King are solid lefty middle relievers. The Cards are otherwise light on experienced middle innings depth, especially from the right side. Nick Anderson is in camp on a minor league deal and has a decent shot to break camp.