Bernie’s Redbird Review: John Mozeliak’s Deals Paid An Immediate Dividend. That’s A Start. Not Sure About The Finish.

THE REDBIRD REVIEW

The Cardinals were a winner in the trading-deadline shuffle. Based on Wins Above Replacement (WAR) prorated over 162 games, the Cards came out near the top in an evaluation made by esteemed baseball analyst Neil Paine.

Here are the top 11 MLB teams in the net-gain rankings based on prorated WAR added and subtracted in deadline moves. The net gain applies to the remainder of the 2024 regular season:

• Padres, +7.1
• Cardinals, +6.3
• Mariners, +5.0
• Pirates, +4.4
• Dodgers, +4.3
• Yankees, +4.0
• Mets, +3.8
• Cubs, +2.9
• Red Sox, +2.8
• Diamondbacks, +1.9
• Orioles, +1.9

(Thank you, Neil Paine, for the information. And I’m happy to be a subscriber to your always informative Substack blog. I hope some our readers will check it out and do the same.)

As a simple adding-subtracting exercise, the Cardinals came out ahead in giving up super-utility guy Tommy Edman and backup outfielder Dylan Carlson in deals that brought in starting pitcher Erick Fedde, outfielder Tommy Pham and reliever Shawn Armstrong.

– Fedde was one of the top starting pitchers available on the market and the Cardinals have him in place for 2025.

– Pham filled an urgent need as a right-handed hitter who powders left-handed pitching. As if on cue, Pham emerged from the dugout to smash a pinch-hit, grand-slam home-run off Texas lefty reliever Cody Bradford to put the finishing hammer blow on an 8-1 victory.

– Armstrong’s 5.40 ERA has burn marks, but he had an outstanding 2023 season for the Rays, and is likely to provide helpful middle-relief depth for a hard-working St. Louis bullpen that can’t afford to wear down. Even with his flaws, Armstrong’s 0.5 WAR at Tampa Bay would be tied for the second-best among Cards relievers to closer Ryan Helsley.

– In the context of what’s at stake in 2024, the Cardinals didn’t diminish themselves by moving Edman and Carlson. The injured (but soon-to-return) Edman hasn’t played in a major-league game all season, and Carlson had reached the end of the line here. In 59 games he batted .198 with no home runs and an OPS+ that put him 53 percent below league average offensively.

Cardinals president of baseball ops John Mozeliak and colleagues identified three obvious needs and addressed them with moves made over the final 24+ hours of deadline deliberations.

The Cards reinforced three vulnerable areas without handing over premium prospects or veterans that were important to the big-league roster over the first three months of the season. And that’s amazing considering the difficult challenge of navigating a pro-seller’s market that had talent-searching teams overpaying to get what they needed.

Mozeliak and GM Michael Girsch managed to pull off a headache-free, no-regrets move for Fedde without squandering present or future capital.

And of course, Fedde has extra value because he’s under contract in 2025 at a bargain salary of $7.5 million. But the Cardinals obtained Fedde and his economy-priced contract for the kind of exchange you’d expect to give up for a rental. The Brewers, for example, gave the Reds two rostered talents – outfielder Joey Wiemer and pitcher Jakob Junis – for pending free-agent starter Frankie Montas and his 5.01 ERA.

The Cardinals moved on from Edman in what turned out to be a relatively easy decision because the team had already covered voids created by his four-month stay on the Injured List. The Birds also cleared nearly $10 million in guaranteed money owed to Edman for the remainder of this season and 2025.

Mozeliak strengthened the big-league club for the duration of 2024 and with the carryover benefit of getting 30+ starts from Fedde in 2025. The front office hoarded their coveted prospects to protect the future. None of these maneuvers caused a payroll jam that could limit their financial flexibility next offseason.

Pham can enter free agency at the end of the season. But if he’s a rental, he’s a helluva rental. With his scintillating slam to put the Rangers away Tuesday, Pham is already giving the Cardinals added muscle against left-handed pitching, and he’s been one of the best postseason hitters in the majors over the past nine seasons.

I look at it this way: there were trades within the trades.

+ The inactive Edman for the impressive Fedde.

+ A swap of outfielders, Carlson for Pham.

That works for me and should impress just about everyone.

“This is simply a great trade by Mozeliak and his staff,” baseball analyst Joe Sheehan wrote in his awesome newsletter. “The Cardinals upgraded both the regular-season and playoff rotations, while adding a strong platoon bat that addresses a key weakness. They might not have given up anything — I remain a complete skeptic on Edman until he, you know, plays — and at worst, they’ve taken a problem off Oli Marmol’s plate. This was very good work by one of the most maligned — by its own fans! — front offices in baseball.”

As an added bonus Mozeliak acquired Armstrong, a reliever that had a 1.39 ERA for the Rays last season. And the right-hander pitched well over the first two months of this season.

I’m not trying to sell the idea of Armstrong as an elite reliever. He’s not. But Armstrong’s strikeout rate is in line with that of current St. Louis right-handed relievers Ryan Fernandez and Andrew Kittredge, and he’s tough on RH batters (25% K rate.)

Here’s another reason for optimism: Armstrong’s fielding-independent ERA (3.76) is much lower than his baseball-card ERA. Why is that? The batting average on balls in play against Adams this season is .361 – tied for the sixth-highest against relievers that have worked at least 30 innings this season. Terrible batted-ball luck is an obvious factor in Armstrong’s ERA inflation.

OK, now let’s shift to another way of looking at the Cardinals’ effort in this year’s trade deadline.

Again, St. Louis did well. Praise. But this didn’t happen in a vacuum; the Cardinals were one of several National League postseason contenders that pushed to better themselves for the stretch run.

And four other NL wild-card contenders improved through trades: Mets, Padres, Pirates and Diamondbacks.

This month the Mets went for bulk by adding five pitchers and a bat. The new arrivals were starting pitcher Paul Blackburn, left-handed hitter Jesse Winker, and relievers Ryne Stanek, Phil Maton, Tyler Zuber and Huascar Brazoban.

The Padres paid an expensive premium-prospect price in trades for two of the best relievers out there, Jason Adam and Tanner Scott. Both have nasty strikeout stuff and low earned-run averages. Imagine trailing the Padres, moving into the late innings, and having to take on a procession of menacing relievers Adam, Scott and Robert Suarez.

The sneaky, dangerous playoff-candidate Pirates fortified their substandard offense with incoming trade bats Bryan De La Cruz (18 homers, 19 doubles) and Isiah Kiner-Falefa (.338 OBP, .420 slug, 115 OPS+)

The Diamondbacks upgraded a shaky bullpen in trades for relievers A.J. Puk and Dylan Floro, and went to market for insurance (Josh Bell) as starting first baseman Christian Walker heads to the IL.

So while the Cardinals were able to supplement their roster in a meaningful way and are a more capable team because of it, the overall magnitude isn’t quite as dramatic when measured against the collective moves made by others. The Cardinals “won” their trades, no doubt. But that doesn’t mean they’ll soar into the playoffs or even reach the postseason.

We’ll get some answers on that as the late-season schedule turns and evolves.

Here’s how it works in baseball: if the Cardinals come up short, it will lead to second-guessing. Why didn’t they do more? Were they too cautious? Did they need to be more aggressive and daring? Was it a mistake to stay clear of risk by making safer trades instead of pushing more chips to the center of the table in a higher-stakes gamble?

These are fair and reasonable questions. But I don’t expect the Cardinals to stray from their comfort zone. They haven’t been a so-called “all-in” gamer at the deadline for many years. This is how they do business. This is their philosophy. They have an aversion to a feverish, what-the-hell, let-it-roll, mad-men strategy.

Remember, there have been frequent failures for many of the teams that make the noisiest, riskiest, and most grandiose attempts at trading for a championship.

St. Louis isn’t one of those teams. Based on what the Cardinals are — and what they’ve been for a long time under chairman Bill DeWitt Jr. — no one should be surprised that they stayed on brand at the 2024 deadline. The Cards maintained their customary discipline. They followed their established standards and practices. They made smart, low-stress, no-trauma deals. Their pragmatic thinking covered 2024, and will last into ‘25. This is a good thing.

As always, the DeWitt-Mozeliak operation did it their way. But if management has an also-ran team again in 2024, it would mark the fifth time they’ve missed making the playoffs in the last nine seasons.

After the 2023 Cardinals posted the team’s worst record in a full season (71-91) since 1990, there’s added urgency to return to the playoffs. And getting shut out of the ‘24 playoffs would demoralize the fan base in a way that could decrease the revenue flow.

The front office did a helluva job with the moves they made over the past two days. But did they do enough? I can’t say for sure. The race looks like a close-call adventure that can go down to the final week of the regular season.

Should the Cardinals fall, I believe the disappointment would have a lot more to do with problematic developments that put them in such a vulnerable state. The power declines of Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado. The lost season of Jordan Walker. Nolan Gorman’s extreme strikeout affliction.

Mozeliak has given his team more of a chance to overcome the existing negatives, and his moves boosted the team morale.

The good timing of Pham’s homecoming home-run bomb is obvious. The timing of adding Fedde looks crucial, because the Cardinals have placed starting pitcher Lance Lynn on the IL because of knee inflammation.

It’s an old rotation. Getting to the finish line with every starter intact was a longshot. And if the front office had dropped the ball on adding a starter, just think about the potential consequences. Who knows? These moves may get the Cardinals back in the playoffs. Without these moves, I don’t think there was much of a shot at returning to the playoffs.

That’s why I appreciate what the front office did here by bringing in Fedde, Pham, and an extra reliever. If the Cards get eliminated from postseason contention, then we can have another conversation and fuss about what they should have done. But all I know right now is this: the Cardinals are in better shape now than they were before.

Thanks for reading …

–Bernie

A 2023 inductee into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame, Bernie has provided informed opinions and perspective on St. Louis sports through his columns, radio shows and podcasts since 1985.

Please follow Bernie on X @b_miklasz and Threads @miklaszb

For weekly Cards talk, listen to the “Seeing Red” podcast with Will Leitch and Miklasz. It’s available on Apple, Spotify, or where you get your podcasts. Follow @seeingredpod on X for a direct link.

Stats used in my baseball columns are sourced from FanGraphs, Baseball Reference, StatHead, Baseball Savant, Baseball Prospectus, Brooks Baseball Net, and Sports Info Solutions and Cots Contracts unless otherwise noted.