Bernie’s Redbird Review: Making A List. Checking It Twice.

Baseball’s traditional winter meeting gets underway Monday in Dallas. The annual carnival will be crowded and noisy. Your St. Louis Cardinals will do a lot of listening, a lot of talking, exchange many text messages and palaver their way to a trade or two. And if the Redbirds leave Texas with nothing to bring home, do not fret. The deals can be consummated later this winter.

Here’s what I’d like to see … if not next week, then before the opening of 2025 spring training in Jupiter. I’m a patient fellow. One request in advance: Cards president of baseball operations John Mozeliak shall be prohibited from making trades unless Chaim Bloom grants consent.

1. Trade El Grunon. That would be Nolan Arenado. He is not even trying to be subtle these days, using his personal Instagram account to make a pitch to the Los Angeles Dodgers. The flirty Arenado evidently wants out of the red decor so he can slip into Dodger Blue. The Cardinals plan to go with a youth crusade in 2025, and this movement would be an uncomfortable fit for the aging and waspish third baseman. Offload time. Two ESPN baseball writers were asked to suggest a logical destination for Arenado. One chose the Washington Nationals. The other nominated the Toronto Blue Jays. Well, not if Arenado’s fully protected no-trade clause has anything to say about it.

2. Trade starting pitcher Erick Fedde. This is an obvious move. He can become a free agent after the season. Major league front-office operatives are circling available starting pitchers with the aggressive desperation of ravenous sharks. They’re throwing money around in overpays to snap up any available arms: Matthew Boyd to the Cubs, Frankie Montas to the Mets, Yusei Kikuchio to the Angels. And there are reports of teams expressing interest in free-agent relievers (Clay Holmes, Jeff Hoffman) with the intention of turning them into starters.

Fedde should have substantial value in this environment. A team that acquires him would realize multiple benefits:

– Fedde has a full season left on his contract, and his salary for 2025 is a delightfully economical $7.5 million. That’s a steal in this offseason market.

– Make a deal with the Cardinals, and Fedde is all yours. He’s clockwork. He’ll make 30+ starts and supply around 175 innings of fine work.

– In 2024 Fedde ranked 17th among MLB starting pitchers in Wins Above Replacement (3.4), 17th in ERA (3.30) and 28th in innings pitched. Fedde matched Max Fried in WAR. He had a higher WAR than Aaron Nola, Shota Imanaga, Jack Flaherty, Nathan Eovaldi, Freddy Peralta, Pablo Lopez, Tanner Bibee, Carlos Rodon, Bryce Miller, Luis Castillo, Michael Wacha, and many others.

– Fedde’s ERA was superior to that of Dylan Cease, Logan Webb, George Kirby, Nola, Kikuchi, Peralta, Bibee, Gausman, Lopez and Rodon … and many others.

– Fedde has three strong pitches to defeat hitters. According to the Statcast data, his sweeper was rated at No. 7 among MLB pitchers, his cutter was rated 11th, and his sinker was 54th. Add up the overall quality of his pitch arsenal, and Fedde ranked among the top 12 percent of major-league pitchers (including relievers) in the Pitching Run Value metric at Statcast.

The Cardinals are highly, highly unlikely to sign Fedde to a long-term (and lucrative) contract extension. This franchise has set up 2025 as The Season of the Young. Trade Fedde, and that opens a rotation spot for a young arm. And by moving Fedde, the Cardinals would receive a parcel of young and upcoming talent to boost their self-described “reset.” It would be ludicrous to keep Fedde – and don’t start talking to me about moving him at the trade deadline. A full season of pitching makes Fedde a helluva lot more valuable than two-plus months of pitching. And if Fedde suffers a debilitating injury along the way in 2025, it wouldn’t impact the Cardinals. It’s best to eliminate the risk by trading him early – as in December 2024 early.

3. Trade closer Ryan Helsley. Yeah, I get it. The Cardinals want everyone to believe that they’re really thinking about keeping him on the club for one more season before he leaves St. Louis to luxuriate in free-agent riches. This posturing will end as soon as someone in a position of authority asks Mozeliak a three-part question: “OK, but what happens if Helsley blows out his elbow and requires season-ending surgery? What are we going to get for him then? Nothing, right?” Perhaps the Cardinals will get creative – careful! – and bundle Helsley and Arenado in a package to be sent to a team that agrees to absorb the heft of ‘Nado’s guaranteed salary obligations.

Also – and make this 3a … if the Cardinals trade Helsley and do not re-sign setup reliever Andrew Kittredge, they’ll have to add depth to the bullpen. There should be some low-cost, solid-value relievers available in free agency. Hey, Cardinals … you gotta spend at least some money.

4. Find new residences for starting pitchers Miles Mikolas and Steven Matz. Let’s start with Mikolas. He can become a free agent after the 2025 season, and he’ll make $17.6 million in what will almost certainly be his final year with the Cardinals. Mikolas has some attributes and could draw interest from contending-type teams that are in need of bulk rotation innings. Over the past two seasons (combined) Mikolas made the most starts (67) in the majors, ranked 10th for most innings pitched, and scored surprisingly well by ranking 24th with his 29 quality starts. However: Mikolas also had a two-season ERA of 5.04, ranked 131st among 137 starters in strikeout rate, and had the second-worst swinging strike rate. But there is value in innings certainty and peace in knowing that he’ll post up for all of his starts. Would there be a market for Mikolas? Maybe. But the Cardinals wouldn’t get much in return, and may have to pay half of his salary. Oh, and Mikolas has a no-trade clause.

As for Matz, the Cardinals invested $44 million in a four-year deal for the lefty starter before the 2022 season. As free-agent moves go, this is a flop. In his first three seasons since signing with the Cardinals, a sequence of injuries has limited Matz to an average of 65.7 innings and 11.3 starts per year. Matz is owed $12.5 million in 2025, and perhaps there’s a team or two out there willing to gamble on getting 20, 25 starts from him. I make no predictions. But again, if the Cardinals want to provide legitimate opportunities to young starting pitchers, they can’t do that unless they create some vacancies.

5. Add a right-handed hitter who can be part of the outfield and is capable of playing center field. Last season St. Louis outfielders collectively made 1,943 plate appearances. OK, now let’s break it down by the number of PAs taken by right-handed hitters and left-handed batters.

RH batters: 310 plate appearances, the fewest by any outfield delegation in the majors.

LH batters: 1,633 plate appearances, the most among MLB outfield colonies.

Here’s another nuggie: in 2024 the Cardinals had only 30 plate appearances all season by a right-handed batter who played center field (under any circumstances) in a game.

If you like, I could nominate a few free-agent center fielders that bat from the right side. This is offered with little research or background checks. I’m just looking at a list of names, basically.

Austin Hayes, 29, was an above-average hitter from 2021 through 2023 but went through a terrible time late last season because of an undiagnosed (and severe) kidney illness that left him exhausted and ineffective. Hays rebounded after specialists identified the problem and put him through the proper treatment. Now healthy, Hays will likely be a popular free-agent candidate for teams seeking a RH bat that can be used at all three outfield spots. I assume Hays will land beyond STL’s desired price point.

Others in this RH-bat center field free-agent used car lot are either unrealistic (Tyler O’Neill), highly unlikely (Harrison Bader), unappealing (Dylan Carlson), old, or used up. You want names? Ramon Laureano, Austin Slater, Kevin Pillar, Manuel Margot, Bryan De La Cruz, Travis Jankowski and Jon Berti. The best of the lot are old friend Randal Grichuk and former Cub Mike Tauchman. But again, I have no idea what the Cardinals are willing to spend to put a RH bat into the outfield rotation … and preferably someone that can patrol center.

As the offseason goes on, I will update the Cardinal to-do list as needed. And of course, I’ll check it twice. Except for the typos.

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.

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Stats used in this column were sourced from Baseball Reference, FanGraphs, Statcast, and Baseball Prospectus.