St. Louis Cardinals OFFSEASON Overhaul Begins as Arenado and Gray TRADE Talks Heat Up

St. Louis Cardinals OFFSEASON Overhaul Begins as Arenado and Gray TRADE Talks Heat Up

Injuries, prospects, free agents, trades. It is the off season for the St. Louis Cardinals. We dive into all of it today with Jeff Jones on today’s episode of Locked On Cardinals. You are Locked On Cardinals, your daily St. Louis Cardinals podcast, part of the Locked On Network. Your team every day. Hey there Cardinals fans. I’m JD Hafford, a former national radio sports anchor, born and raised in St. Louis, lifetime Cardinals fan. I’m your host for Lockton Cardinals, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, covering your team every day. A big thank you to our everydayers for joining us throughout the season and into the off season. For those of you who are new, welcome aboard. We hope you enjoy the Cardinals content. This is a show serving Cardinal Nation and giving you all the info about the birds on the bat. Today’s episode brought to you by FanDuel. Right now, new customers can bet just $5. And if your bet wins, you’ll get $300 in bonus bets to use across the app. So, download the app today. Today’s episode, we’re all about picking the brain of reporter Jeff Jones, who covers the Carlos for the Belleville News Democrat, uh, which you can subscribe to at bnd.com. Jeff, a big thank you for, uh, hanging out with us today. How’s the off season been treating you so far? Things have been a little quiet for the Cardinals, so hopefully you’ve been relaxing a little bit. Yeah, slow as expected. You know, I think we’re all kind of anticipating here in the next week or so things to start picking up as the World Series comes to an end and free agency gets open. Not that the Cardinals are going to be all that busy in there, but you know, there are things to happen here and what are we six weeks away from the start of the winter meetings. So, uh there’s progress here on the horizon. Yeah. Now, we’ve gotten a a ton of emails and comments from fans since the end of the season, and you and I haven’t had a chance to to catch up with since the season ended. So, I wanted to get your thoughts on a lot of these topics that are on the minds of uh Cardinals Nation. I want to start with uh what you may or may not have heard on the the trade front with guys like Nolan Aronado and Sunny Gray. It’s the the names they get brought up the most. Uh I know we’re in the the downtime for the teams. Like you mentioned, things aren’t going to pick up for a little while till the winter meetings get going in November, but in your guesstimation, how likely is it that one or both of them are actually on this roster for opening day in 2026? Um, I I think that Nolan Aronado is going to be traded this winter. Now, I’ll caveat this by saying I had every expectation they would figure it out last winter and they somehow didn’t seem to. Uh, which I think shocked pretty well everybody. But I everybody is acting as though this is going to be probably the end of the road here. And I think as well when you sort of look at the way that his performance went this season, it lends him to sort of have to open up that no trade list a little bit. Uh, the Cardinals pretty motivated here. And again, we should not forget that one more year of commitment and, you know, whatever $35 million fell off the deal over the last year, right? So, these are all things that make it a little easier to find a deal uh this winter. Sunonny Gray obviously is a little bit more complicated. One, I will say I I think the Cardinals are telling the truth when they say that they would be comfortable with him returning as part of their starting rotation if for no other reason than there just aren’t that many bodies uh who are going to be available to them that they have in house that can do that. But I I do think they would probably rather find a deal for him than not. U you know, what does that look like in terms of what kind of meets his expectations? You know, there was reporting at the end of the season about San Francisco. Maybe that made a little sense when you were talking about uh the possibility of of of Bob Melvin being there obviously with Melvin being fired replaced with Tony Vatello. Uh is that different? You know, I actually I don’t know whether Sony who lives in Nashville and Vatella have a relationship or not. Uh but that would obviously be that would be part of that conversation as well. Uh you know, you know, there’s always the conversation to be had about Atlanta. Cincinnati may be as difficult both in terms of the money and in terms of treating him inside of the division. Maybe that shouldn’t matter uh if the Cardinals don’t view themselves as as a sincere contender in 2026, but you know, it is at least variable. So, while I think it is harder to sort of identify what the fit looks like for Sunonny Gray, I I do think that the Cardinals will, if not aggressively do so, they will at least be motivated to find out if for no other reason than, you know, when the trade deadline rolls around, they might be revisiting some of those conversations. Now, in the case of the rotation, let’s pretend things work out, Sunny sticks around. Okay, you keep him in the fold. Um, you have Liberator, you got McGrevy. So, there’s three of your five spots. It appears that Kley uh is going to get a shot at one of those spots as well that they’re going to stretch him out, see what he can offer. Andre Palante is still here, too. In your opinion, do you see the team looking outside the organization to fill a potential rotation spot? Say something doesn’t work out with Ley or, you know, Palante still hasn’t figured out how to get anybody out. Well, you think that they would step outside the organization for something like that or do you think, as you mentioned, like an in-house type of fix uh would be more what they would try for first? I I do expect them to add an outside starting pitcher or two. Um, you know, it would not shock me say they got one via trade, one via free agency. That would that would seem to fit just about right. Uh, you know, in terms of what that looks like, I don’t expect him to be shopping at the top of the market, right? Like I don’t anticipate, for example, Dylan Cece being a St. Louis Cardinal on opening day, uh, unless something crazy were to happen with his market where maybe he takes a one-year deal and yada yada yada. Uh, so you know that I I think that it’s probably more going to be if if not in like the Kyle Gibson, Lance Lynn sort of area, uh, a little younger than that, maybe, you know, a little more you could fix. I I think a name that that stands out that makes sense to me is a guy like Kyle Freeland, who probably has to take a one-year deal, is coming off a couple of really dreadful years in Colorado. You think maybe there’s a little bit of Colorado tax there. you think maybe a pitching development group could see a thing or two uh that might get him right and and you know Franklin might be a popular guy because I think there going to be a lot of teams they’re going to say well get him out of Colorado out of that environment and away from that system and he probably has a lot more to offer uh but someone like that who who would be kind of in that one-year range and then it’s you know is there a starting pitcher that makes sense in a trade uh as they look to kind of simplify this roster a little bit and that’s entirely possible they certainly are going to look for fits like that you know a starter with some kind of control uh who has a little bit of track record would obviously be very attractive for them if they’re going to look at moving some of these kind of you know arguably redundant position players. Uh one of the names that has been brought up is a guy that you know he’s coming off kind of a down year but uh is probably going to have a pretty good market is former Cardinal prospect Zack Gallon. Uh there’s been some predictions that he could get anywhere between a three-year to a fiveyear deal. You don’t see the Cardinals, you know, because he mentioned that, you know, if we see something that fits an investment opportunity, we might be interested in that. You don’t see them probably doing that in this particular offseason, though, where, you know, if the the price is right, they could go three to five years for somebody. I would be pretty surprised if they were to sign a free agent starter to a multi-year deal. I think they’re probably talking much more in kind of the one year. Can they bounce back? Can is it is it a case where it’s a guy where it’s a one year at a high dollar and if it works out then great and then you look at an extension um or is it more like a one year this is a guy they’re going to trade at the deadline you know the Phil Maton of starting pitchers that to me seems much more likely to kind of be where they would be shopping. Uh, two names I want to bring up real quick. Just your thoughts. Dustin May and Walker Beller. Guys that, you know, got moved, things didn’t work out, they go somewhere else, things got a little bit better, especially for Beller who ended up with Philly. Uh, would either of those names be somebody you think the Cardinals might be interested in? Um, may maybe. Again, that’s going to be one where they’re going to have to look at the medical uh and just see, you know, do they think that he has enough in there that with another offseason, another bit of rest that it that it looks, you know, it looks right. Um Beller makes less sense to me both because it’s not clear to like if you if Walker Beller is signing with the Cardinals, it’s because the money was better here than it was anywhere else. And if that is the case, then it seems unlikely that they would want to spend that amount of money, right? Uh, and he also like he had better results in Philly for sure, but he he just kind of looked cooked the whole season. Like just looked like maybe he was done. And maybe he’s not. Maybe he goes somewhere uh that’s able to turn him into, you know, the lesser, you know, or a a less high octane version of himself, kind of help him mature as a pitcher in that way. Maybe. So, I don’t really see that as a fit in St. Louis. Okay. Uh, the bullpen is another area that’s going to require some some tweaking, if you will. It’s not like they need to be rebuilt or anything. So, when we come back, we’re going to talk to Jeff about uh the bullpen and his most recent article on some young arms that could make a difference for the team in 2026. This is Locked on Cardinals. The NBA is back and there’s no better place to get in on the action than FanDuel, the official sports betting partner of the NBA. Even if you miss the start of the game, which happens from time to time, you got to go pick up dinner for the family. wife’s got that honeydew list that’s uh always getting bigger and uh longer as the you know fall season goes on. You miss the start. It’s okay. It’s all right. You can ride the hot hand of whoever’s doing really really well in that game. FanDuel has live bets on everything from who’s going to score next to fourth quarter comebacks. You can even combine your live bets into a same game parlay for a shot at a bigger payout. It keeps every game just more exciting, especially when your team is making that late push. Right now, FanDuel is giving new customers $300 in bonus bets when your first $5 bet wins. So, do the smart thing. Head to fanduel.com to sign up and play your game with FanDuel, the official sports betting partner of the NBA. Thank you again for making lockdown Cardinal your first listen every day. If you enjoy daily Cardinals content, be sure to follow the podcast on X at l_cardinals. Also available on YouTube, Tik Tok, and Instagram at Lockdown Cardinals. joined by Jeff Jones who covers the Cardinals for the Belleville News Democrat. Jeff, uh, in an article uh, you recently wrote just the other day. You put it out uh, if you guys haven’t read it yet. I got the link in the description for you and in the show notes, so be sure to check it out for yourself. But you talk about some of the younger pitching prospects that the the Cardinals have who uh, you know, some people may not know these names. you know, it’s kind of a deeper dive that you went in there cuz uh some of the bigger names that people may have heard of, some of them are injured anyway, so they can’t help us much in 2026. But some who are some of those names that you mentioned and what kind of role do you see them possibly having for the team this upcoming season? Yeah, so the three guys that I wrote about uh were Luis Castellum, uh Austin Love, and Odin Moscada. Um you know, none of these are super particularly deep. I think I think Gastel in particular has gotten a lot of attention here over the last couple of years on prospect lists. Um the reason I point them out and and this is a thing that you know when you sort of look at the through line of the guys the Cardinals have sort of identified as as useful pieces of their bullpen, right? Because I think that one thing that they have really sincerely done well over the last couple of years is identify uh some of those internal options that they already had and and turn those guys into productive relievers. And you know, we hear them talk about it in the context of like what is your superpower, right? Like what is the thing that they can do uh that that really makes them stand out and if there are guys that have say like one of those characteristics, then they’ve looked into them becoming really productive relievers. And so, you know, in Gastelum’s case, this is a guy who has kind of like a devastating change up, you know, ranked among one of the better ones in the minor leagues by people who evaluate these sorts of things. Uh and that has kind of been his tool that creates a lot of swing and miss for him. That’s obviously a little bit unusual to be a righty reliever who leans so heavily on the change up, but you know, there are examples of this. Tommy Canley, for example, a guy who’s had a long and productive big league career just throwing change ups all the time. Um, Gastel is a little more a little more even in the mix for now. We’ll see as he develops and kind of moves up the organization what that looks like. I would expect him to be at big league spring training and, you know, and we’ll see how many looks he gets. You know, the thing to remember about spring training is getting invited is great. Um, but you also have to get an opportunity. you know, Matt Fonson, who’s a guy I wrote about as a comparable here, was on the 49 roster last year, right? So, he’s at big league spring and really didn’t get that many looks in in game action, especially early, but the reports kept coming back good from the back field and and you know, there were there were guys who were identifying him as someone to be worth watching and he got that bump up. Uh, you know, Austin Love is a guy who was an early draft pick, I believe, a third round draft pick in 2021 or 22, I’d have to wait the same, you know, in one of those two years. He was an older guy, a little more advanced. uh in in his development and had come up as a starter and blew out, right? Got hurt, missed the better part of two seasons uh and just didn’t have an opportunity to really show what he had. Comes back last year. He’s healthy. He goes from the rotation to the bullpen and he just rips sliders all year and generates a bunch of strikes outri strikeouts, right? And carves guys up and and is able to sort of lean into that really powerful pitch that that let him kind of move up. And again, this is a guy who pitched in college. He’s a little older. He’s got a little more going on in the kind of maturity standpoint. If he can get guys out, they’re going to let him get guys out and he’s going to be an opport, you know, a guy who you might see climb up. Uh Moscada is a guy who I think we were a little surprised we didn’t see at the end of the season in the big leagues last year. You know, we saw Nick Ray kind of get that opportunity and pitched twice in Seattle and and look fine as good as you can look in two innings or whatever it was. Uh but Moscada, you know, doesn’t have the overwhelming stuff. His thing is that he’s a big mix guy, can throw four or five pitches to to, you know, to hitters from either side of the plate. Um, the other thing that stands out about Moscada is that it’s helpful to have people hire in the organization who have been following you and and who sort of have a belief in what you can do, right? Moscada is a guy the Cardinals got in the minor league portion of the rule five draft. They took him from the Yankees, but he spent only one year with the Yankees. Before that, it was like seven seasons going back to when he was 18 in the Boston system. So he was there with Heim Bloom and when the Cardinals snatched him up, it was because Bloom had had a voice into those conversations and knew some of the prospects in the Boston system with which he was familiar and and who he thought had a lot of upside. Which is all to say that if the boss is already looking at Musk or has historically looked at him as a guy who has interesting tools, then that probably puts him in a pretty good position, especially as a lefty, uh, to be a guy who gets a chance to contribute to the big league bullpen. Yeah. And let’s be honest, we could use another left-hander in the pen. uh you know, John King, Jojo Romero. Romero’s been mentioned as possible trade option as well at some point. So, uh you know, having another left-hander would uh would be kind of nice. Uh Bulpin Arms, uh there there’s quite a few of them that are going to be on the the free agent market. Uh Jim Bowden from the Athletic had the Cardinals linked to three guys. Want to get your opinion on this. Uh you had Brad Keller from the Cubs, Luke Weaver from the Yankees, Cal Finnegan from Detroit. Do you see any other because they had that success with the with the Phil Meton signing this past year. here was a guy that, you know, was looking for a good fit, found it, and ended up turning that into what what seems like is going to be a multi-year deal for him at some point. Uh, do you see any of those three guys being a nice fit for the Cardinals? And if they landed one of them, who do you think would be the more likely guy of those three to uh be a part of the Cardinals bullpen next year? So, I will say going outside of those three, I do think like Phil Maton himself uh is a real candidate to return to this team this off season. I don’t know that I think where Phil’s at in his career kind of with his age and his career path, a multi-year deal would be great for him. Um, I don’t know that it’s necessarily in the offing. And so, if it’s going to be a series of one-year deals, I know the Cardinals would be very interested in in bringing him back. They, you know, they’ve talked about both him and Andrew Kitridge as guys where they feel like they really benefit, and I I I’d have to look up the exact phrasing, but Heiml Bloom does something to the effect of we benefited from having an old guy down there, right, in in the bullpen to kind of help these guys come along. Uh, so I think they would definitely look at a guy like that. You know, the thing that that stands out about the three guys that you named, you know, Weaver obviously has a little bit of history here, but in terms of him and Keller and Finnegan is those are three guys that to me would be looking at situations where is there a team they can sign with on say a one-year deal as a closer, right? where they can rack up some saves and either go into free agency, get themselves a better deal or be more appealing at the deadline or, you know, can they get a little money out because they’re a guy who can pitch the ninth. And that’s really interesting when you look at what the Cardinals are likely to to run back in the bullpen after the winter, right? You know, you mentioned the possibility that Romero could be traded. He’s got one more year of control. He’s been kind of elite as a left side reliever, you know, sneaky sneaky elite, one of the like six or seven best lefty relievers in all of baseball uh for the last three years. And and so if that’s the case, is this a team that benefits most from hanging on to him or from trading him? You know, you could make the argument certainly that the trade is the way to go there. Uh and if that’s the case, then who is pitching the ninth for this team? You would probably say that it’s Riley O’Brien, who, you know, was really great for the half of the year that he pitched, but does not have an awesome injury history, is older than you think he is, right? O’Brien is going to be 31 uh next season, and you know, we’ll see. Matt Swanson certainly could be a candidate for that. We’ll see what happens with Lehey. Does Swanson become a guy who slides into kind of that Lehey spot where he is pitching against righties and lefties and he’s getting five, six outs at a time? Maybe. And you know, they really they really I think benefited from having that option, you know, from having Lehey be that guy for all of last year, which is a long way around to saying there is a possibility that that this is a place where you could sign a veteran reliever with the possibility that he would compete to pitch the ninth, right? like the Cardinals have closing options in house and it would not shock me in the slightest if if that’s sort of what they went into the season with. But a guy like Kyle Finnegan who has a history of of racking up saves on some bad snaps on some badnats teams, that is a guy who to me makes a lot of sense because if I’m representing him, what I’m looking for is a situation where he can earn some of those looks and then get himself a little more down the line. And to me, the Cardinals fit as a team like that. Yeah. other closers that people have asked about. Obviously, people are intrigued whether or not they would kick the tires on bringing Ryan Hley back after things didn’t quite work out so well for him with New York. Maybe he comes back to St. Louis where things were more comfortable or even St. Louis native Devin Williams who also had a tough time when he was with the Yankees. I would think that the market for Deon Williams, there’s still going to be some teams that are are quite interested in him and are like, “Well, this guy was pretty elite recently, but so was Ryan Hley.” Uh, do you think the Cardinals would have any interest in either of those guys? So, I know that that Ryan Helley would have interest in the Cardinals, right? I guess is the way to phrase that. I don’t That market is going to be fascinating to me uh because I think that very clearly there are teams that he would help and and very clearly teams where he would be kind of a sizable upgrade for them. it it’s it’s tricky to find a spot because to me, you know, the thing with Helley watching him pitch for the Mets that was immediately apparent is that the Mets just sort of disregarded the things that made him successful for a couple of years here, right? Like he pitched on a very strict, you know, Lord knows we heard about a lot he can only pitch so often and he only pitches to ninth and it’s never one plus. Yeah. But that all worked, right? Like he got guys out when he was doing that. And the other thing is that he pitched backward for the better part of two seasons. Like he could throw the slider much more comfortably for strikes than he could the fast ball. Uh and he would throw the fast ball to chase locations off of the breaking ball in the zone. And and so by trying to reverse that the way the Mets did, all of the sudden he’s grooving fast balls that are getting crushed or he’s walking the world. and they just they did not deploy him in a way that made like the way that they used him made me wonder who they thought they were trading for. Uh it really like it really didn’t make sense the way that he was used there. So you know sure maybe and I you know I I if he doesn’t have a better market somewhere where he can get more uh than the Cardinals are offering him that would surprise me a little bit. Devin Williams I think is in a similar boat to Finnegan in in terms of maybe he sees this as an opportunity as a place where he could get a bunch of saves. I do think there are probably going to be teams out there who maybe view him uh you know as a little more of a a little more of a sure thing. I wonder about the Cubs for instance, right? Having known that he had a lot of success in the NL Central uh and as good as Palencia was not really having like a a stable closer uh there, you know, that that’s a team that would wonder about for Williams. So again, I I don’t know that I don’t think that either is really a fit. Maybe Williams fits a little better than Helley just in terms of where they’re at in their careers and kind of what the market’s going to look like. All right, we’re going to switch up gears and talk about the offense, uh the impact of this large newar injury, Brendan Donovan, trade rumors. We’re going to get to all of this with Jeff Jones coming up next here on Lockton Cardinals. Today’s episode being brought to you by Prize Picks. You and I, we make decisions every single day. But on Prize Picks, being right can actually get you paid, which is what you want, more money. Don’t miss any of the excitement during the sports season. 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Jeff, uh Lars Nupar, double heel surgery. Sounds awful, sounds painful. Not sure if he’s going to be ready for opening day. Uh do the Cardinals look elsewhere for a bat or do you think once again we just have this inhouse band-aid fix because N’s not expected to be out, you know, a long time past opening day as of right now? Yeah. So, I do think obviously the surgery is significant, right? opening day from his surgery date is right about 6 months. Uh the fact that right now what they’re saying is they’re not the fact that they’re they’re not saying they’re not ruling out opening day as opposed to well, you know, the way that they’re phrasing it does not suggest to me that they’re very confident that opening day is going to be when he’s going to be there. I think certainly you would expect him uh to not compete in the World Baseball Classic again this year given kind of the timeline of all of that. Um I think that they’re going to look outside the organization regardless. I think they’re going to look to get more right-handed, especially in the outfield. I think they’re going to have to have kind of, you know, a real long consideration about what they want to do with this collection of left-handed bats. You know, I think, ironically, I could imagine them going from like an overload of left-handed bats in the infield and kind of the corner outfield to very few of those guys still being left uh when kind of the dust settles this winter. So, you know, the new bar situation is going to be a tough one because this is not a surgery that has a whole lot of precedent behind it. As far as I can tell, the only known big leaguer to have this surgery, you know, the the the bilateral shaved down of the heels was Yois, who never really came back from it. Now, that was part of he stepped in a hole like wrangling a bore on his ranch or something and shattered his ankle, right? Uh so, you know, there were some there were some extenduating circumstances and then then a pandemic happened and yada yada. Uh, but there really aren’t a lot of guys you can point to that are kind of examples of of a successful rehab of this. So, you know, the question about whether they can trade nude bar this winter is going to depend on how comfortable another team is going to be with those medicals and what you know what the real timeline looks like. You know, if they’re telling us opening day isn’t ruled out, does that mean their actual expectation is April 15th? Is it May 1st? Is it Memorial Day? I don’t I don’t know. I don’t think any of us really have uh a good handle on that. I know that he is currently, you know, he is in boots on both feet uh and doing some upper body stuff and there’s physical therapy involved and we’ll see. So, you know, whether he’s tradable this winter, it certainly is harder. Uh it’s more complicated with that going on. But I I I think that either way, I would expect them to look for some sort of external option for a right-handed bat, especially if uh they are committed to Ivon Herrera catching again next season. If Herrera is not part of the outfield picture, uh which for the moment seems to be the case, then they really will have to go get a right-handed bat to play the outfield. Yeah. And I kind of was going through some of the uh upcoming possible free agents for because I was looking for the same thing. I’m like, “All right, we need need a righty. What What do we got out here?” Man, is the It’s Slim Pickings out there on the free agent market for that stuff. Uh, are there any names that come off the top of your head that you think of that might be something the Cardinal will be interested in? No, I mean, I think you would expect them to be sort of in the same neighborhood with the free agent hitters as they would with the free agent pitchers. You know, again, the other thing that I would say is I think there is some chance that you could look to swap a left-handed bat for a right-handed bat, right? find somebody who has the same problem going the other direction and maybe that problem kind of resolves itself. But, you know, there aren’t a lot of really obvious internal candidates to be a part of that. So, there there’s going to have to be a search for somebody outside. Yeah. Uh Brennan Donovan, uh also had some surgery this off season. His name’s been floating around in trade rumors. Numerous teams obviously interested in him for all the reasons why we love him in St. Louis. uh what do you think it would take to land someone like Donnie from the Cardinals and how interested are they actually in moving him or is it just kind of like well of course our phone lines are always open but you know we’re not actively shopping it yeah I mean I I think that there is a reasonable chance that they have that I a better than a reasonable chance that they are serious about looking for trades for him this winter I think there are a couple things that point to that um you can start with the contractual stuff right there are two more years of team control here. They went to an arbitration hearing with him last year. Uh a thing that I will continue to point out and granted it changes because there are different folks in charge now. Uh but the Cardinals have never like never in the history of the arbitration system gone to a hearing with a player and then retained that player into their free agency. Right? That has never happened. Uh Michael Waka went to a hearing and they took him to free agency. That’s the closest they’ve come. Everybody besides Waka has an out of the organization before their free agency after going to a hearing, right? Like even Ryan Helsley got traded the summer before he’s right. So these are like historically once they go to a hearing those guys are on their way out of town relatively quickly. Uh that’s relevant to Nbar as well. So you know just something to keep in mind in in terms of what the contractual stuff looks like. The other thing too is that JJ Weatherhold is going to need a position in St. Louis. If he’s not going to need it on March 26th, he’s going to need it by April 15th, probably, right? Whatever the date is going to end up being. So, you know, can Weatherhold play third? He can. Uh I don’t know that the Cardinals view that as his best fit long term. There is, of course, still an incumbent third baseman technically on the board as well, which is part of that conversation as well. Uh I think pretty clearly the place where Weatherhold fits best for them is second base, at least for now. Uh, and if that is the case, then you know, I think it’s pretty clear that Donovan is the guy who gets dislodged there. Like the Cardinals have said, Alamar Mole has said that they feel like Donovan benefited a lot from not bouncing around nearly as much this year. He has a couple of times referred to him as their second baseman, right? Not a guy who he could put somewhere else. And so, I think that clearly is where the Cardinals view and I think that’s correct. I think clearly his best fit on the field is as a second baseman. that being the case, then then he is the guy who probably has to get moved uh to make room for Weather Holt, especially given, you know, where the value is going to be at because he is going to be a guy who carries a lot of value because he’s a diverse player. You can kind of move around the lineup. He’s a guy who can play whatever five positions, six maybe, you know, with relative competency. It’s not terribly far off from when they traded Tommy Edmund other than the injury that Donovan is coming off of. uh is not going to have maybe quite the same residual concern that Edmond’s injury did. I believe also that that Donovan has one more year of control now than Edund had uh at the time when he was traded. And you know, Donovan has a little bit of a better pedigree. He has, you know, he’s got a gold glove. He’s an all-star this year. He’s shown a little more pop. I I think these are all reasons that that he’s a guy who you would see, you know, a lot a lot that a team could get out of from him. And so that makes him to me a pretty appealing candidate for the Cardinals as as a trade piece. Yeah, understandable. Um, you brought up the catching position. Let’s hit that real quick. Um, you know, Ivon Herrera recovering from surgery as well. There’s another one. Uh, but he’s going to get another shot at playing behind the dish and see if uh he can pull this off. You’ve also got Pedro Pah. You’ve got Jimmy Crooks who we saw at the end of last year. Uh Bernal, Leonardo Bernal is a guy that is, if I’m correct, has to be placed on the 40man this year as well. So there you go. You got uh four catchers that are going to be on the 40man at the same time. What do you think is the likelihood of one of them getting moved just to to clear out some space? I think it’s possible. Um I I think that as as you go down the list it becomes more difficult to identify who that guy would be because of the way like you would assume that it would not be Pahes uh primarily because he he is for lack of better like he’s the most stable catcher that you have on the roster, right? Clearly the guy that they would trust to just get back there and catch the pitchers every day and that’s going to be the case sort of regardless of how the other pieces shake out. Now, you could make an argument that maybe Krooks supplants some of that. You could certainly make an argument that like a Crooks Herrera combo is is a really lethal offensive combination and that Krooks, even if he even if Krooks is the more defensively minded of that pairing, uh that that is good enough. That’s entire that that’s that’s fair. I don’t know that Pahz has like a whole lot of value around the league, right? I I think about him in terms of the way you would think about a guy like Martine Maldonado for instance who was sort of like and and Pah is not an elite defensive catcher. He’s a good defensive catcher uh and a really good teammate and a guy who is really good at working with pitchers in ways that don’t necessarily always quantify that well. But that also makes it harder to trade because if things don’t quantify that well hard to make an argument for it, right? Um, I say all that to say that I would expect that on opening day, the catching tandem is probably just Herrera and Pahes. That’s like the simplest way to look at it and that’s going to be the easiest way to go about it. We’ll see if Krooks does enough to make the to make a change there. And we’ll see how playing time kind of dulls out in Memphis because I don’t think the Cardinals necessarily want to go a full season uh with Krooks and Bernal splitting catching time at Memphis. That maybe is not the most productive for either of them. I also would not be like the Cardinals technically still have team control over Joel Poso as well. I would expect him to be outrighted here in the coming weeks and it would not shock me if he were to resign a minor league deal. Uh that lines him up to be kind of the veteran guy at Memphis, too. Uh and you know, we’ve seen Memphis carry three catchers. That’s entirely possible. But I I don’t know that I don’t know that the best situation uh necessarily is one that involves Bernal and Crooks both at Memphis for a full year next year. But unless Krooks is in the big leagues, that’s that might be hard to avoid. Yeah. Speaking of catchers, real quick. Yachty Molina, is he on this staff next year. Yes or no? Uh, he is not. I I I have not been expecting that to be the case. I know that there were like cryptic Instagram posts that I that I didn’t really ever take that seriously. Um, Katie Woo had a story this morning in which she reported that Yadier Molina is not expected to be part of the co of of the coaching staff. That jives with everything that I have heard as well. I, you know, does he show up in St. Louis at some point in a full-time capacity? I suppose that is possible. I think that that it it and it’s going to be interesting to see how much foothold he has and the organization has with him moving forward. Not because there are any sort of hurt feelings there, but just because there’s a different boss in charge now. And you know, things have changed. Dan, over the last couple of years, he has had uh kind of a mostly no-show job that turned into a full-time no-show job, which that look, there were family situations. I get it. But all the same, that happened. I think there are people in the organization who did not super appreciate kind of the leave of absence bit that happened at the end of the 2022 season. I think that that uh left a couple of hurt feelings. And I I I think that, you know, they they just haven’t been able to figure out what a full-time role looks like that he is comfortable with. Maybe that changes at the end of this year after his son graduates from high school in the spring and gets drafted or doesn’t and and kind of figures out what his future looks like, but no, I I I would expect him to be a much more sporadic presence kind of the way he’s been over the last couple of seasons. Alrighty, so there you go. Make sure you guys are following Jeff at bnd.com. Belleville News Democrat. Appreciate you stopping by and hanging out with us as always, Jeff answering all the questions. You are the best. And thank you guys for making lock on Carlos your first listen every day. If you haven’t already, give us a follow on X at L_Cardinal and at JD Sports Radio, Tik Tok, and Instagram at Lockdown Cardinals. Like, subscribe on YouTube and uh help the channel uh and your love for the Cardinals grow. Jeff, as always, thank you, brother. I appreciate you. Anytime. All right. Thank you guys for uh being a part of Lockdown Cardinal. We’ll see you next time. See you, bud.

The St. Louis Cardinals face a transformative offseason with major roster decisions looming. Will Nolan Arenado finally be traded after another disappointing season?

Jeff Jones from the Belleville News Democrat breaks down the Cardinals’ winter strategy, analyzing likely trades involving Arenado and Sonny Gray, the team’s approach to rebuilding the starting rotation through free agency and trades, and emerging bullpen prospects like Luis Gastelum and Austin Love.
https://www.bnd.com/sports/mlb/st-louis-cardinals/article312667672.html

The conversation covers Lars Nootbaar’s concerning double heel surgery and its impact on outfield planning, Brendan Donovan’s surprising trade value as JJ Wetherholt pushes for playing time, the crowded catching situation with four potential options, and Yadier Molina’s uncertain coaching future. Jones provides insider perspective on potential free agent targets including Kyle Freeland, Kyle Finnegan, and whether Ryan Helsley could return to St. Louis after his disappointing Mets tenure.

Tune in for expert analysis on how the Cardinals plan to navigate this critical offseason and position themselves for 2026.

0:00 Intro

2:16 Nolan Arenado and Sonny Gray trade likelihood

5:01 Starting rotation needs and external additions

7:33 Dustin May and Walker Buehler interest

8:40 Bullpen tweaks and young pitching prospects

10:44 Gastelum, Love, and Mosqueda’s potential roles

15:32 Free agent relievers and closer options

18:23 Ryan Helsley and Devin Williams possibilities

21:03 Lars Nootbaar injury impact on offense

26:08 Right-handed bat needs in free agency

27:22 Brendan Donovan trade rumors and value

31:00 Catching depth and roster decisions

33:14 Yadier Molina’s coaching staff status

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