St. Louis Cardinals Offseason To-Do List with Lance Lynn

St. Louis Cardinals Offseason To-Do List with Lance Lynn

[Music] We welcome you to the offseason to-do list with a Cardinals great, of course, Lance Lynn. Been on the show many, many, many time. I’m He’s a great, don’t worry. Don’t give me that face. AJ, what I think of Lance Lynn, I think of the St. Louis Cardinals. Lance, good to be with you as always. Of course, you can catch him on Cardinal territory with Matt Holiday and Kyle Gibson, Jim Hayes. Um, welcome to the show again, my friend. Uh, Ryan Helley says he expects St. Louis to reach out to him. Should he be expecting that? Lance, I don’t often hear guys say out loud that they expect a certain team to reach out. Did that surprise you? Uh, no. I think you’re looking at a guy who who played, you know, his whole career up until getting traded there. Uh, he’s well wellliked there. Didn’t do uh, you know, what uh, you know, the Mets hope when they traded for him. So, it could be a nice little fit for him to come back and and reestablish himself as the elite closer he was two years ago. So, I see the fit. Um, especially because if you’re going to be have a young team, when you have a chance to win games, you want to have somebody in the back end that can uh make sure you you win those games and it can really help the organization and those guys learn how to become winners. Um, so I can see the fit there and I like it too because Hell’s Hell was a a Cardinal um, you know, drafty and through the minor leagues and all that. So, he’s coming back home. All right. What are the top three things, Lance Lynn, that the Cardinals need to do this off season? Well, it sounds like it’s pretty simple. It’s trade Sunny Gray, trade Contreras, and trade uh who am I missing? Oh, Aeronaut being talked about who’s been talked about being traded all year. So, those are your three to-dos because it doesn’t sound like you’re going to have any money to spend unless you get their money off the books. Um, everything that you’re reading and hearing. So, uh, those three got to go. And then you see where you can, uh, go around the margins to fill in. You’re going to need a couple, uh, you need couple starters. Uh, you’re going to need two, you’re going to need two right-handed bats because you’re getting rid of two right-handed bats because you’re very left-handed heavy. Um, so there’s a lot of, uh, things to do after you get rid of those three, but you can’t do anything to get rid of those three in the money. Okay. Well, those are the three things. But how many of those don’t all three of them have no trade clauses? So, you’re going to like How you going to get rid of them? Sounds like all three of them are okay with okay with lifting that no trade if you’re not going to put anything around him. Yeah, but I mean Aronado already had the shot. He didn’t do it. They were like, “We’re sending you to Houston. I’m now I’m not doing that.” Sunny Gray, you know, he’s kind of h they were like, “Hey, Sunny, we can move you at the deadline.” He gave the Wilson Contras basically said, “I don’t want to get traded.” So, how do you move like I get it, but how do you move these guys? Yeah. Yeah, I mean all three of them are are looking for a situation to win. Um I think Sunny is more open to it than he now than he is in the past because of the kind of direction he’s seen everything going. Um and but you know Sunny’s very particular on probably where he wants to go. Um in my guess and I think so is uh Nolan. So they’re going to have uh you know you only have the few suitors that they might have. Um and then it’s just trying to find a deal that you know everybody’s okay with. Um, Contras is one of those guys that with what he was able to do at first base last year was a really a pleasant surprise. I’m not surprised he’s able to do it because this dude loves to play baseball and he loves to compete. So, him being a good first baseman or being, you know, very serviceable over there is not a surprise. But, I think he opened up some eyes that he’s able to do some things be besides just catch. Um, so, you know, obviously if they find the right fit, those guys will accept it. But, like you said, it’s finding the right fit and and going from there. But all of them have a very short list of the places they’ll wave their no trade, I’m pretty sure. All right. So, Sunny, they tried to trade him and had a trade and Sunny said no last year. What has changed for him? Is it is it the fact that, you know, he had a year to say, “Okay, I was the leader of this team. I, you know, you know, Wayne Wright had left. It was chance for him to like be that guy that he kind of signed on to be.” Or is it something that he knows that all right well we’re not going to win here or they’re not going to try to win whether they are or aren’t isn’t really up to him and that that’s what’s changed. Is it the fact that he’s now closer to the end of his contract? I think it’s a little bit of everything. But I think Sunny’s such a creature of habit that trading him in the middle of years just sounds miserable to him. There’s really no other way to say it. Sunny when Sunny gets comfortable and gets in his rhythm and he’s doing his thing, he doesn’t like for that to be uh upended. Um, so now, hey, next year I’m I’m going to be more open to it because, hey, I’m at the end of my contract. Hey, you know, it’s a full season with a new team. I can go in there and I can really, you know, cement myself into the in the culture of the team and what they got going on and with a chance to win. Um, when you get traded in the middle of the season, we all know that you uproot everything. You’re, you know, your kids are in school, they have this and that. Um, Sunny’s, you know, loves his family. He doesn’t didn’t want to uproot him in the middle of the season. Um, so I think, you know, obviously if he gets a chance to do it in the offseason and go to a place he wants to be, uh, that fits the personality he wants, lifestyle he wants, I think he’s definitely open to it. Lance, what do you see happening with, uh, with TK Scubble, do you think that this is a and I’m not trying to ask you to speak for the Illich family or or the Tigers or anything like that. Does it make sense to to sign him to a long-term deal and build around him or do you think you’ll see him in a different uniform? So, I think it makes sense to do that. The question is, what are you willing to go to moneywise to make it happen? But you cannot let him get to free agency because I don’t think they’re going to go to the money that other people will to make sure he’s on their team. So, if you know that you’re never going to get there in free agency, then you have to do what’s right for your your team and fan base and try to get as much as you can for him. Now, I don’t know what that package will be. Um, I’m sure it would be pretty darn good and then you’re able to use um you know, the the prospects you get with um you know, free agency to really make your team a whole. Um, but if you lose him for nothing and then don’t match what and you don’t plan on matching what’s going to be given to him, then you got to think right now is the time to time to move on from him and get as much as you possibly can for him. Hey Lance, what is it about him bloom that every team he goes to, he has to make all these trades. He was with Boston, he gets the big job. Oh, you have to trade Mookie, right? And then he comes to St. Louis and you have to trade Aronado. You have to trace. You have to trade Gray before we’ll give you any money. Does Hein Bloom go into these owners and say, “Hey, I’m your guy, man. I’ll trade everybody and then we can start and try to win with no payroll.” Like, why does he keep getting stuck in these spots? It sounds like uh everybody tabs him as a guy to come in and clean up everybody’s mess, right? Uh I don’t know why he’s putting himself in tough situations. I mean, when you go to Boston and you get tab with Trading Mookie Batch right away, it puts you in a bad spot. Um I think this uh time around in St. Lewis, it’s in a it’s in a little different pattern for him where he’s um trying to use the the ability to, you know, go to the future. They’ve done a good job of of racking up prospects in the minor leagues right now. If they’re able to shed a little bit of money here and and use that to uh build around some of these guys, I think they’ve got a really good chance of being, you know, what uh you know, in the central, you can you can do some do some things in the central that you can’t in other divisions. So, if they’re able to, you know, shed a little bit of this money, add on to the roster in spots that they need to with, uh, you know, some platoon guys, some uh, older rotation guys or bounceback rotation guys, they could be something uh, in the central that could be, you know, not fun to deal with, especially if they’re young guys take over. Your your Mason Win’s got to keep keep doing his thing. Uh, you know, Weatherhole’s got to come up and be who they think he’s going to be. You need you need Victor Scott. You need Burley. those guys to be what you think they can be and then you’re adding guys around them that can help them become that where you don’t have to put too much pressure on them every day. Your to-do list is trading three guys that are owed a lot of money out of an organization 5 between the three of them, right? Yeah. That’s a lot of money that the Cardinals are going to eat because Sunny Gray has the most value there because no team’s going to be like, “Oh, Wilson Contrarus, that’s awesome. Didn’t he just win a World Series with the Cubs?” Like it’s a different Wilson Contrarus that that they’re getting. Like he might he probably won’t even catch. I couldn’t believe the Cardinals picked him up as a catcher, but like you’re eating a lot of money for a team that hasn’t want to spend hasn’t want to suspend money. So are these just dumps? Are these just salary dumps? It sounds like there’s going to be a little bit of of salary dump in this. It sounds like, hey, what arbitration guy that we know that we don’t want or we don’t see building around or or signing long term that we can we can kind of uh you know stick with them in a trade to see if we can get some more value for them or maybe even pay less money. So, it’s going to be interesting how they go about doing it. Um I’m from the for all of it. It’s like, hey, you only have those guys on the book. You don’t have a whole lot of money owed to anyone after guaranteed. Why don’t we use the little bit of money that we have to go around the margins right here and say, “Hey, let’s add a star. Let’s add a Helsley back uh this and that.” Next thing you know, you add $25 million to this payroll. And I think you’ve got a team that can can somewhat do some more damage in the central U now with those guys. So, if I were in charge, I’m saying, “Hey, let’s figure out how to build around these guys and see what we can do for one, two more years because I don’t have anything on the books after this. So, I’m not really killing myself for, you know, four, five, six years. Um, let’s use what we got and let’s instead of eating money, let’s let’s throw a little bit more at it and see what we can do with this

Lance Lynn joins Alanna Rizzo, AJ Pierzynski, and Erik Kratz to break down the St. Louis Cardinals offseason to-do list and the tough decisions ahead. The crew discusses whether Ryan Helsley is likely to return, why trading Nolan Arenado, Sonny Gray, and Willson Contreras may be the only path to reshaping the roster, and how the Cardinals can add pitching and right-handed bats despite tight payroll space. Lance also weighs in on Tarik Skubal’s future in Detroit and what makes sense for the Tigers as they evaluate a long-term extension vs. a blockbuster trade.

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