3 Cardinals stealing money from the team thanks to bad contracts

2. The Cardinals hope Steven Matz bounces back in 2023

Steven Matz was last offseason’s big signing for the Cardinals, and it couldn’t have gone much worse. The southpaw had a 5.25 ERA in 15 appearances. He missed substantial time with injuries and didn’t look good when he was healthy.

Matz signed a four-year $44 million dollar deal with the Cardinals coming off of a good year in Toronto. Prior to that good season, Matz had a 4.83 ERA in 84 appearances (79 starts) from 2017-2020 with the Mets.

Matz has shown the capability of being a solid fourth or fifth starter, and I do expect him to be better, but injuries and inconsistency have tormented him throughout his eight-year career. $10.5 million isn’t an absurd price to pay for a back-end starter, but he has to prove his worth.

Right now, Matz is penciled in as the fifth starter but they have an arm like Dakota Hudson slated for the bullpen. If Matz gets hurt again or struggles to begin his season, it wouldn’t be too shocking to see him moved to the ‘pen like he was late last season albeit for a different reason) with Hudson entering the rotation. If this does happen, and Matz has another bad year, the contract will start to look really bad.