All the wrong moves: What Cardinals rotation could have looked like if front office didn’t blow it

2. Zac Gallen

Before his first season in MLB was complete, Gallen had been used twice as a piece for teams to improve. At the time, those teams didn’t realize they should have given him a shot.

Gallen was a piece in the puzzle the Cardinals used to get Marcell Ozuna. While that deal was exciting then, it didn’t work out well for the Cardinals. The Marlins, however, did flip Gallen a couple of seasons later to land Jazz Chisholm Jr. from the Diamondbacks.

This season Gallen is 6-2 in 10 games started for the Diamondbacks. He’s pitched 61 innings over the season and has a 2.95 ERA and 70 strikeouts. Gallen primarily uses a fastball that averages 93.6 mph. He has developed his curveball in his putaway pitch. Gallen’s curveball averages 82.8 mph with 51.2 inches of vertical drop. That’s just impressive.

He’s earning $5.6 million this season and will be arbitration-eligible until he becomes a free agent in 2026.

If the Cardinals had not dealt Gallen, he quickly could have become a top-of-the-rotation arm for the club. Considering the start of this season for the Cardinals, having Gallen as an option from the rotation would have been great.

It appears the Cardinals gave up too soon on Gallen. Then again, so did the Marlins.