The St. Louis Cardinals were swept out of Philadelphia over the weekend, but their postseason hopes aren't dead yet. The Cardinals are 66-66, a cool .500 on the season, and 5.5 games behind sixth-place San Diego (71-60) in the NL Wild Card standings. With Jordan Walker, Rookie of the Year frontrunner J.J. Wetherholt, and other ascendant sluggers like Joshua Báez, St. Louis at least has the talent to muster a strong finish.
Then again, its easy to point out cracks in the foundation. The Cardinals are on a promising trajectory, but this season is for repairs. This is not the finished product. The rotation just is nowhere near postseason caliber, especially with Andre Pallante on the IL and Kyle Leahy approaching his innings limit. Plus, the actual depth of their lineup leaves much to be desired. Here are some Cardinals who probably won't survive the totality of Chaim Bloom's rebuild — or perhaps even until next season.
RHP Ryne Stanek and LHP Caleb Ferguson
Let's start with the obvious: Ryne Stanek and Caleb Ferguson are two veteran relievers on expiring contracts. Neither has performed especially well this season.
Stanek has big velocity but struggles with command, to the tune of a 4.39 ERA and 1.43 WHIP. Ferguson, whom St. Louis acquired at the deadline to aid their postseason push, simply has not delivered. The Cards really needed a solid lefty in the bullpen, but Ferguson has allowed six hits, seven walks and four earned runs in 5.1 innings (6.75 ERA) since the trade. He's broadly a pretty successful groundball pitcher who, in theory, ought to benefit from the Cardinals' stupendous infield defense. But he's probably signing elsewhere come the winter, at this rate.
Ferguson is a free agent outright, while St. Louis has a $6.5 million club option on Stanek. That is not so absurd a price — but then again, his current $3.5 million salary is third-highest on the Cardinals' books this season. Bloom runs a thrifty operation.
RHP Riley O'Brien
Riley O'Brien — after a long, winding road to MLB relevance — made his first All-Star appearance this season. He has 33 saves under his belt already, with a respectable 3.93 ERA and 1.22 WHIP, notching 53 strikeouts in 52.2 innings. That earned run number is inflated a bit, too, after O'Brien gave up six runs in the ninth inning in Sunday's loss to Philadelphia. Every reliever stumbles into a bad inning here and there.
That said, it has become something of a trend for O'Brien, which is getting more difficult to ignore. He began the season in the same conversations as Mason Miller, not allowing an earned run in his first 13 appearances. Since giving up his first earned run in April 24, however, O'Brien has a 5.26 ERA and 4.59 FIP. He benefits a ton (naturally) from the defense behind him as a hard-throwing sinkerballer, but O'Brien was very clearly outperforming his metrics early in the campaign — and it has caught up to him now. He was scoreless in August before that ill-fated Sunday in Philly, to his credit. But O'Brien has a 4.75 expected ERA and his command issues are never far from mind.
There's a strong argument for the Cardinals to trade O'Brien this winter, cashing in on the allure of his recent All-Star berth and four-year window of club control, while effectively hedging against future regression. It certainly seems like the Chaim Bloom manner of doing business.
RHP Andre Pallante
Andre Pallante only has two years left on his cheap, arbitration-rate contract after this season. The 27-year-old is not the most exciting pitcher by modern standards, but he leads the St. Louis rotation in fWAR (2.4) and has proven himself mostly durable and dependable over the past few years, his recent injury scare notwithstanding.
Pallante does not pile up strikeouts, but he limits hard contact and commands the strike zone effectively, able to work down and out to coax groundball contact — with an elite Cards defense behind him, which is helpful. Pitching depth is such a hot commodity nowadays, but St. Louis has multiple top prospects moving up through their farm system. Liam Doyle and Jurrangelo Cijntje, in particular, feel like potential impact pieces in 2027.
Teams probably won't sacrifice a ton for Pallante given the absence of front-end stuff, but he can absolutely net the Cardinals a few quality prospects from a team hoping to plug their fourth or fifth rotation spot with a bonafide workhorse, capable of pitching six-to-seven innings deep most nights.
C Iván Herrera
Iván Herrera made his first All-Star appearance this season, although his actual production — .242/.358/.379 splits (.737 OPS) — lags behind his output from the past couple years. Herrera's slug is down this season, most notably. Always such a prolific, hard line-drive hitter, Herrera has found himself making weaker contact. It's not exactly clear why.
He still has 14 home runs, he still works deep into counts and exhibits strong habits at the plate, and he's still immensely valuable as a 26-year-old, plus-hitting catcher under club control through 2029.
The only reason Herrera might not last as long as Joshua Báez, Jordan Walker and Alec Burleson — their other young, middle-order sluggers — is defense. The Cardinals basically have him on full-time DH duty already, as Herrera struggles to hold runners behind home plate. St. Louis already keeps two other catchers on the roster, a lefty and a righty, in Jimmy Crooks and Pedro Pagés. That creates scarcity at other positions.
Moreover, Rainiel Rodriguez, the Cardinals' 19-year-old top prospect, is already mashing in Double-A and could debut as soon as next season. He's a catcher who might need some DH reps; or he can move to first bumping Alec Burleson to DH. That's all a down-the-road problem to solve, but it starts with trading Herrera — no doubt for significant value, as there's ample need for quality right-handed bats on the open market.
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