Cardinals shut the door on Jack Flaherty for a very good reason

Jack Flaherty starts again his former team, the St. Louis Cardinals, on Tuesday. Flaherty was a former first-round pick in St. Louis, but as the Cardinals fell out of contention in 2023, they dealt the 28-year-old to the Baltimore Orioles for prospects.

Flaherty was a rental at the time, so St. Louis' front office reportedly "kept the door open" for a possible return this past winter. Yet, as many have learned before Flaherty, the likelihood of that return post-trade is always slim. The Cards never made a play for Flaherty in free agency despite signing three starting pitchers of their own.

When asked why he chose the Detroit Tigers, of all teams, to sign with this offseason rather than pushing for a St. Louis return, Flaherty spoke from the heart.

“Conversation. Effort. Honesty,” Flaherty said, per the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “They believed in me the most."

Jack Flaherty is excited to face his former Cardinals teammates

Rather than soaking in the any bad blood, Flaherty is excited to face his former Cardinals teammates on Tuesday. In fact, he has a little extra motivation.

“It’s going against family,” Flaherty said. “Any time you play against family, it goes back to playing high school (ball) when you played against kids you know. Same type of thing. Just a bigger stage. Played against some of my best friends in high school. You get up there, and it’s funny for a couple of seconds and then the second one of them gets a hit off you it’s like, ‘All right, (forget) this.’ Let’s go.”

Like most athletes, Flaherty will use just about anything as bulletin-board material. If the Cardinals showing limited interest in him on the open market serves a purpose on Tuesday, expect the right-handed pitcher to use that fact to his advantage.

Cardinals had a good reason not to sign Jack Flaherty

While we can rightly question some of the starting pitchers the Cardinals passed on this winter, Flaherty should not be one of them. St. Louis is very familiar with his work, and there's a reason they were open to trading him at the deadline in the first place.

Flaherty had a 6.75 ERA in nine appearances (seven starts) with the Orioles. So far with the Tigers this season, he has a 4.91 ERA in five starts. Detroit is payng him $14 million, albeit on a one-year deal.

Flaherty is not the same pitcher he once was, finishing fourth in NL Cy Young voting in 2019. Heck, in 2021, Flaherty had a 3.22 ERA in 15 starts. But that was a long time ago, and while Flaherty may find himself in Detroit, that surely would not have occurred if he returned where his downslide began in St. Louis.