Cardinals 'wish list' includes an ace they never should've dealt in the first place

The St. Louis Cardinals put together a productive trade deadline, primarily with their acquisition of Erick Fedde and former Card Tommy Pham in a three-team swap with the Chicago White Sox and Los Angeles Dodgers.

It has been a rough couple weeks for St. Louis, but the Pham addition has already paid massive dividends. The vibes are strong and he's raking since his return (.381/.409/.714 with seven RBI in 21 ABs). A small sample size always merits a grain of salt, but Pham — who spent his first 4.5 seasons in St. Louis — looks right at home, providing the Cards with gravely needed right-handed power.

This isn't the first time John Mozeliak has returned a familiar face to its St. Louis roots. Think Albert Pujols, or Lance Lynn, or Matt Carpenter. As Ben Frederickson of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch outlines, carefully calculated reunions are a strategy Mozeliak deploys with relative frequency. And, more often than not, it works out in St. Louis' favor.

Mozeliak has earned his share of critics, but the positives of sentimentality are too often overlooked by front offices. There is more to building a successful baseball team than numbers or matchups. Locker room continuity and chemistry matters. Oftentimes, these reunions have strengthened the clubhouse environment.

Now, there's another potential Cardinals reunion on Frederickson's wish list. And yeah, it makes a ton of sense.

"I like the trend. I hope it continues. Specifically, I’d love to see Sandy Alcantara come back to the Cardinals... His trade price would be high, of course, but not as high as before he missed this entire season due to an elbow operation. Alcantara is already back to throwing bullpens, but the team he is working to rejoin suddenly doesn’t seem very interested in paying good players to perform. Someone should save him. It should be the Cardinals."

Cardinals offseason reunion with Sandy Alcantara makes all the sense in the world

St. Louis dealt Sandy Alcantara to the Miami Marlins (along with future Cy Young candidate Zac Gallen) for Marcell Ozuna in 2017. Big yikes. That is a mistake that has lingered in the minds of Cards fans. Now 28, Alcantara is one of the league's best pitchers at full strength. He won the NL Cy Young award in 2022, posting a 2.28 ERA and 0.98 WHIP through a league-leading 228.2 innings.

Unfortunately, Alcantara has missed the entire 2024 campaign after undergoing Tommy John surgery. That leaves his future in doubt to some extent, but pitchers are typically able to bounce back from the once-catastrophic procedure nowadays. Alcantara has immense talent and a pitching repertoire that should hold up over time. His success is not predicated on velocity. He's finessing batters, not overpowering them.

He's under contract through 2027 with a club option for $21 million in his final season. That is an appropriate price for top-line pitching. Some might call it a discount. The price for starting pitching has ballooned in recent years, with teams regularly selling the farm (literally) to acquire aces.

Alcantara presents Mozeliak and the Cardinals with a unique opportunity. A chance to essentially buy low and take advantage of the perceived uncertainty around a Cy Young winner. Alcantara has the stuff to emerge as the best pitcher in the National League in a given season. He would provide St. Louis with the controllable, high-level pitching the staff currently lacks behind Sonny Gray.

With several veteran pitchers slated to come off the books at season's end, Mozeliak should be probing the market for another high-caliber arm. The Marlins are in fire sale mode, willing to offload controllable assets for a cushy prospect haul. The Cards can throw a few prospects at Miami and completely reshape their starting rotation. It's a compelling idea, that much is certain.

Other teams would be in the running for Alcantara, of course. St. Louis would need to win the bidding war. Thankfully, Mozeliak has shown himself capable of engineering bold and unexpected additions. His track record is mixed, but adding Alcantara would be an unambiguously positive move. Let's call it righting a wrong.

For more news and rumors, check out MLB Insider Robert Murray’s work on The Baseball Insiders podcast, and join the discord to get the inside scoop between now and the MLB offseason.