Most overpaid players on the Cardinals roster for the 2024 season

2) Lance Lynn, SP

The St. Louis Cardinals made the head-scratching decision to bring Lance Lynn back for the 2024 season. Lynn began his career with the Cardinals and spent parts of six seasons there from 2011-2017. Since departing, he's been with five teams and developed a reputation of a true workhorse but things fell apart for this right-hander in the 2023 season.

Lynn made his usual 32 starts and threw 183.2 innings but he posted a 5.73 ERA splitting time with the Chicago White Sox and Los Angeles Dodgers. That, for obvious reasons, is not going to cut it. Lynn's ERA spike came in large part due to an absurd amount of home runs allowed. He yielded a MLB-leading 44 home runs on the year and then gave up another four in his lone postseason start. Those four came consecutively in a loss against the Diamondbacks.

Will Lynn be better than that? Hopefully, but will he be worth the $10 million that the Cardinals gave him for this season? Hard seeing that as a realistic possibility. Lynn struggled mightily pitching mostly in the weakest division in baseball. The NL Central is tougher, and has three of the better hitter's parks in the game in Cincinnati, Chicago, and Milwaukee for him to deal with. Lynn pitching at Great American Ballpark against that Reds lineup sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.

He should give the Cardinals plenty of innings, but as is the concern with Mikolas, we can only wonder how many of those innings will be quality innings.