3 remaining free agents the Cardinals should sign, 2 to avoid

3) Marcus Stroman would give the Cardinals the quality innings they need

The Cardinals have made it glaringly obvious that their way of improving the rotation is by signing innings eaters. This makes sense as they had just three pitchers top the 100 inning mark last season. One was Adam Wainwright who retired, one was Steven Matz who had just 105 innings and has had durability issues throughout his career, and the third was Miles Mikolas.

While adding more innings is certainly a good thing, the Cardinals did not add very quality innings. Lance Lynn threw 183.2 innings last season, but posted a 5.73 ERA and led the majors with an absurd 44 home runs allowed. That's not even including the postseason when he allowed four home runs in a row in his start in Arizona. He'll probably be better in 2024 than he was last season, but at age 36, probably not much better.

Kyle Gibson had a similar year. He threw 192 innings for the Orioles this past season but posted a 4.73 ERA and gave up an AL-leading 198 hits. It's possible he'll be better pitching in front of an elite Cardinals defense, but again, not likely to be much better.

Marcus Stroman is an innings eater like Gibson and Lynn, but his innings offer more quality. He's made at least 25 starts in six of the last seven full seasons (excluding 2020) and posted a sub-4.00 ERA in all of them except for one.

The dream addition would be Jordan Montgomery, but it's unlikely the Cardinals go where he'd request financially. Stroman is much cheaper and would be a massive upgrade over four of their five starters. He'd give them both quantity and quality. Something Mozeilak should've been seeking from the beginning.