How the Cardinals can rebuild their pitching staff

This story was excerpted from John Denton’s Cardinals Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

Now that the Cardinals have restocked their pitching prospect pool at the Minor League level following the trades of left-hander Jordan Montgomery, closer Jordan Hicks and reliever Chris Stratton on Sunday, they might want to get started on filling out the big-league starting staff for 2024.

The Cardinals certainly got quite the prospect haul for the three free-agent-to-be pitchers on Sunday, but they are still staring at the need for three starters for 2024. Considering the price of pitching -- both in terms of free-agent dollars and player capital via trades -- filling those needs in free agency would be an incredibly tall task to ask for a Cardinals club vowing to contend again in 2024.

“It sounds like we need more [pitching], huh?” team president John Mozeliak joked on Sunday when asked about the remaining roster holes.

The Cards' dearth of big-league ready pitching is why half measures simply won’t cut it before Tuesday’s 5 p.m. CT Trade Deadline. The Cards took the first and painful steps of unloading three proven pitchers on Sunday rather than potentially lose them for nothing more than a Draft pick. Now, Mozeliak, manager Oliver Marmol and others on the leadership team must pinpoint roster redundancies and areas of strength to deal from to add to a pitching pool the squad can depend on this time next year.

Of course, to do that, the Cardinals will likely have to take the counterintuitive step of trading pitching to get pitching. Miles Mikolas and the resurgent Steven Matz (see: Sunday’s 3-0 win over the Cubs) are the only two starting pitchers signed beyond this season. Jack Flaherty, the homegrown pitcher the Redbirds never wanted to get rid of, could have been the third cog of next season’s rotation, but contract extension talks never materialized in recent weeks. If the Cardinals can’t reach a pact with the soon-to-be 28-year-old Flaherty in the hours that remain before the Deadline, they will be forced to flip him the same way they did with Montgomery and Hicks. As late as Saturday, the Cardinals were still trying to hammer out an extension with Hicks, but when those talks remained stalled, they dealt the fireballing closer to Toronto.

Now, comes the really hard part for the Cardinals. They must decide which players they can stomach trading -- lefty slugger Nolan Gorman, prized rookie Jordan Walker, top prospect Masyn Winn, outfield excesses Dylan Carlson, Tyler O’Neill or Lars Nootbaar, revitalized shortstop Paul DeJong or utility aces Brendan Donovan and Tommy Edman -- for strong starting pitching without being filled with regret the way they still are about Sandy Alcantara, Zac Gallen, Randy Arozarena and Adolis García getting away.

Mozeliak made it clear on Saturday that superstar third baseman Nolan Arenado was on his untouchable list, and he would never consider moving reigning MVP Paul Goldschmidt. Not far behind on that no-trade list would be the 6-foot-6, 245-pound Walker and the 40-home run potential of Gorman.

Anyone else, however, is almost certainly under consideration to help land starting pitching for 2024. That might include dealing the infinitely likeable Nootbaar. It might cost them O’Neill’s massive potential or their belief that Carlson will soon put it all together from the left side of the plate. Adding starting and relief pitching -- in the coming days and again in free agency -- is the key to the Cards returning to relevance in 2024. The team is so desperate for reliable arms that Marmol even left open the door for Montgomery, Hicks and Stratton to potentially return in free agency, saying: “Our hope is this isn’t the last time they’re wearing this [Cardinals] uniform.”

Again, half measures won’t cut it if the Cardinals want to get out of the seller’s market at the Deadline. They are seeing how the other half lives this season by being in the unenviable position of auctioning off parts, and they are hating every second of it. “It sucks,” Marmol recently lamented.

Now, the clock is ticking on their opportunity to do something about those three holes in their 2024 rotation. Landing four pitching prospects that will make it to Triple-A Memphis this season was a nice start, but the Cardinals must be bold in landing difference-making arms for the season ahead. Undoubtedly, those arms will be painful and costly to acquire, but it’s the only way to stop the bleeding from an unsightly 2023 season.

“I don’t think we’re done,” Mozeliak vowed on Sunday. “I wouldn’t rule anything out. At some level, I feel like it’s over [after making the trades with the Rangers and Blue Jays], but it’s not because there’s time and we’ve got to reassess. If there’s a baseball trade to be made, we should be open-minded to it.”