11 times the Cardinals allowed fear to drive poor decision-making under John Mozeliak

Fear-based decision #9 - The Miles Mikolas extension

During spring training in 2023, everyone kept talking about how the Cardinals only had one starting pitcher under contract beyond that season, with Wainwright, Flaherty, Mikolas, and Jordan Montgomery all set to hit free agency that coming winter. Naturally, people wondered how the Cardinals would address this issue, it was top of mind for the club as well.

Instead of letting the season play out and seeing what they had in those players, the Cardinals signed Miles Mikolas to a two-year extension worth $40 million. We all know how bad that has been going since then.

Mikolas has been one of the worst starters in baseball since the 2023 season began, and instead of the Cardinals letting him walk in free agency or signing him back on a one-year prove-it deal following the disaster of a 2023 season he had, they already locked him up through 2025 and had to account for him in their rotation.

The idea that the Cardinals were doomed because they only had one pitcher under contract for 2024 was so dramatic. People acted like it would be impossible for the Cardinals to find four in one offseason, and yet, they were able to snag both Kyle Gibson and Lance Lynn rather quickly and painlessly, and the only reason there was any doubt about the Sonny Gray signing happening was because they were apparently incredibly late to call and talk to him, which is just crazy to think about.

So yes, I'm pretty confident that if the Cardinals had not extended Mikolas that spring, they would have found a way to acquire four starters, not just three, that next offseason. And considering how bad Mikolas has been, I am pretty confident the starter they would have found would have been better, or it would have been a cheaper contract for Mikolas the very least.

But here we are again, looking at another decision the Cardinals made out of fear.

The Cardinals could not stand the uncertainty they had, and so they extended a veteran player too soon like they did with Matt Carpenter, and it backfired once again. It was 100% a self-inflicted wound by the club, and what is craziest to me is that the upside was practically zero.

How good would Mikolas have to have been in 2023 to get a contract bigger than the one he got from St. Louis? Even if he repeated his success from 2022, the contract would have been very similar, and had it gone up, it only would have been by a small margin. The risk was 100% on the Cardinals' side here, and it blew up in their face because of that.