Will St. Louis Cardinals ace Jack Flaherty test Free Agency?

St. Louis Cardinals ace pitcher Jack Flaherty won his arbitration case against the team. Is the pitcher testing free agency a certainty?

When St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Jack Flaherty went to an arbitration hearing with the team, it solidified a position that many already knew. Flaherty knows his worth and won’t settle for less.

While the Cardinals are well known for developing and keeping talent, I think Flaherty could be an exception to this. I have little doubt that the team will attempt to extend Flaherty long-term, and it would not be a surprise to me if those conversations have already started. With that said, he’s from California and might be interested in going back home to play with either the Angels or Dodgers.

The Dodgers, as you may have heard, recently signed pitcher Trevor Bauer to a massive contract with a strikingly high AAV (average annual value). Flaherty could well have taken notice of that deal. The Dodgers are famous for having deep pockets and also have a winning tradition. It’s possible that could be a potential landing spot for Flaherty if he tests free agency.

But that is speculation, of course. Back to the present time, Flaherty won his arbitration case with the St. Louis Cardinals. An oversimplification of the situation is that an arbitrator determined that Flaherty was worth what he asked for as opposed to what the Cardinals offered.

The difference was not much. The decision to take your team’s best pitcher to arbitration over less than a million dollars, even in today’s economic environment, was a little surprising. No reason to needlessly risk hurting a player’s feelings over that amount of money, especially if that player is one of the best and most important on the roster.

Jack Flaherty is not set to hit free agency until 2024. The need to extend him isn’t urgent, nor are any hard feelings from an arbitration hearing necessarily long-lasting. A possible scenario has the pairing between the Cardinals and Flaherty being a long and happy one. I do think it is important to mention that the possibility of him testing free agency is a real one, though.

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To date, he has only been able to see what his worth is to one team. There are twenty-nine others out there that I’m sure would have a lot to say and a lot to offer. For Flaherty, could anyone blame him for wanting to try out the open market and see what his worth is to others?

If a bidding war were to commence, the St. Louis Cardinals would not have high odds of winning it. To call the Cardinals cheap would be a lazy argument, especially after committing to take on around $150 million or more when acquiring Nolan Arenado (assuming he plays out his contract with the Cardinals and does not opt-out). But the Cardinals have never been big players in free agency and have yet to win the sweepstakes for a big free agent. That’s not to say they can’t, but to date they haven’t. Maybe the trade for a superstar like Arenado gives the front office a jolt to be more aggressive in adding more premium talent. We will see.

If Flaherty decides to test free agency, it’s likely he would depart to another team. That is why it makes a lot of sense for the Cardinals to be talking to him and his agency team about a long-term extension as soon as possible.

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Flaherty knows his worth. He knows he’s on the cusp of breaking out to be one of the elite arms in the game. If the next few seasons see him continuing his current trajectory, the opportunity to try out free agency in his prime might be too tempting to resist. If the team wants to keep him, the St. Louis Cardinals should do everything they can to prevent him from becoming a free agent.

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