Cardinals lone free agent signing may be one of the best moves of the MLB offseason

When building a Major League roster, time and time again teams have to cross their fingers and hope their bullpen is built effectively, no matter what past results from their collection of arms tell them.

Every season, we see prominent relievers with great track records fall off a cliff performance wise, and we'll also see Rule 5 picks, unknown prospects, and veterans on flyer deals rise to become some of the best relievers in the game. Sure, that is true at most positions, but the voalitity within relievers is higher than any position group in baseball.

That's what makes the St. Louis Cardinals' investment in Phil Maton so impressive early on in the 2025 season.

Phil Maton may end up being one of the best free agent signings in all of baseball from this offseason

All throughout the offseason, we heard that the Cardinals would be interested in adding a reliever to the back of their bullpen. But even as spring training began to wind down, that move was still non-existent, and fans were furious over the lack of any moves made to improve their Major League roster.

Finally, the Cardinals signed right-handed reliever Phil Maton to a one-year, $2 million deal to add another veteran to that bullpen. For the past few years, Maton had been a name that the Cardinals had kept tabs on, but they opted to go in other directions instead. Without a job with just weeks to go until Opening Day, the two sides came to an agreement, and Maton has been one of the best relievers in baseball so far.

In 7.1 innings and eight appearances thus far out of the Cardinals bullpen, Maton has yet to allow a single run to score, just four hits, zero walks, and has struck out nine batters on his way to three holds and one save. He's been one of the best in the game so far at limiting hard contact while also generating swings and misses as a very high level.

It's a small sample size thus far, but Maton's velocity has also jumped up multiple ticks from where it was at in 2024. His cutter and sinker were already two of his best pitches but added velocity will help them play up even further and potentially strengthen his offspeed offerings by creating even more havoc with his fastball variations.

This stat is not the end all be all regarding player value, but FanGraphs has a "dollars" stat where they take a player's production and spit out a monetary value for the production they provided to that point to a club. Obviously there is so much season ahead of us and a bad outing or two from Maton in his next few appearances would change this, but so far, Maton is already worth $2.4 million according to Dollars, and we aren't even through the first month of the season.

The Cardinals got into a dangerous pattern in the mid-2010s of giving hefty contracts to free-agent relievers. Brett Cecil (4yr/$30.5m), Andrew Miller (2yr/$25m), and Greg Holland (1yr/$14m) were well intentioned efforts to improve their bullpen mix but each of them ended up as failures of investments, especially Cecil and Holland. I'm not saying that big investments for relievers are always a bad idea, but they come with a lot of risk and often times do not pan out.

Signing a player to a small contract does not guarantee success either, but it does allow you to take more chances on various players and increase your chances on "hitting" with one or more of them. For example, for every Greg Holland contract (1yr/$14m), you could sign seven Phil Maton (1yr/$2m) valued free agents. Will all of those $2 million contracts turn into high-leverage options? No, and you're going to be pumped if even one or two of them do, but I like my odds of "hitting" on one of those seven names as opposed to crossing my fingers on both performance and health for my $14 million investment out of the bullpen.

The Cardinals actually did a really nice job of this when building their bullpen for 2024. Back at the 2022 trade deadline, the Cardinals flipped a depth infielder (Edmundo Sosa) for Phillies lefty JoJo Romero, who had struggled at the Major League level in his career but was going to get a fresh opportunity in St. Louis. During the 2023 trade deadline, the Cardinals got left-handed reliever John King as the final piece of the Jordan Montgomery trade that also netted them prospects Tekoah Roby and Thomas Saggese.

During the offseason leading up to the 2024 season, the Cardinals selected right-handed reliever Ryan Fernandez from the Boston Red Sox and also acquired another reliever of theirs, Nick Robertson, in the Tyler O'Neill trade. They purchased the contract of Riley O'Brien from the Seattle Mariners that offseason as well, and signed veteran Keynan Middleton to a one-year, $6 million deal with a club option for a second year. Their "biggest" bullpen move of that offseason came when they sent intriguing outfield depth option Richie Palacios to the Tampa Bay Rays for right-hander Andrew Kittredge.

None of those moves in themselves were big splashes, and their two highest-paid relievers of that mix (Kittredge and Middleton) combined to make just $8.7 million dollars. While not all of those arms panned out, enough did to make the Cardinals bullpen one of the strongest in baseball last year.

Maton does not have the track record that other veteran relievers had this offseason, but he was far more intriguing than the $2 million contract and late camp signing give him credit for. In four of his eight big league seasons leading up to 2025, Maton had an xERA and XFIP below 3.75, and he's managed to be one of the better K/9 relievers in the game despite not being a high-velocity guy.

Maton struggled with the Tampa Bay Rays to begin 2024, but after joining the New York Mets later in the year, he posted a 2.51 ERA and 9.42 K/9 while walking just 1.88 BB/9 and dropping his HR/9 to just 0.31. There were signs that Maton was figuring things out once again, and the Cardinals are the beneficiary so far

While the Cardinals bullpen has really struggled as a unit thus far, Maton's presence has not only ensured that things haven't completely unraveled so far, but he's also providing the club hope of a more stable bullpen as the year goes on.

Ryan Helsley is one of the best closers in all of baseball, and while his blow-up outing in Boston was a huge disapointment, we all expect him to remain steady as the year goes on. JoJo Romero is not the same guy that he was to begin the 2024 season, but he still appears to be a quality option for their bullpen mix. Kyle Leahy has stepped up in a huge way, posting a 1.17 ERA in his 7.2 innings of work and taking on more of a high-leverage role. And of course, Maton has seamlessly filled into the Kittredge role from last year as the primary setup man or secondary closer option on the Cardinals' roster.

If those four can remain highly effective as the year goes on, the bullpen will produce better results than we've seen so far. If they want to become a reliable unit though, they'll need names like Ryan Fernandez, Chris Roycroft, John King, Riley O'Brien, Roddery Munoz, Matt Svanson, Ryan Loutos, and others to step up as the year goes on. Maybe we'll even see Matthew Liberatore rejoin that group eventually, as he was a reliable option for them down the stretch late in games last year.

So far, the $2 million investment in Maton has been money well spent. It doesn't mean the rest of their offseason was a success by any means, and frankly, they should have made a few more "Maton-esque" signings for their bullpen to strengthen their options. Good on them for grabbing Maton though, and hopefully he can continue to be an excellent option for them as the year goes on.