Cardinals should do everyone a favor and move Riley O'Brien to a new role

The St. Louis Cardinals bullpen was never a priority for Chaim Bloom and the rest of the front office, and at this time last year, that made sense. The Cardinals were expected to be one of the worst teams in all of baseball, so why would Bloom go out and spend the DeWitt fortune on a replaceable piece of most teams?

Well, as the 2026 season actually happened, the Cardinals were not just outperforming expectations but were also competing at the top of the NL Central. Despite the solid start to the season through the All-Star break, Bloom decided to stand pat with his roster and handcuff manager Oliver Marmol for the second half of the season. This left Marmol with a consistent back half of the bullpen, built mostly around All-Star closer Riley O'Brien.

Cardinals could benefit by moving Riley O'Brien out of closer role

Being "stuck" with a closer who had 24 saves and a mid-3 ERA seems like grasping at straws, but the metrics showed the O'Brien may have been overperforming just like his team. While he was near the tops of the NL leaderboard in saves for much of the year, O'Brien was also near the top in blown saves along with teammate George Soriano. Of course, not all of that is on those two as the Cardinals played an incredible amount of close games and a thin bullpen means the best guys were constantly getting called upon.

At the end of the season, ROB was able to tally 38 saves while striking out a batter per inning in his first fully healthy season. It was a great year for the Cardinals and O'Brien as the closer proved his value and was able to showcase his stuff in high leverage spots. However, those spots became bigger in the second half of the season and we saw O'Brien struggle as the grind of the long year could have taken its toll.

After the break, the righty put up a 5.11 ERA and saw his walk rate skyrocket to 14.4%, putting too many free runners on base without room for error. O'Brien also gave up hard contact at an elevated rate, giving up more homers in the second half than he did in 15 less innings from before the break. Not that the Cardinals had many other options to roll with either, but the close and late games ended up being more of a struggle than fans had hoped.

According to FanGraphs' advanced stats, opponents put up a nearly .700 OPS against ROB in what is considered high leverage situations, which most save situations end up being categorized as. While that number does not look awful, it got worse as O'Brien worked himself into trouble. That trouble happened early in outings as well as the first batter of an inning had a .747 OPS against O'Brien, putting added stress on the righty before he could get settled in.

The more traffic on the bases, the messier things got for ROB and the Cardinals. When runners reached scoring position, opposing hitters put up a ridiculous .792 OPS and scored 32 runs in the 22 innings ROB had RISP. Beyond that, O'Brien had a hard time working his way out of trouble as the inning progressed. With two outs, O'Brien had an opponent .756 OPS and a 1.52 WHIP, meaning the innings were extended even further. These struggles created a call from fans for a shift in the closer role, and that is a strategy that Bloom and Marmol may want to seriously reseach this winter.

To me, O'Brien showed plenty to be a capable, and at times dominant major league reliever, so completely cutting ties with the veteran would not be my suggestion. ROB was viewed as a trade candidate due to his low-cost, team control, and value as a closer on a rebuilding team, but Bloom opted to maintain some stability in the relief corps. Next year, I would not be against O'Brien taking a slot in the bullpen, but it could be a good move for both sides to put him in a lower leverage spot.

The Cardinals bullpen may be ignored again this offseason, as Bloom noted that third base is wide open. There are internal options and few attractive free agents, so the trade market could take some of the POBO's time and energy to fill the spot. This could put the bullpen on the backburner once again, meaning Marmol will have to rely on many of the same guys as he did at the end of this year. In what is shaping up to be another fight for .500 season, it may be time to try some of the younger arms in the closer role as the Cardinals build towards the future continues.

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