4 Cardinals who should be non-tendered and 2 who shouldn't be

The St. Louis Cardinals have a lot to do this offseason in order to rebuild this pitching staff. It sounds like they are set on bringing in three starting pitchers to add to their rotation as well as two "high-leverage" bullpen arms. Can they pull it off? Yes! It's totally feasible that they rebuild this pitching staff during the winter. It remains to be seen how well they do so.

One of the ways they can make that path easier is by non-tendering some of their arbitration candidates. There are a number of Cardinals on the 40-man roster who are set to get pay raises this offseason, and the Cardinals can get millions of dollars in salary relief by deciding to non-tender some of those players instead of retaining their rights.

The Cardinals already non-tendered Jacob Barnes before the end of the World Series, but there are still six other names who could be up for debate within the Cardinals front office. Two of them, for different reasons, I believe should be tendered in the coming days in order to retain future value, but there are four other names who the Cardinals need to just cut bait with this offseason, for one reason or another.

Here are four players the Cardinals should non-tender, and two they need to offer contracts to.

Tender a contract to Tyler O'Neill

Before you freak out, I think it's time for the Cardinals to trade Tyler O'Neill this offseason, but non-tendering him to me feels like a mistake.

According to MLB Trade Rumors' arbitration projections (which is where I'll be getting all of my projections from for this story), O'Neill is set to receive around $5.5 million in arbitration this offseason. It's not a crazy number by any means, but with O'Neill's inability to stay on the field and the decline in performance at the plate, it feels like the Cardinals would be better off saving the $5.5 million and rolling with their other outfield options.

Believe it or not, but that $5.5 million projection for O'Neill is actually about $1 million short of what his performance in 2023 was worth, according to the "dollars" stat by FanGraphs that converts WAR into a dollar scale to estimate how much a player is worth in free agency. Even though he appeared in just 72 games in 2023 and was not the same player, he was still worth $6.5 million, and I'd have to imagine O'Neill is at least a bit better in 2024. 2022 was another down season for O'Neill, and he was still worth $9.7 million.

When O'Neill is on the field, his defense and base-running alone make him a valuable player, even when his bat is slightly below league average. Bake in the fact that he has shown he can be an elite hitter when he's right, and you just cannot let a guy go like that for free. That's just asking for another Adolis Garcia type of situation.

I do understand that it's probably time to move on though, but why not use him as a part of the Cardinals solution for finding pitching help this offseason? I know it's hard to believe for some people that O'Neill has value, but he does. He could easily be part of a package that helps the Cardinals snag a Shane Bieber or Tyler Glasnow type, or even in a swap for a reliever to bolster their bullpen. The Cardinals are not going to find the same quality of starter or reliever on the free agent market for just $5.5 million, so might as well flip O'Neil for that value.

Honestly, I'm not even against them holding onto him for 2024 if the right deal is not there. $5.5 million should not be the difference between them getting an impact starter or coming up short. Make the most of the value O'Neill has left.

The Cardinals should non-tender Dakota Hudson and Jake Woodford

On top of not having enough quality arms in their projected Opening Day rotation for 2023, Dakota Hudson and Jake Woodford both proved that the Cardinals also did not have quality depth options internally either.

Hudson was infamously part of that "We have six starting pitchers" comment from John Mozeliak last offseason, but quickly pitched his way out of that conversation. He spent most of 2024 struggling in Triple-A with Memphis, and in his 18 games with St. Louis (12 starts), he posted a 4.98 ERA and 5.06 FIP in 81.1 innings of work.

If Hudson was a pre-arbitration player, you'd probably look to keep him around as a depth option and see if he can figure things out over the winter. But with a projected salary of $3.7 million for 2024, there's just no way to justify him sticking around. He'll have no problem finding a contract with another Major League club, whether it's guaranteed or a minor league deal, but that just cannot happen in St. Louis.

The same thing can be said for Jake Woodford. His number is more manageable, at just $1.1 million for 2024, but he, much like Hudson, struggled to prove he belonged during his opportunites with St. Louis this past season. In 47.2 innings, Woodford had a 6.23 ERA and 6.61 FIP, not exactly a resume builder by any means. If the Cardinals were desperate for depth, maybe they consider it, but they are actually in a better position when it comes to immediate pitching depth than they were at the beginning of 2023.

Zack Thompson, Matthew Liberatore, and Drew Rom are all immediate options who have experinece starting games at the Major League level and are much cheaper than Hudson and Woodford. They also have guys like Gordon Graceffo, Michael McGreevy, Adam Kloffenstein, and Sem Robberse knocking on the door in Triple-A, so it's time to move on from arms like Woodford and Hudson who just are not taking advantage of their opportunities in St. Louis.

Look for Zack Thompson to be the first man up in 2024 if an injury happens to the rotation, and he could even push for a rotation spot over Steven Matz in Spring Training. He looked promising as a starter during his nine opportunities last year, and given an offseason of work, he may be able to push harder for a spot than we are currently anticipating.

The Cardinals should non-tender Andrew Knizner and John King

These are the two names I think the Cardinals are going to have the hardest time deciding what to do with, as they both played interesting roles for St. Louis in 2023, but both also give stronger reasons to be moved on from.

Let's start with Andrew Knizner, who oddly enough, was outperforming what most of us thought he would do for a large chunk of the 2023 season.

Well, Knizner had a pretty bad finish to the 2023 season, regressing to a 92 wRC+ and a -0.1 fWAR on the season. Knizner is highly respected within the Cardinals' clubhouse, and the pitching staff really likes him, but he's not worth blocking Ivan Herrera next season.

Knizner is a fine backup catcher, but Herrera is ready to provide starting catcher-type production for the Cardinals as their primary backup in 2024. In his 13 games with the Cardinals in 2023, Herrera slashed .297/,409/.351 with a 122 wRC+ and was worth 0.5 fWAR in that short time span. While we don't need to expect him to be hitting 22% above league average next year, he did mash with Memphis this year. In 83 games in Triple-A, Herrera batted .297/.451/.500 with 10 HR and 60 RBI to the tune of a .951 OPS.

Herrera has proven everything he can at the minor league levels and is now ready for significant playing time in St. Louis in 2024. Knizner is set to make $2 million in 2024, and I think the Cardinals can get some savings by non-tendering him. He could be someone worth trading, but I'm not sure how much value they would get in return.

John King, on the surface, pitched really well after coming over in the Jordan Montgomery-Chris Stratton deal at the trade deadline. Thomas Saggese and Tekoah Roby were the major pieces of that deal, but King was a nice throw-in for St. Louis to take a flyer on. A left-handed reliever who had struggled thus far in his career, King posted a 1.45 ERA in 18.2 innings for the Cardinals down the stretch.

Looking under the hood though, King provides little upside and was outperforming his underlying numbers while in St. Louis. He had a 3.85 FIP after the deadline (which was actually higher than his FIP in Texas), and still only struck out 4.8 batters per nine innings. They can keep him around if they want to and I wouldn't mind it, but if they do plan on bringing in two high-leverage relievers, clearing up the space makes sense.