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Pitcher Miles Mikolas
Before the 2023 season began, concerns were rising regarding the lack of starting pitchers the Cardinals had under contract for the following season. The Cardinals realized that and they chose to give Mikolas a contract extension for 3 seasons, over Jordan Montgomery. But since Mikolas got that contract extension he has not pitched well.
Mikolas missed the entire 2020 season with an injury and was limited to 9 starts in 2021, the 2022 season was the year he got back to his ways that we saw in his first season with St.Louis. He only won 12 of his 32 starts that year, but he was an All-Star for the second time, had a 3.29 ERA, and pitched a career-high 202.1 innings, you can see why the Cardinals wanted to keep him around.
As I mentioned at the beginning of this writing, hindsight is 20/20, if the Cardinals knew that 2023 was going to be as bad as it was, would the Cardinals have tried to move Mikolas to a contender looking for a rental arm that eats innings and throws strikes? It wasn't a very good year for Mikolas in 2023, as his ERA ballooned to 4.78, but he led the league in starts with 35 and threw 200 plus innings for the 3rd time in his career, I think the Cardinals could've gotten a similar return for Mikolas that they got for Montgomery and Jack Flaherty.
It may not be completely impossible for Mikolas to get back to form in the final year of his contract next year, but it's not looking promising as 2024 has been painful so far for Mikolas. He is currently 7-8 with a 5.13 ERA, his highest since 2014 when he was with the Rangers. He is still throwing strikes as he has the lowest BB/9 ratio in the league, but he has allowed over a hit an inning for the second straight year and he's on pace to give up more than 30 home runs this season. Plus he is not getting any older, as he turns 36 next month, what are the odds that he'll be effective again like he was two seasons ago?