A budget version of the 2026 St. Louis Cardinals' roster

Relievers

LHP JoJo Romero
RHP Andre Pallante
RHP Ryan Fernandez
LHP John King
RHP Ian Bedell
LHP Zack Thompson
RHP Tekoah Roby

I despised finding seven relievers for this portion of the roster. It's the most volatile position, and not a single person in the universe can guess a team's bullpen in any given year. Yet here I am, trying my hardest to do so for the year 2026.

Four names are as close to locks as you can get in my mind: Andre Pallante, JoJo Romero, Ryan Fernandez, and John King. The remaining three spots feature me throwing current starting pitching prospects into the bullpen since that's what the Cardinals just do.

I would pencil in JoJo Romero as the closer, but perhaps Ryan Fernandez or Andre Pallante have flourished enough by then to be reliable in high-leverage situations. There's some solid balance here with left-handed and right-handed pitchers. Plenty of innings could be covered as well with four former starting pitching prospects in the mix.

Honestly, relievers are a crapshoot, so don't be surprised to see only two of these seven guys actually in the bullpen come 2026. I could see a world where Tekoah Roby joins the rotation and Matthew Liberatore stays in the bullpen, a place where he's thrived.

From a financial perspective, JoJo Romero will be in his final year of arbitration by then, and I would be surprised to see him eclipse $7.5 million, so we'll put that as his value. John King will also be in his final year of arbitration, and I wouldn't expect to see him surpass $6 million. Andre Pallante will be in year two of arbitration, so let's assign him a random $5 million, and Zack Thompson will be entering arbitration, so clearly he'll cost $3 million. The remaining players will all be in pre-arbitration still. This rendition of the bullpen will cost about $25 million.