Ranking the likeliest free agent starting pitching fits for the St. Louis Cardinals

1. Sonny Gray

I already talked about how I'm on the Sonny Gray hype train recently, but that is actually not why I have him at number one on this list. Gray is number one here because he feels like the best fit for the Cardinals this offseason.

No, not as their true number one starter, but in their pursuit of three arms this offseason, Gray would be a perfect number two for this rotation. In 26 starts this season, Gray has a 3.06 ERA and 9.1 SO/9 in 150 innings of work. This is coming off a 2022 season where his ERA was just 3.08 as well.

For his career, Gray has been a vastly underrated pitcher, posting a 3.51 ERA over his 11 big league seasons, and has put up excellent seasons within the NL Central for the Cincinnati Reds. In 2019, he had a 2.87 ERA for the Reds, which is incredible since Great American Ballpark is one of the hardest places to pitch in all of baseball.

For a team that needs to bring in a lot of arms this offseason, Gray also won't come at the top dollar that other arms will, and he's probably more in the 2-4 year range for a contract, rather than those scary 6-7 year deals that can go south quick. Getting Gray at something around 3 years, $60 million would be an excellent move for St. Louis.

Gray wants to be close to home, which outside of Atlanta and Cincinnati, St. Louis is the closest MLB city to Nashville. Gray is a competitor, the kind of guy you want headlining your rotation, and I would be ecstatic if they brought him in.