St. Louis Cardinals: 5 takeaways going into the summer

Los Angeles Dodgers v St. Louis Cardinals
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Steven Matz needs to be permanently moved to the bullpen

What is a match made in heaven? John Mozeliak and free-agent signings that never pan out. The latest installment of this saga is the four-year, $44 million dollar commitment to Steven Matz to be a middle of the rotation arm. It has only been a season and two months, with results looking like a bust. The season stat line is -.2 WAR, 0-6 record, 5.60 ERA (77 ERA+), and a 1.698 WHIP. It has been disastrous since Matz came to STL and it is time to admit failure. Mozeliak has yet to ever admit defeat, but this is an easy one to dissect.

The FO is so adamant about never defeating failure, that they will pitch Matz until the contract ends to try and squeeze the lemon dry (Paul DeJong since 2019). Matz has been pretty good vs LHP, so the only way the FO can come back from this signing is to stretch Matz into a bullpen weapon, a la Patrick Corbin 2019.