St. Louis Cardinals offseason preview: free agents, payroll, and targets this winter

The St. Louis Cardinals' season is officially over, and I think it's safe to say we've all been waiting for this day to come for a while now.

After a dreadful month of April, it seemed far-fetched that the Cardinals would be able to salvage the season at all. There were a few moments when the club started to turn things around, but those "runs" would quickly fade and turn back into losing baseball.

We saw the first true seller's deadline in the John Mozeliak era, and the team has been even more of a trainwreck since those moves were made. There are so many players on this current roster who will not be with the club in 2024 and beyond.

Nolan Arenado, Willson Contreras, Steven Matz, Nolan Gorman, Giovanny Gallegos, Alec Burleson, Tyler O'Neill, Brendan Donovan, Dylan Carlson, and JoJo Romero all ended the season on the Injured List, creating a bit of an "island of misfit toys" situation this last month. While it's been cool to send off Adam Wainwright the last few weeks, it's time to turn the page on 2023.

There is a lot of work to do this offseason. John Mozeliak and the Cardinals' front office have a tall task to rebuild this pitching staff and vault the Cardinals back into contention, but it's essential that they do so.

Here is a quick "offseason preview" for the St. Louis Cardinals, taking a look at their impending free agents, budget, team needs, and potential targets entering the offseason.

Projected payroll

$106,138,889 (before arbitration cases) - likely around $28 million in arbitration to payout

Nailing down an exact payroll number is difficult to do. FanGraphs seems to be the best outlet, outside of local reporting, to find these numbers. Currently, the Cardinals have about $106 million in guaranteed contracts and around $28 million in projected arbitration numbers.

The Cardinals need to get back to having a top-10 payroll in baseball. To do so, they'll need to raise their budget to around $200 million, which is about a $30 million raise from this year's Opening Day number, and gives them about $66 million to spend this offseason.

They can free up some more salary as well if they choose to non-tender or trade the likes of Tyler O'Neill, Dylan Carlson, or Dakota Hudson. They also may try to package some of their young players, or even an arbitration guy like Tommy Edman, for pitching help at some point.

Team needs

1. Starting pitching
2. Bullpen help

This is clear to anyone who has watched the Cardinals this year. They need starting pitching help, and they need to revamp their bullpen.

The Cardinals seem intent on bringing in at least three starters this offseason. If they succeed in doing so, they'll have those three additions and Miles Mikolas in their top rotation spots, and then Zack Thompson and Steven Matz can duke it out for the fifth starter role.

My guess is the Cardinals address their rotation needs mostly through free agency, but they may decide to fill one of those spots through a trade as well. They could decide to trade some of their very valuable position players to acquire a front-line starter, or they could trade some of their overflow assets to bring in a back-end of the rotation guy.

For the bullpen, it'll be interesting to see how they choose to address that need. They could hand out a few small free-agent deals, use the overflow of position players to bring in some arms, hand out a large deal, or a combination of these things.

Outside of pitching, the only two needs that could be looked at would be center field or catcher. The Cardinals still seem very unsure about who their 2024 center fielder is, and there are rumblings that their catcher position may be in flux again.

Free agent targets

Starting pitching: Aaron Nola, Blake Snell, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Sonny Gray, Jordan Montgomery, Shota Imanaga, Lucus Giolito, Frankie Montas, Eduardo Rodriguez (player-option), Marcus Stroman (player-option), Lance Lynn (club-option), Michael Lorenzen, Rich Hill, Luis Severino, James Paxton, Tyler Mahle, Michael Wacha (mutual-option), Jack Flaherty

Relief pitchers: Josh Hader, Jordan Hicks, Joe Jimenez, Pierce Johnson, Reynaldo Lopez, Robert Stephenson, Brad Boxberger, Shintaro Fujinami, David Robertson, John Brebbia, Michael Fulmer, Luis Garcia, Keynan Middleton, Shelby Miller, Dominic Leone, Emilio Pagan, Ryne Stanek, Chris Stratton, Drew VerHagen

There are a ton of names available this offseason, and each player the Cardinals sign or trade for will impact who else they decide to target.

On the starting pitching side of things, it feels likely that the Cardinals will finally dive into the top end of the market, going after at least one of Aaron Nola, Sonny Gray, Blake Snell, and/or Yoshinobu Yamamoto. After that, there are a variety of names who could be a fit for their third rotation spot as well.

As far as the bullpen goes, I'd bet against them adding any big names, unless they are on one-year deals. They'll likely add small contracts to the bullpen or trade for those impact arms.

Trade targets

Starting pitching: Dylan Cease, Logan Gilbert, Tyler Glasnow, Jose Quintana, Bryan Woo, Robbie Ray, Paul Blackburn

It's still too early to know which names will be available in trades this offseason, but each of these names has the potential to be on the move.

Logan Gilbert and Bryan Woo seem the most unlikely of the bunch to be moved, as the Mariners have talked about wanting to keep all of their young arms, and for good reason. Dylan Cease appears to be the current prize of the market, but it's not official that he'll be available. Each of those names would require a very strong trade package from St. Louis to acquire.

Tyler Glasnow, Jose Quintana, Robbie Ray, and Paul Blackburn all make interesting trade candidates for various reasons as well.