The 2025 Cardinals desperately need a true ace

Yes, the Cardinals offense is bad. In fact, bad may not be a strong enough term. Horrible? Awful? Take your pick. Almost every game, the team seems to find a moment where a breakout due to a big hit is needed – and the bats continue to go cold.

The expected sluggers – Paul Goldschmidt, Nolan Arenado, and Nolan Gorman – haven’t slugged (although Arenado seems to finally be heating up) and Willson Contreras, one of the most consistent contributors this year, hasn’t been able to avoid freak injuries. I’ve been trying all year to squint hard at the run differential, hoping it would prove to be a mirage. Instead, it's become the true barometer.

And yes, the player development on this team is a mess.  Alec Burleson and Masyn Winn have been strong contributors but the fall off of so many younger players this year is disheartening. Gorman, expected to continue where he left off last year, is back at Triple A. Dylan Carlson, like so many others before him, looks absolutely refreshed (on a small sample size to be sure) in Tampa Bay.  And the handling of Jordan Walker this year has been borderline malfeasance.

But as we start to look ahead to 2025 – and let’s face it, we should be looking ahead to 2025 – it is clear this team needs an ace. A no-doubt about it, leader of the rotation, ace.

It may not seem like the most pressing concern of the moment but it’s a problem the Cardinals have needed to solve for years, and one they absolutely must solve going into next year.  This team could use an ace in any situation but the need becomes even more magnified if we consider how meek the offense has been. If the Cards can’t mash, they need a dominant number one to set the tone for the rest of the pitching staff.

There are, of course, already at least three starters returning in Sonny Gray, Erik Fedde, and Miles Mikolas.  And it seems like only yesterday that one (often misguided) writer was singing Gray’s praises as an ace. But his homer-happy turn, combined with too many too-short outings, leaves the Cardinals still wanting for a starter you can comfortably start in a playoff elimination game.

Kyle Gibson – his horrible last turn against the Padres aside – has proven worthy of having his option picked up and Lance Lynn could possibly be back as well.  (Don’t get me started on Steven Matz. The definition of insanity is relying on him to be a part of the 2025 rotation.)

And it’s true, the team has some internal options. Andre Pallante has done enough recently that, for now, it looks like he should be penciled into next year’s rotation. (There's at least one thing that misguided writer got right!)  There are some promising arms to look at, including Michael McGreevy and Tink Hence.  Quinn Matthews looks like he may be the first homegrown pitching star in a while.

But the Cardinals simply can’t rely on hope, promise, or maybes. It can’t put all of its eggs into the veteran-starter-on-a-one-year-deal basket.  This team needs certainty at the top of the rotation, no matter how many hopeful arms are in the organization.  In an ideal world, the team has too many pitchers for its staff but if we’re being honest, when has that ever happened?

There are big names to be had in free agency, like Corbin Burnes, Blake Snell, and Max Fried. While those names seem unrealistic for a team that has never spent big on an outside pitcher, maybe the glaring attendance issues will finally cause a shift in spending? And if not, then this team needs to get creative and land an ace through a trade. As Ben Frederickson recently pointed out, perhaps a reunion with Sandy Alcantara, the ace who got away?

Free agency or trade, the method doesn’t really matter. What matters is that this team needs to solve its top-of-the-rotation conundrum.

Want to fix those attendance woes? How about having an ace throwing out the first pitch at the home opener next year.