The Cardinals are the perfect team for this risky Ryan Helsley experiment

Now under the leadership of Chaim Bloom, I fully expect the St. Louis Cardinals to be far more creative in their roster building than we saw from John Mozeliak in recent years. While you could almost always predict how the Cardinals would handle each offseason and trade deadline before, Bloom's regime is providing a fresh look and voice to how the club does things.

And that is the perfect backdrop for the Cardinals to give a former All-Star of theirs a fresh look through a fresh opportunity.

Ryan Helsley, whom the club dealt at the 2025 MLB Trade Deadline after six and a half awesome seasons out of their bullpen, is currently a free agent and has openly stated that he expects to hear from the Cardinals this offseason. Well, now a new report has surfaced that the Detroit Tigers are among multiple teams that are interested in bringing Helsley in as a starting pitcher this offseason, and I believe the Cardinals provide the perfect landing spot for that kind of opportunity for Helsley.

The Cardinals should target Ryan Helsley as one of their high upside starting pitcher additions this offseason

For years now, I've been all aboard the "Try Ryan Helsley as a starter" hype train. You could argue that the Cardinals stunting Helsley's growth as a starter and pigeonholing him into a bullpen role was one of the bigger mistakes they made over the last seven years, as Helsley had the potential to be a true difference maker in a rotation that was desperately needing that kind of stuff for years.

If you scoff at the idea, I get it, the ending with Helsley in St. Louis and his time with the New York Mets doesn't exactly inspire confidence in anyone, but I have a hard time fully betting against someone whose fastball has been dominant in the past and still has the tools to be a great pitch, and I think Helsley will be able to figure out his pitch tipping over the winter.

On top of that, while fans may point to Jordan Hicks as an example of relievers transitioning to starters not working out, there are plenty of examples of guys pulling that off and becoming high-impact rotation arms. While all of their routes to starting were different, guys like Garrett Crochet, Cristopher Sanchez, Reynaldo Lopez, Seth Lugo, Clay Holmes, Michael King, Zack Littell, and Ronel Blanco all have found success in rotations, with multiple of those names competing for Cy Young awards or being named All-Stars.

While Helsley has been a primarily fastball-slider guy out of the bullpen, he would likely expand his arsenal further in a transition. Helsley was developing a cutter earlier this year that he didn't go to during the regular season, and he historically threw a change-up that could have become a fair offering for him had the club continued down the path with him as a starter. His curveball has also been an above-average offering at times, but as a closer, he stuck pretty much to his explosive fastball and wipeout slider, and for good reason.

Due to how bad things ended for Helsley in 2025, he's likely looking at a one or maybe two-year deal with a lower annual value than we originally thought. I'm guessing something in the range of $13 million to $15 million per year is the cap for what he'll make per year, especially after Raisel Iglesias just re-signed with the Atlanta Braves for one year, $16 million after a much better year.

Want to talk about upside in a rotation? Here are the starters who signed for between $12 million and $15 million on short-term deals the last two offseasons: Sean Manaea, Kenta Maeda, Tyler Mahle, Frankie Montas, Jack Flaherty, Luis Severino, Lance Lynn, Matthew Boyd, Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander, Alex Cobb, Charlie Morton, and Tomoyuki Sugano. While a few of those names popped, most were not all that dynamic or impactful. Only Matthew Boyd (3.4) and Jack Flaherty (3.3) posted individual seasons with fWARs above 3.0 during those contracts.

The upside with Helsley is real on a contract like that, and if it goes poorly, the Cardinals know as well as anybody that he can go back to the bullpen and be an impact arm. Sure, he could never return to the heights he once reached as a reliever and end up being a "bad" contract, but it feels like there are a lot of ways this goes well and potentially great for the Cardinals if they took this risk.

Be bold. Be creative. Be different. This is a model and strategy that smart teams around the game have been having success with in recent years, and Helsley presents the Cardinals with an excellent opportunity to benefit from this trend of relievers becoming impact starters.