With Sonny Gray, Cardinals find top of rotation arm they've been seeking

John Mozeliak and company strike quick this offseason, adding 3 pitchers in a week.

Improving your roster can be harder than impressing St. Louis Cardinals’ fans, especially at the onset of winter weather with a chilly season record leaving them extra cold. In one week, the Cardinals signed three starters, which was the long-said goal of the offseason.

Whether you liked who they signed or not, John Mozeliak and Bill DeWitt Jr. struck fast and found a group of pitchers that makes a lot more sense than 2023’s group.

Jeff Curry/USA Today Sports

Sonny Gray is a very solid signing. Good term at 3 years for a Cy Young runner-up last year with the Minnesota Twins who has also pitched well in the National League Central Division for the Cincinnati Reds.

Gray made 32 starts last year, allowing as many home runs over an entire regular season (8) as new Cardinal Lance Lynn allowed in a week last month. That’s an example of how much stronger of an addition the newest Cardinal is. He’s the top of the rotation arm they’ve been seeking.

Is Gray a bona fide ace? No, but they are harder to acquire-even with an inflated St. Louis budget-than some fans seem to think. Blake Snell has two Cy Youngs separated by a four-year “decent I guess” pitching arc, so I wouldn’t call him a legit ace. The Yankees didn’t exactly trade away an ace in Jordan Montgomery back in 2022, but he pitched like one for the Rangers down the half this past season, all the way to a World Series. But is he an ace now? Debatable.

Aaron Nola is more of an ace than any of the crop, but he wasn’t even ACE-enough for any competing teams to outbid his preferred landing spot of Philadelphia. Where are you finding an ace? *Older* Max Scherzer cost the New York Mets so much money, they didn’t even keep him for two full seasons. While I respect the translatable talents of Japan pitchers, Yoshinobu Yamamoto isn’t an M.L.B. ace just yet. It costs big dollars just for the opportunity to sign him, but that doesn’t make him an ace.

A Gray-Miles Mikolas-Lance Lynn-Kyle Gibson-Steven Matz isn’t a scary rotation, but it’s improved. Can I see them adding more big dollars on the rotation? Nope. Sorry, “Monty” reunion fans, but Scott Boras priced him out after his big World Series performance. Jon Heyman said the two sides talked, but that could have stopped after financials were exchanged. Mozeliak pivoted to Gray, and here we are.

Reality Check #1: They aren’t paying two starting pitchers $25 million or more for a season. Point to when they’ve done that in their prestigious-yet-guarded history of pitching acquiring, and it’s nowhere to be found. They’ve acquired their past two aces-Chris Carpenter and Adam Wainwright-via trade, for example.

Now, fortify the damn bullpen. The only way these rotation moves work is if the bullpen is locked and loaded. You try and run a rotation where half of the group is a make-a-wish prayer with last year’s bullpen, and it’ll crash and burn early. Then, my “trade one of the big dog” scenarios gets more real.

Here’s the thing. They made three moves before December 1, spending close to $50 million on rehabbing their rotation. The liability only runs three years long, so the search for “an ace the fans can trust” can continue. Give them props for searching and selecting quickly this offseason, like they had to. They acted fast. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither were expensive wildcard rosters.

Reality Check #2: Repeat after me. This team will NOT SPEND BIG DOLLARS on starting pitching. This front office just won’t. They saw the prices on other guys and bailed. $25 million AAV for Gray was their limit. They chose to spend their money this way. You as a fan can choose to spend your money, or not.

That’s the game. It’s what it is. They’re still short of the projected budget of $200 million, a mark they were going to meet last season before the team shit the bed. There’s still time to add a bullpen piece or trade from the outfield surplus for reinforcements, but the rotation is set… unless they find a trade partner for Matz.

Unleashing him would free up $11 extra million, which would allow the team to slot Matthew Liberatore in for the #5 spot at a much less proven value. I can’t see it meaning a real pursuit of Montgomery, but being proven wrong about that would be a daymaker for any Cards fan.

While he only made 17 starts last year, Matz put up a solid earned run average, a vast improvement on his injury riddled 2022 season. Before getting hurt in August, he was really starting to deal after a season and a half under the Arch. If he can continue that, I’d slot Liberatore in for a long relief/sixth starter role.

Whatever happens next, celebrate the Gray acquisition and the prompt response of the front office to a real need. We can debate their moves at this time next year, but for now it’s a full rotation. Question marks appear on just about every team due to the ferocity of the schedule and the unknowns each game presents.

Is Sonny Gray an ace on every team in the Majors? No. Is he on the Cardinals? Oh yes.

Thanks for putting up with me,

DLB