The Cardinals are facing a major obstacle as they attempt to retool their roster towards a younger (and cheaper) product for the 2025 campaign: they’ve been unsuccessful to this point in their attempts to move on from veteran third baseman Nolan Arenado. It’s against that backdrop that president of baseball operations John Mozeliak revealed yesterday (as reported by Katie Woo of The Athletic) that the club’s payroll situation may not be quite as dire as it seemed earlier this winter.
“(Chairman Bill DeWitt Jr.) is giving me a little bit of flexibility because we haven’t been able to accomplish what we thought we would by now,” Mozeliak said, as relayed by Woo. “He’s been very understanding about what that might look like.”
Mozeliak went on to describe moving a different significant salary like that of left-hander Steven Matz or righty Erick Fedde as not something the club would have to do if they’re unable to deal Arenado. While he acknowledged that making such a deal would be “helpful” from a payroll perspective, he also emphasized that he was not interested in making a deal “for the sake of just trying to get to a number.”
That the Cardinals’ front office won’t necessarily be forced to slash payroll in other areas of the roster if they’re unable to move on from Arenado and his salary is surely a relief for fans in St. Louis who are hoping to see the team compete in 2025. RosterResource currently projects the club for a $148MM payroll in 2025, which represents a $35MM haircut relative to the club’s 2024 payroll. Moving most of Arenado’s contract, which calls for the Cardinals to pay him $27MM in 2025, would come close to doubling the gap between the 2024 and ’25 payrolls. That would surely provide the club with the room below even their lowered payroll capacity to add talent to the bullpen and bring in a right-handed bat who can help balance a lineup that figures to revolve around Lars Nootbaar, Nolan Gorman, and Alec Burleson in 2025.
With that said, it seems as though Mozeliak is not interested in dealing away salary from his rotation in order to make those upgrades to other parts of the roster happen at this point. When he spoke at the Cardinals’ Winter Warmup fan event yesterday, Mozeliak made clear that he values the depth the club currently has in the rotation. With that being said, St. Louis has reportedly expressed some level of interest in reuniting with veteran right-hander Kyle Gibson throughout the winter, and it’s at least plausible to imagine a scenario where the club manages to trade away Matz or Fedde before turning around and re-signing Gibson for a lower salary than that of the starter they dealt. That could create some additional room in the payroll to sign a reliever or bench bat even in the event the club is unable to trade Arenado.
If the Cardinals do end up dealing from their rotation mix this winter, there’s one player in the organization in particular who could be poised to seize on that opportunity: southpaw Matthew Liberatore. A former top prospect who the Cardinals traded for in the deal that sent Randy Arozarena to the Rays, the lefty was mostly used as a reliever in 2024. While he made six starts for the Cardinals in the majors last year, only one of those outings saw the southpaw finish the fourth inning. That’s not stopping Liberatore from stretching back out in 2025, however, as John Denton of MLB.com relayed this afternoon that the lefty plans to work towards starting in Spring Training and throughout the 2025 season.
As Denton notes, it’s hard to imagine Liberatore finding success in the rotation over the long-term without substantial improvement against right-handed hitters, as he’s been torched to the tune of a .292/.368/.510 slash line throughout his career when pitching without the platoon advantage. That held true in 2024 as well, as Liberatore surrendered an ugly 6.16 ERA with a 5.22 FIP against right-handed batters this past season while limiting lefties to a 1.98 ERA and 2.59 FIP. If the lefty can sort his platoon issues out, however, he could be an option worth considering for the club’s rotation mix alongside right-hander Michael McGreevy in the event that the club deals from its rotation without bringing in Gibson or another veteran arm.