The Cardinals have reportedly told their veteran players they will look to trade them as the team pivots younger. So who could they trade, and what could they get for them?

Let’s focus on four players who are all in their 30s, with at least one year remaining on a fixed contract, who can still be productive on the field. All four are overpaid and in various stages of decline, but they can still help another team.

Let’s take them one at a time.

 

Nolan Arenado

Arenado has three years left on his contract, covering his ages 34-36. In his peak years, he was typically a 6-7 WAR player, combining elite defense with well-above-average offense, hovering around the 130 WRC+ mark. 

But in his last two years, he’s produced about half that total – 5.8 fWAR combined in 2023-24, or 2.9 per year. That’s considered the productivity of a regular, not a star. And as he gets older, of course, that production figures to decline further. 

He’s still productive enough that a team would welcome him, but he’s not worth the roughly $61M he’s owed (note that that figure accounts for the $10M the Rockies are still paying him, and factors in deferrals). That also doesn’t include injury risk, which is a significant factor for aging players (even ones who have been relatively healthy, like Arenado). That’s why we estimate his field value at $35.9M, or roughly a $12M AAV going forward.

Complicating matters is the fact that Arenado has a no-trade clause, so it’s quite possible that he would veto a deal the team likes, and that ultimately limits their options.

To move him, we think the Cards would have to fork over roughly $25M in cash in the deal to call it even, then add a bit more to “buy” a prospect. To get back a prospect valued at, say, $5M (roughly a 45-rated pitcher), they would likely need to to kick in $30M (or $10M per year).

 

Willson Contreras

Contreras remains a productive hitter, and in fact had one of his better years at the plate in 2024. Despite playing in only 84 games, he compiled 2.6 fWAR, with a 140 WRC+ that was actually a career high, although we can’t really call it that because his year was incomplete, and you can’t just assume he’d maintain that level over a full season. It’s more likely he would have matched the 125 games he played in 2023. If you do that math, and regress it a bit to account for the effects of a fuller season, you end up around 3.5 fWAR, consistent with his 2022 season.

And while his injury was accidental (and therefore not one you can chalk up to wear and tear), he is a catcher with a lot of miles on his body, going into his age-33 season. He’s also never been known for his defense, which suggests that his mid-’30s future lies more in being a DH. Note that catchers have a history of falling off a cliff at this point in their careers (see: Grandal, Lucroy, etc.), as the years behind the plate take a toll on their physical skills.

Either way, you end up with a profile of a good hitter with little-to-no defensive value, as either a tired catcher or a DH-only. And the market doesn’t typically pay a lot for that. J.D. Martinez, for example, put up 2.5 fWAR and a 135 WRC+ in 2023, then struggled to find a deal last offseason, settling for $12M from the Mets, most of which was deferred, which brought the present value of the deal closer to $9M.

All of that is why we project Contreras’ field value at $32.5M over his next three years of control, which cover his ages 33 to 35. However, he’s owed $59.5M over that timeframe, which includes a $5M buyout in 2028, so there’s a deficit of $27M. That’s the amount we project the Cardinals would have to cover in a trade scenario just to break even, and as with Arenado, go over a bit to get any kind of prospect back.

 

Sonny Gray

First, the good news: Gray has seemingly found a new gear over the past two years, putting up 5.4 fWAR in 2023 and 3.8 fWAR in 2024, for a two-year combined total of 9.2 – the best two-year stretch of his career. His K% rate was elite; his K-BB% rate of 24.4% this year was his best ever; and his xwOBA has been well above average for six consecutive years. In other words, he’s a really good pitcher.

Now the bad news: Gray ended the year on the IL with a strained forearm, which is never a good sign. According to the Cardinals, he will just rest it in the offseason and hope for the best. But that will give teams pause. Also: He’ll be 35 next year, and 36 in the final year of his guaranteed contract. Given the realities of Father Time, the chances of him staying healthy (as well as effective) lessen each year, even if this forearm strain turns out to be nothing.

Speaking of his contract: ugh. It was backloaded, such that he is still owed $65M over the next two years ($25M in 2025, $35M in 2026, and a $5M buyout in 2027, which looks likely to be paid out, considering he’d be 37 and at that point the alternative is to pay him $30M). That’s a hefty price tag, equivalent to a free-agent deal at 2/65, at an AAV of $32.5M per year. On top of all that, he also has a no-trade clause, so even if a team is interested in paying that salary and taking on the risks, he might not be willing to go there. In short, the Cards have no leverage here, and will need to be accommodating if they want to move him.

According to our model, two years of Gray at this point of his career is worth $48.9M in field value (between $24M and $25M on an AAV basis, which is the same as his luxury tax hit would be). So he’s underwater by $16M – that’s what the Cards will have to kick in to break even, and anything over that line will buy them a prospect, depending on the amount.

 

Miles Mikolas

Speaking of aging pitchers, Mikolas will be 36 next year, the final year of his guaranteed contract. He’s been a serviceable starter since the Cardinals signed him on his return to the U.S., typically in 2-3 fWAR range. 

In 2024, however, he showed several signs of decline: his ERA jumped from 4.78 to 5.35; his expected stats, such as xBA, xSLG, and xwOBA, were among the league’s worst. He does limit walks well, but that’s getting to be about it. He’s a soft-tossing back-end starter.

He’s owed $16M in 2025, but in our model, he’s worth about $10M. So he’s underwater by $6M. That doesn’t seem like that much compared to the other guys here, but keep in mind that back-end starters are more plentiful, and easier to develop in-house, than front-end ones, so we might be looking at even less demand at that price point. And he, too, has a no-trade clause, which limits his market even further.

Even if the Cardinals kicked in $6M, an acquiring team would still be on the hook to pay $10M for a 36-year-old meh arm, whose production they could probably substitute via cheaper means. So this one could be a tough sell as well. The Cards might have to kick in a bigger chunk to get much of anything back in prospect value.

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All told, these four guys are underwater by a grand total of roughly $75M. And that’s not even counting Steven Matz, whose contract is also underwater, by another $9M (Matz is not an attractive trade candidate, considering he is almost never healthy and coming off a down year.) So that’s $84M in total.

Three other veterans on underwater contracts – those of Lance Lynn, Kyle Gibson, and Keynan Middleton – have already had their team options declined. Those were the easy decisions.

So, Cards fans: your front office can indeed move those top four guys, but they’ll likely have to fork over a good $75M or so to get rid of their contracts so they can buy a couple of low-to-medium-ish prospects in the deals. Current President of Baseball Operations John Mozeliak will finish out his final offseason with the Cards attempting to do that, while incoming POBO Chaim Bloom focuses on building the future core. 

The good news is, there’s a… well, let’s call it a concept of a plan. It just may take a while.