After a string of free agent flops, Cardinals gamble with young, cheap bullpen arms

Brett Cecil really didn’t work out. Neither did Luke Gregerson, the second time around, nor especially Greg Holland.

Andrew Miller, the best of the bunch of high-dollar, end-of-career, free agent relievers signed by the Cardinals over the last 10 years, was a below league average pitcher in two of his three years in St. Louis, and the third was a 13-inning sample in 2020 fantasyland.

Whatever protestations there may be about Cardinals ownership’s willingness to escalate to proper heights when it comes to free agent spending, the one area where they’ve consistently been willing to beat the market is the bullpen. That, historically, has ended in failure and disappointment; of those four veterans, only Miller made it to the end of his contract before being released.

It should not come as a particular shock, then, that none of the three primary relievers the Cardinals have added to the 40-man roster this winter will make more than the league minimum next season, nor that each of the three represents a similarly valued lottery ticket.

Rule 5 draft pick Ryan Fernandez, Riley O’Brien (a cash trade from Seattle) and Nick Robertson (the Tyler O’Neill deal with Boston) will all come to camp with a chance to impress and secure a spot toward the back end of the bullpen. Imagine, for instance, a pitcher with impressive physical tools such as those possessed by Drew VerHagen but with an actual knowledge of how to pitch.

This is the construction of the modern bullpen – toolsy, cheap, and hoping one or two of three guys can fit into roughly one roster spot.

Ryan Helsley and Giovanny Gallegos seem set to return to the club with incumbency, and if JoJo Romero is further from the center of plans than those two, it’s by only a whisker. Andre Pallante’s place also seems secure, which accounts for four of the eight available slots.

It seems that at least one of Matt Liberatore and Zack Thompson will likely open the season in the big league bullpen, and John King put up strong enough numbers after last season’s trade from Texas to be under serious consideration. Each of those three, though, along with Pallante, O’Brien and Robertson, can be freely moved up and down to Memphis. Fernandez, by virtue of Rule 5 restrictions, would have to remain on the active roster barring an additional trade with Boston to secure his services outright.

There is a great deal of flexibility baked in, and there remains room to hunt.

None of the additions thus far would qualify as the “back end” protection the Cardinals have advertised; both of the free agents from Asian professional leagues they have targeted would. Japanese lefty Yuki Matsui and Korean righty Go Woo-suk remain available, and either or both could find a home in St. Louis.

What, then, did the Cardinals see in the group of Fernandez, O’Brien and Robertson that made them targets? The answer is both simple and predictable: gas and frisbees. They throw hard, they throw sliders, and by honing a two-pitch mix, the Cardinals see potential bullpen weapons they can marry with roster flexibility to raise the bullpen’s ceiling as well as its floor.

Take Fernandez, whose numbers suggest a pitcher who struggled to adjust to Triple-A even after dominating Double-A. Even among those struggles, he posted a 10.3 strikeouts per nine innings rate for Worcester, dipping slightly from the 11.5 he posted for Portland a league below.

Helsley, Romero, and the departed Génesis Cabrera and Jordan Hicks were the only Cardinals relievers with significant innings to post a K/9 ratio better than 10 in the majors last season. That’s another big step forward for Fernandez, but stylistically, he profiles similarly as he advances levels.

O’Brien has appeared twice in the majors and pitched a total of 2 ⅓ innings in those appearances, but three of his seven outs were strikeouts. In 55 innings for Triple-A Tacoma last season, his K/9 was an eye-popping 14.1 (and his walks per nine a vomit-inducing 5.1). Robertson struck out 26 in 22 ⅓ MLB innings in 2023, posting a K/9 of 10.5. Splitting his time in the minors between the Boston and Los Angeles Dodgers’ systems, his ratio in 42 ⅔ innings jumped to 12.2.

None of these three are perfect pitchers. There is a reason each was available as he climbed through his mid-20s and left the zone where he could fairly be called a prospect. But the appeal of all three, for a team which has spent the last few seasons in a strikeout desert, is obvious. They don’t all have to be (and surely won’t all be) good, but bullpen construction can be done in bulk.

It is more virtue than vice that all three were and likely remain anonymous to Cardinals fans. On the whole, that’s for the best. Consider, after all, how it went the last few times they thought they knew what they were getting. The gambling seems a great deal more prudent.