As the postseason winds down, all thirty clubs are quickly approaching the proper start of the offseason. One of the first considerations a team makes during the summer is whether or not to exercise club options for the next season. Those judgments are due five days after the World Series concludes, but most clubs know where they stand before then. Katie Woo of The Athletic reviewed the Cardinals’ plans for their three club options for 2025 this morning, noting that the team is “not expected” to exercise its $12MM option ($1MM buyout) on veteran righty Lance Lynn or its $6MM option ($1MM buyout) on reliever Keynan Middleton.
Neither of these decisions is necessarily surprising. Previous reports indicated that Middleton was anticipated to leave this winter, and while Lynn’s future was more uncertain, it has long appeared that the club would prefer to keep right-hander Kyle Gibson on his team option, which has identical terms to Lynn’s, in 2025. However, Woo makes it apparent that even Gibson’s option being picked up is not guaranteed. Instead, Woo thinks that if Gibson’s option is taken up, the team is “almost guaranteed” to deal either right-hander Miles Mikolas or southpaw Steven Matz this winter. Woo reports that the possibilities of Gibson’s option being picked up will “increase” if the Cardinals feel confident they’ll be able to move one of the two this winter, but that’s far from a guarantee.
Matz is unquestionably the more movable of the two, despite coming off a very unsuccessful season on the mound in which he pitched to a 5.08 ERA while being limited to only 44 1/3 innings due to injuries. While such production is unlikely to generate much return on the trade market, the rising cost of starting pitching in recent years makes the remaining one year and $12.5MM on Matz’s contract more appealing than it would otherwise be. Overall, the southpaw has been approximately league average (95 ERA+) while swinging between the bullpen and rotation for the Cardinals, and he projects to be a decent, serviceable back-of-the-rotation starter in 2025. Alternatively, a club could look to convert him to full-time relief work after the lefty posted sub-3.00 ERAs out of the bullpen in each of his last three seasons, albeit in small sample sizes that total just 33 1/3 innings of 2.43 ERA ball.
Mikolas, on the other hand, appears to be a problematic transfer for the team. Woo points out that the 36-year-old is one among the club’s numerous veterans (including Sonny Gray, Willson Contreras, and Nolan Arenado) who have a no-trade clause that will limit their ability to be traded this winter. The Cardinals will need to talk to all of those players about their futures, but even if Mikolas decides to renounce his no-trade rights and play elsewhere, it’s uncertain how interested competing clubs will be in his services. Mikolas had the worst season of his Cardinals career in 2024, pitching to a 5.35 ERA in 171 2/3 innings.
A pitcher who will turn 37 in August, with three below-average ERA+ seasons in the last four years, and a $17.67MM salary for 2025 appears unlikely to generate much interest on the trade market unless St. Louis is ready to pay down a major chunk of his contract. However, there are some positive aspects to Mikolas’ profile. The veteran’s 4.24 FIP and 4.28 SIERA in 2024 were significantly superior to his actual on-field performance, and he is still one of the most durable starters in the game today. Mikolas has appeared in 100 games (99 starts) over the last three seasons, throwing 575 1/3 innings. That is good for the sixth-most innings in MLB over that span, behind only Logan Webb and Aaron Nola, Corbin Burnes, Logan Gilbert, and Framber Valdez. If the Cardinals were willing to pay down a portion of Mikolas’s salary, it’s at least feasible that a team in need of innings could take a flier on the veteran in hopes of a bounce-back.
