St. Louis

Cardinals

Vilade broke into the big leagues back in 2021 with the Rockies and got into a career-high 17 contests this past season for the Tigers, batting .178 (8-for-45) with one homer across 49 plate appearances. The 25-year-old former second-round pick is merely extra organizational depth at this stage of his career.

Woo adds some important context noting that Arenado has not demanded a trade, but he’s been open to the idea since the Cardinals approached him at the end of last season about exploring the trade market. It’s an interesting wrinkle for Arenado, who is coming off arguably the worst offensive season of his 12-year career, entering the hot stove season, especially given the lack of quality options from a fantasy standpoint outside the consensus top-six sluggers at the cold corner heading into 2025. A change of scenery could help Arenado revert to form and make him a mixed league-relevant fantasy contributor again.

There are a lot of moving pieces here, so none of this should be treated as anything close to certain, but Devers’ defense at third base has become enough of a question in recent years that the idea of moving him to first base makes some sense. What that would mean for Triston Casas’ role on the Red Sox is another domino that would have to fall. While it’s still early in the offseason, the Red Sox are reportedly talking about the move with Devers and they have expressed interest in Arenado, Alex Bregman, and Willy Adames as potential third base options if Devers does move. Arenado would seem to be the lowest priority of the three since he’s the oldest, is coming off a poor season, and would require giving up assets in a trade, but this is an intriguing storyline to monitor this offseason.

Kloffenstein appears to be the Cardinals’ only non-tender, as all of their arbitration-eligible players were safe. Kloffenstein is an obvious candidate to be re-signed to a minor league deal. The 24-year-old pitched one scoreless inning in his major league debut for the Cardinals last season. He had a 4.74 ERA in 17 starts for Triple-A Memphis.

Hence is arguably the highest profile prospect, especially from a fantasy persepctive, that needed to be added to a 40-man roster ahead of Tuesday’s reserve list deadline to protect him from next month’s Rule 5 Draft. the dynamic 22-year-old righty made significant strides last year in the upper minors, flashing some of the best stuff of any prospect in baseball, posting a stellar 2.71 ERA, 1.07 WHIP and 109/26 K/BB ratio across 79 2/3 innings (20 starts) for Double-A Memphis. He’ll open next season on the doorstep of the majors and figures to force his way to St. Louis at some point.

Rom has been jettisoned from the Cardinals’ 40-man roster after missing all of last season recovering from arthroscopic shoulder surgery. The 24-year-old southpaw came over from the Orioles back in 2023 as part of the Jack Flaherty trade and made eight starts during the late stages of that season.

A former top prospect, Barrero spent 2024 with the Rangers’ organization, and struggled to a .188 average and .477 OPS with Triple-A Round Rock. That was over a sample of just 49 games due to injury, and the Cardinals will hope Barrero can add some solid depth up the middle for the 2025 campaign at a low cost.

It’s hard to find any arguments against that one, as Helsley was an unstoppable force in the ninth inning for the Cardinals in 2024. He secured a league-leading 49 saves while posting a 2.04 ERA, 1.10 WHIP and a 79/23 K/BB ratio across 66 1/3 innings in his 65 appearances. He also notched seven victories in his extremely impressive campaign. Helsley will find himself among the upper echelon of closers in 2025 fantasy drafts.

Arenado is still owed $74 million over the next three seasons, and the 33-year-old has seen his numbers decrease since leaving the friendly confines of Coors Field. The Cardinals would likely need to eat a significant amount of salary in order to get a quality return, but teams who need third baseman should have interest as he’s still a strong defender and capable of above-average offensive numbers.

With Paul Goldschmidt hitting free agency, the Cardinals do have a hole at first base, but the assumption from many was that Jordan Walker would be making the move to that part of the infield. It appears instead that the 32-year-old Contreras will head to the not-so-hot corner, and this likely is at least in part an effort to keep him healthy after being limited to just 84 games with injuries in 2024. Contreras has enough offensive upside to be a quality fantasy first baseman, but losing catcher eligibility would obviously be a major blow going forward.