{"id":333819,"date":"2025-12-08T00:16:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-08T00:16:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/333819\/"},"modified":"2025-12-08T00:16:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-08T00:16:08","slug":"cardinals-notes-nootbaar-cameron-pitching","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/333819\/","title":{"rendered":"Cardinals Notes: Nootbaar, Cameron, Pitching"},"content":{"rendered":"

As one of the few teams in baseball in true rebuild mode, the Cardinals are open to offers on most players on their roster, yet some of the Cards\u2019 most-cited trade candidates may be a little more available than others.\u00a0 Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch<\/a> hears from sources on rival teams that the Cardinals don\u2019t seem to be \u201cactively seeking to trade\u201d outfielder Lars Nootbaar<\/a>.\u00a0 This doesn\u2019t necessarily mean that Nootbaar won\u2019t be dealt, of course, but there are also some obvious reasons why the Cardinals might want to wait until beyond this offseason to move the 28-year-old.<\/p>\n

Injuries have been a subplot of Nootbaar\u2019s career, and while he hit new career highs in games played (135) and plate appearances (583) in 2025, he underwent surgery in October on both of his heels.\u00a0 The surgery was meant to address Haglund\u2019s deformities, which are bone spurs that develop on the heel bone near the base of the Achilles tendon.\u00a0 It seems likely that playing through this discomfort led to Nootbaar\u2019s underwhelming numbers in 2025, and it isn\u2019t yet known<\/a> if the recovery from the procedure will allow Nootbaar to be ready for Opening Day.<\/p>\n

Between the health question mark and Nootbaar\u2019s 96 wRC+ (from 13 homers and a .234\/.325\/.361 slash line), St. Louis would probably be selling low if Nootbaar was traded this winter.\u00a0 As such, it makes sense that the Cardinals would hang onto Nootbaar for now and see if he\u2019s able to bounce back in the first half of the 2026 season, so a trade deadline move might be more realistic.<\/p>\n

Trading Sonny Gray<\/a> to the Red Sox<\/a> cleared $20MM off of the Cardinals\u2019 payroll ledger for 2026, and the team would also save a lot of money if Nolan Arenado<\/a> or Willson Contreras<\/a> were traded.\u00a0 There isn\u2019t any similar financial pressure involved with a potential Nootbaar trade, as he is projected<\/a> to earn $5.7MM this winter in the second of three trips through the arbitration process.\u00a0 That extra year of control gives the Cards more flexibility in allowing Nootbaar to get fully healthy before more properly shopping him to any interested teams.<\/p>\n

President of baseball operations Chaim Bloom has been open about his team\u2019s desire to add starting pitching, whether it\u2019s younger arms or (likely on short-term deals) more experienced hurlers.\u00a0 The Gray trade brought Richard Fitts<\/a> and prospect Brandon Clarke<\/a> into the fold, and St. Louis is expected to seek out more pitchers in other trades or in free agency.\u00a0 Whether or not the Cards explore free agent pitchers will hinge on what they can land on the trade front, Goold writes, so it may be yet be a while before the Cardinals look too deeply at signings given how much interest they\u2019re getting in their various trade chips.<\/p>\n

Other teams\u2019 trade endeavors could also delay matters.\u00a0 For instance, Goold notes that some teams interested in Brendan Donovan<\/a> for their second base vacancy also have interest in the Rays\u2019 Brandon Lowe<\/a> or even the Diamondbacks\u2019 Ketel Marte<\/a>.\u00a0 If one of those players is dealt elsewhere, that eliminates one Donovan suitor, but also puts more pressure on other interested teams to up their offers to St. Louis in order to land a second baseman (though Donovan\u2019s versatility also doesn\u2019t limit his market just to keystone-needy teams).<\/p>\n

Perhaps related to both the Cardinals\u2019 pitching search and the Royals\u2019 known interest in Donovan, Goold reports that the Cards \u201chave had interest before in\u201d Kansas City\u2019s Noah Cameron<\/a>.\u00a0 The 26-year-old southpaw is coming off an impressive debut season that saw Cameron finish fourth in AL Rookie of the Year voting after posting a 2.99 ERA over 138 1\/3 innings.<\/p>\n

Between Cameron\u2019s ability and multiple remaining years of team control, it would take a whole lot to pry the left-hander away from the Royals.\u00a0 While K.C. president of baseball operations J.J. Picollo has discussed<\/a> his team\u2019s openness to trading from its pitching depth for much-needed outfield help, Cameron would likely be one of the last arms the Royals would prefer to move.\u00a0 That said, adding a real impact bat to the lineup might require an impact pitcher in return, and Donovan\u2019s market has been so crowded that the Royals might make to make a special offer to break away from the pack.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As one of the few teams in baseball in true rebuild mode, the Cardinals are open to offers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":333820,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,24616,95953,591,14541,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-333819","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-brendan-donovan","11":"tag-lars-nootbaar","12":"tag-mlb","13":"tag-noah-cameron","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=333819"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333819\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/333820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=333819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=333819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=333819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}