{"id":310569,"date":"2025-11-27T16:25:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-27T16:25:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/310569\/"},"modified":"2025-11-27T16:25:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-27T16:25:07","slug":"cardinals-notes-donovan-gorman-nootbaar-burleson-pirates-pitching","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/310569\/","title":{"rendered":"Cardinals Notes: Donovan, Gorman, Nootbaar, Burleson, Pirates, Pitching"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brendan Donovan<\/a> has been drawing as much trade interest as any player in baseball, owing both to Donovan\u2019s value as a left-handed hitter with defensive versatility and to the Cardinals\u2019 rebuilding status.\u00a0 The Astros, Pirates, Royals, and Guardians have been publicly linked to Donovan\u2019s trade market, and with these and more clubs in pursuit of the All-Star, the timing seems right for the Cards to cash in while Donovan\u2019s value is at its peak.<\/p>\n

That said, St. Louis isn\u2019t required to move Donovan this offseason, since he still has two seasons remaining of arbitration eligibility.\u00a0 As The Athletic\u2019s Katie Woo<\/a> frames the situation, if the Cards can\u2019t find the big return they want for Donovan, the team \u201cwill pivot to moving at least one of\u201d Lars Nootbaar<\/a> or Nolan Gorman<\/a>.\u00a0 In another piece from Woo, Will Sammon, and Ken Rosenthal<\/a>, Alec Burleson<\/a> is another player the Cardinals won\u2019t move \u201cunless\u2026blown away by an offer.\u201d<\/p>\n

All four of these hitters mentioned are lefty-swingers, so trading any of them would help balance out the St. Louis lineup and perhaps clear some room for another left-handed hitter in shortstop prospect JJ Wetherholt<\/a>.\u00a0 Since Masyn Winn<\/a> is an elite defensive shortstop, the Cardinals\u2019 plan for Wetherholt seems to be to break him into the big leagues as a second or third baseman, so moving Donovan or Gorman in particular would clear a path in that regard.\u00a0 Trading Nolan Arenado<\/a> would obviously also open up third base, though Arenado\u2019s contract and no-trade protection makes moving him a trickier proposition than any of these other players, even though Arenado has expressed<\/a> more of an openness to be dealt than he did last winter.<\/p>\n

On the surface, the Cardinals\u2019 stance is obvious.\u00a0 Donovan and Burleson were both much more productive than Gorman or Nootbaar in 2025, so naturally the latter two players seem to have less of a role in the Cards\u2019 future plans.\u00a0 Formerly a top prospect in his own right, Gorman seemed to be figuring things out with a 27-homer season in 2023, but he has hit just .204\/.284\/.385 with 33 homers in 804 plate appearances over the last two seasons, with a whopping 287 strikeouts underlying Gorman\u2019s contact problems.\u00a0 Nootbaar had been a more consistent performer before his numbers fell off during an injury-plagued 2025 campaign.\u00a0 The biggest obstacle to a Nootbaar trade seems to be his health, as he may not be ready for Opening Day<\/a> following surgery to correct Haglund\u2019s deformities on both his heels.<\/p>\n

Moving Gorman or Nootbaar would obviously bring back less of a trade return than Donovan or Burleson.\u00a0 The Rangers were one team known to have interest<\/a> in Nootbaar before word of his surgery became public, and the club\u2019s subsequent trade for Brandon Nimmo<\/a> would seemingly indicate that Texas has moved on from Nootbaar.\u00a0 The Pirates have shown interest<\/a> in all of Nootbaar, Gorman, and Donovan, and Woo reports that Pittsburgh has also asked the team about Burleson.<\/p>\n

Donovan and Nootbaar are controlled through the 2027 season, while Gorman and Burleson are arbitration-eligible for just the first time this winter and won\u2019t be eligible free agency until the 2028-29 offseason.\u00a0 Burleson is coming off the best of his four MLB seasons, as he won Silver Slugger honors (from the NL utility position) after hitting .290\/.343\/.459 with 18 home runs over 546 PA in 2025.\u00a0 Burleson split his time between first base and both corner outfield slots this year, and while he is only passable defensively, his ability to play multiple positions gives the Cardinals some lineup flexibility.\u00a0 The appeal is obvious for a Pirates team looking for help all over the diamond, and for offensive help in general.<\/p>\n

While the two NL Central rivals have rarely lined up<\/a> on trades over the last few decades, the Pirates\u2019 young pitching depth carries obvious trade appeal to a St. Louis team looking to restock their system with such arms.\u00a0 This week\u2019s trade<\/a> of Sonny Gray<\/a> to the Red Sox not only cleared $20M off the Cardinals\u2019 books, but it brought back pitchers who can help the Cards in 2026 (Richard Fitts<\/a>) and further in the future (prospect Brandon Clarke<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Speaking with Woo, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch\u2019s Derrick Goold<\/a> and other reporters after the trade, Cardinals president of baseball operations Chaim Bloom said his team is aiming to add more pitching over the course of its offseason moves.\u00a0 This could include more experienced arms to eat innings and act as mentors to the younger hurlers, though Bloom indicated that such veterans might be more shorter-term additions.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot to put them in the way of any of our youth, but to make sure we have the right insulation up and down that rotation,\u201d Bloom said. \u201cWe want to create some competition.\u00a0 We want to make sure we have options.\u00a0 And that we allow our young guys to flourish while making sure that next wave that we hope is coming doesn\u2019t get pressed into service before it\u2019s their time.\u00a0 We want to make sure they\u2019re ready for the highest level of baseball before we throw them into the fire.\u00a0 So we will look to add to our rotation \u2014 whether it\u2019s more youth or a veteran \u2014 as the winter goes on.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brendan Donovan has been drawing as much trade interest as any player in baseball, owing both to Donovan\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":310570,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[34595,21168,49,48,34597,462,18422,82],"class_list":["post-310569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-alec-burleson","tag-brendan-donovan","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-lars-nootbaar","tag-mlb","tag-nolan-gorman","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=310569"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310569\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/310570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}