{"id":407602,"date":"2026-01-14T01:32:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T01:32:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/407602\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T01:32:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T01:32:08","slug":"cardinals-sign-ryne-stanek-mlb-trade-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/407602\/","title":{"rendered":"Cardinals Sign Ryne Stanek – MLB Trade Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"

January 13: Bloom announced to the media today that the Stanek deal is official. Jeff Jones of the Belleville News-Democrat<\/a> was among those to pass it along. The Cards opened a 40-man spot by trading Nolan Arenado<\/a> to the Diamondbacks earlier today<\/a>.<\/p>\n

January 10:\u00a0Stanek will earn $3.5MM in 2026, per Mark Feinsand of MLB.com<\/a>. The deal also includes a $6MM club option for 2027.<\/p>\n

January 9: The Cardinals are in agreement with free agent reliever\u00a0Ryne Stanek<\/a>, reports Robert Murray of FanSided<\/a>. Chris Cotillo of MassLive first reported<\/a> that St. Louis was pursuing the hard-throwing righty. The Cardinals will need to open a 40-man roster spot once the MVP Sports Group client completes a physical.<\/p>\n

Stanek gets a change of scenery after an inconsistent year and a half with the Mets. New York acquired him from the Mariners at the 2024 trade deadline. While he allowed 11 runs in 16 1\/3 regular season innings down the stretch, Stanek\u2019s plus strikeout rate and strong postseason work led the Mets to bring him back on a $4.5MM free agent deal.<\/p>\n

That didn\u2019t pan out, as the 34-year-old had an up-and-down season. Stanek had strong run prevention marks in May and July but was knocked around in the other four months. He finished with a 5.30 earned run average across 56 innings. ERA estimators were only slightly more bullish as Stanek\u2019s strikeout and walk rates each went in the wrong direction.<\/p>\n

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A 22.7% strikeout rate was narrowly the lowest of his nine-year career. Stanek had fanned nearly 28% of opposing hitters one season earlier. It\u2019s crucial that he miss bats because command has never been a strong suit. Stanek has walked at least 10% of batters faced in all but one year, including a 12.5% mark last season.<\/p>\n

The Cardinals are taking what should be a low-cost bet that he\u2019ll strike out more batters in 2026. Stanek still has the stuff to do that. He averaged 98.5 MPH on his heater, a top 15 mark in MLB. He backs that up with a plus slider and mixes in a splitter and sweeper as his third and fourth offerings. Stanek still missed bats at a slightly above-average rate on a per pitch basis.<\/p>\n

St. Louis doesn\u2019t have a ton of experienced arms in the late innings. Southpaw\u00a0JoJo Romero<\/a> had been their only reliever with even two years of MLB service. There\u2019s a decent chance he\u2019s traded before Opening Day. The Cardinals were looking for a veteran arm who can pitch in the back half of the bullpen. Stanek fits best in middle relief but could be in the high-leverage mix, perhaps even as a closer, on a rebuilding club. He\u2019s a known commodity to president of baseball operations Chaim Bloom, who was in the Rays front office when Tampa Bay drafted him in the first round in 2013.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also a geographic tie. Stanek was born in St. Louis and went to high school not far outside Missouri in Stilwell, Kansas. There\u2019s a decent chance he\u2019ll be traded midseason if he\u2019s pitching well, but he\u2019ll get a chance to play for his hometown club for at least a few months.<\/p>\n

Image courtesy of Gregory Fisher, Imagn Images.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"January 13: Bloom announced to the media today that the Stanek deal is official. Jeff Jones of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":407603,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,28245,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-407602","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-ryne-stanek","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407602","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=407602"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407602\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/407603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=407602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=407602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=407602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}