Cardinals are reportedly shopping veteran righty

The Cardinals are shopping right-hander Erick Fedde, reports Katie Woo of The Athletic. The Cardinals are on the buy/sell bubble but Woo says they will pursue Fedde trades regardless of which path they take.

A couple of weeks ago, it was reported that the Cards feel Michael McGreevy is ready for a rotation role in the big leagues. However, he was blocked by the club’s other starters and that remains the case. St. Louis has had remarkable rotation healthy this year. Each of Fedde, Sonny Gray, Miles Mikolas, Andre Pallante and Matthew Liberatore has made at least 18 start this year. McGreevy and Steven Matz have chipped in with a few spot starts, but it has essentially been the same core five all year long. McGreevy was recalled today to make a spot start tonight in order to give Liberatore some extra rest.

With the deadline now just over the horizon, there’s logic to flipping someone to make room for McGreevy, a former first-round pick who is putting up good numbers this year. In 15 Triple-A starts, he has a 3.72 earned run average, 25.5% strikeout rate, 4.9% walk rate and 53.8% ground ball rate.

As mentioned, the Cards appear to be on the border of buying or selling. They attempted to do a reset in the winter but found it difficult to trade their veteran players with no-trade clauses. They decided to mostly stand pat and have hovered in the race this year. They were swept by the Diamondbacks this weekend but are still just 3.5 games back of a playoff spot. If they believe McGreevy is ready for the show, they could flip a starter to add some young talent but still leave the rotation in a decent spot for a stretch run.

Fedde is the most logical guy to move out. Both Gray and Mikolas have full no-trade clauses. When the club was trying to hit the reset button in the offseason, both expressed a preference to stay, quickly squashing trade speculation. Pallante and Liberatore are each young and controllable for years to come. For a club looking to do a reset, it wouldn’t make sense to move those guys out. Fedde, on the other hand, is 32 years old and an impending free agent. He’s not a part of the club’s long-term plans.

The problem is that he has tanked a lot of his value this year. After a successful stint in Korea in 2023, he returned to North America with aplomb last year. Between the White Sox and the Cards, he tossed 177 1/3 innings with a 3.30 ERA, 21.2% strikeout rate, 7.2% walk rate and 42.1% ground ball rate. Here in 2025, everything has gone in the wrong direction. In 98 2/3 innings, he has a 4.83 ERA, 13.5% strikeout rate, 10.7% walk rate and 39.2% ground ball rate.

Given those results, rival clubs won’t be tripping over themselves to acquire Fedde. He might have some value as a live arm on an injury-depleted team, but only as a back-end filler type of role. No one will view him as a capable playoff starter right now. He is making a $7.5M salary this year, which leaves less than $3M to be paid out. That would be a bargain if he were pitching to his 2024 levels but it doesn’t look especially attractive now. If the Cards really want to move Fedde and open more starts for McGreevy, perhaps they would be willing to eat some of that money in order to secure a better return.