Cardinals Urged To Trade Steven Matz To AL West Rival Poised For Payroll Increase

The St. Louis Cardinals are looking to reset after missing the playoffs in back-to-back seasons and neglecting player development for years.

Eliminating contracts from the payroll will be vital for the Cardinals' rebuilding efforts as they look to reinvest resources into fixing their broken player development system.

Fortunately, one player's contract the Cardinals would likely prefer to subtract from payroll this winter could fit an American League West rival's budget for 2025.

"(Steven) Matz is entering the final season of his four-year pact with the Cardinals that will pay him $12 million, or exactly one million for every appearance he made during the 2024 campaign," CBS Sports' R.J. Anderson wrote Wednesday when discussing the Athletics as a potential trade destination for the St. Louis hurler. "That Matz performed poorly when healthy is largely irrelevant. Think of him instead as the new, left-handed version of Ross Stripling. (Stripling, you may recall, was acquired from the Giants last offseason and subsequently made 22 appearances for the A's, amassing a 66 ERA+ along the way.) The one catch here is that the Cardinals may view 2025 as a transitional year, giving them reduced urgency to move bad money."

Matz has logged a 55-60 record with a 4.29 ERA, 881-to-280 strikeout-to-walk ratio, .263 batting average against and a 1.33 WHIP throughout his 10-year career, during which he played for the New York Mets, Toronto Blue Jays and Cardinals.

Since joining the Cardinals in 2022, Matz hasn't amounted to much. Injuries have consistently sidelined the left-handed pitcher, leaving St. Louis with a perpetual hole in the rotation.

Trading Matz to the Athletics could provide the Cardinals with a haul of prospects worth investing in. Rumors indicate that the A's are looking to increase payroll this winter, so perhaps they'd be more willing to accept the responsibility of the final year of his contract.

The alternative would be to keep the injury-prone southpaw for another season but considering St. Louis is committed to creating opportunities for youngsters to play in 2025, dealing Matz makes the most sense.