The offseason is a fun time across Major League Baseball. For the vast majority of teams, now is the time to think ahead and try to improve ahead of the next season. Only three teams are currently still alive in the playoffs: the Milwaukee Brewers, the Tampa Bay Rays and the Cleveland Guardians.
The St. Louis Cardinals were not one of the teams that made the 2026 playoffs, but that doesn't mean that the season was a failure. St. Louis got a better look at its young core, saw a handful of guys make the jump to the big leagues, including Leo Bernal, Joshua Baez and Quinn Mathews, and significantly bolstered the farm system by trading veterans away. The Cardinals won 77 games, which was just one fewer than in 2025, when veterans were all throughout the roster.
The Cardinals need to continue the trajectory this offseason and the ways to do that would be by adding a veteran starter, bullpen help and maybe a third baseman. But that doesn't mean all of the speculation out there makes sense. For example, Bleacher Report's Kerry Miller pitched Reid Detmers as a trade candidate for St. Louis to consider this offseason. But that arguably wouldn't work because now isn't the time for St. Louis to offload elite prospects just yet in the trade market.
Should The Cardinals Target Reid Detmers?
"St. Louis Cardinals: A Trade for an Ace Pitcher," Miller wrote. "Prime Target: Los Angeles' Reid Detmers (two years of arbitration eligibility, estimated at $7.5M in 2027). Putting the cart before the horse here, but if the Cardinals manage to add a legitimate ace this winter, they're going to be the team that everyone falls in love with as the pick to go from sub-.500 in 2026 to a possible first-round bye in 2027. Upgrading the third base situation is presumably also on their to-do list, but adding an Opening Day starter would be huge."
The Cardinals arguably do need a veteran starter to pair with all of their young guys. Detmers is a six-year veteran and would fit that description. He's also coming off the best season of his career, in which he pitched to a 3.36 ERA in 32 starts. But the price tag to bring someone like Detmers to town in the trade market would likely be too high for where the Cardinals are in their rebuild.
Sure, the farm system is loaded right now. But that doesn't mean that the Cardinals should turn around and trade multiple elite prospects for a starter that has some question marks attached to him. In 2025, Detmers didn't even make a single start. He made 61 appearances out of the Los Angeles Angels' bullpen. In 2027, is he going to be the version of himself that shined in 2026? Or was the season a fluke? In 2024, he had a 6.70 ERA in 17 starts for the Angels and was a -1.1 WAR player.
The price tag for a team to acquire Detmers is going to be high, but he isn't a sure thing. The Cardinals aren't a piece or two from contention. They are not at a place yet in which it is time to unload the farm system on a gamble. Think about St. Louis' farm system even just a few years ago. The Cardinals previously depleted it and that's one of the reasons the club is in the position it has been in over the last three years. It would be a dangerous mistake to deplete it once again right now when St. Louis wouldn't be a World Series contender with Detmers in the rotation.
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