Greetings. I’m going with an All-Cardinals version of The Bits today because I wanted to dig into the Willson Contreras trade.
The move wasn’t a surprise, but when I saw the headline on Sunday, I did sit up straight in my chair to start making notes, because I thought there was at least a small chance of Contreras staying with the Cardinals for 2026.
And then the Cardinals president of baseball operations went back to his Boston connections (again) and dealt the popular first baseman to the Red Sox for three right-handed starting pitchers: Hunter Dobbins, Yhoiker Fajardo, and Blake Aita.
I focused on this trade for my Monday video, but videos aren’t for everyone, so I also wanted to do some writin’ on a hot topic. I’m going to cover a lot of ground here, so enjoy the ride. I’m doing this with a severe head cold that’s made me dizzy … So as I like to say, please pardon my typos.
FIVE THINGS ON WILLSON CONTRERAS
1. As a baseball fan, I’ll miss Contreras. His passion and purpose stood out here during a down time for St. Louis baseball. Contreras had two distinct personalities: (A) the intense and unrelenting competitor who (B) loved playing the game with unabashed joy. It was an appealing blend.
2. Contreras put his team first. He showed tremendous class early in his first season as a Cardinal – as Yadier Molina’s replacement — when a few of the team’s spineless pitchers tried to blame him for their failures. It was a terrible, shameful thing to do to any teammate … especially a new one. And then, before his final season as a Cardinal, Contreras happily agreed to switch to first base and put in the work to excel defensively.
3. Contreras was arguably the team’s best overall hitter. Over his three seasons here, he led Cardinal regulars with a wRC+ that was 29 percent above league average offensively. He was also No. 1 in on-base percentage, slugging percentage, OPS and Wins Above Replacement. And 2nd in home runs, RBIs, walks, and doubles.
4. Contreras was unflinching in pressure situations during his time as a Cardinal by putting up a .277 average and .831 OPS with runners in scoring position. That included a .287 average, .886 OPS, and a team-leading 56 RBIs in two-out RISP situations.
5. Among right-handed MLB hitters that had at least 1,000 plate appearances over the past three seasons, Contreras ranked 9th among 122 with his 129 wRC+.
FIVE THINGS ON CHAIM BLOOM
1. I think it’s funny and all, and maybe a weird coincidence, but I don’t care that he’s made so many trades with Boston, the team that fired him as its chief baseball officer late in the 2023 season. (In addition to the free-agent signing of starting pitcher Dustin May, who spent a couple of months with the Red Sox late last season.) I care about one thing only: will these trades succeed? Will these moves help accelerate the St. Louis rebuild? How many of these initial maneuvers, if any, will result in failure? It’s stupid to make a firm judgment on trades that are built around acquiring prospects. It will take time – maybe two or three years – for us to know, for certain, if the Cardinals came out well (or not so well) in these deals.
2. In moving starting pitcher Sonny Gray and Contreras to Boston in his first two trades, Bloom traded in a combined three seasons of team contract control in exchange for five young pitchers that can give the Cardinals 30 combined years of contract control. And a rebuilding team that’s been embarrassingly short of quality prospects would be incredibly stupid to pass up that opportunity. More on this in a minute.
3. I saw some Cardinal fans whining online about Bloom because he didn’t get any “can’t miss” prospects in these deals. What? Huh? Can’t-miss prospects? First of all, can’t-miss prospects don’t exist … because multitudes of overhyped prospects have failed, and it’s possible for each and every one of them to fail or disappoint in a significant way. Moreover, the Red Sox weren’t going to give up their most elite and coveted prospects to obtain a 37-year old starting pitcher (Gray) and a 34-year old hitter (Contreras.) Both are good right now – and they’re also candidates for a possible decline. And both are nice rentals … but they are rentals just the same. And it's important to remember something: both Gray and Contreras had full no-trade clauses, and their power to veto any trade certainly limited the number of teams that were interested in them.
4. The Cardinals were in desperate need of starting-pitching depth at the major-league level, and starting-pitching depth at the player-development level. So with his first two trades, Bloom acquired five pitchers.
There were three young prospects (more on that later) plus two right-handers with MLB starting experience in Richard Fitts and Hunter Dobbins. Fitts and Dobbins will join Matthew Liberatore, Dustin May, Michael McGreevy, Kyle Leahy, and Andre Pallante in the starting rotation pool.
That’s seven names. And we can’t rule out seeing top pitching prospects Quinn Mathews and Liam Doyle graduate to the majors at some point in 2026. And there are more developing starters that will be on the trail to St. Louis before long.
5. Except for Dustin May, who signed a one-year contract, these gentlemen come with many, many years of contract control. Here’s the breakdown of the controllable seasons attached to each pitcher:
Michael McGreevy, 6
Hunter Dobbins, 6
Richard Fitts, 6
Liam Doyle, 6,
Quinn Mathews, 6
Kyle Leahy, 5
Matthew Liberatore, 4
Andre Pallante, 3
5a. Chaim Bloom is doing well in organizing this new setup that’s part of the rebuild. And payroll efficiency is good, especially for a rebuilding team that must develop effective cost-controlled starting pitching to offset the payroll gap separating the top-spending teams from the mid-level spenders, and the traditional small-budget spenders.
According to Spotrac, the 2024 Cardinals spent $50.75 million on starting pitching – the seventh-highest amount in the majors. Last season the Cards invested $46.8 million in starting pitching – the ninth-most in the majors. And what did the Cardinals have to show for that two-season outlay of $97.5 million?
Over the past two years STL starting pitchers ranked 23rd among the 30 teams in ERA, 23rd in WAR, 24th in adjusted ERA, 20th in WAR, 25th in Win Probability Added and 17th in strikeout rate. (Though these two groups did a nice job of providing innings – ranking 7th in the majors over the last two seasons.)
Thanks to Bloom, the Cardinals finally have a coherent plan to cultivate young pitching. And he’s acting on it, starting with his influence in the 2025 draft.
THE POTENTIAL GEMS
Any rebuilding-team baseball executive who trades established veterans in the quest for young talent is hoping to hit the prospect sweepstakes. Call them a lottery ticket, a jackpot … or maybe even an oil well.
In Bloom’s two trades with Boston, he came away with two potential grand-prize types. Two pitching prodigies. Two potentially elite talents. Not that their success is guaranteed. Hell, no. Pitchers break, pitchers lose confidence, pitchers lose their way. It’s an old and familiar story in baseball. But there’s still a place in this game for seeing true talent and dreaming about it. And the Cardinals have more people -- and better instructors and teachers -- to enhance their prospects' development. It's a big change.
The two to watch are:
– Fajardo, a right-hander from Valenzuela who just turned 19 and had scouts buzzing while pitching masterfully in Class A ball last season at age 18. He was secured in the Contreras trade.
– Brandon Clarke, the volatile but immensely talented lefty who was a priority for Bloom in the Sonny Gray offload.
Before being traded, Clarke and Fajardo were both on Boston’s Top 10 list of prospects as chosen by Baseball America.
Now that they’re in the St. Louis system, Clarke is No. 7 on the top 30 St. Louis prospects list, and Fajardo is close to him at No. 9.
In terms of talent and “stuff” both of these dudes are legit. They both throw hard, have nasty secondary pitches, and have run up high strikeout and swing-and-miss totals.
To use the baseball jargon, both Clarke and Fajardo are “HELIUM” prospects … rising stars. Now it’s up to them to progress through the STL system and hopefully stay healthy. If you’re looking for guarantees on prospects, you’ll never get that. (The third prospect, righty Blake Aita, has intriguing talent and is receiving attention for his new-and-improved spin rate.)
Keith Law of The Athletic wrote that Fajardo would be a candidate for selection in the first round of the MLB draft if he was entering the 2026 draft (Which he isn’t, obviously.) Law knows his stuff and isn’t gratuitous about dishing praise.
R.J. Anderson, the highly respected baseball analyst at the CBS sports site, wrote this about Fajardo: “More advanced than most 18-year-old pitchers, Fajardo needed just six outings before earning a promotion to Single-A in 2025. He has thrown strikes throughout his pro career and commands his fastball well. He’s a potential mid-rotation starter and will be given plenty of runway to reach that ceiling.”
Anderson on Blake Aita: “He's a candidate to take a step forward with the right player development support, making him another possible big-league contributor -- maybe even in a starting role if everything goes well.”
In scouting circles there’s been a bit of a debate about Brandon Clarke. Starter or reliever? Opinions are mixed but FanGraphs summed it up nicely: “Clarke's injury history and crude feel for location make him a likely reliever, but his “stuff” quality, especially his relatively new slider, is in the stratosphere of a dominant closer.”
Dominant closers are good, yes?
CARDS KEEP ADDING YOUNG PITCHERS.
The roll call includes Liam Doyle, Tanner Franklin, Quinn Mathews, Tekoah Roby, Ixan Henderson, Brandon Clarke, Yhoiker Fajardo, Blake Aita, Nate Dohm, Cade Crossland, Mason Molina, Brycen Mautz, Cooper Hjerpe, Braden Davis, Chei-Wei Lin, Sem Robberse, Brian Holiday -- as well as the perpetual prospect Tink Hence.
STL FARM SYSTEM RECEIVING ACCOLADES
Sam Dykstra of MLB Pipeline put the Cardinals on the list of the nine MLB organizations that had the most-improved farm systems in 2025.
“The Cardinals were joyed to get JJ Wetherholt with the seventh overall pick in 2024, but they deserve credit for helping the former West Virginia star bloom into one of the best infield prospects in the sport with his plus-plus hit tool carrying nicely into the upper levels,” Dykstra wrote. “Catcher Rainiel Rodriguez's dynamic age-18 season would be the headliner in many other organizations, and outfielder Joshua Baez erased the strikeout concerns that plagued his early career to post a 20-homer, 54-steal campaign.
“Like many other orgs on this list, the Cardinals got deeper by being sellers at the deadline, but the Sonny Gray trade last month brought in the best prospect in lefty fireballer Brandon Clarke. Speaking of southpaws, the addition of Liam Doyle in the first round and nice breakouts by Ixan Henderson and Brycen Mautz helped offset pitching losses via injury (Tekoah Roby, Cooper Hjerpe and Tink Hence).”
(Dykstra wrote this piece before the Contreras trade.)
BILL DEWITT JR.
The Cardinals chairman did his part by signing off on the combined $28 million that went with Gray and Contreras to Boston to help offset their remaining salary obligations.
DeWitt could have rejected the idea outright. Or he could have insisted on giving the Red Sox a lot less. But by going as high as $28 million, the decision gave Bloom access to the pitching he sought from the Red Sox. That $28 million was the reason why the Cardinals could replenish their depth at the majors and minors. It was a sound investment. And the DeWitt supported Bloom's trades financially at a time when the Cardinals just took another revenue hit in the cockamamie TV arrangement with the shaky and flaky company that produces and distributes their games.
I have now reached the end of today’s column.
Thanks for reading …
–Bernie
Bernie was inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame in 2023. During a St. Louis sports-media career that goes back to 1985, he’s won multiple national awards for column writing and sports-talk hosting – and was the lead sports columnist at the Post-Dispatch from 1989 through 2015. Before that Bernie spent a year at the Dallas Morning News, covering the Dallas Cowboys during Tom Landry’s final season (1988) plus the sale of the team to Jerry Jones and the hiring of Jimmy Johnson as coach.
Bernie has covered several Baseball Hall of Fame managers during his media career including Tony La Russa, Whitey Herzog, Earl Weaver, Joe Torre and (as an interim) Red Schoendienst. In his career as a beat writer and columnist, Bernie covered Pro Football Hall of Fame coaches Joe Gibbs, Tom Landry, Jimmy Johnson and Dick Vermeil. He also covered Hall of Fame college basketball coaches Norm Stewart and Lou Henson.
Bernie covered every baseball Cardinals’ postseason game from 1996 through 2014 and was there to chronicle teams that won four NL pennants and two World Series. He provided extensive coverage on the “Greatest Show” St. Louis Rams and has written extensively on the St. Louis Blues and Mizzou football and basketball. Bernie was/is a longtime voter for the Baseball Hall of Fame, Pro Football Hall of Fame, Heisman Trophy and the St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame.
You can access his columns, videos and the podcast version of the videos here on STL Sports Central, catch him regularly on KMOX (AM or FM) as part of the Gashouse Gang, Sports Rush Hour, Sports Open Line or Sports On a Sunday Morning shows. And you can catch weekly “reunion” segments here at STL Sports Central featuring Bernie and his longtime friend Randy Karraker.