The Cardinals will not be getting Tarik Skubal. I know this, you know this, the most delusional and optimistic Cardinal fan you have ever met knows it too. In theory, every other free agent starting pitcher could be on the table. In theory. I’m not saying it’s a high percentage chance, but it’s enough of a chance that we should probably talk about them this offseason. Skubal is a 0.1% chance. Another writer can take a crack at writing about Skubal. It will not be me.
That starts with arguably the
second best starting pitcher on the free agent market, Trevor Rogers. Rogers comes with some warts and is definitely not as good as you want someone with the label “second best starting pitcher on the market” to be, but he is certainly within the Cardinals’ price range. Rogers is the age that you want a free agent to be as he will be 29-years-old next season. That is frankly doing a lot of the work towards making him the next best after Skubal.
However, let’s not underrate Rogers. In his last 48 starts, spread across two seasons with the Baltimore Orioles, Rogers has been worth 7.3 fWAR, which is pretty easily in top of the rotation territory. He’s been a pretty extreme home run/flyball percentage beater, which would be more concerning if Busch Stadium wasn’t the home park of the Cardinals. It is still concerning however, because in 2026 at least, his home run luck is the difference between him being an above average pitcher and top of the rotation.
Rogers is a fastball pitcher, and in fact has three different fastballs according to Statcast. The one he uses the most is his four-seam fastball, which he throws 93.8 mph on average. He throws it 46.9% of the time, so he leans on it pretty heavy, but it seems like it is best utilized up in the zone or above the zone. It produces a whiff about 25% of the time and he gets a strikeout 19% of the time it’s used in a 2-strike count.
And then at this point, it depends on if the batter at the plate is right-handed or left-handed. Because for right-handed batters, his changeup is pretty easily his second-most used pitch. Of his 551 changeups he threw, 89% of them were against right-handed batters. So it’s barely a pitch when a lefty is at the plate. So against righties, he wants to throw the four-seamer high and the change low or below the zone. Pretty old school strategy. His change isn’t typically used as a strikeout pitch though, putting away hitters only 10% of the time on 2-strike counts in which he throws it.
His third most used pitch is his sweeper and he does not appear to change his usage based on what hand the batter is, which is a little surprising for a lefty. This is his strikeout pitch. It produces a whiff 31.7% of the time and produces a strikeout on 23.9% of 2-strike counts, the highest of all his pitches. His sinker replaces his changeup against left-handed batters. So he uses the sweeper at about the same 14% rate against lefties, but abandons the change in favor of the sinker. You’d think he’d want to throw the sweeper more against lefties. He also throws the cutter more against left-handed batters.
If it’s a right-handed batter, he’s primarily fastball-change with a few sweepers to throw off your game. Against left-handed batters, he pretty much uses three different fastballs and sometimes a sweeper. Whenever he throws the sweeper, it’s effective, so maybe they figured out that throwing it less makes it a more effective pitch. It was an even better pitch in 2025 with a 39% whiff rate, so maybe he just doesn’t have a feel for it in some games.
As for how effective these pitches were, well it’s safe to say his fastball is truly an elite pitch. It was in 2026. It was in 2025. He used it a lot for a reason. It was worth one run per 100 pitches thrown and it was actually worth 2.4 runs per 100 pitches in 2025. Hitters have trouble with his four-seamer. His change took a nosedive this past season, although it was a very good pitch in 2025. I don’t quite know why, but it was as bad of a pitch for him as his fastball was good in 2026. His sweeper is not terribly far behind his fastball, being worth 0.8 runs per 100 pitches in 2026 and 2.7 runs per 100 pitches in 2025. His sinker is a perfectly average pitch and his cutter might be a bit better than that. You don’t mind a fastball heavy pitcher if the fastball is this good.
He is not necessarily the safest pitcher when it comes to health, but looking at his stat page, it’s not as bad as it looks. He made 25 starts in 2021, missed the minimum 10 days from a back spasm and later missed half a month from a family emergency/family death of some sort. He had back spasms again in 2022 and later his season ended about a week early from a lat strain. He still made 23 starts. He missed nearly all of 2023 from a left bicep strain. In 2024, the Marlins traded him to the Orioles and he actually made an additional 5 starts in AAA, so he made 30 starts that season. His 2025 season started late, but I think he made too many starts for it all to have been rehab, because he had 7 starts in AAA in addition to his 18 starts at the MLB level. Basically with the exception of 2023, he’s made about 25 starts per season.
The big question for Rogers, for me at least is: is this HR/FB% thing for real? He was a 4 fWAR pitcher last season, but his ERA was only 4.03 and his xFIP was 3.92. In fact, for his career, his ERA is closer to his xFIP than it is to his FIP. This was also the case last season. Fangraphs might be overrating him in two different ways: there’s the obvious way in which we can expect a higher HR/FB% moving forward and then there’s the other way where he might have a worse ERA than his FIP for whatever reason.
With that said, Oriole Park at Camden is a pretty great place for hitters to hit homers. On Statcast Park Factors, it rates as a 109, which makes it the 6th best park for homers in baseball. He was also in a division with the Yankees (2nd place), Jays (10th), and Rays (12th). Fenway is surprisingly bad for homers. I suddenly understand the Sonny Gray season a lot more now. Anyway, Busch Stadium was literally dead last, so it would be odd if he didn’t at least continue to have his career 9.1 HR/FB% by moving to a much more favorable pitcher’s park.
So what we have is a 29-year-old left-handed starter who has been a little bit inconsistent. His official rookie season got him placed 2nd in Rookie of the Year voting thanks to a 2.64 ERA and 4.3 fWAR in just 25 starts. He wasn’t a good pitcher again until four years later when he had changed teams. He at least has the benefit of repeating his breakout 2025 – although I don’t know if you can call it a breakout if he already had a great season before that.
Last season was frankly a little odd. I mentioned his FIP was a lot lower than his ERA, and most of that was from a below average 69.3 LOB% (left on base), so runners ended up scoring more often than expected once they reached base. His career LOB% of 71.7% is more in line with the average rate that pitchers have. And his 84.2 LOB% in 2025 was always unsustainable (as well as his .226 BABIP).
Rogers will get tagged with a qualified offer and thus the Cardinals would lose a draft pick if they signed him. I know that’s already a deal breaker for a lot of you. When I write these profiles, I’m not advocating to sign them. I’m working it out myself in fact. I actually do like the fact that he has a very good fastball that he can lean on all the time. Makes it feel more likely he can continue. And there’s some potential future where he leans on his sweeper more, which at least to me seems underutilized. Who am I to argue with success though?
If there wasn’t an incoming lockout, I’d say Rogers was virtually guaranteed for 5 years on this deal, but teams may operate differently in the coming months. The qualified offer will also assuredly hurt him. He didn’t come saddled with a qualified offer, but Eduardo Rodriguez signed for 4 years, $80 million entering his age 31 season. Rodriguez didn’t have the floor that Rogers reached, but he wasn’t super consistent himself and had little injuries along the way as well. Feels like Rogers should be able to beat that. Of course, QO attached and lockout incoming very much complicate things for him.
Quick and dirty estimate for his price. I’m going to list him as a 2.7 WAR pitcher. Fangraphs depth charts has him with 3.2 over 181 innings, but that inning total would not be his projection. I think 150 innings is reasonable given his history. If that is to be believed, a “fair” price for him over a 5-year-contract would be 5 years, $85 million. He should get more than Rodriguez, but he also didn’t have a QO attached which is a big deal.
The tough thing with Rogers is that he feels like a very small step removed from being essentially average. I don’t know how many more peak seasons he has in him. I would take the 2025 and 2026 version of him absolutely. I don’t know how much longer that pitcher will exist. Rogers is the first free agent starting pitcher I have taken a deeper look into and I feel like I need to see the others first before I make a determination on if I want Rogers. So my official answer right now is I don’t know, but I don’t love that I’m not thrilled at the idea of him for 5 years, $85 million.
