From a regular season standpoint, the 2026 season ends Sep 27. For teams like the Cardinals, their minds’ eye has already started to turn toward the 2027 season. However, transactions (for the most part) that begin to shape the organization’s talent pool won’t really begin until after the World Series ends, or very early in November.
This off-season portends a bit of a unique feature in that the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) expires on Dec 1, and the universal expectation is that transactions
will freeze at that point and the players will be locked out of MLB facilities. This will create the MLB version of NCAA’s quiet period, inconveniently overlapping with the time most MLB teams conduct the most extensive roster reshaping exercises of the year. Unless there is a surprise early agreement on a new CBA, expect that the Winter Meetings won’t include player transactions (free agent signings or trades) and the Rule V draft will not occur (on the last day of those meetings). The Winter Meetings themselves may not even occur.
Given this backdrop, what is in store for the Cardinals as they continue to reshape their roster and strive to re-acquire a playoff contending team?
First, I want to take a look back at what this new management team did to reshape the roster in their first year at the helm. Some will remark that this management team has been around longer than a year, which is fair, but they really didn’t get their fingerprints on the major league roster until last November. This article focuses on that roster, not the MiLB side, which has been changing for a longer time. Let’s look a year ago.
When the 2025 season ended, the Cardinals had wrapped up with 78 wins and a retirement party for outgoing POBO John Mozeliak. Change was in the air and hopes were high. As I look at the 40-man roster at the time, it seemed an extensive roster reshaping might be in order. 78-win teams will create that impression. At the time, I counted up 21 pots that could undergo some churn (and hopefully, improvement). See below.
Mikelos was expected to depart via free agency and did. King was non-tendered, as expected. Ten spots on the 40-man roster needed upgrades. A year later, all but one (Prieto) have been moved on. Although the path from then to now was a bit circuitous, I think it fair to opine that in general, improvement has been achieved.
Thompson ended 2025 on the 60-day IL but was not added back to the 40-man when it expired. He remained in the organization, however, but he has not pitched since. I suspect his career is over.
Additionally, one could look at the established veterans on the roster and anticipate that some, if not all, could be dealt as the Cardinals transitioned from one core set of players to another. Their contracts represented a tangle, but management put up the cash to make transactions happen. Here we look up a year later, and all seven indeed have moved on.
That covered the pending departures. Moving on to anticipated adds.
Many 40-man roster changes are instigated by the need to bring on prospects who needed Rule V protection or were ready to make their MLB debuts even if they don’t need protection. The player situations coming out of the 2025 season are shown below, along with some obvious acquisition needs that would be met via trade or free agency.
In the first column, we have the players that could have been projected for MLB debut in 2026 before needing 40-man protection. Three were indeed added to the 40-man and promoted. Henderson suffered a long-term injury and his future is cloudy.
The second column identified players needing 40-man protection. Baez, Bernal, Mautz, Torres and Hjerpe were protected. Love, Hansen and Mendoza were not. All protected players saw their MLB debut and most project as part of the future. The ones that were not added? Hard to say these were mistakes. Winquest was overlooked in this list and got drafted in the Rule V (and returned).
The last column identified the obvious needs (before any MLB roster transactions occurred). Dustin May effectively replaced Mikolas. Justin Bruihl effectively replaced John King and they were added to the 40-man when acquired. Several other pitchers were added later as well, such as Stanek, Shuster, Bruihl, Soriano.
One complicating factor seemed particularly acute last year. At the end of 2025, in addition to the aforementioned Thompson, the Cardinals were carrying 3 pitchers with long-term injuries that would carry over into the 2026 season. This had the effect of freezing three 40-man spots, rendering them unusable until recovery occurred. Roby and Hence were already on the 40-man, and in spite of the injury, Hjerpe did get added. Hjerpe eventually made it back and had his MLB debut recently and he required a 40-man spot when he returned. Roby was handled differently. In 2026, he wasn’t actually placed on the MLB 60-IL but was optioned to MiLB and from a 40-man standpoint treated as a player in the minors. He did pitch in game conditions in order to preserve the option year. He will pitch in the AFL. Hence did not make it back and was subsequently removed from the roster.
Without getting into individual players and situations too much, I think a couple of observations about the overall process may be instructive for how this management team operates.
While the opportunities for churn were obvious a year ago, we should note that it really took almost a full year (not just the off-season) to accomplish “churning” 22 out of the 23 spots (deductions) and 11 more additions. For example, there was much teeth gnashing when Pozo remained on the roster coming into the 2026 season. Heck, if I could see the need for roster upgrade in September, 2025, why would that not be done by when the 2026 season opened? Answer: Sometimes it takes a little longer. At the end of the day, they got there.
The process itself is not complete. I look at this an iteration number one of the transition. I suspect we face another this next year (not just the off-season), complicated by CBA machinations.
Note the imbalance of subtractions and adds from the minor league system last year. The Cardinals chose to add a number of one-and-done players to fill out their MLB roster, many of whom were already off the roster by the end of 2026 (Pushard, Shuster, Blewett, et.al.). This appears to have been by design, to provide roster flexibility as prospects ascend. Keep this in mind. The main path for these guys coming in? Spring training non-roster-invitees (NRI).
When compared to prior years, the amount of churn after 2025 was high. I think most agree the roster had grown stale and this churn was necessary, if sad at times, as we saw favorite players depart. What I think we learned is that this management team is methodical, but not necessarily conservative. Turning over half the roster is not “passive”. Fans can squeal about whether Baez should have come up in July instead of August, but realistically, the indirect path led to the needed changes.
How might this apply to this upcoming off-season? If they follow a similar recipe, it should look about like this:
Soon after the World Series, expect the Cardinals to decline option years on Urias and Stanek. I anticipate a much more limited roster clean-up this off-season (to start with), which I will explain more in the next section. I see 3-4 guys being removed from the roster as part of a general clean-up and another 3 potentially being non-tendered. They will need these spots cleared to make room for new prospects being added, and these are the guys I anticipate going first.
For each of these three non-tender candidates, their performance, projected role and arbitration salary make their spots tenuous at best. It is possible they could end up in the traded category, if another team wants to jump the line before the non-tender deadline.
As to the Free Agents and clean-up spots, I’ve heard these being referred to a “organic changes”. They occur every year with every team and this (or something like it) is this year’s edition. Urias and Strzeleki are already gone, being DFA’ed in the 3rd week of September. Both players were at various stages of injury recovery and the timeline on the season was running out. With the writing on the wall, I anticipate both transactions were done with the players knowledge and acceptance.
Last, two 40-man roster spots may free up in February if Rajcic and Dobbins get placed on the 60-day IL for the 2027 season. Similar to Fitts and Roby last year, they may choose to option these guys and put them on the MILB full season injured list. This decision will likely depend on how many MLB additions they bring into camp for Spring Training.
In total, I expect only 8-9 spots to open up over the off-season. A fair bit different than last year.
Moving on the the potential additions the Cardinals will have to consider as they map out 2027:
I’ll start with the Rule V protection column. As described in a prior article, I anticipate that these six players will be the players moved on to the 40-man. Might be one or two more or less, probably depending on if they see some of the new outfielders as better alternatives to Scott II.
In the IL-60 column, Rajcic must be moved back to the 40-man as the IL-60 list expires at season’s end, so he looks like an addition. This leads to my roster math … seven players on, eight or nine players depart (free agents, 40-man, non-tender). This isn’t a statement that the other 32 spots don’t need upgrading, it is recognition that they free up those spots when someone is ready to fill them (trades, free agency). By November, they’ll need seven spots just to protect their own assets, so they will focus there first.
Looking down the road, it seems prudent to expect the Cardinals will continue to promote up some of their high-ceiling prospects (the first column) through the course of the 2027 season, but likely not coming on Opening Day. In constructing their 2027 roster, they must be mindful to allow for up to 7 spots to churn mid-season as these phenoms matriculate. Realistically, the 40-man roster will need at least half-a-dozen players on it that they do not expect to be with the team come this time next year, to allow for these promotions.
As you look at potential roster improvements (listed generally in the external acquisition column), the team will have pretty much two alternatives. One, they can go out and acquire players that upgrade these areas, or they can wait for some of the uber-prospects to master AAA and be promoted.
If they choose to wait, they will be faced with either coming out of spring training 2027 with a roster largely unchanged from the one that ends 2026 or acquiring a series of short-term upgrades that can be displaced when the uber-prospects are ready as 2027 progresses (or perhaps longer).
There will be some trickiness here, because those yet unidentified, short-term upgrades will displace existing roster members. Bruihl? Torres? Rincon? Peirera? Mautz? Fermin? Winquest? It speaks to the improvement of the overall roster that these decisions will be a bit tougher this go-around than last year.
A third option is to trade off from the core set of players and more radically approach upgrading the roster. Herrera? Burleson? Winn? All are possibilities, but this seems somewhat remote, but a non-zero probability.
So, at the end of the day, I see 3 pathways:
- Keep the roster mostly intact, except for the organic changes related to free agency, non-tenders and a couple of fringe players,
- Obtain a number of short-term upgrades and displace role players, and/or
- Deal off from the core set of players to upgrade the roster in the areas of need (3b, CF, SP, RP, bench).
Remember, the Cardinals will have about 30 days to execute whichever approach they choose before the lock-out starts. They will also likely have a short window post-lockout, but that will be a mad scramble that will be difficult for this methodical group to navigate.
