Cardinals reach agreements with relievers, but face arbitration with three key players

Stirred from their slumber by one of Major League Baseball’s statutory deadlines, the St. Louis Cardinals climbed back onto the transactions log on Thursday, coming to agreements with three of their six arbitration-eligible players ahead of the deadline for exchanging figures before an arbitration hearing.

Utility player Brendan Donovan, outfielder Lars Nootbaar and starter Andre Pallante, each in their first seasons of arbitration eligibility, exchanged salary numbers with the Cardinals after not coming to a settlement.

Closer Ryan Helsley reached an agreement in his third of three years. Lefty reliever JoJo Romero agreed to a salary in his second of three years, and lefty reliever John King also came to an agreement in his second of four years.

King will spend an extra year in the process due to his uneven service time accrual with the Texas Rangers prior to being traded to St. Louis at the 2023 trade deadline. So too will Pallante, who has spent his entire career to date in St. Louis.

The Cardinals also announced that they’ve claimed left-handed reliever Bailey Horn off waivers from the Detroit Tigers. There are now 39 players on the team’s 40-player roster.

Horn, who turns 27 next week, made his big league debut for the Boston Red Sox last season. He allowed 13 earned runs in 18 innings of relief work.

For Helsley, the lack of a hearing prevents a repeat of the difficult process the two sides endured following the 2022 season. Ahead of 2023, in his first year eligible, Helsley lost his case and received a $2.1 million contract for that year rather than the $3 million for which he and his representatives made an argument.

“It’s definitely tough,” Helsley said in February 2023 following his hearing. “You don’t really understand it until you experience it, like a lot of things in life.”

Multiple media reports indicated that the Cardinals and Helsley settled for $8.2 million for 2025, coming off a season in which he set the team single-season saves record. The agreement represents a raise of more than $4 million in Helsley’s last season of team control before hitting free agency.

The Cardinals are one of a majority of MLB teams who now utilize what is known as the “file and trial” approach, meaning that they will not typically seek a settlement ahead of an arbitration hearing despite those exchanges still being allowed up to the hearing dates, which will come later this month or early in February.

The exception to that policy for the Cardinals has been in cases where the club and a player are interested in pursuing a multi-year extension. Such was the case last winter with Tommy Edman, who signed a two-year deal covering his arbitration years before being traded at the deadline to the Los Angeles Dodgers. Edman subsequently signed a long-term extension after playing a large role in their World Series championship run.

The lack of agreements with Nootbaar and Pallante come at a time at which the Cardinals are currently working through trade options regarding third baseman Nolan Arenado. The trio all makes their homes in Southern California and have spent previous winters as part of a workout collective. The three are also represented by the same agency – Wasserman – suggesting some connective tissue between some of those challenging negotiations.

Helsley, with whom the Cardinals did settle, is also with the same agency.

In Pallante’s case, the negotiation between the team and his representatives was perhaps destined to be fraught, as his effectiveness as a starter last season is belied by his earlier career results. While he had some success as a reliever and swing man in 2022, he faltered in a relief role in 2023. After a poor beginning of the season last year, he requested a demotion to Memphis in order to work on his repertoire and build a pitch count on a repeatable schedule.

The results were a wild success, and Pallante posted a 3.56 ERA across 111 ⅓ innings covering 20 starts. He will enter spring training with incumbency and features prominently in the team’s plans for 2025 and beyond, but without an ideal track record of success, the club may well feel confident about their chances for success in front of an independent arbitrator.

In Nootbaar’s case, his challenges staying healthy and available on the field, despite suffering a series of largely freak injuries, could also pose a challenge to his arbitration case. His batted ball data continues to be elite, and by OPS+, has been an above league average hitter in every year of his career; the last three seasons, his three full seasons, have each been at 111 or higher.

However, Nootbaar hasn’t played more than 117 games or posted more than 503 plate appearances in any of those seasons, and as a result, his counting stats have suffered. His career high in home runs is 14 and his career high in RBI is 46. Neither of those numbers is prescriptive of the player Nootbaar is likely to be in 2025, but their description of the time he’s spent off the field could put him in a challenging spot.

Donovan won the NL Gold Glove for utility players in 2022, his rookie season. He also finished third in Rookie of the Year voting that season and has been an above average offensive player in each of the three years of his career, spending time at at least four defensive positions in each of those years.

He missed most of the second half of the 2023 season after suffering a tear of a ligament in his throwing elbow and undergoing a surgical repair. Should the Cardinals succeed at trading Arenado, he profiles as the team’s every day second baseman with Nolan Gorman taking over at third.

After taking no players to hearings between 1999 and 2017, the Cardinals have argued five cases since – those of pitchers Helsley, Michael Wacha, Jack Flaherty and Genésis Cabrera as well as outfielder Tyler O’Neill. Barring fruitful extension talks, Donovan, Nootbaar and Pallante will join that group.