{"id":88594,"date":"2024-10-31T15:07:50","date_gmt":"2024-10-31T19:07:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=88594"},"modified":"2024-10-31T15:07:50","modified_gmt":"2024-10-31T19:07:50","slug":"cardinals-decline-club-options-gibson-lynn-middleton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/10\/31\/cardinals-decline-club-options-gibson-lynn-middleton\/","title":{"rendered":"Cardinals Decline Club Options for Free Agent Pitchers"},"content":{"rendered":"

After missing their second consecutive postseason, the St. Louis Cardinals are parting ways with three players. On Thursday, general manager John Mozeliak told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch<\/a> that the Cardinals will decline the 2025 options for Kyle Gibson<\/a>, Lance Lynn<\/a>, or Keynan Middleton<\/a>. Mozeliak said the decision will give the Cardinals “maximum flexibility\u201d as they begin their \u201creset\u201d winter.<\/p>\n

With Mozeliak set to step down<\/a> at the end of the 2025 season, St. Louis is getting a head start on their upcoming rebuild. Katie Woo of The Athletic<\/a> first reported that the Cardinals were unlikely to exercise Lynn\u2019s one-year, $11 million option, nor Middleton\u2019s one-year, $6 million deal. She had speculated that the team could retain Gibson for $12 million if they traded either Miles Mikolas<\/a> or Steven Matz<\/a>. Instead, the Cardinals will exercise their $1 million buyout and all three pitchers will enter free agency this winter.<\/p>\n

Cardinals Make Payroll Cuts Ahead of Interesting Offseason<\/h2>\n

St. Louis is cutting payroll<\/a> going into the offseason and removing these three from their books is just the beginning. Veteran first baseman Paul Goldschmidt<\/a> was also informed<\/a> that he would not be re-signed by the Cardinals in free agency. The futures of Sonny Gray<\/a>, Nolan Arenado<\/a>, Willson Contreras<\/a> and Ryan Helsley<\/a> in St. Louis could also be in jeopardy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have an understanding [of next year\u2019s payroll],\u201d Mozeliak said. \u201cBut we are still working through some things because there is still some uncertainty on what some of our revenue flows may look like. Ultimately, the direction we\u2019re going is going to be creating a lot of opportunities for some of our younger players.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the\u00a0World Series now concluded<\/a>, the Cardinals have five days to make decisions on their club options for 2025. St. Louis is anticipated to be active this winter, focusing on rebuilding their farm system rather than pursuing high-profile signings. Mozeliak will start implementing the Cardinals’ rebuild next week during the general manager’s meetings in San Antonio, Texas.<\/span><\/p>\n

Main Photo: \u00a9 Joe Puetz-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After missing their second consecutive postseason, the St. Louis Cardinals are parting ways with three players. On Thursday, general manager John Mozeliak told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that the Cardinals will decline the 2025 options for Kyle Gibson, Lance Lynn, or Keynan Middleton. Mozeliak said the decision will give the Cardinals “maximum flexibility\u201d as they […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4975,"featured_media":88615,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[25,1071,35],"tags":[5860,3228,1764,213,208,3915,650,1478],"class_list":["post-88594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cardinals","category-mlb","category-news","tag-keynan-middleton","tag-kyle-gibson","tag-lance-lynn","tag-nolan-arenado","tag-paul-goldschmidt","tag-ryan-helsley","tag-sonny-gray","tag-willson-contreras"],"modified_by":"Matt Graves","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4975"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88594"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88594\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}