{"id":89716,"date":"2024-11-15T17:28:53","date_gmt":"2024-11-15T22:28:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=89716"},"modified":"2024-11-15T17:28:53","modified_gmt":"2024-11-15T22:28:53","slug":"veteran-pitcher-plans-to-play-in-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/11\/15\/veteran-pitcher-plans-to-play-in-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Veteran Pitcher Plans To Play In 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>After 2024, Lance Lynn is looking for a new place to call home. Lynn, 37, was drafted by the St. Louis Cardinals in 2008 and played with them for the first six years of his career. He signed a one-year, $11 million deal for 2024 with a club option for 2025. The Cardinals, looking toward a <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/10\/07\/cardinals-offseason-plans\/\" target=\"_self\">youth movement<\/a>, declined the club <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/10\/31\/cardinals-decline-club-options-gibson-lynn-middleton\/\" target=\"_self\">options<\/a> of both Lynn and Kyle Gibson. Lynn, who would have been owed $12 million next year, now receives a buyout of $1 million. Gibson was on a similar contract and received a $1 million buyout.<\/p>\n<h2>Veteran Pitcher Plans To Play In 2025<\/h2>\n<h3>Why Part With Veteran Pitching?<\/h3>\n<p>In 2024, Lynn threw for a 3.84 ERA over 117.1 innings. This is his best figure since his All-Star 2021 campaign with the Chicago White Sox. However, he displayed an overall inconsistency throughout the season and was sidelined for August and September with a knee injury.<\/p>\n<p>With the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/09\/07\/young-cardinals-lefty-2025\/\" target=\"_self\">emergence<\/a> of Andre Pallante as a bona fide back-end starter and the trade-deadline acquisition of Erick Fedde, Lynn&#8217;s place in the rotation would not have necessarily been concrete,\u00a0even if he had been available for those months.<\/p>\n<p>As first reported by John Denton of MLB.com, Cardinals General Manager John Mozeliak is seeking &#8220;ultimate flexibility&#8221;. This could involve a trade of either Miles Mikolas or Steven Matz if a team is willing to take on their contract.<\/p>\n<p>The Cardinals also have options in the minor leagues who might <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/10\/13\/young-pitchers-opportunity-cardinals\/\" target=\"_self\">push for innings<\/a>. RHP Tink Hence and LHP Quinn Mathews are the number 2 and 3 organizational prospects, respectively. After a strong 2024 season, Mathews recently won the Cardinals Minor League Pitcher of the Year Award.<\/p>\n<h3>What Could Lynn Command On The Market?<\/h3>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Also, within this story, updates on &#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Sonny Gray<br \/>\nJoJo Romero<br \/>\nAnd Lance Lynn<\/p>\n<p>Cardinals have an option on Lynn for 2025, and after a knee injury ended his summer, the veteran right-hander plans to pitch next season, whether he\u2019s a free agent or he\u2019s back. <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/gAM0gBT0Xm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/gAM0gBT0Xm<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Derrick Goold (@dgoold) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/dgoold\/status\/1849065873799033037?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">October 23, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>According to Derrick Goold, Lynn plans to continue playing in 2025. While age might play a factor in his availability on the mound, Lynn has never been dependent upon overpowering velocity or frisbee-like movement. In 2024, his combined usage of the four-seam fastball, the cutter, and the sinker totaled 86.2%. Being only in the 15th percentile of GB%, Lynn is highly dependent upon his command and pitch mixing to get outs and keep his viability as a starter.<\/p>\n<p>Lynn has performed as an adequate starter for almost a decade now. It&#8217;s likely that a team will take a flyer on him being able to do so in 2025.<\/p>\n<p>While Kyle Gibson outperformed him during their tenure, Lynn is likely to receive a similar contract\u2014around $8-10 million\u2014on a fringe playoff team. He will unlikely get more than one year, although a club option structured like his contract with the Cardinals is possible.<\/p>\n<p>In a relatively deep free-agent class for pitchers, Lynn should provide value similar to those of Alex Cobb or Wade Miley, both free agents and expected-to-find teams.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo Credits: Jeff Curry-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After 2024, Lance Lynn is looking for a new place to call home. Lynn, 37, was drafted by the St. Louis Cardinals in 2008 and played with them for the first six years of his career. He signed a one-year, $11 million deal for 2024 with a club option for 2025. The Cardinals, looking toward [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5241,"featured_media":89756,"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],"tags":[6421,391,3228,1764],"class_list":["post-89716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cardinals","category-mlb","tag-andre-pallante","tag-erick-fedde","tag-kyle-gibson","tag-lance-lynn"],"modified_by":"Evan Mazza, Site Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89716","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\/5241"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89716\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}