Categories: Baseball

Red Bird Droppings: Qualifying Offers, Wainwright, Thomas

Red Bird Droppings is my new column looking at Cardinals’ news and rumors; I’m hoping to run this 2 or 3 times per week, depending on the news. It’ll be quick hit style, with lots of other links to check out.

Qualifying Offer Set
Joel Sherman of the New York Post is reporting the Qualifying Offer for the 2022 off season is set at $19.65M, meaning if a free agent accepts a qualifying offer from their current team, their 2023 salary will be that amount; if they decline, their current team will receive a draft pick as compensation. Teams will still be able to re-sign their players if they decline the offer, but they lose the draft pick.

The current players lined up for free agency are Corey Dickerson, Yadier Molina, Albert Pujols, Jose Quintana, and Adam Wainwright. We know Pujols and Molina are retiring, so no QO there. Dickerson and Quintana will probably not receive QOs because their next deals will be much less then almost $20M per season. Wainwright will also probably not receive the QO for the same reason, but his end of season struggles.

Adam Wainwright’s Retirement Question
The big question of the free agents is will Wainwright play in 2023? I think we received a hint last week.

Since Wainwright has figured this out and has a “competitor” mentality, I think he’s planning on pitching again in 2023 to show he’s better then how he pitched in September. His month to month numbers support his claim too; he went from a 2.50/1.06 ERA/WHIP in August (his second best month of the season) to 7.22/1.92 in September.

From a baseball perspective, I kind of want Wainwright to call it a career; it won’t be right seeing him pitch every 5th day without Molina there, plus what if there was a bigger issue then his pitch stride distance? At the same time, he was pretty good prior to September and would be an asset in the rotation, especially if he’s working with the younger pitchers.

Either way, I don’t see Wainwright dragging out the decision.

Arizona Fall League
The Cardinals have some big name prospects at the Arizona Fall League, including top prospects Jordan Walker, Masyn Winn, and Tink Hence. Walker and Hence have received praises from Keith Law (paywall – the gist is Walker is amazing but still needs work on off-speed pitches; Hence is hitting 95-96 with his fast ball, has a plus change, and an average curve).

The big story yesterday wasn’t any of them; it was Connor Thomas. Thomas struck out 10 in 4 innings of work yesterday for the Salt River Rafters; he became the 6th pitcher to have double digit strikeouts in the AFL, along with Kyle Zimmer (2014), Tommy Hanson (2008 twice), Phil Hughes (also 2008), Jered Weaver (2005), and Bill Murphy (also 2005).

Thomas isn’t a big name prospect yet, but he’s could be moving up the rankings soon. He spent 2022 in Memphis, where he put up pedestrian numbers; he noticed hitters were sitting on his sinker and slider, so he’s working on a cutter. As a result, he’s lowered his WHIP from 1.57 with Memphis to 1.34 with Salt River, while seeing his K/9 jump from 7.3 to 12.1.

Quick Links