Happy Thanksgiving to you all, and thanks for supporting us with your “Insider” subscription to STL Sports Central. Personally speaking I sincerely appreciate your support and it is an honor for me to write four exclusive columns (at least) for you each week.
Today’s column will be Bernie Bits style.
I begin with a follow-up up on the Sonny Gray trade…
TRADING FOR PITCHING PROSPECTS
You just never know. Elbows snap, shoulders become unhinged, Wild Thing and throwers can’t locate the strike zone. There are so many failures with prospects stalling out, fading out, and disappearing from the major-league radar.
And for teams that trade for pitching prospects, as Chaim Bloom did in the Gray trade, history tells us that there have been many more failures than success stories and it’s not even close.
But it’s also important to remember that some pitching prospects turn into the pitchers that general managers dreamed of when making the deal to land them.
By no means is this a complete list – hardly – but I sat at my desk, did some research and put together a list of past pitching prospects that came through for the teams that obtained them.
These pitchers had various levels of experience when traded. Some were unknown Class A pitchers. Some were at Triple A and nearing the majors. Some were in the middle, at Double A. Some were traded by teams and that I never knew the prospect pitched for.
Example: prospect Chris Archer was dealt from Cleveland to Tampa Bay. I had no idea that Archer was in the Cleveland system as a 17-year-old.
Please understand that there are differences between these hurlers, but all were traded as prospects. Most of the names will be familiar to you.
I’m just going to keep it simple by listing the names. If I tried to recap the details of every deal, I would be at my desk and miss Thanksgiving dinner. And dammit, I’m not going to pass up on an opportunity to eat oyster stuffing.
If you see a little comment by a pitcher’s name, it’s only because the Cardinals were involved. In a good way. Or in a bad way.
Some of these prospect pitchers did have a small taste of the majors before moving on via trade.
As for the Sonny Gray trade, the bonafide prospect coming to St. Louis was high-velocity lefty Brandon Clarke, age 22, who pitched at the Class A level last season in the Boston system.
The other pitcher acquired in the deal (righty Richard Fitts) isn’t really a prospect. But he’s inexperienced in the majors with only 65 and ⅔ innings.
Pitching Prospect Success List
John Smoltz
Adam Wainwright (YES!)
Cliff Lee
Dylan Cease
Luis Gil
Scott Kazmir
Noah Syndergaard
Zac Gallen (sigh.)
Sandy Alcantara (ouch!)
Matthew Liberatore (lookin’ better.)
Lucas Giolito
Jesus Lazardo
Reynaldo Lopez
Tyler Glasnow
Shane Baz
Gio Gonzales
Carlos Carrasco
Kyle Hendricks
Frankie Montas
Chris Archer
Patrick Corbin
Johan Santana
Trevor Hoffman
Luis Castillo
Sixto Sanchez
Corey Kluber
Christopher Sanchez
Josiah Gray
Ferguson Jenkins
Pedro Martinez
Neftali Perez
Michael Fulmer
Corey Knebel
Mark Melancon
Drew Pomeranz
Trevor Bauer
Andrew Heaney
Jeff Hoffman
(Note: Jenkins, Glasnow, J. Gray and P. Martinez, Heaney and a couple of others cited here each began their MLB careers with other teams and had a relatively brief spell in the majors before getting shipped to their new baseball homes. All were considered a “prospect” at the time of the trade.)
Forgive me for missing anyone who should have been on this list. I did this as a quick – not elaborate – exercise.
PERSPECTIVE FROM WILL LEITCH
This prolific man of letters and (and words!) writing about the Cardinals after the Gray trade, made a great point about how a rebuild can change a team’s identity. Are the Cardinals a “destination” franchise? Probably not.
“A big part of the Cardinals' success over the last two-plus decades has been tied to the notion that players do in fact want to play there,” Leitch wrote. “Mark McGwire, Scott Rolen, Jim Edmonds, Matt Holliday -- the Cardinals have had tons of players they brought in and were able to hold onto because the Cards won all the time and would try to compete every year. That was actually one of the main reasons Gray gave for signing with the Cardinals in the first place.
“It’s tough to make that argument anymore, not with the Cardinals trading away a guy [Gray] who signed here specifically because he wanted to compete every year. That’s not what 2026 is going to be. But what Bloom is trying to do is put together the next perennial contender, the next version of the Cardinals that wins every year. The Cardinals are taking a step backward to take several steps forward. Maybe it’ll work, and maybe it won’t. But it’s difficult to argue it wasn’t necessary.”
Speaking of my friend Mr. Leitch, we are planning to record a new episode of the “Seeing Red” podcast on the Cardinals. That’s scheduled for Monday, Dec. 1.
WHAT DOES KEN ROSENTHAL THINK?
Speaking on the “Foul Territory” video-podcast, The Athletic writer and Fox baseball reporter offered his view of the Gray trade.
“My expectation from the Red Sox was that they were going to go to a guy they believed would slot in with some certainty as a number two starter in a postseason series behind Garrett Crochet,” Rosenthal said. “I’m not sure Sonny Gray, at 36 years old, is that anymore … and I thought the Cardinals did well.”
ON NOLAN ARENADO: WHAT’S THE BEST TRADE FIT?
According to the esteemed Mike Petriello of MLB’s website, the best match for an Arenado trade can be found on the West Coast … but it isn’t the Dodgers. Petriello examined the other 29 teams and believes the Los Angeles Angels represent the best fit for Arenado in a deal with the Cardinals.
“This might be it,” Petriello wrote. “This might be the spot. The Angels, 72-90 last year and having missed the playoffs for the past 11 seasons, might not be an obvious landing spot for a player hoping to find a contender. But they continue to operate as though they are, and the addition of [starting pitcher] Grayson Rodriguez surely opened some eyes across the sport.
“With third baseman Anthony Rendon completely out of the mix, the Angels had baseball’s weakest third base situation in 2025, a last-place ranking they’re projected to repeat in 2026.
“Although Arenado grew up in Southern California as a Dodgers fan, he attended high school in Lake Forest, which is far closer to Angel Stadium than Dodger Stadium. If he wants to get back home, he’ll never have a better chance than this.”
TRADE ANALYSIS FROM BASEBALL PROSPECTUS
“This wasn’t a bad deal for St. Louis, by any means, but it seems unlikely they expected Gray to outlive them, or at least the current iteration of the team with any semblance of a competitive window,” Ginny Searle wrote. “Gray, now 36, is still going strong, whereas this move signals the Cardinals’ intention to fully tear down after years of resistance.
“A dire 2023 indicated this was coming, but by signing Gray St. Louis chose not to go quietly into that good night … another sub-.500 year, featuring little outside of Gray to provide optimism for the future, finally convinced PBO Chaim Bloom and the rest of the St. Louis Cardinals it was (past) time to move on.”
Jarrett Seidler focused on Brandon Clarke and (thankfully) put the lefty’s 2025 Class A performance in the proper perspective. Too many “analysts” saw Clarke’s very high walk rate and ERA at the end of the season and assumed the kid was overrated, or too wild, or a mirage.
Seidler cleared that up.
“His first seven starts were magnificent,” Seidler wrote. “In 24 innings between the two A-ball levels, he allowed five earned runs with a 38 to 9 strikeout-to-walk ratio, a number that made it seem like his amateur history of command and control problems was behind him.
“Clarke’s name came up pretty strongly in Midseason Top 50 consideration, and if he had kept the improvements up for another month, he’d have almost certainly made it.
“Heck, if he had kept doing this for the entire year, he’d simply have been one of the best pitching prospects in the sport. Alas, he started having recurring blister issues in late-May; he barely pitched thereafter and walked the ballpark when he did.”
Seidler added: “But [Clarke] has absolutely special arm talent, and the pre-blister version flashed a major-league starter outcome that’s hard to forget. Clarke is one of the highest-upside pitching prospects in the minors, and one of the highest variance ones as well.”
This is why Bloom made the move for Clarke. It’s all about the pitcher’s immense upside. You take a chance on that – especially in exchange for a 36-year-old pending free agent in Sonny Gray. A starter with a declining fastball who was glaringly ineffective and hittable on the road in his two years as a Cardinal.
MORE ABOUT THAT …
I used this in my Wednesday “Bernie Show” video and I’ll repeat it here. Yes, I can steal my own work from myself.
Gray was so poor on the road in 2024 and 2025, the flaw prompted manager Oli Marmol to set up the rotation in a way that set up Gray to make a whopping 66.7 percent of his starts at Busch Stadium.
In his 24 road starts as a Cardinal, Gray had a 5.07 ERA, a .470 opponent slugging percentage and 27 homers allowed in 140 innings.
Plus: 42 percent of the total hits against Gray on the road went for extra bases. Left-handed hitters punished Gray for a .495 slugging percentage and 33 extra-base hits in 71 and ⅔ innings when he pitched in their home yard.
In his 36 starts at Busch Stadium Gray had a 3.40 ERA and did a much better job of limiting power.
Here’s a related note: In six career starts at Fenway Park in Boston, Gray has a 7.40 ERA and was ripped for a .523 slugging percentage.
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And thanks for reading Wednesday’s column. Happy Thanksgiving.
–Bernie
Bernie was inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame in 2023. During a St. Louis sports-media career that goes back to 1985, he’s won multiple national awards for column writing and sports-talk hosting – and was the lead sports columnist at the Post-Dispatch from 1989 through 2015.
Before that Bernie spent a year at the Dallas Morning News, covering the Dallas Cowboys during Tom Landry’s final season (1988) plus the sale of the team to Jerry Jones and the hiring of Jimmy Johnson as coach.
Bernie covered every Cardinals’ postseason game from 1996 through 2014 and was there to chronicle teams that won four NL pennants and two World Series. He provided extensive coverage on the “Greatest Show” St. Louis Rams and has written extensively on the St. Louis Blues and Mizzou football and basketball.
Bernie was/is a longtime voter for the Baseball Hall of Fame, Pro Football Hall of Fame, Heisman Trophy and the St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame.
You can access his columns, videos and the podcast version of the videos here on STLSportsCentral, catch him regularly on KMOX (AM or FM) as part of the Gashouse Gang, Sports Rush Hour, Sports Open Line or Sports On a Sunday Morning shows.
And you can catch weekly “reunion” segments here at STL Sports Central featuring Bernie and his longtime friend Randy Karraker.