The 2026 Cardinals committed to a youth movement in an offseason defined by trades of veteran players. They dramatically cut payroll and mostly sat out free agency, spending a total of $18MM via four one-year contracts.
More than two-thirds of that money went to Dustin May, whom the Cardinals picked up on a $12.5MM deal. He’s making a $12MM salary and will collect a $500K buyout when his $20MM mutual option is declined at the end of the season. The reclamation flier has worked out pretty well, as May takes a 4.30 ERA with solid underlying numbers into tonight’s start at Truist Park.
May struggled in the season’s first month but has been the team’s best starter since then. He owns a 3.74 ERA while striking out 26% of opponents over his past nine starts. A nine-strikeout, one-hit shutout against a bad San Diego offense was the highlight, but he has pitched well enough in all but three appearances. May has nine quality starts in 15 games, one shy of last year’s total across 23 outings.
Derrick Goold of The St. Louis Post-Dispatch chatted with May on Tuesday about some of his offseason adjustments. The righty has raised his arm angle back to where it was earlier in his career, as it had dipped on the heels of multiple injuries. He’s mixing in a few more four-seam fastballs and cutters after he’d gotten very reliant on his sinker/sweeper pairing last year. It hasn’t suddenly turned May into an ace — he has a league average 22.5% strikeout rate and gives up a decent amount of hard contact — but he’s pitching like someone who could start the third or fourth game of a playoff series.
Will that opportunity come with the Cardinals? St. Louis surely hoped when they signed May that’d he pitch well enough to be a deadline trade chip in a year where they’re focused mostly on the development of young players. They’ve played better than anticipated and hold a 44-39 record more than halfway through the schedule. Milwaukee appears to be pulling away in the NL Central again, but a Wild Card berth is a clear possibility. The Cards currently hold the Senior Circuit’s final playoff spot with a percentage-point advantage over the Marlins.
President of baseball operations Chaim Bloom said last fall that the organization would prioritize the future if they need “to choose between short-term gratification and our bigger goal of contending consistently.” They’ve mostly stuck to that messaging this summer without abandoning hope of competing.
“Obviously, I sat here in the fall and I’ve said it a number of times since, that we have pretty ambitious goals,” Bloom said last week (link Brenden Schaeffer of MLB.com). “We want to make sure that we have a good plan to get there and that we don’t get distracted from the things that need to happen in order for us to reach those goals.”
Chairman Bill DeWitt Jr. downplayed the possibility of making a big splash on the trade front. “When the trading deadline comes up, teams have a tendency to [think] ‘Well, if I get one more guy, I’ll give them two (prospects), then I can make the playoffs.’ That’s kind of not our model,” DeWitt said last week. “We’ll obviously engage at the deadline, but it will not be for a two-month hopeful.”
That’s not the messaging of a team that expects to be in the Tarik Skubal bidding, but it doesn’t mean they’ll sell either. They could stand pat or make modest additions (e.g. middle relief) without surrendering significant prospect capital. Goold writes that the Cardinals are still expected to field interest on May, but that’s typical operating procedure for any bubble team. Their motivation to move him, or lack thereof, will obviously depend on their place in the standings a month from now and what kind of offers are on the table.
MLBTR’s Steve Adams examined the prospect value that the Cardinals could expect for May in a mailbag for Trade Rumors Front Office subscribers last week. If they don’t trade him, they’d need to weigh whether they’re interested in a multi-year extension and/or issuing an approximate $23.1MM qualifying offer.
There’s a chance May would accept a QO and lock in a nearly doubled salary for his age-29 season, though that’ll hinge on how he finishes out the season. St. Louis doesn’t have much on the 2027 books, but ownership has significantly pulled back spending since their local broadcast deal collapsed. MLBTR contributor Ethan Hullihen estimates the Cardinals’ 2026 payroll to be around $104MM, putting them in a similar range as the Twins and Pirates. If that’s going to remain their spending range, the front office may not want to risk tying up more than 20% of the payroll in a qualifying offer for May.
The Cardinals have managed to keep their starters remarkably healthy for the past two seasons. They got through the 2025 season with essentially six starters. It has been a five-man group for basically all of this year. Hunter Dobbins has made two spot starts. It has otherwise been their regular rotation of May, Matthew Liberatore, Andre Pallante, Michael McGreevy and Kyle Leahy.
May had some lower back tightness that led them to skip his most recent turn. A postponement meant they could stay on their five-man schedule. It’s a middling rotation overall, but they could swap in Dobbins if they trade May and everyone else stays healthy. Dobbins is a ground-ball specialist who has a 4.02 ERA in 78 1/3 career innings. It’s a similar profile to the rest of the St. Louis staff, which doesn’t miss bats yet plays well in front of one of the game’s best middle infield tandems in Masyn Winn and JJ Wetherholt.
Maybe the next month will make this decision easy for the front office. It’s a tougher call if they’re still holding the final playoff spot or just a game or two off the pace. If their place in the standings doesn’t change dramatically between now and August 3, how should the Cardinals approach this?
What should the Cardinals do with Dustin May?
Image courtesy of William Purnell, Imagn Images
