The Cincinnati Reds created a rare opening this week when they put TJ Friedl and Eugenio Suárez on outright waivers, giving every other club in the league a shot to claim them and take on what was left of their 2026 salaries. Friedl’s number was about $700,000, while Suárez was attached to roughly $3 million. Neither player was claimed, and both will stay in Cincinnati.
That alone says plenty about where their market stood. Friedl and Suárez cleared waivers, and the Reds keep both.
Even so, Friedl looked like the kind of low-cost swing the St. Louis Cardinals should have considered. Their biggest issue right now isn’t hard to spot: the outfield has been a weak point, even while the rest of the defense has been excellent.
St. Louis has been one of the best defensive teams in baseball overall, sitting third in cumulative Outs Above Average at +31 and third in Fielding Run Value at +37. If not for the Cubs turning in a historically elite defensive season, the Cardinals would be the top club in the National League in that department.
But that success is mostly coming from the infield. The outfield has lagged behind, checking in below average across the board: -3 OAA, 19th; -8 FRV, 21st; and -9 Defensive Runs Saved, 20th. A few factors have fed that slide, including Victor Scott II’s demotion in early June and the fact that Jordan Walker is the only Cardinals outfielder with more than 1,000 innings in the field this year, despite his own numbers sitting at -4 OAA and -6 DRS.
That is where Friedl fits. In center field, he’s been strong defensively this season, posting +5 OAA and +5 DRS in 432.2 innings. For a Cardinals team trying to patch together outfield production, that kind of glove could have mattered.
The catch is obvious: Friedl hasn’t hit. He’s batting .158 with a 33 wRC+ for the Reds, and he was demoted to Triple-A earlier this summer. That makes it easy to see why a team in the middle of a Wild Card chase might hesitate to add another player with Scott-like offensive issues.
Still, Friedl has a track record as an above-average hitter, and a change of scenery might have helped unlock some of that again. Instead, he stays in place with a Reds club in rebuilding mode, while the Cardinals keep leaning on their infield to cover for an outfield that remains a problem.
In Other News...
D-Backs Lars Nootbaar Trade Comes Down To One Huge Pitching Question
The Cardinals deadline deal sending Lars Nootbaar to Arizona already fits the broader direction of Chaim Blooms front office, with St. Louis continuing to stockpile young talent and lean harder into the farm system. In return for Nootbaar, the club landed right-hander Daniel Eagen, left-hander Sandro Santana and a player to be named later, a package that gave the Cardinals more arms to develop as they keep reshaping the organizations pipeline.
Eagen, who entered the move as the Diamondbacks No. 5 prospect, has settled in well since arriving in the Cardinals Double-A system, which is exactly the sort of early return St. Louis wanted to see. The bigger issue now is how the organization answers the pitching question at the center of the swap, because this is the kind of deadline trade that can look smart for years if one of the young arms takes off, or leave the Cardinals waiting if the upside never fully shows up. [Read more 🡒]
Cardinals Could Face Spending Pressure MLB Fans Never Expected
Labor talks around Major League Baseball have taken an unexpected turn, and the ripple effect could hit clubs like the Cardinals in a way fans are not used to hearing about. Owners have proposed a $245.3 million salary cap and a $171.2 million salary floor, a framework that could reshape how teams spend if negotiations push the sport toward a lockout.
For St. Louis, the floor may be the bigger issue than the ceiling. The Cardinals current payroll sits below that proposed minimum, which would force a meaningful increase in spending if the system ever takes hold, even as teams like the Cardinals and Astros have shown over the years that championship runs do not always require the biggest payrolls. The larger question now is whether baseball is headed toward a set of rules that changes competitive balance, or toward another labor standoff before any of it can be sorted out. [Read more 🡒]
Cardinals Have A Big September Decision On Thomas Saggese
With the Cardinals looking more like September evaluators than contenders, the final month has become a chance to sort out who belongs in the conversation for the 2027 roster. That puts Thomas Saggese in an interesting spot. Acquired from the Rangers in 2023, he has shown the kind of versatility clubs value in a utility role, along with enough power potential to keep him on the radar, even if his production has not yet settled in at the major league level.
Jose Fermin and Bryan Torres are already handling utility work, but Saggese gives St. Louis another look at a player who can move around the diamond and still offer some offensive upside. For a team trying to decide what the next version of its infield and bench should look like, these are the kinds of auditions that matter most, and Saggeses September could go a long way toward shaping where he fits once the calendar flips to next year. [Read more 🡒]