The Cardinals and right-hander Kyle Gibson are in agreement on a deal, reports Bob Nightengale of USA Today. It’s one year plus a 2025 option, per Nightengale, with Jesse Rogers of ESPN adding that Gibson will make $12MM. The righty is a client of Rowley Sports Management.
Gibson, 36, spent 2023 with the Orioles on a one-year, $10MM deal. He took the ball 33 times for the O’s and logged 192 innings with an earned run average of 4.73. It’s possible that he deserved better results than that, as his 69.7% strand rate was a bit below average. He struck out just 19.5% of batters faced but limited walks to a 6.8% clip and kept 48.9% of balls in play on the ground. His 4.13 FIP and 4.40 SIERA paint a slightly more flattering portrait than his ERA.
Since as far back as August, Cardinals president of baseball operations John Mozeliak has been open about the club’s desire to add three starters to the rotation. That was in order to replace the departures of Adam Wainwright, who is now retired, and Jack Flaherty and Jordan Montgomery, who were traded at the deadline and are now free agents. There’s also some uncertainty with the in-house options, as Steven Matz has dealt with injuries and inconsistency of late while depth option Dakota Hudson was non-tendered last week when the club failed to find a trade for him. All that left Miles Mikolas and a heap of questions as the on-paper rotation.
But that was prior to this week. The Cards added another veteran innings eater yesterday, agreeing with Lance Lynn on a one-year deal. Between Lynn and now Gibson, it seems the club is starting out by building a foundation of reliability, more floor than ceiling. In each of the past nine full seasons, Gibson has made at least 25 starts, with 2016 being the only one of those seasons where he didn’t get to 29. He also made 12 starts in the shortened 2020 campaign. He’s only been on the injured list three times since his major league debut, dealing with a right shoulder strain in 2016, ulcerative colitis in 2019 and then a right groin strain in 2021. It’s a fairly similar situation with Lynn. He had knee surgery in 2022 and was limited to 21 starts, but apart from that, he’s made at least 28 starts in each full season dating back to 2012.
More to come.
