The Milwaukee Brewers on Friday traded their excellent closer Devin Williams to the Yankees. This wasn’t surprising because Williams becomes a free agent after the season, and there was no chance for Milwaukee to re-sign him. So the Milwaukee front office wanted to strengthen another area of the roster by flipping Williams before he walks. To that end, the Brewers received left-handed starting pitcher Nestor Cortes and $2 million in cash from the Yankees. Cortes can also head to free agency after the 2025 season.
Based on that trade, a percentage of Cardinals are outspoken in saying the Cardinals should just keep Helsley. If that’s all the Brewers could command in a deal for Williams, then why would the Cardinals do something like that with Helsley?
The answer: They wouldn’t. But that doesn’t mean the Cardinals should rule out trading Helsley. It depends on the quality of the offers that come in. If teams want to lowball the Cardinals for Helsley, there’s no reason for the St. Louis front office to make a bad trade. But if the Cardinals receive a generous offer or two for Helsley, then they should move him instead of letting him walk into free agency after the 2025 campaign.
But it’s important to remember this: the Brewers-Yankee trade has absolutely nothing to do with a potential Helsley trade. The only similarities: (a) Williams and Helsley are right-handed relievers who are (b) formidable closers, and (c) both can become free agents after the 2025 season. That’s it. Nothing else.
The Brewers and Cardinals are in entirely different situations. The Cards and Crew don’t have the same objectives in setting up their rosters for 2025.
The Brewers are aggressively pursuing another division title.
The Cardinals are taking a step back in 2025 and putting the emphasis on going younger next season as part of a more extensive plan to enhance the future by adding to their base of young talent. If the Cardinals trade Helsley, it would be for a parcel of prospects that fit into the look-ahead view for a franchise revival.
The Brewers are in the win-now mode.
The Cardinals aren’t consumed with putting their best possible team on the field in 2025; the coming season is all about growing the young talent base in a way that will last beyond 2025 and into the future. (If, in fact, the plan works.) But it’s important for the Cardinals to take on this ambitious project to restore the strength of their farm system and player-develop program. That is their No. 1 priority, right there with giving more young hitters and pitchers more extensive opportunities in 2025. And that’s the way it should be because the renewal of the Cards’ operational beliefs is terribly outdated. That’s changing. And it needed to change.
Given each team’s strategy for 2025, it made sense for the Brewers to flip their walk-year closer to New York for Cortes, a walk-year starting pitcher. The Milwaukee front office obviously felt some anxiety over the state of the team’s rotation.
Plagued by shoulder problems (and surgery), former co-ace Brandon Woodruff pitched only 67 innings in 2023, shut it down, and missed all of 2024. He’s been physically cleared for a comeback in 2025, but there’s no way of knowing how effective he’ll be. And what if Woodruff breaks down again?
In this context the Brewers were willing to part with Williams to secure Cortes for the 2025 rotation. Cortes joins a group of starters that has Freddy Peralta, Aaron Civale, Tobias Myers, Woodruff, DL Hall, and Aaron Ashby. That depth could be upgraded if the team’s No. 3 overall prospect, right-handed pitcher Jacob Misiorowsky, is ready to graduate to the majors at some point next season.
When healthy, Cortes is very good. In his four seasons with the Yankees, Cortes had a 3.41 ERA and healthy 25 percent strikeout rate in 84 starts and a 1.88 ERA in 24 innings of relief. In 2022, the lefty had a 2.44 ERA and was selected to the American League All-Star squad.
The Cardinals would have no interest whatsoever in dealing Helsley in exchange for a middle-rotation starting pitcher who can bolt as a free agent after next season.
On top of that, Cortes has dealt with injuries over the past three seasons, missing 17 days with a strained groin in 2022, missing 116 days during two IL stays with a strained rotator cuff in 2023, and developing a late-season elbow flexor strain in ‘24. The Brewers took a risk in obtaining Cortes, sure. But last season Williams missed 122 days because of two stress fractures in his back and didn’t make his 2024 MLB debut until July 28.
But the absence gave Milwaukee a chance to audition Trevor Megill as the closer, and the hard-throwing right-hander did an exceptional job. Megill delivered saves 21 times in 24 opportunities, and the Brewers went 59-45 with Williams on the IL, and that emboldened the MIL front office to barter Williams to fill a need and ride with Megill in 2025. If that gambit fails, then it could be trouble for the 2025 Crew. But the people who run the baseball department are almost always prepared for contingencies.
Because of that, the Brewers continue to outperform the Cardinals on the field.
I wrote this during at Scoops during the 2024 season:
Since the start of the 2017 season, the Cardinals have outspent the Milwaukee Brewers $1.2 billion to $770 million (approximately) on 26-man payroll. That means St. Louis has won fewer games than Milwaukee despite investing $500 million more on player talent than the small-market Brewers over the past eight seasons.
I’ve updated the performance-related numbers:
+ Since 2017 the Brewers’ winning percentage is 29 percent higher than the Cardinals.
+ The Brewers made the playoffs in 7 of the last 8 seasons compared to the Cardinals qualifying 4 times in the last 8 seasons.
+ Division titles since 2017: four by Milwaukee, two for St. Louis.
+ Postseason wins: eight for Milwaukee, three for St. Louis
That’s the only clear failure by the Brewers over this time; they haven’t turned their regular-season success into enough postseason celebrations.
Unlike Milwaukee, the Cardinals are transitioning in the front office, transitioning in their major-league roster, and transitioning in how they run their minor-league system. So this is a good time to go out and collect as many young and talented players as possible. This is certainly the offseason to do it.
If the offseason offers are unappealing, the Cardinals could try to flip Hesley at the 2025 trade deadline. But if a good offer comes along, why wait? If the Brewers had the gall to trade their amazing closer because they believed the move would help them win 90+ games again in 2025, it would be strange to see the Cardinals hesitate to trade Helsley before they go into a soft-rebuild season.
Thanks for reading …
–Bernie
A 2023 inductee into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame, Bernie has provided informed opinions and perspective on St. Louis sports through his columns, radio shows and podcasts since 1985.
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Stats used in this column were sourced from Baseball Reference, FanGraphs, Statcast, and Baseball Prospectus.
For the last 36 years Bernie Miklasz has entertained, enlightened, and connected with generations of St. Louis sports fans.
While best known for his voice as the lead sports columnist at the Post-Dispatch for 26 years, Bernie has also written for The Athletic, Dallas Morning News and Baltimore News American. A 2023 inductee into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame, Bernie has hosted radio shows in St. Louis, Dallas, Baltimore and Washington D.C.
Bernie, his wife Kirsten and their cats reside in the Skinker-DeBaliviere neighborhood of St. Louis.
