The St. Louis Cardinals are committed to fixing their broken player development system while reducing payroll but what does that mean for this offseason’s spending?

Before it was announced that the Cardinals wouldn’t prioritize building the best big-league roster possible this winter, it’s fair to say that St. Louis was a team in need of another frontline starter.

Now that it looks like St. Louis won’t spend much this season, a reunion with a former homegrown hurler can almost certainly be ruled out. However, that doesn’t mean he won’t re-sign with a different club.

“The (Detroit) Tigers rolled the dice on Jack Flaherty with a one-year, $14 million deal during the offseason, and he successfully rebuilt his value to the point that he was one of the biggest prizes of the trade deadline,” Bleacher Report’s Joel Reuter wrote Friday when reviewing possible landing spots for this offseason’s top 10 free agents.

Flaherty was a first-round draft pick for the Cardinals in 2014, but after spending the first 6 1/2 years of his career in St. Louis, he was traded to the Baltimore Orioles in July 2023 before his contract expired that winter.

“He went 7-5 with a 2.95 ERA, 0.96 WHIP and 133 strikeouts in 106.2 innings over 18 starts with the Tigers before he was sent to the (Los Angeles) Dodgers at the deadline, but that doesn’t rule out a potential reunion this winter,” Reuter continued. The Tigers are a team on the rise, Flaherty had significant success with them, and there is a clear need to find another reliable option to slot alongside Tarik Skubal.”

Although reuniting with Flaherty would be fantastic for the Cardinals, his projected market value of $121 million over a six-year deal, according to Spotrac, is likely too high for an organization looking to reduce payroll.

St. Louis’s inadequate player development system undermines its foundation. Until that is resolved, it could be a while before the Cardinals pursue a marquee star such as Flaherty.