Cardinals will learn the Ryne Stanek reality the NY Mets discovered the hard way

With all of the turnover with the New York Mets roster, the last thing anyone wanted was for a third round with Ryne Stanek. Acquired at the 2024 trade deadline, he had a poor run in the regular season but an excellent one in the playoffs. We accepted him as a cheap high-leverage option for the seventh inning.

The strong postseason performance convinced David Stearns to give him another chance, the same way he did with Jesse Winker. Both ended up as a mistake, Winker in large part due to his inability to stay healthy. A 5.30 ERA for Stanek this past season had Mets fans eager to see him DFA’d mid-year, mostly in favor of keeping Rico Garcia. He somehow managed to make it through until the end and the next time he throws a baseball it’ll be with his hometown St. Louis Cardinals.

Stanek has agreed to deal with the Cardinals, the financials not yet publicly known. It came out on Friday. Jeff Passan doesn’t cancel dinner plans to announce a signing and its details unless your bWAR over the last two seasons is 0 or above. Stanek is at -1.6 bWAR with a whole -1 pound of it coming last season. Ouch!

The Mets overlooked Ryne Stanek's poor 2024 regular season and paid for it in 2025

In both stints with the Mets, Stanek had a far better FIP than ERA. In fact, they were almost an exact match from 2024 to 2025 at 4.39 to 4.40. If only his combined 5.47 ERA was a full run lower, maybe we wouldn’t have viewed him so unfavorably.

What was missing for Stanek this past season were the abundance of strikeouts. At 9.3 K/9, he was below the 10.4 K/9 he has in his career. Striking out batters is a wonderful trait. Stanek suffered due to too many walks and multiple games late in the season where he just couldn’t seem to stop the bleeding.

Game 162’s 2 earned runs allowed while retiring a single batter could have been predicted weeks in advance. He promptly allowed a double to break the 0-0 tie in the 4th inning and after a fly out, allowed another two-base hit. Tyler Rogers was on the mound for the second of the runs charged to Stanek when a triple plated the third run of the day for the Marlins.

Stanek throws hard so naturally some players will whiff on his pitches. He’s traditional in that sense. Blow it past ‘em and give your catcher some blisters.

On the Cardinals, Stanek becomes an immediate rebound candidate they can sell at the trade deadline. It’s a fine move for them. They have a similar plan with Dustin May. Unfortunately for St. Louis, there is no telling how Stanek’s year will go. More troublesome is what he will do after he is traded.

Stanek had a second-half ERA of 7.27 in 2024. Last year it was at 6.29. Someone doesn’t know it yet but they just bought into a hard-throwing veteran who has consistently gotten worse toward the end of the season. August has been his most brutal month with an ERA of 5.07.

St. Louis has no serious intentions to contend next year. The downer with this deal comes if Stanek hits the skids earlier than expected and nobody comes calling about a trade. Just because he might only cost a ball club a low-level minor league flier doesn’t mean they’ll view him well when compared to other options out there.

It’s a worthwhile grab for the Cardinals and as a St. Louis native, Stanek should become a quick favorite among fans. Does he actually reward them with a good enough package at the trade deadline? When he was pitching better and more of a salary dump than anything else, the Mets paid the Seattle Mariners Rhylan Thomas, a light-hitting outfielder with good bat-to-ball skills. It’s probably the absolute best the Cardinals can look for in return. Perhaps this is more about getting through a 162-game season with some veterans in the bullpen. Not every reliever can be a youngster ready to have a breakout year.