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The Cardinals’ Winter Warmup fan event is this weekend, and newly appointed president of baseball operations Chaim Bloom took questions directly from fans as part of the festivities. As noted by Derrick Goold of St. Louis Post-Dispatch, one of those questions was about former Cardinals (and current free agent) Harrison Bader<\/strong>availability ‘s in the market. In his response to that question, Bloom suggested that there is “room” for a right-handed pitcher on the roster before admitting that Bader could fill that void. Bloom declined to discuss Bader’s asking price, or any other aspects of the contract negotiations.<\/p>\n It’s worth emphasizing that Bader, 32 in June, was the direct subject of Bloom’s question. That makes him a less powerful prospect than in other situations, though he could be a solid addition to the club that took him in the third round of the 2015 draft. Bader ended his career with the Cardinals back in 2022, when he was traded to the Yankees for cash. Jordan Montgomery<\/strong> in the summer. He left the Cardinals with a career .246\/.320\/.409 slash line, good for a 98 wRC+. That nearly balanced offense was accompanied by superior defense in center field and fewer stolen bases, and the outfielder was coming off a strong 2021 campaign in which he won a Gold Glove and 16 wrc in just 0 103 games.<\/p>\n Bader has struggled in general since leaving St. Louis. Louis, due to the lack of playing for the Yankees, Reds, and Mets in the 2023 and ’24 seasons. As already mentioned, however, 2025 was a working year for him. After signing with the Twins, he spent most of his time in left field out of respect for the existing star Byron Buxton<\/strong>but Bader was able to run down the defensive spectrum with his bat. He hit a respectable .258\/.339\/.439 during his time in Minnesota, then kicked things off when he was traded to Philadelphia and moved back to center field. In his final 50 games last season, Bader hit an impressive .305\/.361\/.463. That brought his season line to .277\/.347\/.449 (122 wRC+) in a career-high 146 games, with 17 homers, 11 stolen bases, and a +7 Outs Above Average.<\/p>\n It was a very exciting season, to be sure, and in a free agent class that lacks outside talent swinging well enough to make a multi-year deal a reasonable request for Bader as he hits the open market. At the start of the offseason, a reunion with the Phillies seemed like the most likely outcome, but the team instead chose to deliver Adolis Garcia<\/strong> in the bag to mix their outer mix. As Garcia is ready to guard right and over Justin Crawford<\/strong> likely to open the season in center field, there isn’t much room for Bader in Philadelphia’s outfield mix right now. Bader’s market has been relatively quiet outside of those initial rumors of a Phillies reunion, which could open up a team like the Cardinals to try and have a chance.<\/p>\n St. Louis is far from the only team that seems to match Bader, of course. A reunion with the Mets and Yankees might make sense, too, especially if Cody Bellinger<\/strong> ends by signing off somewhere else. The Royals, Rays, and Rangers could use outside help, but they may not have the resources to use Bader. The Diamondbacks and Giants have more financial flexibility and can obviously make room for outside additions, but they may choose to stick with their internal options. Austin Hays<\/strong>, Miguel Andujar<\/strong>, Chas McCormick<\/strong>again Randal Grichuk<\/strong> are among Bader’s options available in free agency for teams looking for a right-hander this winter.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Cardinals’ Winter Warmup fan event is this weekend, and newly appointed president of baseball operations Chaim Bloom took questions directly from fans as part of the festivities. As noted by Derrick Goold of St. Louis Post-Dispatch, one of those questions was about former Cardinals (and current free agent) Harrison Baderavailability ‘s in the market. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3568,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mlb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.insightresearcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.insightresearcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.insightresearcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.insightresearcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.insightresearcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3567"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.insightresearcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3567\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3569,"href":"https:\/\/www.insightresearcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3567\/revisions\/3569"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.insightresearcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.insightresearcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.insightresearcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.insightresearcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}