It wasn’t exactly a surprise, but as first reported by Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic, the St. Louis Cardinals have traded Jack Flaherty to the Baltimore Orioles in exchange for minor league infielder César Prieto, as first reported by MLB’s Francys Romero, and minor pitcher pitcher Drew Rom, as first reported by ESPN’s Jeff Passan.

The legacy of Jack Flaherty as a Cardinal is something I have already addressed, so I’ll spare you a rehashing–you can read about that here. But from a strictly baseball perspective, it makes sense that a retooling team that sold at the deadline such as the Cardinals would have little use for Jack Flaherty, who is nearing free agency. And while the qualifying offer would have been in play for Flaherty, the Cardinals decided to mitigate the risk and flip Flaherty to Baltimore for immediate prospects.

The twenty-four year-old Prieto has split the 2023 season between AA and AAA and has been a solid hitter at both levels. Ranked #16 in the deep Orioles system by MLB, the infielder projects as a potential 2024 arrival and could factor into the Cardinals infield jumble next year, though he is not required to be added to the 40-man roster until after the 2025 season.

Drew Rom, whom I will routinely accidentally confuse with the more famous Rockies prospect Drew Romo, ranks 18th in the Orioles system and is probably the more exciting but riskier of the prospect return. The 23 year-old, a 2018 fourth-round pick, has battled control issues, but has decent peripherals despite so-so earned run averages in AAA over the last two seasons. Unlike Prieto, who can be hidden in the farm for a few more years, Rom is already on the 40-man roster. I would imagine he will be classified as a rotation candidate for next year, but that also might be a sign that the Cardinals are entering 2024 with the type of rotation that made them sellers in the first place in 2023.

Unlike the returns from trading Jordans Hicks and Montgomery plus Chris Stratton on Sunday, I wouldn’t consider this to be a super exciting return, but I think it’s fine. The issue with the qualifying offer plan is that pitchers are pitchers–they get hurt, they become ineffective, it’s not outside the realm of possibility that Flaherty becomes risky to QO because he might take it and you might not like it. But to be clear, unless new news breaks after the deadline has actually passed, the Cardinals’ rotation for 2024 is absolutely nowhere close to settled. There are some glaring holes, and it is now on the front office to patch those holes. They don’t need to patch those now, but they will need to by next March.