Reliever Ryan Helsley hasn’t looked like himself since he was traded to the New York Mets at the 2025 trade deadline.
Over 14 games for the Mets, the two-time All-Star has posted an 11.45 ERA—a stark contrast from his 3.00 ERA with the St. Louis Cardinals earlier this season.
That’s bad news for Helsley but good for a Cardinals team in rebuild mode. With his market value decreasing, Andrew Wang of Redbird Rants suggested Helsley could find himself back in St. Louis this offseason.
Helsley’s potential Cardinals reunion
St. Louis traded Helsley, who’s on an expiring contract, to the Mets at the 2025 trade deadline for three young prospects with high upside. That trade was severely criticized until Helsley began pitching in New York, where he increased his season ERA from 3.00 to 4.98 in just over a month.
Now, he’s projected to receive a three-year, $46 million contract, according to spotrac. That decrease in market value makes Helsley much more manageable for the Cardinals, who were likely unwilling to pay the large contract he commanded earlier in the year.
“Helsley, who was the longest tenured Cardinals player prior to the trade deadline, expressed interest in resigning with St. Louis in the offseason,” Wang wrote. “At the time of the trade, a Helsley reunion seemed impractical for a Cardinals team still in “rebuild” mode going into 2026. After all, adding an expensive reliever on a multi-year contract would not be an effective use of assets for a club with minimal expectations for next season. Now, however, Helsley looks like a perfect buy-low candidate who will likely have to settle for a much cheaper and shorter-term contract to rebuild his once sky-high value.”
A Cardinals reunion might help Helsley regain his form. He was originally a fifth-round pick in the 2015 Draft by St. Louis, where he spent the first six and a half seasons of his career.
Wang says that sense of familiarity could be beneficial for the 2024 National League Reliever of the Year.