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JUPITER, Fla. — When Tampa Bay Rays manager Kevin Cash had Blake Snell blitzing the Dodgers into the sixth inning and standing 11 outs away from forcing a Game 7 in the 2020 World Series, he walked to the mound about to make one of the most pivotal decisions in recent October baseball history.

He turned to Nick Anderson to hold the lead.

When the Cardinals were unable to shed the salary they expected on the eve of spring training, they sought to add some depth at the right price, some veteran seasoning, and perhaps catch late-inning leverage lightning in a bottle so they made a decision quite familiar for mid-February.

They too turned to Nick Anderson, perhaps to lead.

Less than five years after injuries interrupted his run as an elite reliever, Anderson signed a minor-league contract with the Cardinals. The deal came together quickly. The club requested video and data from a pro day Anderson held, and he had an offer soon thereafter. In Anderson, the Cardinals saw a right-hander searching for his most effective fastball and way they could help him, same as they did a year ago with eventual setup man Ryan Fernandez. In the Cardinals, Anderson saw job openings.

“Thought it was a good fit,” the 34-year-old Minnesota native said. “It just comes down to that. Just the viability of making the team, really. If you’ve got eight bullpen guys who are all on contracts, it’s probably not a good idea to go to that team and try to make the team.”

His chances may have improved before facing a first batter.

With Nolan Arenado expected to arrive in Florida by Sunday and be at third base when full-squad workouts begin Monday, the Cardinals were unable to trade him and reduce payroll. The Cardinals had been inactive in the free-agent market all winter, though they arrived at spring saying they would like to pursue one or two additional veteran relievers.

In the fallout from being unable trade Arenado, the front office said it did not expect to be “aggressive” in pursuit of free agents. The Cardinals are not looking to spend, it appears. But they still want a veteran presence for the bullpen after the experience drain of the past 12 months: Andrew Kittredge, Giovanny Gallegos, and Keynan Middleton departed.

“When I look at the last 30 years with the Cardinals, there always was that veteran voice in the bullpen that tended to help manage what was going on down there,” said John Mozeliak, president of baseball operations. “I do hope there’s some value in that. 
 You don’t want to put that on your closer because that’s such a different role.”

ÁńÁ«ÊÓÆ” would welcome putting it on Anderson, if he can win the role.

Strong stats

From 2019 until his elbow ligament came apart in 2021, Anderson was one of the game’s leading relievers and a shutdown right-hander for the Rays. That World Series lead and game slipped out of his hands, but before that moment there weren’t a handful of better relievers in the majors by several measures. From 2019-2020 with Miami and Tampa Bay, Anderson pitched 81⅓ innings and struck out 136 of the 322 batters he faced. His ERA of 2.77 was 56% better than league average.

Of pitchers with at least 50 innings in the majors from 2019-2020, Anderson’s 42.2% strikeout rate was second to All-Star lefty Josh Hader. Anderson also had the top strikeout-to-walk rate (37.9%) of any right-hander with at least 50 innings, starters included. His strikeout-per-nine innings pitched ranked fourth, behind Hader, Edwin Diaz, and Kirby Yates.

The first two signed contracts worth at least $95 million.

Yates just signed with the Dodgers for $13 million in 2025.

Anderson is on a minor-league deal with Cardinals, uncertainty of leaving camp with the club.

Injury issues

What changed following 2020 for Anderson was health.

The next season, he attempted to rehab from a ligament strain without needing surgery, and when the elbow did not respond to months of rest, he required the internal brace variation of Tommy John in his right elbow. Anderson was reminded of the reason pitchers try to avoid invasive reconstructive surgery. There is no guarantee. Successful returns are plenty, well-known, celebrated, and the pitchers who don’t return to form, don’t sizzle fastballs again, don’t get pre-surgery results in the majors are less publicized for that reason.

“Once you go under, everything is a risk,” Anderson said. “Some people bounce back right away like they don’t miss a beat. And some people kind of search for it.”

He searched for it.

In the past two seasons split between Atlanta and Kansas City, Anderson had a solid 3.55 ERA in 71 innings, but his strikeout rate dipped like his fastball, down to 8.2 per nine innings. He did snag seven wins in relief but also finished 2024 with one release, from the Royals, when he declined a move to Class AAA. Stints in the minors with the Orioles and Dodgers — two of the industry’s top teams in developing pitchers — did not result in a return to the majors this past season.

The trait that made Anderson’s fastball elite and gave his relief appearances that whiff of excellence was its “carry.” That is, the fastball seemed to defy gravity in the eye of the hitter a little longer. This has always been called “giddyup” or “rising,” and it can be the difference between an elevated fastball remaining above a bat for a miss or rising up and out of the park for a home run. And now, with MLB’s revolution evolution, it can be measured.

Anderson’s four-seam fastball with that “carry” changed so much in the past few years that it started to register as a different pitch entirely. He didn’t shift his grip. He just returned from surgery unable to find those familiar mechanics, inconsistent with how he got to his release point. On , the data shows Anderson throwing a sinker 26% of the time when he had never thrown it more than 1.1% before.

That was just his four-seamer misbehaving.

“My carry hasn’t been there,” he said. “There have been flashes of it.”

Working to bounce back

This offseason, Anderson worked with former big-league pitcher Mike Adams at Baseball Performance Center in New Jersey to regain some of his misplaced mechanics. Anderson said a focus was adjusting his path to the plate so that it freed up his pitching arm to have time and room to get more behind his extension and release. On his pro day, according to BPC’s social media, Anderson had a 19.8-inch vertical break on his fastball, putting it closer to top effectiveness. He also dropped a few of his new split-finger fastballs in the mix.

If some of this seems to echo, consider a year ago when right-hander Ryan Fernandez arrived in camp as a Rule 5 pick and had some of the same issues.

The “carry” on his fastball had drifted.

That vertical break that once hummed at 21 inches and made his metrics so appealing had fallen to average or worse. It was around 13 inches when he began adjusting his mechanics with help from Cardinals pitching coach Dusty Blake, Fernandez said.

“I was kind of lost last spring training,” Fernandez said. “I showed up a different guy, and that scared me. 
 But thankfully I had Dusty and some old video to go back and look at. If there was something (Anderson) was doing before that and he’s no longer doing it now, Dusty will find it.”

Fernandez saw that measure of his “carry” inch up and up until he was setup by midseason, and he enters the coming season as one of the understudies for closer Ryan Helsley.

Anderson is ahead of that with strong returns from his first bullpen session with the Cardinals in the early days of spring training. As important as the numbers on the screens was the feeling in his fingers. The “carry” was back, but the tests if he can regain his groove and win a role the Cardinals are looking to fill are still ahead.

“Nobody gets paid for throwing a stellar bullpen” session, Anderson said. “I think just knowing now, just throwing now that it’s at a point where I have felt that, ‘OK, there it is.’ That’s what it feels like. That’s how it felt like. I’m throwing the ball that has good carry. I’m staying behind the ball. It’s coming out of my hand differently. It’s like, ‘OK, feels good. Here we go.’”