Commerce is still occurring in the baseball marketplace.

For instance, the Kansas City Royals continued their eternal rebuild by sending center fielder Michael A. Taylor to the Minnesota Twins and shortstop Adalberto Mondesi to the Boston Red Sox.

Jurickson Profar remains the most attractive outfielder in free agency while slugger Yuli Gurriel is still available after the Miami Marlins backed away.

And here’s an area of interest to the Cardinals: There are still many veteran left-handed relievers up for bidding and the team could use more proven help there.

Last year Genesis Cabrera lost some velocity which, combined with his lack of command, landed him back in Memphis. Zack Thompson showed great promise after transitioning to the bullpen, but his work sample was small.

JoJo Romero had his moments after his midseason arrival. Packy Naughton did OK as a fill-in too – but clearly the Cardinals could find room for a veteran lefty.

Zack Britton would be worth a look as he continues his comeback from Tommy John surgery. He made it back for three games last year and struggled, so these days he is trying to build interest with showcase throwing.

In his prime, Britton was an elite closer for the Baltimore Orioles with a 47-save season in 2016. More recently he was an excellent set-up man for the New York Yankees.

Now 35, Britton is trying to rebuild velocity and command after undergoing repairs. He will be an interesting project for a team.

Andrew Chafin (2-3, three saves, 2.83 ERA with the Tigers last year) and Matt Moore (5-2, five saves, 1.95 ERA last season with the Rangers) are two other free agents of interest.

On the next level down, Brad Hand, Will Smith and Justin Wilson are still available.

The Cardinals have been burned on free-agent relievers in the past – hello, Brett Cecil! -- but clearly the franchise has the payroll flexibility to add for this season. Baseball insider Ken Rosenthal lists the Cardinals among the teams sniffing the lefty trail.

Pricing remains an issue, since the big spending industry-wide this winter has extended to the relief market. The remaining free agents are looking for healthy annual values on a multi-year deal.

The Cardinals have a history of waiting out the market for bargains. Other teams are likely doing the same at this point, so it will interesting to see how it plays.

Will somebody sign one of these relievers and trigger a wave of signings? Or will these lefties have to wait until injuries create more acute needs?

This market bears watching as spring training nears.

TALKIN’ BASEBALL

Here is what folks are writing about Our National Pastime:

Buster Olney, ESPN.com: “The Mets have been very comfortable in moving on from the collapsed negotiations with (Carlos) Correa, an episode that revealed more about the operating style of owner Steve Cohen, and about organizational confidence that the 2023 team might be even better than the club that won 101 games last season. The Mets believe they have better roster depth and more operational flexibility . . . Within the Mets' baseball operations, there is an understanding that it's possible Cohen, as owner, could operate and explore possible deals on a plane above the front office. But there is also a belief that he will listen and absorb information. This distinguishes him from some other big-spending owners, like the Angels' Arte Moreno, who jumped for Albert Pujols and Josh Hamilton on his own. It's a big reason the Mets go into their second season operating under (GM Billy) Eppler and manager Buck Showalter with much more certainty than a year ago, when their first spring training together was truncated by the labor stoppage. Even without the superstar shortstop, this roster has perhaps more talent overall, and, as always, the continued potential attached to the spending power of Cohen, the richest owner in baseball.”

Ray Ratto, The Defector: “Yes, Arte Moreno is keeping the Los Angeles Angels because he couldn't bear to abandon his dream of getting more money for his ballteam than the market sees fit to offer. Of course Moreno would have Angels fans believe that all this unfinished business, like Mike Trout's legacy and Shohei Ohtani's future and the validity of the Angels as a team of relevance, just weighed on him too much to give them up … without a hell of a lot more dough, anyway. That's the beauty of this particular development in the Desolation of Orange County—it's all so transparently mendacious. Moreno didn't hire Sal Galatiolo and his firm to look into Moreno's heart to discern how much he loved baseball but to slap a dollar sign on the muscle, to steal the phrase from the 1989 book of the same title. That he didn't find it means either that he had valued it too highly, by a lot, or that everyone else valued it too lowly. If the former, Moreno just misjudged the market, and that happens. Just look at Elon Musk and how he has energized Twitter into the upholstered sinkhole it is today. But if this is the first sign that baseball valuations have hit a flat spot after decades of skyrocketing performance, you will hear the gentle clink of Rob Manfred's arteries hardening into tire chains. The whole idea of owning a sports team is that it is the kind of family financial plan that lasts until either the 27th century or until money is replaced as currency by turnips, and can even be occasionally be fun. Major League Baseball had record revenues of $10.8 billion in 2022, so Moreno never lost a dime from the moment he paid Disney $148M for the franchise. But he can't like the number of prospective dimes he thought he would make and now will likely never see.”

Ben Clemens, FanGraphs: “Byron Buxton isn’t exactly known as an iron man; he played 92 games last year, which is actually more games than he’s averaged over the course of his career (he’s appeared in 52% of Twins games since his full-time debut in 2016). If you’re designing a team around him, you need a competent backup center fielder. Taylor fits that role perfectly; he’d be a fringe starter for many teams, particularly if they needed outfield defense, but he’s well above the bar as a fill-in. Broadly speaking, the Twins have considered depth in their strategy this offseason. Pablo López makes the rotation deeper. Christian Vazquez turns Ryan Jeffers into an over-qualified backup. Kyle Farmer is above average defensively at second, third, and short. Edouard Julien isn’t far off as a DH/2B/1B option. If the team’s offense is beset by injuries this year, the first wave of reinforcements is one of the best such collections in the majors. It’s unfair to think of Taylor only as an injury replacement, though. Even if Buxton plays a healthy season, the Twins will want to give him rest in the outfield, and they’ll also frequently sit Joey Gallo against lefties. Taylor has been much better against lefties than righties in his career — he’s right-handed, so that’s no surprise — which fills yet another need.”

Craig Goldstein, Baseball Prospectus: “Following the 2020 season, (Brian) Anderson had put together three straight years of above-average production, showing the ability to slot in capably at third base or left field. He’d also played in 88% of his team’s games over the prior three seasons. Since then, however, he’s been a below-average bat when he’s even been on the field, appearing in just 51% of games over the last two seasons. So what is Milwaukee getting? Probably something closer to the latter than the former, but given the cheap contract it is hard to find fault with fitting him on the roster. Milwaukee's modus operandi the last few seasons has been to stitch together a lineup of players with something approximating average production—some a bit better, some a bit worse—and rely on their dynamic pitching to power them to the postseason. It’s generally worked, though they fell just short last year. They were 10th in runs scored in 2022, 12th in 2021, all while playing in a hitter-friendly park, but Rowdy Tellez was their best overall bat—no shade to Rowdy, he had a great year, it’s just tough to compete if he’s the best bat in your lineup. The good news is Milwaukee picked up William Contreras earlier this winter. He would have been their best bat last year, and with Jesse Winker looking to recover his power stroke, Willy Adames, and Luis Urias in tow . . . well, it is not exactly Murderer’s Row, but it is a deeper tier of potentially above-average bats than they’ve had in a while. Somehow, mind-bogglingly, the Brewers hit the third-most home runs in the majors last year, so they have a track record of maximizing lesser-regarded hitters with pop. Anderson doesn’t really fall into that group, but does serve as additional depth for the other tier of hitter, the one that clusters around league average.”

MEGAPHONE

“I want to be with a winning team and a winning culture and be part of that fun baseball again. That’s more what I’m looking forward to than anything. Third base, first base, outfield, it doesn’t really matter to me.”

Brian Anderson, after finalizing his deal with the Milwaukee Brewers.