Wacha could be used as a super reliever in 2017, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch's Derrick Goold reports.
He is preparing this winter to start, taking part in an aggressive program to add 15 to 20 pounds of muscle, but the writing is on the wall. Adam Wainwright, Carlos Martinez, Mike Leake, Lance Lynn and Alex Reyes all figure to be ahead of Wacha in the pecking order, and Jaime Garcia and Luke Weaver also loom as rotation options. Trevor Rosenthal is being stretched out, with a possible role as a multi-inning reliever in the Andrew Miller mold, and Wacha seems to be the Cardinals' other experimental option in that role. He has the stuff to be dynamic in multi-inning stints out of the bullpen, so all is not lost from a fantasy perspective, and he could still end up starting, so his value is very fluid at the moment.