Has Cardinals’ summer swoon made them sellers at the trade deadline?
After the St. Louis Cardinals were swept in Arizona over the weekend, it can hardly come as a surprise that President of Baseball Operations John Mozeliak did everything short of tacking a “for sale” sign on the team’s roster in Colorado on Monday evening.
There is always importance in going for it when there’s a realistic chance that doing so might inject life and meaning into a roster and a fan base, but sobering reality will assert itself where appropriate.
This leaves the Cardinals with an opportunity to seize over the rest of the month, and then with the remnants of a season to continue to examine how many of the players on the current roster will be a part of the next championship contender in St. Louis.
Erick Fedde, Ryan Helsley, Phil Maton and Steven Matz are all set to be free agents at season’s end, and it would be a surprise if any of the four were still Cardinals on August 1. Fedde, in particular, seems to be pitching at present as a man without a spot, hoping only to perform well enough that there’s a spot to be found for him with a contender elsewhere.
Helsley, among that group, might be the most difficult to trade despite having the clearest path to desirability on the market. If Helsley is traded, there’s a real chance that he’ll have the best pure stuff of any reliever moved at the deadline. However, with the Cardinals retaining the ability to offer him a qualifying offer after the season – one year with a value likely in the range of $21 million – there’s a necessary bar to clear in terms of trade return.
The rules governing the qualifying offer place the pick received if a player signs elsewhere in a range that varies based on whether a team receives revenue sharing proceeds from MLB.
Historically, the Cardinals have not been such a team, though it’s unclear whether that will remain true given this year’s cratering of attendance and accepted cut of local television rights fees. If indeed they do not receive those funds, a pick received if Helsley leaves in free agency would be following Competitive Balance Round B; this year, the Boston Red Sox picked in that slot at 75th overall.
Maton and Matz are having strong seasons in relief and can be traded for what the market will bear for a reliever. That likely means a prospect or two with some sort of reasonably projectable future in the majors; Jordan Hicks was moved at the deadline in 2023 without having a season as good as either of those two in exchange for Adam Kloffenstein and Sem Robberse from Toronto.
One hitch which might determine some of what the Cardinals seek at the deadline is the coming 40-player roster crunch which will arrive this winter. Part of the reason it has been absolutely essential to spend the season evaluating which players are likely to be a real part of the future is that room has to be made to protect rising prospects from the Rule 5 draft.
A group including but not exclusive to catchers Leonardo Bernal and Jimmy Crooks, outfielders Joshua Baez and Nathan Church, and pitchers Cooper Hjerpe, Brycen Mautz and Max Rajcic requires roster protection this winter. That does not include top prospect JJ Wetherholt, who is already gently rapping on the door of the big leagues, or newly-drafted top pitching prospect Liam Doyle, who will likely enter next season primed to rocket through the minor league system in its opening months.
That wave of coming players likely leaves the Cardinals needing to pursue players further from the big leagues, which could make trades more enticing for opponents while increasing the degree of difficulty from the Cardinals’ end. The reliability of projections goes down with age and distance, and as much as there’s frustration at every arriving deadline which includes a selling posture, that frustration goes up if it does not pay off.
The list of players with potential to be traded is not restricted to the pending free agents.
Lefty reliever JoJo Romero has had a solid season but has only one more year of team control; he will be an appealing target for teams seeking lefty relief. Without clarity having yet arrived around the second base log jam, the Cardinals should expect to receive calls on both Brendan Donovan and Nolan Gorman, though they’ve shown little to no interest in trading either in years past.
Mozeliak told reporters in Denver on Monday that he would check in on Nolan Arenado’s wishes ahead of the deadline, though his underwhelming season and total control over the process form a difficult combination to navigate on top of his remaining salary. The amount the Cardinals have already paid down this season will help, but unless Arenado is willing to consider non-marquee destinations such as Detroit or even Milwaukee, it may amount to nothing more than months of waiting for the Dodgers or Yankees to call.
The stretch of strong baseball the Cardinals played in May was a reminder of what this team is capable of doing at its best, but developing teams lacking depth will struggle to maintain that level over the grind of the season.
A starting rotation that struggles to strike anyone out has started to crumble with the onset of the dog days of summer, and whatever decisions were there to be made in terms of charting a path were made through standings attrition.
Rather than playoff season, the Cardinals have entered trade rumor season. The remaining days of July should come with a flurry of intrigue and activity; the days to follow in August may be a great deal harder to swallow.
