I hope the St. Louis Cardinals don’t go all in at the MLB trade deadline this year

As the MLB trade deadline nears, the St. Louis Cardinals need to keep their eye on 2021 and beyond with any trades they consider.

Going all-in should be out of the question for this season simply because of two reasons: First, the playoff format makes the chase for the World Series a gamble because more teams than usual will get into the tournament — but they’ll have to run a longer, less predictable gauntlet to advance all the way to the Fall Classic. Second, COVID-19 could rear its head at any time, as the Cardinals already seen, and derail even the best-laid plans.

I’d rather see the Cardinals, flush with pitching prospects but short on productive middle of the order sluggers, use 2020 as a practice season, then add a couple of difference makers to a roster that, minus Adam Wainwright, Yadier Molina, Matt Carpenter and Dexter Fowler, is actually pretty young and on the upswing. We saw time and time again against the Reds that the Cardinals are inconsistent at driving home runs. They had two on with nobody out and the bases loaded with one out multiple times in the Cincinnati series, and the Chicago Cubs series before that, only to come away with nothing.

I don’t think the Cardinals will make a mega deal before the deadline. The conversation I’ve beaten to death is that the Cardinals should trade for Nolan Arenado of the Colorado Rockies because he would be the perfect compliment to Paul Goldschmidt in the heart of the St. Louis batting order. But, as this is being written, the Rockies are a game over .500 and certainly consider themselves to be in the thick of the playoff picture. A major deal of this sort is much more likely to happen over the winter. So, I’ll put that one aside for now. But, when the time comes, it sure looks like the Cardinals are well set to make an offer with an abundance of young pitching and a pair of top prospects both at third base and behind the plate, giving the team some flexibility.

Something I’d love to see is a deal in which the Cardinals trade some of their pitching quantity for quality.

Currently, the Cleveland Indians have a dilemma in that two of their starting pitchers have been demoted to their alternate location after they upset the club and their teammates by going out for a night on the town in Chicago in the middle of a pandemic. Some Indians players have said they’d opt out for the rest of the season if the duo are reinstated. But by not bringing them back, the Tribe is shorthanded. What to do?

Could St. Louis interest Cleveland in a deal for 29-year-old starter Mike Clevinger? Carlos Martinez, soon to be off the COVID-19 injured list, and either Austin Gomber or Daniel Ponce de Leon could be an interesting two-for one deal that solves the Indians’ problems while giving the Cardinals a 29-year-old pitcher who was 13-4 last season with a 2.71 earned run average and 1.056 batters allowed to reach base via a walk or hit in 2019. Essentially, he could be a middle of the rotation compliment to Jack Flaherty. Someone who could start the second or third game of a playoff series in the future.

On Sunday, Ponce de Leon showed again, falling short of the five innings necessary to qualify for a win, that he’s a depth piece, not a guy a playoff team can count on to be a part of its rotation. But he could have value to a club as a long reliever who can eat two or three innings in a game twice a week if needed. A team like Cleveland that has been shorthanded because two members of its rotation, including Clevinger, were suspended for breaking COVID-19 protocol might find a two-or-three-for-one deal for a starting pitcher they have a conflict with to be a trade they can’t refuse.

If the Cardinals can’t make a trade for a middle of the order hitter, they really ought to consider signing a slugging corner outfielder, even if that guy is former Cardinals outfielder Marcell Ozuna. The production out of the St. Louis outfielders has been nothing short of pathetic. If St. Louis had a chance to get Ozuna on a one-or two-year deal, I think I’d be inclined to take it and put him back in left. Dylan Carlson can start in either center or right in 2021, moving either Harrison Bader or Dexter Fowler to a fourth outfielder role.

Scott Wuerz

Belleville News-Democrat

Scott Wuerz has written “Cheap Seats,” a St. Louis Cardinals fan blog for the Belleville News-Democrat, since 2007. He is a former BND reporter who covered breaking news and education.