Cardinals: 3 Tigers trade chips worth pursuing at the deadline
By Jake Oliver
The St. Louis Cardinals can pillage the Tigers’ roster at the MLB Trade Deadline, as Detroit is reportedly ready to sell almost anyone for the right price.
On Tuesday afternoon, Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic unleashed one amazing breaking news tidbit: The Tigers are willing to trade nearly anyone, including young Ace Tarik Skubal. The St. Louis Cardinals are competing for the NL Central crown against the Milwaukee Brewers while trying to push further in for a World Series. Winning the World Series in what could be the final MLB season for Adam Wainwright, Albert Pujols, and Yadier Molina would be beyond spectacular for the legendary franchise.
In order to do that, the Cardinals have to fix multiple needs at the trade deadline, including in the outfield, starting pitcher, bullpen, and catcher. With the Tigers making multiple impact players available, the Cardinals could improve their team tremendously in one fell swoop. These players wouldn’t just be short-term acquisitions, either, but could help the team in seasons to come.
The Cardinals have a payroll of $154 million and a CBT of $174 million. This is nearly $10 million fewer than their franchise-record payroll. This indicates the team should be able to add some players, although maybe not a high-priced one such as Juan Soto.
With the Tigers having many cheap players on the payroll, the Cardinals could fit in multiple players on their roster without adding too much money to their payroll or luxury tax line.
St. Louis Cardinals: 3 Tigers trade chips they should target at the deadline
Tarik Skubal, SP
Tarik Skubal is in the midst of his best MLB season yet. In his second full season and third MLB season overall, Skubal is on pace to set multiple career highs in ERA, wins, innings, Ks, and many other stats. He had a rough couple of seasons in 2020-21 where he went 9-16 over 39 games. He had a 4.57 ERA/5.20 FIP over those 181.1 innings, although he did strike out 201 batters.
This year has been a completely different story. With most of the Tigers’ rotation on the injured list, Skubal has shouldered the load for Detroit. He’s started 19 games and thrown 106.2 innings of 3.88 ERA/2.93 FIP ball. He’s 7-8 and has 11 Ks to a superb 27 walks. His hard-hit rate is down nearly 7 percent, while increasing his ground-ball percentage by nearly 10 percent. That’s led him to the success he has had so far.
As FanSided’s own Mark Powell wrote, the Cardinals should be in on Skubal since they could be without Flaherty for the season, and Steven Matz just tore his MCL. Dakota Hudson is on the IL, too. This leaves 2 starters from their projected Opening Day rotation healthy: the elder Adam Wainwright and Miles Mikolas.
Acquiring a young starting pitcher like Skubal, who’s only 25 and under team control through 27, would be a boon for this team. If they can pull this off, it would give them an impact left-handed starter and deepen their starting rotation.