MLB Rumors: Cardinals trade chip concern, Ohtani’s best free agency fit, bad Astros injury update

MLB Rumors: Cardinals trade chip Tyler O’Neill might not be available to deal

It seemed for a while like the St. Louis Cardinals might be rebounding from their apocalyptically bad start to the season, but things have leveled off a tad of late. They still were seven games under .500 entering Memorial Day and had gone just 5-5 over the last 10 games. However, with the rest of the NL Central floundering too, they’d closed the gap in the division to just five games.

Despite how unattractive the overall record might look, things still appear to be trending toward the Cardinals making a move at the MLB Trade Deadline to try and upgrade the roster, most likely the starting rotation that has plagued the club for much of the year.

That might be a bit more difficult, or at least trickier, to pull off with the way things are going with Tyler O’Neill, though.

O’Neill was placed on the IL in early May with lingering lower-back pain and discomfort, but his return has been delayed already and is now even seemingly more so. Cardinals insider Derrick Goold reported that the team is still looking for answers as the pain has not gone away despite rest and treatment, noting that O’Neill took swings off of a tee while the club was away from St. Louis recently and the back “did not respond well”.

That’s particularly trick for the Cardinals in relation to the trade deadline because, simply, O’Neill figured to be one of the biggest trade chips and assets the club has. With an abundance of outfield depth to work with, they could ship off a player of O’Neill’s caliber and not necessarily feel hugely adverse effects.

With O’Neill’s mysterious and increasingly lengthy recovery, though, that could depress his value to where he’s no longer the same level of trade asset for St. Louis. In turn, that could change the math of if they want to deal a different outfielder — which they could still do and retain quality overall depth — to maximize their return in a trade or if they’d want to change the caliber of players being targeted and still try to deal O’Neill.

Things are fluid, as always, with injuries. But the trends right now suggest that O’Neill’s situation could change the direction of the Cardinals’ trade deadline plans.