The St. Louis Cardinals are proof this season – you don’t count your eggs before they hatch. According to an ESPN story, a GM around MLB was looking at poaching a few arms from the Cardinals ahead of the trade deadline to bolster the team's bullpen. Thanks to the Cardinals miraculously turning things around, they’re no longer going to be sellers at the deadline.
“It sucks,” said the GM, which Jeff Passan did not name in the ESPN story.
That’s the state of the Cardinals right now. They aren’t the team that has trade capital to flip for young prospects. No, they’re the team that just might be buyers as the trade deadline approaches. Passan pointed out that thanks to a frugal winter, the Cardinals have some freedom to make a big splash if they want.
John Mozeliak will be faced with that challenging decision with just under two months until the deadline. I guess if this is his last year with the Cardinals, what a way to finish.
John Mozeliak will have a complicated end to his Cardinals tenure thanks to recent resurgence
Mozeliak said, in a Q&A with MLB.com, that he’s actually embracing a complicated approach to the trade deadline at the end of July. You can’t blame him either. What makes it complicated is he has to figure out exactly which direction he wants to take.
If the Cardinals were losing, the decision would be easy – sell any player that can get a good return. Now he has to decide what this team desperately needs to continue pushing for a wild card spot. The crazy thing is, after being cheap this offseason and then putting pressure on a youthful roster, he still isn’t surprised the Cardinals are in postseason contention.
Cardinals are optimistic about their young talent
He must have known what he was doing all along. And now he has a chance to make one final statement in his last season with the Cardinals organization. He won’t have to worry about what to do with Nolan Arenado, or about abruptly pulling the plug on Jordan Walker.
Those were conversations when the Cards’ season looked over before it started. Now, there’s optimism. Not just with what the current roster is doing, but what any knee-jerk additions at the deadline could contribute to a team that has new life.
If you were expecting the Cardinals to be sellers and scouting which players you wanted to poach, think again. St. Louis is proving they’re good enough now. Imagine if they decide to be buyers and get some key additions that make them even better.