Key Points
Bullet point summary by AI
- Three teams are positioning themselves to acquire St. Louis Cardinals right-hander Dustin May before Monday's trade deadline.
- Each potential deal focuses on high-upside pitching prospects that match the Cardinals' rebuild timeline and the acquiring team's immediate needs.
- The varying package structures reveal how different contenders value both short-term help and long-term prospect development.
The St. Louis Cardinals have made things easy on Chaim Bloom ahead of Monday's trade deadline, losing seven of their last 10 games and posting a 10-17 record overall in July. Sure, the team is technically still alive in the playoff hunt, entering play on Friday night three games back of the Philadelphia Phillies and Arizona Diamondbacks for a Wild Card spot. But this team is ahead of schedule to begin with, and their midsummer swoon has only reaffirmed that St. Louis is still a year or two away from serious contention.
Now they get to try and jumpstart that process by flipping assets at the trade deadline. And while other players — Lars Nootbaar, Ivan Herrera — might fetch a bigger haul, no Cardinal is more likely to move between now and Aug. 3 than right-hander Dustin May. May will be a free agent at the end of the season, and while he's had ups and downs this year (as his 4.38 ERA attests), his flashes of brilliance and a 3.91 expected ERA should have plenty of contenders interested in his services for the stretch run.
May isn't an ace, and St. Louis won't command a Godfather offer for a rental. But in a pretty sketchy starting pitching market, Bloom can continue to restock this farm system. Here are three potential deals that would match value with need and keep the Cards' rebuild chugging.
Phillies trade package for Dustin May
A bat remains Philly's biggest need at the trade deadline, but they could also use an arm like May — someone who can stabilize the fourth or fifth spot in a top-heavy rotation before pivoting to a relief role come October. And this sort of deal would allow them to add needed pitching depth while reserving their biggest bullets for other positions.
St. Louis, meanwhile, would add another highly projectable arm in keeping with the sort of prospect Bloom has targeted in trades to date. A third-round pick in last year's draft, Bowker posted a 14.5 K/9 at Single-A and has a 3.04 across his first six starts at High-A Jersey Shore. His super low release point allows him to get big-time ride on his fastball and big-time run on his sweeper; find a third pitch to use against lefties and fine-tune the command, and you could have something akin to Tanner Houck here (well, the version of Tanner Houck before he imploded). That's good value for a pitcher who doesn't figure into the Cardinals' long-term plans.
White Sox trade package for Dustin May
Speaking of high-upside arms that Bloom would no doubt love to let his pitching development team loose on. The second-round pick back in 2024 missed all of last season due to Tommy John surgery, and has only recently gotten onto a pro mound for the first time. The results have been a bit bumpy, as you'd expect, but he's already showcasing the power, swing-and-miss stuff that caught Chicago's eye in the first place. He's already got a legit three-pitch mix in place; now it's just a matter of staying healthy and getting as many reps as possible.
He feels very much in keeping with the pitchers Bloom has prioritized in St. Louis, but he's expendable enough for a White Sox team that wants to upgrade its pitching staff for the stretch run without unduly compromising 2027 and beyond.
Astros trade package for Dustin May
As one of the weaker farm systems in baseball, Houston is the one team here that would likely have to send multiple prospects to St. Louis in order to make a deal work. Then again, the Astros' lineup is legit, and May would be a huge boon to a threadbare rotation with the potential to bump to the bullpen come October. Houston is priced out of the Tarik Skubal sweepstakes, so this is likely about the best they can afford, and they should be willing to throw caution to the wind.
Forcucci has posted an absolutely eye-watering walk rate at Single-A in his first pro season, but you can throw that more or less out the window; he missed all of 2025 while rehabbing from Tommy John, and command is typically the last thing to come back. Out of college, though, he had one of the most intriguing fastballs in the entire draft, coming from a low release point (you might sense a theme developing here) with major life and velocity. If the Cardinals can give him a working breaking ball and some patience, they could really have something here. Sullivan, meanwhile, has major contact questions to answer but has center-field speed and good pull-side pop, which is a profile worth taking a swing on.
Add us as a preferred source on Google