Key Points
Bullet point summary by AI
- A veteran MLB team made a bold decision to trade away two key contributors during an aggressive rebuild phase.
- The players have since thrived with their new franchise, sparking debates about the wisdom of the original move.
- The context of the trade — timing, financial commitments, and long-term strategy — remains crucial to understanding whether the franchise made the right call.
As they’re watching the 2026 MLB Home Run Derby, it’d be hard to fault the St. Louis Cardinals for wishing they were in the Philadelphia Phillies’ situation.
The NL Wild Card-leading Phillies have two players, Bryce Harper and Kyle Schwarber, participating in Monday’s Derby. Cardinals fans will see Jordan Walker try his hand at captivating the Citizens Bank Park crowd, as will Red Sox first baseman and ex-Cardinals slugger Willson Contreras.
Contreras, who earned his fourth All-Star selection, is enjoying a renaissance season in Boston. That said, don’t let the ongoing revisionist history narrative fool you into thinking the Cardinals were wrong to trade Contreras and Sonny Gray this past offseason.
The Cardinals were right to trade Willson Contreras when they did
Frankly, revisionist history is an awful thing, partly because there’s no changing the past. But more importantly, the context of why a team made a move is far more important than simply saying that they chose the wrong path.
Take the Cardinals’ sending Contreras and Gray to Boston. The consensus was that St. Louis needed to ease into the “moving on from veterans” portion of their rebuild, and those two naturally became expendable. St. Louis also parted ways with perennial Gold Glove-winning third baseman Nolan Arenado, sending him to the Arizona Diamondbacks.
Contreras is on pace to set personal bests in most categories, and he’s already recorded 3.5 bWAR. He’s been instrumental in Boston's recent surge back into the crowded AL Wild Card race. Gray, meanwhile, is 11-1 with a 2.54 ERA in 17 starts and he has an outside chance at his first 20-win season. In fact, the righty is already only four victories away from a new career high.
Let’s also not forget that Contreras is 34 and Gray is 36. Contreras is under contract through 2027 and has a 2028 team option. Although Gray has a $30 million mutual option, the far likelier outcome is the Red Sox buying him out for $5 million and allowing him to hit free agency this winter.
We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: Multiple things can be true. Things are never as simple as saying that the Cardinals were wrong in trading Contreras and Gray based on their production so far. At the time, it felt like the right move given where the organization stood, the financial commitments to both players and the uncertainty about St. Louis' ability to contend for a playoff spot.
The Cardinals are still better off without Willson Contreras and Sonny Gray moving forward
As a reminder, the Contreras and Gray trades were separate moves. It’ll be some time before we see whether any of the prospects that St. Louis acquired make a difference at the big-\league level, and that’ll prove instrumental in determining whether or not the Cardinals “won” their 2025-26 offseason moves.
For now, let’s hold off on the cliché “the Cardinals messed up” takes. Contreras and Gray have been phenomenal, yes, and it’s entirely possible that Chaim Bloom will regret landing the prospects he did. That’s the reality that Craig Breslow and the Red Sox quickly learned following the Rafael Devers trade.
Besides, things could be far worse. Imagine if the Cardinals resembled the 2024 White Sox rather than being a borderline playoff team.
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