Cardinals blowing it up at trade deadline should be on the table with one caveat

Despite having won their past three games, the St. Louis Cardinals are likely headed for another sale at the trade deadline. At this point, it's clear that this is not a playoff-caliber team and any hopes of winning their 12th World Series title will have to wait until at least 2025.

St. Louis owns a record of 18-24 heading into tonight's series finale with the Los Angeles Angels, and they sit seven games out of first place, tied for the bottom spot with the Cincinnati Reds.

However, this doesn't mean they should completely blow up their roster. On Monday, Zachary D. Rymer of Bleacher Report listed eight panic moves teams off to slow starts should avoid, and for the Cardinals, the move to avoid was trading their young players.

Cardinals should avoid trading young stars in possible fire sale

This would ultimately be a wise course of action for the Cardinals. Even though they likely aren't going to be postseason-bound this year, they shouldn't just trade everybody.

While a rebuild of sorts is needed, that should only apply to veteran players. Paul Goldschmidt, Nolan Arenado, Ryan Helsley, Lance Lynn, and Kyle Gibson should all be fair game for the Cardinals to trade.

Players such as Brendan Donovan, Masyn Winn, and Nolan Gorman should be held onto because they are the pieces the Cardinals need to build around in the future. Any rebuild the Cardinals do should be similar to that of the 2016 New York Yankees, who sold pieces at the deadline and restocked their farm system but also set themselves up to bounce right back into contention in 2017, which they did, not missing the playoffs again until 2023.

This is exactly how the Cardinals will usher in a new era, by changing their strategy, but not doing so too drastically, leaving pieces to build around for 2025 and beyond. Only then will things improve, not by continuing their same strategy.