A Cardinals-Giants trade for John Mozeliak to put money where his mouth is

The St. Louis Cardinals are watching their season go down the drain right in front of their eyes. They have one of the older, veteran rosters in the league and are in a really tough spot because of it. The roster was put together to win now but they're just not competing in the way they were supposed to.

Now John Mozeliak is left to put his money where his mouth is, quite literally.

St. Louis is given just an 8 percent chance to make the postseason, per Baseball Reference, and they need to get aggressive in some trades before this number begins dropping again.

They play in one of the worst divisions in baseball, leaving them still in a spot where they can contend if they get hot in the second half. Not all struggling teams have this luxury, like the San Fransisco Giants. The Giants have a better chance to make the postseason, but they're chasing teams with a lot more firepower than the NL Central has.

This could cause the Giants to sell their expiring players, with names like Michael Conforto going before the trade deadline.

A Giants-Cardinals trade that could make sense if St. Louis buys

Now, let's preface, this is only hypothetical. This is under the circumstances that San Fransisco, at least conservatively, intends to sell. If they view themselves out of the picture, trading Conforto makes sense.

As for the Cardinals, waving the white flag is such a hard task to do because they built this roster full of expensive, older players in order to win. Waving the white flag would me destroying the roster in a rebuild. This trade would happen in the case that they don't intend on rebuilding, at all, seeing an opening to chase in the NL Central.

This trade is a simple one-for-one deal. The Cardinals are sending a top 15 prospect in their organization to the Giants for half season of Michael Conforto because they believe Conforto can help make a push.

The Cardinals are in a position to get desperate adding pieces. Without a playoff run, this season is a massive failure for St. Louis. Adding Conforto would provide them with a hitter that's slashing .241/.294/.431, with an OPS+ of 111. He's not a gamebreaker, but he's certainly better than what St. Louis has now.

Kloffenstein, a right-hander with a developed arsenal, is ready for his call-up to the big leagues. He's thrown well in his 13 starts at Triple-A this year, largely due to his five-pitch arsenal and good command. His stuff should translate to the bigs well.

This trade could potentially make sense under certain circumstances. The Cardinals would need to be invested right now and the Giants would need to be okay losing an outfielder to acquire some more pitching.