Cardinals ugly loss to Mets proves John Mozeliak got the trade deadline all wrong

This isn't going to be what St. Louis Cardinals fans want to hear at all. This is probably going to make them mad and some may even hate me for this. But it's okay because what I'm about to write is the truth.

The Cardinals GM John Mozeliak had the wrong approach to the trade deadline. He did what all fans want their team to do: buy. But why?

Since the trade deadline, St. Louis is 1-4 after suffering a terrible 6-0 loss at the hands of the New York Mets. They've dropped to three games out of the NL Wild Card race and they are just headed in the completely wrong direction.

Obviously, they could still sneak into the postseason. But with the state of the team, there's really just no feasible way that they can compete with the Yankees, Orioles, Dodgers and Phillies given the way they're constructed. So why would Mozeliak push off the rebuild?

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John Mozeliak pushes Cardinals rebuild off another year and it's already haunting them

Here's the thing: the Cardinals are going to have to rebuild at some point in the near future. They have just pushed it back another year by buying this season. They're taking an approach similar to what the Houston Astros have done to sustain dominance over time and it's not working out.

Mozeliak should have taken a page out of Mike Elias' book on how to manufacture a rebuild. The Cardinals have young, talented players but they're also one of the older teams in the league. They're stuck in the middle of the league without the MLB talent to compete with the monster teams like the Dodgers and the Yankees but without the prospect capital to build their team back internally.

They need to fully commit one way or the other and the easiest way to rebuild a team is to follow in the footsteps of the Orioles.

St. Louis could have taken an approach similar to what Tampa Bay did this season. The Rays are still semi in the AL Wild Card race, but they understand that they aren't in position to win the World Series this year. So they opted to deal some of their talent away in order to bolster their prospects up a bit. They didn't sell the way the Marlins did but they sold enough to give themselves some hope for the future.

St. Louis is facing the scary reality that they may stay in this middle ground for the next half decade. Nobody wants to be in the middle ground, even John Mozeliak.