St. Louis Cardinals: Should they look to sell?
By Jason Evans
Could this be the year for the first time in a long time that the St.Louis Cardinals are sellers come trade deadline?
This is an odd year in the National League. Teams like the St. Louis Cardinals and San Francisco Giants aren’t among the top of their divisions. There’s a clear split for teams that are in the race and teams that are not. The Arizona Diamondbacks and Los Angeles Dodgers are tied for the two Wild Card spots. The Chicago Cubs are next and are nine games behind.
The Cardinals are among that next group of teams. They are 12 games out of a wild card spot and 5.5 games behind the Milwaukee Brewers for the lead in the National League Central.
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The Cardinals have been known as a team that can call up a player and have them fill a role, however, that pipeline has slowed down a little bit over the past couple of years.
With Alex Reyes recovering from Tommy John surgery and a lack of draft picks this year due to the signing of Dexter Fowler, the hacking scandal, and considering where they are in the standings, could this be a year where the team looks to be sellers?
They’ve already made some changes, releasing veterans Jhonny Peralta and Jonathan Broxton already this month. They’ve had a lot of players unperform this year. Randal Grichuk was sent to the minors to get his groove back. Adam Wainwright has an ERA of 5.75.
Because of this, there aren’t a lot of pieces to trade. Guys like Wainwright, Yadier Molina, Fowler and Matt Carpenter aren’t going anywhere. Carlos Martinez would yield a ton in return, but he’s the kind of piece they should build upon.
If they are to sell, a couple of pieces they could trade are Lance Lynn and relievers Seung-hwan Oh and Trevor Rosenthal. Oh and Lynn are both free agents after this season while Rosenthal will be entering his final year of arbitration next year.
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Both Rosenthal and Oh have experience closing games and setting up, so that could prove valuable to a team looking to bolster the back-end of the bullpen. Lynn has playoff experience and has looked pretty good this season (his last start against the Orioles not withstanding) after missing all of last season recovering from Tommy John surgery. He won’t cost as much as Sonny Gray or Jose Quintana might.
2017 may not be the St. Louis Cardinals’ year. However, it doesn’t mean they can’t take some pieces and reload and come back next year. They aren’t that far out of it, but it just may not be a good hand for the Cards in 2017.