Expectations for the St. Louis Cardinals were unusually low going into the season. After a second straight season of poor play, St. Louis didn’t make any significant moves to improve during the winter in free agency or the trade market. John Mozeliak instead chose to replace a number of players internally after letting them leave in free agency, with the goal of utilizing 2025 as a fresh start to determine which players may serve as building blocks in the future.
A funny thing happened: St. Louis started to win, and win, and win some more. They’ve won so much that the talk has moved from the Cardinals being the worst team in the National League Central to possibly contending for the division title, or at worst a Wild Card berth. Almost everyone assumed the Cardinals would be sellers at the trade deadline because all the signs seemed to point in that direction.
Will a run of success, however, cause the Cardinals to put their future ambitions on hold? There is a possibility.
John Mozeliak hints at Cardinals being trade deadline buyers
Mozeliak recently discussed the Cardinals’ approach to the trade deadline and offered some reflections on some of the choices taken in the previous summer.
“Why wouldn’t you want to keep trying to play well if we’re doing well?” The St. Louis Post-Dispatch was informed by Mozeliak. Some decisions are made with our immediate needs in mind, while others may benefit us down the road. You weigh that. We went and attempted to take some action to assist last year because we felt like we were on to something. Some didn’t actually make a difference, while others had longer-term ideas. You made an effort.
“It’s certainly a lot more fun to be trying to improve your club than to break up your club.”
The main thing to observe here is Mozeliak’s opening sentence: “If we’re playing well, why wouldn’t you want to keep trying to play well?”
The Cardinals’ proactive rebuilding this season would be stunning in light of that. They could decide to keep Ryan Helsley and Erick Fedde on their contracts that are about to expire. Despite being important members of the squad, Fedde and Helsley were both anticipated to be traded before the season began. The Cardinals would suffer if they traded them.
However, that doesn’t mean St. Louis will put forth a lot of effort to attempt to compete this year. By the end of May, the team’s youthful core has performed well enough to bring it to this point; perhaps the Cardinals will just hang on, make some minor adjustments without losing any key players or prospects, and then assess their situation for the upcoming winter.
The Cardinals will probably end up in the middle between being a big-time seller and a big-time buying. It’s possible that St. Louis may try to acquire controllable talent in exchange for trading away expiring players like Fedde or Helsley.
