6 Cardinals likely to stay in St. Louis after Trade Deadline
ST.LOUIS, Mo.- With the MLB Trade Deadline only five days away, a lot of names on St. Louis Cardinals have seen their names pop up in trade rumors all month. While it seems like safe bets that players on expiring deals like starting pitchers Jordan Montgomery and Jack Flaherty, along with shortstop Paul DeJong are going to be moved, names like Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado have seen their names pop up.
KMOX Sports Director and Total Information A.M. host Tom Ackerman discuss the six players he think are guaranteed to stay put in St. Louis after the Aug. 1st deadline.
Nolan Arenado and Paul Goldschmidt:
Let's put these two together and get it quickly out of the way as fast and painless as possible: there is not even a 0.00001% chance either of them are getting traded at all in next five days or even during the winter. Cardinals president John Mozeliak made it extremely clear the team intends to compete in 2024, and both would likely like to be in the plans for that scenario. Of top of that, both have no-trade clauses, which would make any trade at all extremely difficult.
NOLAN GORMAN:
If Cardinals fans were asked the question if Gorman should be considered a trade candidate after terrible June where he hit .143/.211/.299 with 30 strikeouts and only hitting two home runs, some fans would've probably been open to idea of moving Gorman.
Oh how a month has changed everyone's opinions. Gorman showed everyone that his June struggles was just a fluke, has since been torrid in July, hitting a .282/.346/.648 slash line with seven home runs while striking out 25 times.
Nothing showed more how immensely talented the 23-year-old Arizonian is than his performance in Arizona Wednesday afternoon, where he hit two mammoth home runs in Chase Field, the very same stadium he attended games as a kid, and one of them was off of Arizona Diamondback pitcher Zach Gallen, who will certainly get some Cy-Young votes at the end of the season.
Gorman is a perennial 30-home runs a year slugger. It would take a special kind of pitcher for the Cardinals to consider moving him. The former Top-100 prospect is most likely still in the Cardinals short and long-term plans.
JORDAN WALKER AND MASYN WINN:
Let's put these two close friends and soon-to-be teammates in the majors together too. While yes, the Cardinals need to trade some of the bats to acquire the pitchers that they desire, it would be extremely and highly unlikely both players would be moved to achieve that goal.
Walker, just fresh removed from being named the top prospect in all of MLB, defensive struggles have been a sight for sore eyes for Cardinals fans, the bat still remains completely legit, and he's only just was able to legally purchase alcohol just two months ago. There's room for growth on the defensive side no question, but the talent is still extremely there that it's unlikely he get moved to achieve that goal.
Winn, who is playing in the Cardinals Triple-A affiliate in Memphis, everyone very well knows how talented of player he has been defensively, despite Justin Turner's criticism, his talent as a hitter has really shown in the past couple weeks, with Winn hitting a .309/.395/.509 slash line with 8 home runs and 43 RBIs in his last 66 games.
With DeJong expected to be traded within the next five days, and with Brendan Donovan and Tommy Edman being unable to play shortstop at the current time to their various injuries, it would open a window to for the Cardinals to potentially call Winn up this season. Make no mistake: Winn is in the Cardinals future plans.
BRENDAN DONOVAN:
Donovan is sort of a rebellious-type of player. In an era where strikeouts and home runs reign supreme in today's MLB, Donovan has shown you can still have a player who can hit a few home runs all while not striking out at all.
While Donovan sophomore season hasn't been quite as successful and clean as his rookie season was, Donovan is still showing that he is still a quality player, especially as a hitter as he has hit a .325/.399/.494 slash line and hitting six homers since the beginning of June.
All the while injuries has prevented him from playing the field. Donovan is a rare type of player in today's game where he has elite strikeout prevention all while being still a much a quality hitter.
Like Gorman, it would likely take an extremely talented once-in-a generation pitcher for the Cardinals to consider trading Donovan. The best bet is that Donovan will be on the team heading into next year's Opening Day.
