15 best trades in St. Louis Cardinals history

#10 - Joe Torre (1969)

Cardinals acquire: C/1B/3B Joe Torre
Braves acquire: 1B Orlando Cepeda

Total surplus fWAR: 16.4

As Cepeda was exiting his prime, the Cardinals were able to flip him to Atlanta for another star, one who has multiple high-level seasons still ahead of him in Joe Torre.

Torre, who put up nine incredible seasons for the Milwaukee and then Atlanta Braves in the 1960s, was flipped to St. Louis prior to his age 28 season despite having five All-Star appearances, receiving MVP votes in four different seasons, and posting a 130 OPS+ with the Braves during that time. Why would the Braves do this?

Well, like the Hall of Famer for Hall of Famer swap we looked at earlier in Hornsby for Frisch, Torre got into a salary dispute with Braves ownership, and the Cardinals wisely jumped into the mix and offered up their fading star for one whose brightest days were still ahead of him.

Unlike the Hornsby deal, Cepeda had a solid, but nowhere near spectacular career after leaving St. Louis, which is what makes this swap by the Cardinals so impressive. In six seasons with the Cardinals, Torre slashed .308/.382/.458, good for a 133 OPS+ with 98 home runs and 558 RBI. Torre was named to four All-Star teams with the Cardinals and received MVP votes in three of his seasons with the club, including winning the 1971 NL MVP honors in a year where he put up a .363/.421/.555 slash line with 24 home runs and 137 RBI.

During his time with St. Louis, Torre played catcher, first base, and third base, proving to be both a versatile and impactful defender as well as a fearsome middle-of-the-order bat. While the Cardinals lacked postseason success during Torre's time with the club, he an iconic player in their history and would later return to the club in the 1990s to manage them between the Whitey Herzog and Tony La Russa era. Torre did finish with 25.4 fWAR as a member of the Cardinals, an average of 4.2 fWAR per season.

Torre finished his playing career with the New York Mets, beginning his run as a manager in baseball as a player/manager in 1977. Torre was fairly successful as a manager with both the Braves and the Cardinals in the 1980s and 1990s, but became a legend after he went to manage the New York Yankees in 1996, leading them to four World Series titles in a five-year stretch.

To this day, Torre is still an ambassador for the Cardinals organization and is a staple of their Red Jacket ceremony on Opening Day every year. Both a Cooperstown Hall of Famer and a Cardinals' Hall of Famer, bringing Torre to St. Louis was one of the best decisions that the organization has ever made