St. Louis Cardinals: 5 Blockbuster Winter Meetings Trades

Credit: Robert Mayer-USA TODAY Sports

All is quiet on the St. Louis Cardinals front, which can only mean one thing. General manager John Mozeliak and his staff are working on something no one will see coming.

This week on ESPN.com, the always delightful Jonah Keri summed up what the scene at next week’s Baseball Winter Meetings will be like. Basically, he nailed it:

"At some point over the course of the four-day event, Scott Boras will emerge Randy Orton-style, attracting hordes of sportswriters to hear him bemoan the state of Major League Baseball (he will be 100 percent right about teams claiming a bigger share of the industry’s revenue than we’ve seen in many years). Jim Leyland will be seated at a bar drinking scotch and telling the most amazing stories you’ve ever heard. If you don’t pull up a chair next to him, you have failed at the winter meetings. Oh, and there will be some actual baseball moves, too."

It’s a bizarre event, really. Plenty will be going on in the common areas of the hotel. Minor League Baseball hosts a job fair and trade show. Publications and outlets host awards banquets. And team executives have to take breathers and leave their suites to grab dinner at one of the hotel restaurants, which creates swarms of poor media members chasing after them for any news.

Often, they’ll come up empty and will leave he Winter Meetings feeling like they’ve just spent hours watching Geraldo Rivera’s ill-fated reveal of the Al Capone safe back in 1986.

But we’re betting on more excitement this year. Something big for the St. Louis Cardinals, maybe because they have no choice. With Zack Greinke suddenly and surprisingly inking a 6-year deal (with no opt-out, BTW) with the Arizona Diamondbacks, the Los Angeles Dodgers, New York Yankees and other big spenders will be left throwing dollars at everyone who’s left.

Forget the free agents and the St. Louis Cardinals paying for 5 or 6 years and feeling lucky to get maybe 2 or 3 decent years out of (insert free agent here).

I’d prefer a trade on the level of last winter’s Shelby Miller for Jason Heyward swap. Here are a few teams the St. Louis Cardinals could already be whispering sweet nothings to.

Next: Minnesota Twins