St. Louis Cardinals: Ranking the 10 worst trades in the last 20 years

The St. Louis Cardinals have made some great trades over the past 20 years, but there have been a few duds along the way.

Lou Brock for Ernie Broglio is almost undoubtedly the greatest trade in St. Louis Cardinals history. But then we have those trades that Cardinals fans would probably prefer to forget. The trade of Steve Carlton to the Philadelphia Phillies for Rick Wise is likely the most regrettable.

A 2017 article from Christian May-Suzuki detailed the best trades the Cardinals made from 1997 to 2017. But now it’s time to take a darker path and look at the ones that didn’t work out so well.

This list was compiled by looking at the value of the players received and dealt and how they affected their teams after the trades. It also looks at how the Cardinals could have fared if the player were still on the team.

Some of these trades are quite recent, so a full judgment of how they affected the Cardinals remains to be seen. But because we are only going back 20 years and the Cardinals haven’t made many bad trades, the options are limited.

Here are 10 deals Cardinals general managers made that they might wish they could take back.