St. Louis Cardinals: Winter Meetings primer and predictions

As they do every year, the St. Louis Cardinals top brass will meet with other teams at the Winter Meetings. What should fans expect?

For any serious MLB fan, especially a St. Louis Cardinals fan, the annual MLB Winter Meetings is the most exciting weekend of the year. Well, that is when free agency is acting like free agency. This year, the Meetings start on December 8th (Sunday) and run until December 12th (Thursday) and all of the top talents and GM’s will be gathering in San Diego for some fun.

In 2018, the biggest fish on the market were Manny Machado and Bryce Harper (how could we forget) and the buzz heading into the Winter Meetings was huge. Sadly, the trend of front office inaction from the 2017 offseason continued and neither of the biggest free agents signed.

In fact, the biggest names who signed or were traded were Charlie Mortons two year, $30M deal with the Rays, a three-team deal involving the Indians, Mariners, and Rays where the top piece moved was Carlos Santana, then maybe Andrew McCutchen signing with the Phillies? In short, it sucked.

The Cardinals came into the Winter Meetings just days after acquiring Paul Goldschmidt and while they were reported to be in on a couple of names, they made a total of 0 moves at the Meetings. This was a disappointment, but the groundwork for the Andrew Miller signing that happened less than two weeks later was laid during this time.

This year, it seems that MLB free agency is back to where it should be and there has been more action up to this point than we’ve had in a few years. To be fair, no huge names have moved yet, but there is plenty of action to suggest that the powder keg is set for a fun Winter Meetings.

The Cardinals obviously have needs, and the Winter Meetings are going to be a good place for them to find relief. With that in mind, what types of moves could we see in the next five days?