St. Louis Cardinals: Four darkhorse candidates to be traded this winter

The St. Louis Cardinals will be making a lot of moves over the coming months. Who are the unlikely trade candidates that shouldn’t actually surprise us?

The St. Louis Cardinals have some work to do this offseason. With revenue down and a weaker free agent class, I’m expecting a lot of that work to come through trades. Trade speculation is a lot of fun, and with the amount of depth that the Cardinals have, they could be major players in the market.

There are three groups of players that Cardinal fans are calling to be traded: outfield depth, expensive veterans, and blocked upper-level prospects. We’ve written about some of these players, like Tyler O’Neill and Daniel Ponce de Leon. Carlos Martinez looks like he’ll probably be dealt this offseason. Throw in Andrew Knizer, and you could start a new team with all the Cardinals on the block.

No matter which group you think it is, there will be many Cardinal players to be traded in the near future. If the Cardinals are active this offseason, however, we might be surprised by which players they actually end up trading. Here are the four dark horse trade candidates to look out for when the Cardinals make deals this winter.