Cardinals: St. Louis should be all over Twins’ Jose Berrios

The Minnesota Twins are expected to trade Jose Berrios, per ESPN, and the St. Louis Cardinals need to be all over it.

The St. Louis Cardinals are going to be in the maker for starting pitchers in July. Plural. They need help that badly with the abundance of injuries (Jack Flaherty, Miles Mikolas, Kwang Hyun Kim) and struggles they’ve faced this season.

We have discussed Kyle Gibson, Jordan Lyles and Michael Pineda as trade candidates. But what about Minnesota Twins right-hander Jose Berrios?

Berrios fits everything that the Cardinals desire. He’s 27 years old. He’s making only $6.1 million in 2021 and arbitration eligible through 2022. He would give the franchise a rock solid No. 2 atop the rotation with Flaherty once returns and would head their rotation in 2022 for the entire season, meaning he would not be a rental that the Cardinals figure to stay away from.

It seemed difficult to imagine the Twins trading Berrios, but Jeff Passan of ESPN reports that rival executives expect him to be traded before the July 30 deadline.

If that is indeed the case, the Cardinals should be all in on Berrios — to an extent. They should not part with infielder Nolan Gorman in any scenario. A trade to acquire Berrios may cost them third baseman Jordan Walker, who has impressed team officials with his quick development, which may also be out of their comfort zone.

But the Cardinals should feel more comfortable parting with a top 10 prospect for Berrios than Kyle Gibson. He has a more sustained period of success and is still ascending as a player while there are still questions whether Gibson’s 2021 season is an anomaly or a sign of things to come.

And the Cardinals are already likely in on Berrios, considering they’ve had talks with the Twins about their trade deadline plans. Of course, Berrios is one option. But if they are indeed serious about trading him, they should be all over it. He’s simply too good to pass up.