More cold water thrown on possibility St. Louis Cardinals sign Trevor Story

More cold water has been thrown on the St. Louis Cardinals possibly signing Trevor Story, with every indication that it will not happen.

Entering the offseason, there was a lot of buzz about the St. Louis Cardinals being a player for Trevor Story, and I mean a LOT. But those rumors have quickly faded, with reports indicating that the front office wouldn’t be a serious player for Story unless something changes.

Now, there has been more cold water thrown on the possibility of the Cardinals signing Story, with Katie Woo of The Athletic writing that they “were never going to fork over the amount of money necessary to land premier free agents (including the plethora of shortstops).”

No one expected the Cardinals to be players for Carlos Correa, Marcus Semien, Javier Baez or Corey Seager. But with Story’s connection to Nolan Arenado, and their apparent need at shortstop with Paul DeJong struggling and Edmundo Sosa a relative unknown, signing him to a lucrative contract made sense, at least on the surface.

But it was always unlikely for a multitude of reasons. First, the price. Story will want over $20 million per season, perhaps as much as $25-30 million over 5-6 seasons, and the Cardinals are not in position to do that with Paul Goldschmidt and Arenado under contract. Second, they believe in DeJong, and want to give him every opportunity to win the shortstop job in spring training. Third, they do not want to block any of their top prospects – Nolan Gorman and Jordan Walker – in 2022 and beyond.

The only position that Story would fit is in the designated hitter spot, and we don’t even know if MLB will implement the universal DH in 2022 and beyond as CBA talks have stalled.

It means that the Cardinals can’t even pursue Story. But the reality is, while they may check in just to see what the price is, there is seemingly no chance that he ends up in St. Louis. It’s felt that way for months, and that feeling has only grown stronger.