St. Louis Cardinals: Steven Matz Injury May End Juan Soto Pursuit

The Cardinals are looking to add bigger arms at this deadline

At the 2021 deadline, the Cardinals went out and added two veteran left handed arms in Jon Lester and J.A. Happ to the club, mainly looking to add innings to a club that looked out of contention. This time around, President of Baseball Operations John Mozeliak is looking to add bigger names.

While last years acquisitions cost the club John Gant and Lane Thomas, the names they are looking at this time around, like Noah Syndergaard, will cost far more than that. The Cardinals are willing to pay that price, but such a trade will complicate how much they are willing to part with for Soto.

If the Cardinals go out and add one of these higher level arms, is it realistic to believe they would also part with the young talent necessary to add Juan Soto? The club can handle the prospect hit that a Soto trade would take, but pairing that with losing more players for a starting pitcher would use up most of the club’s assets.

Again, it’s not out of the question (more on that later), but it does seem to become a tougher sell for a club that prides itself on having a strong pipeline of prospects feeding their big league club.