Cardinals: One move they don’t want to see each NL contender make

There are certain moves that the Cardinals cannot afford their rivals making this offseason.

The St. Louis Cardinals are focused on what moves they can make to improve their club for the 2023 season. But even so, no moves are made in a vacuum. While the Cardinals have plans to become better in 2023, so do their rival clubs in the National League.

Just like the Cardinals, the Mets, Braves, Dodgers, Padres, and Phillies all made the playoffs but fell short of the World Series title, and will be looking to make major moves to compete with one another next year. For as many moves as St. Louis is rumored to make, so are these other clubs.

Here is one move that St. Louis does not want to see each of these clubs make, as if they do, they’ll either surpass the Cardinals or widen the gap between them in 2023.

New York Mets: Aaron Judge

The bright side with the New York Mets is they have so many impending free agents that they may lose in Jacob deGrom, Brandon Nimmo, Chris Bassitt, Trevor May, Taijuan Walker, Michael Givens, among others. The club already resigned Edwin Diaz to a 5-year, $102 million contract, meaning some of their money has already been spent.

Even if the Mets end up losing a lot of their current free agents, the addition of Aaron Judge could vault the Mets lineup into a league of their own. Having Judge added to the mix of Pete Alonso, Francisco Lindor, Starling Marte, and Jeff McNeill would make the Mets almost impossible to pitch to. If they resign deGrom as well, then they can shut down your offense with two aces and mash against your pitching.

Judge will likely command a $300+ million deal, but the opportunity for Steve Cohen to steal the Yankees superstar may be too appealing not to go for. The Mets have money to burn, and this makes them a dangerous player in free agency.