5 Cardinals spring training stories that were overblown

The Cardinals missed the boat with their valuable trade pieces

The story: As mentioned a few times throughout this breakdown, the Cardinals were expected to go a revamp in their player personnel during the offseason. This started off by allowing first baseman Paul Goldschmidt and reliever Andrew Kittredge to find new homes in free agency and then was expected to include a big trade or two of Nolan Arenado or from their veteran pitching depth. As the spring progressed, these deals became less likely, especially after Arenado vetoed a trade to Houston and the Cardinals never really checked in with other teams about Steven Matz or Erick Fedde, plus Sonny Gray and Miles Mikolas also hold no-trade clauses. Ryan Helsley's name was often mentioned as a player likely to change teams, but those reports were mostly out of speculation without any concrete evidence of trade offers.

This lack of activity put a hold on the "reset" plans and forced John Mozeliak to change tune to a "transition" instead. The rotation was full of veteran arms who lack massive upside and the lineup returned everyone, so the lack of excitement from the Cardinal fanbase was understandable.

The results: After Wednesday's win against the Astros, the Cardinals sit at 9-9 halfway through April. Depending on where you look, this was either expected of the team that returned the majority of their roster or even outperformed expectations, where many experts around the league placed the Cardinals last in the NL Central or the bottom of the league in power rankings. But how have these trade pieces performed? I'd say "admirably" to avoid an oversell through the first few weeks.

Nolan Arenado has gone back to his elite defense at third and his bat has picked up after back-to-back underwhelming seasons. Erick Fedde has three quality starts out of his four appearances and Sonny Gray has led the staff, going 3-0 with 23 strikeouts and a 3.13 ERA. Steven Matz had an awesome, yet short appearance in his first start of the year, throwing five innings of one-run ball to set the Cardinals up for their series victory over the Astros.

If the Cardinals were to trade any of these pieces during the spring, it would have created an interesting makeup for the roster, especially with the pitching staff. What was originally viewed as having a bunch of major league ready talent in Triple-A has been hit hard with injuries. Top pitching prospect Quinn Mathews was just added to the injured list, joining Tink Hence and Cooper Hjerpe on the shelf. Mathews and Hence are left without timetables for a return, and Hjerpe just underwent season-ending Tommy John surgery, delaying his return to the mound until 2026.

Remaining concern: This is a tough question to answer with the Cardinals looking to be competitive in the weak NL Central. If the Cardinals were to deal from their rotation, they would be left without many options outside of McGreevy and Gordon Graceffo to fill whatever void is created from a trade. Graceffo has made an appearance for the Cardinals this year but has struggled so far in 2025. McGreevy looks to be the healthiest major league-ready arm but he will most likely not receive a big league call-up unless there is a starting spot available.

If Nolan Arenado trade talks were to be revisited, the Cardinals' lineup appears ready to fill his spot, and this would probably create the 500 at-bat runway for Nolan Gorman at third base. However, Thomas Saggese has performed well since being called up, so it could turn into a platoon in the infield as well. This probably will not be cleared up until the Cardinals either fall out of contention completely or are hit with bigger, long-term injuries.

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