6 biggest moves by the St. Louis Cardinals during the Winter Meetings

Major League Baseball's annual Winter Meetings will take place from December 7-10 in Lake Buena Vista, Florida. Executives, agents, and media members will convene at the JW Marriott Orlando Bonnet Creek Resort and Spa for four days to discuss all things baseball. The Rule 5 Draft and Draft Lottery will also take place during this event.

For the St. Louis Cardinals, the Winter Meetings will be a pivotal point of the offseason. With players like Brendan Donovan, Nolan Arenado, Lars Nootbaar, Nolan Gorman, and JoJo Romero drawing interest from other teams, president of baseball operations Chaim Bloom will be a popular man at the meetings.

The Cardinals have historically been a relatively quiet team during Winter Meetings, but this year could change that history. It's not likely that the Cardinals sign any players, but they could still make some semi-major trades.

Despite their lack of action during the Winter Meetings lately, the Cardinals as an organization do have a history of some major transactions.

These are the 6 greatest moves by the St. Louis Cardinals during the Winter Meetings.

Cardinals trade for Bruce Sutter from the Chicago Cubs for three players at the 1980 Winter Meetings.

Bruce Sutter won the 1979 Cy Young Award as a closer. He used his masterful split-finger fastball to record 133 saves by the age of 28. He was the most dominant closer in baseball during his era. Whitey Herzog wanted to remake the Cardinals bullpen in the 1980 season, and acquiring a lockdown closer was an essential part of that revamp.

By trading for Bruce Sutter at the 1980 Winter Meetings, Herzog did just that.

Herzog acquired Sutter on December 9, 1980, smack in the middle of the Winter Meetings that were being held in Dallas, Texas, that year. Whitey Herzog traded away first baseman/outfielder Leon Durham, third baseman Ken Reitz, and outfielder Ty Waller for Sutter, a future Hall of Famer. Herzog wanted to build a contender immediately, and building a reliable bullpen and a team built on defense and speed was the quickest way there.

Bruce Sutter would pitch for St. Louis for four seasons. He would finish his time with the Cardinals with 127 saves and a 2.72 ERA. He led all of the majors in saves in 1982 and 1984, he attended two All-Star Games as a Cardinal, and he finished in the top five of National League Cy Young voting three separate times while with St. Louis.

The trade for Sutter became a necessity after Rollie Fingers, who was acquired just one day beforehand, had no intention of signing an extension to stay with the Cardinals following the 1981 season. Fingers was once again flipped from the Cardinals on December 12 to the Milwaukee Brewers, ending his four-day stay with St. Louis.

Trading for Bruce Sutter at the Winter Meetings made a statement that the Cardinals were intent on building one of the best bullpens in baseball at the time, if not the best. The trade for Sutter was just the beginning of Herzog's upheaval, and he was only just getting started. His move at the 1981 Winter Meetings was arguably more important for the franchise than acquiring Sutter was.