6 ways the St. Louis Cardinals can win this week's MLB Winter Meetings

While the Major League Baseball offseason has certainly had its share of action thus far, the hot stove is expected to crank up as the league flocks to Orlando, Florida for the 2025 MLB Winter Meetings.

The St. Louis Cardinals are one of the stars of the show this year, with almost every contender looking at their Major League roster in hopes that they can pry some talent away from them. It would not be surprising at all to see the Cardinals swing multiple trades this week, or for them to use some of their newfound payroll relief to add an interesting free agent to their roster.

There are a lot of paths for the Cardinals to hit a home run at this year's Winter Meetings, including two big events this week that don't involve trades or the free agent market. While there is a lot the Cardinals could do this week, I want to narrow in on the things they could do, in no particular order, that would have the greatest impact on their offseason.

Here are 6 ways the Cardinals can win the Winter Meetings this week

#1: Find a new home for Nolan Arenado

While I don't expect Nolan Arenado to be traded this week, it sure would be a huge sigh of relief and help move the Cardinals' rebuild forward if they were able to find a new home for him this week.

In all likelihood, the Cardinals will have to once again wait out the Alex Bregman market for talks to become serious with any interested clubs. Arenado has been on a downward trajectory each of the last three seasons, and 2025 was the worst of it. Most contenders are going to want to see what Bregman, Bo Bichette, Eugenio Suarez, Munetaka Murakami, and Jorge Polanco's markets evolve before going the Arenado route.

Perhaps a team is willing to make the move happen soon to provide clarity for their offseason. For the Cardinals, they will need to eat a large portion of Arenado's contract to get the deal done, but it will provide Chaim Bloom with a clearer picture of what they are looking at financially, thus making it easier for them to consider the ramifications of other trades as well as explore free agency.

If there was one team that I could see making a move this week, it would be the Los Angeles Angels, as Anthony Rendon is expected to retire, and the Angels seem to be heavier in the pitching market than bats. This would allow Arenado to go back to his home of Southern California and hopefully compete for a playoff spot in 2026, if the Angels handle the rest of their offseason well.

But teams like the Boston Red Sox, Detroit Tigers, New York Mets, Philadelphia Phillies, or other contenders likely won't bite on Arenado until at least more free agents sign, so the best Bloom can likely hope for this week is to get the framework of deals ready, though one can hope that a trade emerges sooner.