John Mozeliak finally accepts Cardinals' fate and declares trade deadline intentions

John Mozeliak's tenure with the St. Louis Cardinals got unnecessarily complicated due to how he botched the last few years of his time in charge of baseball operations, but he could have done even more damage to his reputation with the city long term if he continued to hold out hope that they could win in his final year.

Mozeliak is waiving the white flag, and it's the best possible thing for this Cardinals team.

John Mozeliak told reporters that the Cardinals' collapse in Arizona this weekend is shaping the club's plan to sell at the deadline.

When talking to reporters at Coors Field tonight prior to their series opener against the Colorado Rockies, Mozeliak said that the Cardinals getting swept by the Arizona Diamondbacks this past weekend has shaped their deadline thinking, and that as more teams call on their pending free agents, the club has the future in mind.

Ryan Helsley, Phil Maton, and Steven Matz are drawing interest from contenders around baseball as valuable pieces that they can add for the stretch run. There have been real questions as to whether the club would actually trade away any of them to get future value in return, but it sounds like that is very much the plan now.

The even bigger surprise, though, is how much bigger that list could get. Mozeliak also told reporters that he plans on asking players with no-trade clauses whether they want out of St. Louis, and this includes veterans Sonny Gray, Willson Contreras, Miles Mikolas, and Nolan Arenado. For weeks now, the reporting has been that the club is very unlikely to move on from specifically Gray and Contreras, but it sounds like both could be available for the right price.

What could have been a boring and frustrating deadline where the Cardinals hold pat or a disastrous one where the club buys to try and make a run now looks like it is shaping up to be one of the most interesting sell-offs the Cardinals have had, even more so than 2023. If the no-trade clause guys want to stay in St. Louis, it becomes less interesting, but if any of them want to move, that creates a whole new level of intrigue going into this deadline.

Mozeliak has said all year that Chaim Bloom would speak into any decisions that impact the club in 2026 and beyond, so I fully expect Bloom to have his hands all over this trade deadline as he targets what prospects or young players he wants in return.