Local sportswriter floats out a bone-chilling but shockingly sensible Cardinals trade chip

The trade winds are beginning to stir around baseball, and the St. Louis Cardinals appear likely to sell off some of their assets at this year's deadline. The most commonly cited candidates for St. Louis to send packing for prospects are Riley O'Brien, JoJo Romero, Dustin May, Ryne Stanek and Lars Nootbaar. Some have thrown Alec Burleson's name into the mix as well.

But Bernie Miklasz, a longtime writer for St. Louis sports and a host on STL Sports Central, brought up a jarring idea of the Cardinals dealing some of their most prized young possessions, including Masyn Winn, whom most fans have deemed untouchable but who could make a surprising amount of sense to be moved.

Most Cardinals fans would understandably push back on the idea of trading Winn, who appears to be locked in as the team's shortstop for its next truly competitive cycle. He is an all-world fielder at the most important defensive position on the diamond, and he's just 24 years old. Fans are more likely to call for the Cardinals to extend Winn rather than dumping him off for more prospects.

At the plate, though, Winn has declined each season since his rookie year. So far in 2026, he's hit .242 with a .644 OPS. His OPS+ is 84, down from 91 in 2025 and 104 in 2024. He also holds a higher-than-average 44.1% ground ball rate. On STL Sports Central, Miklasz wondered how Winn will look three seasons from now, as his all-out style of play could lend itself to more injuries further down the line, and it's an open question as to whether he could hold up under this type of grind.

The Cardinals still have four years of control over Winn, who might never be more valuable than he is right now, and if they were to entertain such a move, they could slide JJ Wetherholt over to shortstop and replace his spot at second base with Bryan Torres, Thomas Saggese, or prospect Jesús Báez. The Cardinals could also trade for a second baseman, which is a position that's easier to fill than shortstop.

This is all playing devil's advocate, as Winn's exemplary defense makes up for a somewhat lackluster bat, especially if the Cardinals can continue to develop threatening hitters around him who can allow Winn to "hide" at the bottom of the order. But if President of Baseball Operations Chaim Bloom were to swing a deal, it's worth wondering what kind of haul he could command.

A trade of Winn could net the Cardinals a serious return

Teams almost never let go of controlled assets who are this young, but one could look back at the Tampa Bay Rays in 2021 for a rough idea of a such a deal, when they traded 25-year-old shortstop Willy Adames to the Milwaukee Brewers to clear the way for rising prospect Wander Franco. Adames didn't have the level of team control that the Cardinals have for Winn, but the Rays still managed to flip him and pitcher Trevor Richards for current stud pitcher Drew Rasmussen as well as reliever JP Feyereisen.

Fans shouldn't underestimate the value of a defense-first shortstop on the market, as the Brewers illustrated this past offseason when they flipped a league-average hitter in Caleb Durbin (he had an OPS+ of exactly 100 in 2025) to the Boston Red Sox for a once highly rated prospect in left-handed pitcher Kyle Harrison. Harrison has broken out this season and is one of the top pitchers in the National League.

A common refrain is that a team can never have too much pitching, and a hurler of Harrison's ilk would boost the Cardinals' future on the mound considerably. One team that might love Winn is the Los Angeles Dodgers, who usually trot out Miguel Rojas or a fading Mookie Betts to play shortstop. A package of Winn with Riley O'Brien to help the Dodgers bullpen could net the Cardinals massive riches in return.

In all likelihood, Winn will be in St. Louis for the long haul, but Miklasz's comments should remain in the back of fans' minds as they weigh whom to sell and whom to keep as the Cardinals climb back toward contention.

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