MLB insider labels obvious trade deadline surplus Cardinals can leverage

Good catchers are hard to find in baseball. Most teams spend years trying to find just one, and the luckiest franchises have a tandem of backstops that they can deploy on a regular basis. But it's almost unheard of to have a genuine pipeline of catching talent concentrated within one organization.

The St. Louis Cardinals aren't like most other franchises. Iván Herrera, Pedro Pagés, and Jimmy Crooks are all on the active roster; Leo Bernal and Yohel Pozo are in Triple-A Memphis; and star prospect Rainiel Rodriguez is a 19-year-old in Double-A. There's an embarrassment of riches behind the plate brewing.

Naturally, that catching surplus won't just be used for the sake of depth. The Redbirds can leverage their depth on the trade market according to Ken Rosenthal, who expects Chaim Bloom and the front office to acquire controllable pitching in exchange for one of their backstops at the deadline.

With so many other teams in need of quality (and controllable) catching, the Cardinals should have no issue finding interested suitors this summer.

Cardinals can trade from their catching depth without including their best prospects

Let's start by addressing the "untouchables" among this crop of players. Rodriguez has exploded onto the scene as a teenager and is one of few catching prospects with an advanced feel at and behind the plate at such a young age. The Cardinals should put him in a safe under lock and key until he's ready to debut in the majors.

One could argue that Crooks, a fellow top-100 prospect (per FanGraphs) at the onset of the season, belongs in that category as well. He's a much older player (he turns 25 later in July) and had struggled in limited MLB action (31 wRC+ in 111 plate appearances), but he's an excellent defensive catcher who had some big offensive seasons in the minors.

Herrera is more of a designated hitter at this point in time, though he's so good at the plate that it's hard to justify moving him during a surprisingly competitive season. That leaves Pagés (excellent on defense but below-average hitter), Pozo (blocked at the big-league level), and Bernal (22-year-old with impressive tools) as the clear-cut trade candidates. You could include Crooks in there as well, though the Cardinals will for sure hang onto at least one of him or Bernal.

That's three big-league-caliber backstops that the team could make available, all of whom are still in pre-arb or have yet to debut. Just look at what the San Diego Padres surrendered for a 30-year-old career backup in Freddy Fermin last year -- the Cardinals could demand a haul for any of their top-level catchers.

Depth at this position is obviously rather valuable, so don't expect Chaim Bloom to trade more than one catcher during the middle of the season. Instead, he can include one as a centerpiece in a big trade that brings back the kind of controllable pitching this playoff-caliber team is lacking.

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