4 players the St. Louis Cardinals need to extend soon

The Cardinals would be wise to extend these four players as soon as possible

There is nothing more stratifying than watching your own club's players succeed and blossom into impact players. The St. Louis Cardinals are a club that has multiple of these players on their Major League roster.

Whenever players, especially early in their career, begin to become legit players in this league, there becomes chatter about what the long-term future of that player could look like for their team. One team that has begun to set the bar for retaining their own talent is the Atlanta Braves. They've got guys like Ronald Acuna Jr., Ozzie Albies, Sean Murphy, Matt Olsen, Michael Harris II, and Austin Riley locked up on long-term contracts. Each of those players was able to get long-term security for themselves financially, while the Braves were able to get cost certainty for the next decade and get their own talent on cheaper contracts.

The Cardinals have found mixed results with these kinds of extensions over the last decade. Matt Carpenter's first extension was a brilliant move for the club, while his second extension was horrible for their payroll. Paul DeJong's contract has mostly been a dud, even with his resurgence this year. Carlos Martinez's contract made sense at the time, and he performed for parts of it, but eventually fell from grace due to a multitude of injuries.

When these contracts are given to the right players though, they can really benefit the organization long-term and open up flexibility for championship-level moves in the future. Here are four players the Cardinals would be wise to lock up as soon as possible to maximize this window they are in.