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5 difficult roster decisions the St. Louis Cardinals must address ASAP
By Eric Treuden
No. 5: Will the Cardinals be buyers or sellers at the trade deadline?
This is the million-dollar question, and one that virtually nobody has the answer to right now.
A quick trip through Cardinals' Twitter will tell you that pretty much every fan of the team is ready for a complete teardown and reassembly of the team. There are countless people out there (with no ability to make any actual moves for the team, thank goodness) who are ready to ship out anything with a pulse.
We're inclined to say that these comments should be placed on pause right now. Sure, things have not been pretty to begin the year, but all hope is absolutely not gone. As mentioned earlier, the 29-43 record is scary and may feel like too big of an obstacle to overcome, but this National League Central division is extremely winnable, even for the last-place Cardinals.
At just 8.5 GB of the first-place Milwaukee Brewers, the Cardinals are truly one hot streak away from clawing their way back into this thing. Even if the division doesn't end up going their way, the Wild Card spots are always up for grabs as well.
So no, the Cardinals likely will not be sellers at this year's trade deadline. Throwing in the towel and giving up on the year already feels way too premature.
Instead, could there be a few players that the club targets to bring aboard via trade? Absolutely. If it's a power bat they seek, Jorge Soler from the Marlins could be available. Top-of-the-rotation starter? How about one of Lucas Giolito or Shane Bieber from a pair of AL Central clubs? There are quite a few targets out there that the Cardinals could easily bring aboard thanks to their stacked farm system and big league-ready talent.
Don't give up just yet, Cardinals fans. It ain't over 'til it's over. There's just no way a team that has this much potential and talent can fall flat on their face, so give it time and we'll be saying, "Can you believe we thought the Cardinals were headed for a rebuild this year?" before you know it.