5 pitchers that the Cardinals would be making a massive mistake trading for

The St. Louis Cardinals appear ready to add to their starting rotation at this year's trade deadline. The question is not so much whether the Cardinals will trade for another starting pitcher as it is what kind of starting pitcher they will acquire when they make a trade.

If you look at John Mozeliak's tenure with the Cardinals, you'll see that he tends to be conservative at the trade deadline, aiming for the Jose Quintana, J.A. Happ, and Jon Lester kinds of trades over going after the best arm available. Sometimes they do get a bit creative though - trading their starting center fielder Harrison Bader for Jordan Montgomery or the duo of Allen Craig and Joe Kelly for John Lackey.

But I also think we forget that Mozeliak has been aggressive in the past - given the right player. Bob Nightengale of USA Today and Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch were two of many who reported the Cardinals were heavily interested in acquiring David Price at the 2014 Trade Deadline (and they followed up that interest in the offseason with a massive contract offer). Mozeliak also once traded for impending free agent Matt Holliday at the 2009 Trade Deadline.

Both of those situations are lightyears ago in the baseball world, but still, it's the same guy in charge, so I won't say "never" to the Cardinals getting aggressive for a starting pitcher again. I think it is safe to say they won't be in the Garrett Crochet or Tarik Skubal market during the deadline, but I really do think they could explore acquiring a Max Scherzer, Jack Flaherty, Nathan Eovaldi, or Kevin Gausman-level pitcher.

While we'll have plenty of conversations about what starters they should be targeting, there are specific arms set to be available at this deadline that I think would be major mistakes to go out and trade for, specifically for St. Louis. I'm not necessarily even talking about names that would make for underwhelming headlines, I'm talking about players that either do not move the needle at all over what they have or may even come back to bite them in terms of what production they get and what they gave up to get those arms.

Here are five starting pitchers that the Cardinals would be making a major mistake trading for