5 trade destination for St. Louis Cardinals' Juan Yepez

It's clear Juan Yepez will not get the opportunity he needs in St. Louis, so what teams could target the young slugger?

The St. Louis Cardinals, for the first time in years, have too many bats to get enough playing time for. While this is a huge advantage for the organization, it does put some players in difficult situations. Juan Yepez is one of them.

Yepez was just optioned back down to Triple-A Memphis after Lars Nootbaar returned from the injured list. During his brief stint in St. Louis, Yepez only got 12 at-bats and was passed over for the likes of Taylor Motter for consistent playing time.

For the Cardinals, while you could question why Taylor Motter gets more playing time than Yepez if he's on the roster, the overall lack of opportunities for Yepez is not surprising.

Yepez has a really good bat. He's going to be a very productive hitter in this league for a long time. But where on earth does he find playing time on this team? Nolan Gorman is playing like an All-Star at DH, and Yepez just is not worth playing in the outfield more than maybe once a week.

Other teams around the league are going to value Yepez's bat. The universal DH has opened up his value to all 29 teams in baseball, and if you look around the league, there are teams who could clearly use the 25 year old's bat in their starting lineup immediately.

Here are five teams the Cardinals make a Juan Yepez deal with to improve their own roster.

Seattle Mariners

If you go to Baseball Reference and sort team DH performance by OPS, you'll see one team on the list that is an outlier in the worst way: the Seattle Mariners.

To this point in the season, the Mariners have a .325 OPS from their DHs, 191 points below the 29th-ranked Chicago Cubs. This is beyond awful production from their DH spot, and with some other holes in their lineup existing as well, there aren't clear internal answers to fill in at that spot.

Yepez would be a massive upgrade over Cooper Hummel and the other DH options Seattle has used to this point.

The Mariners have multiple MLB-ready arms who could feature in a deal in Bryce Miller, Emerson Hancock, or Taylor Dollard. They could also part with some of their current Major League arms, like Chris Flexen or Marco Gonzalez, to improve the Cardinals' pitching a bit.

Honestly, if the Cardinals are not packaging Yepez for an elite arm, it probably makes more sense to get back prospects than another back-of-the-rotation starter.

Cleveland Guardians

Another AL Central team, the Guardians are looking to contend for a World Series this year, but so far have received the 27th-ranked production from their DH spot with a .585 OPS to this point.

Josh Bell and Josh Naylor have been splitting time between first base and DH to this point for the Guardians, but neither is hitting to start the season. Their right fielder, Oscar Gonzalez, has also struggled quite a bit to this point. The Guardians' Achilles' heel has been their offense in recent years, especially a lack of power in their order. Yepez could be the answer for them.

The Guardians have one of the best farm systems in baseball, so could present an intriguing package of prospects to St. Louis for the services of Yepez. While it may feel weird to acquire prospects as a contending team, it would give the Cardinals more ammunition to make a bigger deal in July while maintaining a strong system in the process.

New York Yankees

Yankees slugger Giancarlo Stanton just suffered a Grade 2 hamstring strain, sidelining for a four-to-six-week period.

Juan Yepez could fill an immediate need there for the Yankees but also represent an interesting bat that they could have fill in at a number of places when Stanton returns. With Aaron Judge and Harrison Bader patrolling their outfield when Stanton returns, the Yankees can probably afford to allow Yepez to have starts in left field from time to time. There will also be opportunities for Yepez at first base and third base when Anthony Rizzo or DJ LeMahieu need days off.

There are multiple prospect packages or MLB arms that could get the deal done for the Cardinals and the Yankees, but one name I would look at is former top prospect Clarke Schmidt. He's been filling into their rotation to begin the season but has struggled to an 8.44 ERA. He was really good out of their bullpen last year, so he could be a Jordan Hicks replacement in the short term and another rotatoin option for the club long term.

Houston Astros

Riddle me this, why does a team with Yordan Alvarez need another DH option on their team? Well, so far this year, Alvarez has played 8 of his 14 games in the outfield, with the other 6 coming in at DH. Despite being one of the best hitters in baseball, these 6 games at DH have only helped the Astros muster a .552 OPS from their DHs because of how bad their other options are.

Corey Julks and David Hensley have seen the majority of the PA outside of Alvarez, and it has not gone well at all for the Astros. Couple that with slow starts from a lot of their bats, and the Astros could use a jolt to their offense as soon as possible.

Adding in a Juan Yepez would give the Astros another quality right-handed bat in their lineup. Jose Altuve's return will surely help them later this year, but they really need the offensive help now if they want to right the ship soon and chase the number one seed in the American League.