2. You can't put together packages of your least favorite players to acquire elite talent
I joke about it a lot, but it still amazes me how many people think you can just put together a package of all the Cardinals that you don't want and somehow a team like the Mariners or Marlins is going to just hand the Cardinals great pitching in return.
Someone like Logan Gilbert is one of the most valuable trade chips in all of baseball, and yet I see trade proposals thrown out all the time like Moises Gomez, Luken Baker, and Tyler O'Neill for Gilbert. Even suggesting someone like Tommy Edman can be the centerpiece in a deal for someone that talented is just not realistic.
You have to give up talent to get talent. If the Cardinals want to go after a top-end player in the trade market this year, or a good young player with a lot of team control, it's going to cost some of their best assets. No, not Baker, Gomez, or whoever else in that tier of player, but guys like Brendan Donovan, Lars Nootbaar, Maysn Winn, or Nolan Gorman. I'm not saying the Cardinals should do that, but getting mad that they haven't turned their organizational depth into elite talent is just not how baseball works.