6 Cardinals trade ideas after acquiring Erick Fedde and Tommy Pham

Remember this breakout Cardinal reliever from 2021?

Ah, yes, remember the Luis Garcia days? That St. Louis bullpen in 2021 was wild, to say the least. The Cardinals ran relievers Alex Reyes, Giovanny Gallegos, and Genesis Cabrera into the ground over the course of the season. Eventually, they brought in Luis Garcia, and he was a major asset to that high-leverage group the rest of the year.

In fact, that performance he had for St. Louis in 2021 helped him go from journeyman reliever close to being out of a job to landing a contract with the San Diego Padres that following offseason. Garcia was even better for San Diego in 2022, but fell off in 2023, before rebounding again this year.

For the Angels, Garcia has a 3.71 ERA and 3.67 FIP over 43.2 innings of work. His strikeout stuff is down from years past, but he still gets a lot of ground balls.

Grabbing Garcia wouldn't be the best move they could make, but he should get the job done as another reliever to their high-leverage mix, filling in the spot that the Cardinals thought either Giovanny Gallegos or Keynan Middleton would this year. I'd imagine Garcia would slot in below Kittredge, Romero, and Fernandez in the high-leverage pecking order, but the Cardinals really do need support in those middle innings.

In order to get Garcia in St. Louis, I have them giving up two Triple-A players who are not on their 40-man roster and have a hard path toward playing time in St. Louis. McGreevy was the Cardinals' first-round pick in 2021 but has not figured things out in professional baseball. He has a 4.45 ERA in 109.1 innings this year for Memphis, and so maybe the Angels could throw him in their rotation this year and see what happens. Nick Dunn is a 27-year-old infielder who still has not made his MLB debut, but with an .881 OPS in Triple-A, he doesn't have much left to prove.