7 players who should be entering their final days on the Cardinals

The St. Louis Cardinals, while not as bad record-wise as last year, have been just as disappointing as their 2023 counterpart and look like a team on the brink of major changes.

While the most significant of those changes should be coming to their front office, I also believe we should see turnover on the Major League roster. As the Cardinals look ahead to how they need to operate differently moving forward, it would help to begin to clear out some of their clutter and specific players that are not helping them turn the page as an organization.

In the case of some players, it boils down to poor performance and/or a lack of availability. For others, it's simply a matter of redundancy. If the club can rid themselves of players like this, I will feel better about their chance of turning things around.

I wrote the other day about some players who need bigger roles in 2025 and some who do not, and while there will be some overlap with this list, I am specifically going to make arguments for why I believe the Cardinals are better off without each of these players next season.

Here are 7 Cardinals who need to be playing their final games with the Cardinals down the stretch

Lance Lynn

Lance Lynn has been about what you would have expected this year from him. Better health and more innings would have been ideal, but overall, the expectation would be that he would be a back-of-the-rotation starter.

If the Cardinals did not have options to turn to for their rotation next year, bringing back Lynn would be an okay option, but even then, I think most of us would agree that their sights should be set higher with rotation upgrades.

I also have my doubts that Lynn is going to equal or better this year's performance in 2025. Trusting him as one of your five best options feels like playing with fire to me.