8 lessons the St. Louis Cardinals need to learn from the terrible 2023 season

Get back to be aggressive in the trade market

The Marcell Ozuna and Randy Arozarena trades were huge mistakes by the Cardinals' front office, but they cannot allow their big misses in the past to cause them to be hesitant in the trade market today. We saw how that affected them last offseason.

The Cardinals balked at trades for Sean Murphy and Pablo Lopez due to the asking prices by the Athletics and Marlins, both of whom would have been excellent additions for the Cardinals. Historically, St. Louis has made many of their franchise-defining moves through the trade market, and there will be opportunities to do so again in the near future.

If they are afraid to make a mistake, they will not be aggressive enough to pull off the deals that need to be made. Dylan Cease won't come cheap. One of the Mariners or Marlins starters won't either. Maybe there is another name that comes up soon as well. The Cardinals have plenty of assets to offer, the question is whether or not they will do it.

I'm a big believer that they need to spend big this offseason, but swinging some key trades will be essential to fixing this roster as well. From pieces that have fallen out of favor like Tyler O'Neill and Dylan Carlson, to prospect capital like Thomas Saggese, Tink Hence, Gordon Graceffo, and Tekoah Roby, and even some of their young position players like Brendan Donovan, Nolan Gorman, Tommy Edman, and Lars Nootbaar, the Cardinals need to get aggressive in moving some of these pieces to get the pitching they need.