Cardinals News: St Louis trades Genesis Cabrera to Blue Jays

The St. Louis Cardinals have been expected to be one of the key cogs at the trade deadline this year. With their disastrous first half of the season, the team went from a probable buyer at the trade deadline to a deadline seller who teams are very curious ($) as who they are actually going to make available.

Today wasn't one of the moves that will give us clues to how aggressive the Cardinals' front office plans on being, but it could be the first domino to fall. Earlier today, Katie Woo reported that the Cardinals traded reliever Genesis Cabrera to the Blue Jays for minor league catcher Sammy Hernandez.

What does the Genesis Cabrera trade mean for the Cardinals?

Cabrera moving on is hardly surprising as he was DFAed by the Cardinals earlier this week. St. Louis is clearly getting their roster in order ahead of the deadline and it is just a nice added bonus that the Cardinals were able to get anything out of him at all. Cabrera had posted a 5.06 ERA in 32 appearances with St. Louis this season.

In exchange, the Cardinals received Sammy Hernandez from the Blue Jays. Hernandez was a 14th round pick in 2022 MLB Draft out of Lakeland High School. He has posted a .213/.287/.367 line in the low minors this season.

Again, this trade doesn't exactly mean that the sell-off is about to begin as the move to get Cabrera off the roster sort of forced the timing of this particular trade. However, it does mean that that is one less reliever potentially on the trade market and could get teams starting to talk more and more with their preferred trade partners.

Trade season is coming up fast, folks, so strap in and enjoy the ride...unless the Cardinals trade Paul Goldschmidt. That would be bad.

More Cardinals News from Redbird Rants