Cardinals Rumors: Should St. Louis consider a Chris Sale trade?

Chris Sale is an interesting trade target for the Cardinals

When it comes to upgrading the top end of the St. Louis Cardinals rotation for 2023, the options are thin at best. Currently, most of the top end pitchers that fans would want them to target (Tyler Glasnow, Shane Bieber, Max Fried, etc.) are just not available at the moment. Could they hit the trade block later this year? Potentially. But at the moment, the next time the Cardinals will have an opportunity to acquire an ace is next off-season.

There is one name that could be available this winter that would make for a very interesting buy low option, who could pay big dividends for St. Louis on their path toward a postseason run. After losing Xander Bogaerts in free agency and a Rafael Devers trade looming, the Boston Red Sox may want to move off of left-hander Chris Sale and the rest of his contract.

Let's address a couple of the elephants in the room before really looking into this. Yes, Sale is not the same pitcher he was from 2013-2018, where he finished top 6 in Cy Young voting ever single year. This is not the same as acquiring one of the top pitchers currently in the game. Second, his contract his huge, so any move for Sale would require the Red Sox to take on significant salary and/or eat up some of Sale's money.

With these things in mind, there is a really good case to be made that Boston could be motivated to deal Sale in the near future, and that the Cardinals would make a great landing spot, assuming the Red Sox eat money in this deal. Let's look at why Boston and St. Louis would consider this move, and what a potential deal could look like.