Do you really think the Cardinals will make a trade before the deadline?

If the past tells us anything the Cardinal fans are going to be very disappointed.

St. Louis Cardinals Archive
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What should we expect from the Cardinals at the trade deadline?

Any baseball fan can see this team is not constructed to win a World Series. At this point, we will probably not even make the playoffs.

Is there any reason to think the Cardinals will make severe changes in the next few weeks? If history is our guide, we should be able to see precisely what will happen.

John Mozeliak was the man in charge of making trades after the 2007 season. Looking at the trades he has made at the deadline might give some insight into what will happen this year. I am not looking at the off-season trades such as the ones for Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado. While those were great trades they do not have anything to do with deadline trades.

Here is a list of trades made between July and August since 2008.

YEAR

CARDS GET

CARDS GIVE

2008

NO MOVES AT THE DEADLINE

2009

Matt Holliday

Brett Wallace (3B) Clay Mortensen (RP) Shane Peterson (RF)

Mark Derosa (3B)

Chris Perez (RP) Jess Todd (RP)

2010

Nick Greenwood (RP) Jake Westbrook (SP)

Ryan Ludwick (LF)

2011

Edwin Jackson (SP) Marc Rzepczynski (RP) Octavio Dotel (RP) Corey Patterson (RF)

Colby Rasmus (LF) Trever Miller (RP) Brian Tallet (RP) P.J. Walters (SP)

2012

Edward Mujica (RP)

Zack Cox (3B)

cash considerations

Tyler Greene (2B)

2013

Juan Herrera ()

Marc Rzepczynski (RP)

2014

John Lackey (SP) Corey Littrell () $1.75 million

Joe Kelly (RP) Allen Craig (RF)

2015

Jonathan Broxton (RP) cash considersations

Malik Collymore ()

Brandon Moss (DH)

Rob Kaminsky (P)

Steve Cishek (RP)

Kyle Barraclough (RP

2016

Zach Duke (RP) ($1,748,633)

Charlie Tilson (CF)

2017

Lane Thomas (RF)

International Bonus Money

cash consideration

Todd Cunningham (LF)

Tyler O'Neill ()

Marco Gonzales (SP)

Rayder Ascanio ()

Mike Leake (SP) ($2,704,911) $750,000 in international bonus money cash considerations ($17M)

2018

Elniery Garcia (SP)

cash considerations

Seth Elledge (RP)

Sam Tuivailala (RP) ($196,812)

Chasen Shreve (RP) ($283,840) Giovanny Gallegos (RP)

Luke Voit (1B) ($187,520) $1M of international bonus pool

Justin Williams (OF) Genesis Cabrera (RP) Roel Ramirez (P)

Tommy Pham (LF) ($190,030) $500,000 of international bonus pool

Conner Capel (RF) Jhon Torres (OF)

Oscar Mercado (OF)

Matt Adams (1B) ($881,705)

cash considerations

2019

Zac Rosscup (RP) ($241,704)

cash considerations

Tony Cingrani (RP) Jeffry Abreu ()

Jedd Gyorko (3B) ($2,623,655) cash considerations & international cap space

2020

Domingo Robles (P)

international bonus pool

2021

cash considerations

John Nogowski (1B)

T.J. Zeuch (SP)

cash considerations

Jon Lester (SP) ($698,945)

Lane Thomas (RF)

J.A. Happ (SP) ($2,795,715

Evan Sisk (P) John Gant (SP) ($733,850)

2022

JoJo Romero (RP)

Edmundo Sosa (3B)

Jose Quintana (SP) Chris Stratton (RP) ($949,440)

Johan Oviedo (SP) Malcom Nunez (3B)

Austin Allen (C) ($705,000)

Carlos Guarate (P)

cash

Austin Romine (C) ($700,000)

I am seeing all kinds of trade proposals thrown out there. Some of them even make sense. I am pretty sure none of them will happen.

If you look at the above list of trades that Mo has made over the years you will not find any blockbuster trades at the deadline. Any trade of significance was made before 2011. Why is that date important? That's right, that was the last year we had Tony La Russa here. I will let you draw your own conclusions.

Looking at this list I see very little indication that this is a team that will be making any major trades at the deadline.

What I don't think anyone will admit is there is no reason for Mo to make any trades this year. A couple of mid-range pitchers won't get us to the playoffs this year. Also, after watching Arozarena and Garcia square off in Home Run Derby, I am sure that the front office is having nightmares about letting the wrong players leave.

There is one more reason I don't think any major trade will be made. The attendance last year averaged 38,894 per game. This year it is 41,439 per game. That is almost 2,500 more customers buying tickets for every game.

As long as they are making more money there is no incentive to do anything different.

You can hope for a big infusion of talent over the next couple of weeks, but I will be looking for just more of the same.