Playing "shop, listen to offers, or keep" on the St. Louis Cardinals' young bats

If the St. Louis Cardinals are going to acquire proven, cost-controlled talent at this year's trade deadline, it's going to take one of their young bats.

Tommy Edman, Nolan Gorman, Dylan Carlson, Lars Nootbaar, Jordan Walker, and Brendan Donovan are all coveted by teams around the league, and for good reason. Each of them holds different values in trades, but at the end of the day, teams are interested.

The Cardinals need to balance keeping the best possible talent for their own club while also being willing to leverage some of that talent to improve their pitching. For example, the Cardinals may think one of their young bats is better than another, but they may have to leverage the one they value more in order to get the player they want.

It's also not quite as simple as "just trade X player". If the right deal is there, sure you may a deal. But none of these six players should be dealt just because.

In this list, I'm going to break each of those young bats into three categories.

Keep: I do not see a scenario that makes sense to trade them.

Listen to offers: I'm not shopping this player, and I'd prefer to keep them, but if a team declines my offer and asks for them instead, or comes calling about them, I'm open to negotiations.

Shop: I am using this player as a trade piece and would prefer to part with them in a deal for controllable pitching. But, I'm not trading them unless it makes sense for the team.

Here are the young bats I would keep, listen to offers on, or shop if I am the Cardinals