St. Louis Cardinals: 3 roster holes that need to be addressed by the trade deadline

The St. Louis Cardinals are in a really tough spot so far in 2023. Despite having two of the best offensive players on Planet Earth in Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado and some really interesting young players on the roster, they find themselves way below .500 and lurking at the bottom of one of the worst divisions in baseball (although, in fairness, the AL Central is probably the actual worst). 

In fact, things have gone so badly that it is hard to see how the Cardinals could logically approach the trade deadline as buyers beyond this short winning streak of late. Sure, there are absolutely going to be players available that would help the Cardinals' big league roster and yes, they have the prospects to get a significant deal done even if multiple biggish trades might be getting too ambitious. However, at some point they can only make up so much ground and trade deadline roster retooling can only do so much, right?

As it turns out, the Cardinals do, in fact, still seem to think that they can turn things around for the moment. While team executives are almost never going to publicly throw in the towel this early, it sure seems like St. Louis, at least for now, is looking to try to be buyers at the deadline this year.

Given the state of the NL Central, one cannot really blame them for not being very intimidated by the teams ahead of them, but they have a lot of work to do. While they have been able to string together some wins lately, this is a roster that needs some love and soon.

With all of that in mind, here is a look at the holes on the Cardinals’ roster they really need to address at the deadline if they are going to have any hope of turning the season around.