Tier ranking the St. Louis Cardinals' players and prospects for the trade deadline

Everywhere you look, everyone has their own opinions on how the St. Louis Cardinals should approach this year's trade deadline.

Some fans and experts would say the Cardinals may need to capitalize on some of their player's value at this deadline, but overall, there is no need to "blow it up" because of how the season has gone thus far. There is still a contender in the making for the 2024 season.

Others would argue it is time for major changes in St. Louis. Ask Mark DeRosa and Brian Kenny of MLB Network, who both believe the Cardinals should trade Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado in order to build around their young core.

You better believe that if your John Mozeliak and the Cardinals' front office, you are constantly evaluating which of your players and prospects are essential to your future, which pieces you can have pried from your hands if it gets you more elite talent, and who has made their way onto the trade block for you.

In the following slides, I have broken up the Cardinals' current big leaguers and some of their most valuable prospects into different "tiers" based on how I think the club should value them moving forward. The tiers I will be ranking Cardinals' players and prospects in will be the following:

1. Untouchable
2. Only to acquire elite talent
3. Too complicated to move on from
4. Open to offers on them
5. On the trade block

For each tier, I provided a little definition for my criteria as well. Some names may be "borderline" between different tiers, but for the sake of not making 10 different tiers, I did my best to group them together based on these five categories.

Here are the tiers I would rank the Cardinals' players and prospects into