Ranking the Cardinals 8 most valuable trade candidates to jumpstart their rebuild

#1B - Brendan Donovan

Ha, I cheated here. Between Brendan Donovan and the last trade candidate, I have a hard time ranking who would be more "valuable" in a potential trade, but I decided to give the edge to the player with more control. More on that in a moment. But for that reason, Donovan is "1B" on my list.

Donovan is one of the hottest names on the trade market this winter, and for good reason. Donovan was an All-Star this year, posting a .287/.353/.422 slash line with a 119 wRC+ in just 118 games played. He was excellent for the first chunk of the year prior to his turf toe, posting a wRC+ north of 130 and truly coming into his own as a hitter. And since debuting back in 2022, Donovan has been one of the most underrated bats in all of baseball.

Since he entered the league, Donovan ranks 55th out of 306 qualified hitters in wRC+ (119), which puts him in the top 18% percent of hitters since 2022. That's incredible company to be in. For context, he's tied in wRC+ since his debut with Riley Green and Eugenio Suarez, trails Trea Turner and Bo Bichette by just one point, and has a better wRC+ than Teoscar Hernandez, Jarren Duran, Jazz Chisholm Jr., Matt Chapman, Jackson Chourio, Steven Kwan, and so many other top hitters. Donovan ranks 15th in on-base percentage and 17th in batting average among all 306 qualified hitters over that stretch as well.

Among second basemen since 2022, Donovan ranks second in OBP, third in wRC+, third in wOBA, and sixth in average. If you ranked him among third basemen, his wRC+ would rank eighth, and among left fielders, it is tied for ninth.

Donovan is far more than a complementary player. He is not quite a star-level player, but he's the tier just below that, a player who provides so much value to an organization on the field, and that doesn't even include the kind of leader he is off the field. Not only is the team acquiring Donovan getting one of the better bats in our game who can play quality defense at a number of positions, but he's also going to be a true leader of men in that clubhouse, which can make or break championship cultures.

With seemingly every team in baseball interested in acquiring Donovan this offseason, the Cardinals are well-positioned to extract a ton of value in a deal. Now, I would rather extend Donovan and make him a part of the core moving forward, but it feels like the Cardinals plan to do otherwise. If that's the case, they'd better get great value for him, because he's worth it.