Cardinals 30-Year-Old Already Linked To Trade Deadline Buzz

If things continue as they have gone recently for the St. Louis Cardinals, they will be the most interesting team in baseball as we approach the 2025 Major League Baseball trade deadline.

The trade deadline will pass on July 31st. The deadline is 59 days away. As of right now, the Cardinals look like a potential playoff team. The Cardinals are 33-26 on the season and tied for the third National League Wild Card spot.

St. Louis thrived in May and has a day off on Monday. They have back-to-back tough series ahead against the Kansas City Royals and the Los Angeles Dodgers.

The reason why the Cardinals are the most interesting team in baseball is because they have a lot of talent and could be a playoff team. But, no matter what happens this season, there is a significant change coming with Chaim Bloom replacing John Mozeliak as the team's president of baseball operations. Will a change of that nature coming, it's hard to predict what the Cardinals will do because we are just a few months away from a massive organizational change.

Will the Cardinals add this summer? Could they subtract some talent? What about some sort of middle ground? We'll see, but the speculation already has started.

FanSided's Scott Plaza made a list of seven "expendable" hypothetical trade candidates and one player they suggested was veteran reliever John King.

"Dipping back into the bullpen, lefty John King could be another piece the Cardinals sell high on," Plaza said. "While the results of his season fall mostly in line with his career numbers, the peripherals show that he may be outperforming his expected stats. King has never been a strikeout guy, but this year, his K-rate has fallen to 12.6 percent, which, according to Baseball Savant, is second-percentile in all of baseball. He is able to limit damage with a solid walk rate (6.9 percent), but opposing hitters are making hard contact 40 percent of the time, and his expected ERA is almost a full point higher than his 3.62 mark he has put up this year.

"If the Cardinals were to deal King, that would leave them with Steven Matz and JoJo Romero as left-handed options in the bullpen, but minor leaguer Andre Granillo could fill that spot. Although he is a righty, Granillo's devastating changeup has been a weapon against lefties as they are only hitting .118 against him in the minors."

This would be somewhat surprising. The Cardinals currently have the No. 18-ranked bullpen ERA at 4.08. King has been good with a 3.72 ERA in 20 appearances. At this point, it would make more sense to add more pieces to the bullpen rather than subtract. But, there are 59 days left until the deadline.