Cardinals Hint Trade Deadline Surprise Could Be Coming

There was speculation almost immediately after the 2024 Major League Baseball season came to an end that the St. Louis Cardinals were going to blow up the roster.

St. Louis took a step forward in 2024 and finished above .500, but the team talked about wanting to "reset" in the offseason and the expectation was that would mean trades. Big-name veterans like Nolan Arenado, Sonny Gray, Miles Mikolas, and Willson Contreras specificially were talked about but none of them were moved.

The Cardinals entered the 2025 season with a fairly similar roster the 2024 campaign and with each passing day, there was some wild speculation about trades the team could make. If you scrolled social media and followed the team at all, you likely saw some wild mock trades that were thrown out there.

St. Louis has righted the ship in May, though, and now has a 31-24 record and is just behind the Chicago Cubs in the standings. For months, all of the signs pointed toward some sort of firesale. Now, that isn't the case. Cardinals president of baseball operations John Mozeliak recently sat down with Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and hinted the team may not end up selling after all.

"Given the couple of years we’ve had, having good vibes around the ballpark is also important, Mozeliak told Goold. “We went into this year with an understanding this was going to be about opportunity for players and depending on what they do with it would determine our next steps, right? So when you think about how the public had us as sellers — whether it was selling this offseason or selling at the trade deadline...It might look a little different based on how we’re playing."

What's next for St. Louis?