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Cardinals Projected to be Buyers at MLB Trade Deadline

Originally posted on Athlon Sports | By Jacob Webb | Last updated May 16, 2025 4:27 PM ET

The landscape of the Cardinals' season has completely shifted over the last two weeks. After a 14-19 start, the Cardinals have won 10 of their last 11 games and find themselves just one game behind the first-place Cubs in the NL Central.

There were talks all offseason about the Cardinals possibly unloading guys like Nolan Arenado, Ryan Helsley and Sonny Gray. Those talks began to ramp back up after the team's slow start, but after this recent hot streak, the idea of the Cardinals being buyers at the deadline is now being floated around.

In a recent article, Bleacher Report’s Joel Reueter predicted the Cardinals to be buyers at the deadline, saying they may want to go after a starting pitcher.

“Veteran ace Sonny Gray and breakout lefty Matthew Liberatore have been a solid one-two punch for the Cardinals, and the rotation as a whole has been better than expected, but a quality third starter to join that duo could be their top priority if they continue to exceed expectations,” Reuter wrote. “Miles Mikolas, Erick Fedde and Andre Pallante currently make up the rest of the starting staff, but all would be better served as back-end options.”

The starting rotation has been the main concern for the Cardinals over the past couple of seasons. After a rough start to the year, though, the rotation has been very good as of late.

Cardinals starting pitchers have a combined ERA of 3.82, which ranks 14th in the league. A large part of their success has come as a result of limiting both walks and home runs. The starting rotation ranks third in all of baseball in HR/9 and sixth in BB/9.

With how good the Cardinals’ offense has been, they really just need the pitching to hover around league-average, and adding another reliable arm to the rotation would certainly do that.

The red-hot Cardinals begin a three-game series with the Royals tonight at 6:40 pm CST in Kansas City.

This article first appeared on Athlon Sports and was syndicated with permission.

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