Cardinals Trending In Wrong Direction With Trade Rumors Growing

The St. Louis Cardinals have been on quite the roller coaster ride this year. They came into the season with the front office seemingly expecting a rebuilding year, but the team got off to a fast start and has placed itself in contention for a wild card spot.

But the Cardinals have gone ice cold at the worst possible time. They've lost 11 of their last 15 games including a three-game sweep at the hands of the struggling Arizona Diamondbacks coming out of the All-Star break.

St. Louis is now just two games above .500 and 3 1/2 games out of a wild card spot in the National League. With the Milwaukee Brewers and Chicago Cubs riding high right now, the Cardinals have dropped to 8 1/2 games out of the NL Central, trailing the Cincinnati Reds as well as the aforementioned Cubs and Brewers.

Because of this losing skid, the Cardinals' front office is going to be forced to sell at the trade deadline. Selling would likely include trades involving expiring players like Ryan Helsley and Phil Maton. Pitchers Miles Mikolas and Erick Fedde have played so poorly as of late that it's hard to expect any team in baseball to want to trade for their services.

The Cardinals likely won't be able to move Sonny Gray or Nolan Arenado, but the rest of the veterans on the roster could be traded away this month.

If the Cardinals wanted to convince the front office to buy at the deadline, they needed to dominate July. Instead, they're one of the worst teams in baseball this month and it's giving the front office the clear path to sell and wave the white flag on the rest of the season.