{"id":23145,"date":"2025-07-25T13:37:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-25T13:37:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/23145\/"},"modified":"2025-07-25T13:37:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-25T13:37:11","slug":"the-opener-diamondbacks-ohearn-cardinals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/23145\/","title":{"rendered":"The Opener: Diamondbacks, O’Hearn, Cardinals"},"content":{"rendered":"

With the first major trade<\/a> of July finally in place, here are three things we\u2019ll be keeping an eye on around the baseball world throughout the day:<\/p>\n

1. Who\u2019s next to go on the Diamondbacks?<\/p>\n

The Diamondbacks had been on the fence between buying or selling for weeks, but they\u2019ve finally planted their stake in the ground by being the first team to sell off a rental player this summer when they shipped<\/a> first baseman Josh Naylor<\/a> to the Mariners last night in exchange for pitching prospects Brandyn Garcia<\/a> and Ashton Izzi<\/a>. With Naylor out the door, the biggest question for fans in Arizona is who will follow him? Eugenio Suarez<\/a> is looked at by many as the prize of this deadline when it comes to rentals amid a season where he\u2019s already clubbed 36 homers, but Merrill Kelly<\/a> and Zac Gallen<\/a> are intriguing rental starters as well. Arizona has even reportedly received some interest<\/a> on outfielder Lourdes Gurriel Jr.<\/a> and the final year-and-a-half of his three-year pact with the club from the 2023-24 offseason.<\/p>\n

2. Could O\u2019Hearn be on the way out of Baltimore?<\/p>\n

Naylor isn\u2019t the only slugging, lefty-swinging first baseman on the market. That description also applies to Ryan O\u2019Hearn<\/a> of the Orioles, a fellow rental bat in the midst of an even stronger season than Naylor. The 31-year-old O\u2019Hearn is having a career year in 2025, with a .281\/.375\/.452 slash line and 12 home runs in 89 games despite having topped out at 15 across an entire season previously. A team in need of offensive firepower like the Reds, Rangers, Padres, or Brewers could make plenty of sense for O\u2019Hearn, although the Reds and Rangers appear to be on the buy-sell bubble at this point. San Diego is also apparently<\/a> considering<\/a> a buy-and-sell strategy for the deadline. Like Naylor, O\u2019Hearn\u2019s limited defensive versatility could make him a tough fit for teams like the Yankees, Dodgers, Cubs, and Mets who are more surefire buyers but generally have talent locked in at first base, at designated hitter and in the outfield corners.<\/p>\n

3. Who will the Cardinals trade?<\/p>\n

The Cardinals didn\u2019t work out a trade yesterday, but they\u2019ve still made waves in recent days. After president of baseball operations John Mozeliak acknowledged<\/a> that he was meeting with Nolan Arenado<\/a> to discuss the third baseman\u2019s no-trade clause earlier this week, St. Louis designated<\/a> potential trade chip Erick Fedde<\/a> for assignment in a move that signals they don\u2019t intend to keep the righty regardless of if they find a suitor for his services or not. Most recently, longtime closer Ryan Helsley<\/a> publicly acknowledged<\/a> that he feels he has about a \u201c90 percent chance\u201d to be pitching elsewhere on August 1. Helsley is likely St. Louis\u2019s top trade chip, especially given the struggles Fedde has faced this year. Most veterans on the roster like Arenado, Miles Mikolas<\/a>, Sonny Gray<\/a>, and Willson Contreras<\/a> have no-trade clauses they\u2019ve not indicated an interest in waiving to this point, so a sell-off in St. Louis could be focused on players like Helsley, veteran righty Phil Maton<\/a>, and lefty Steven Matz<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With the first major trade of July finally in place, here are three things we\u2019ll be keeping an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23146,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,82],"class_list":["post-23145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23145\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}