{"id":47125,"date":"2025-07-30T08:42:17","date_gmt":"2025-07-30T08:42:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/47125\/"},"modified":"2025-07-30T08:42:17","modified_gmt":"2025-07-30T08:42:17","slug":"what-im-hearing-about-the-cardinals-trade-deadline-john-mozeliak-listening-on-relievers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/47125\/","title":{"rendered":"What I\u2019m hearing about the Cardinals\u2019 trade deadline: John Mozeliak listening on relievers"},"content":{"rendered":"

ST. LOUIS \u2014 As the St. Louis Cardinals teeter above .500, president of baseball operations John Mozeliak has started to field calls regarding many of his players, not just pending free agents.<\/p>\n

Though the Cardinals have not publicly declared their intent to sell, Mozeliak has reached out to teams to inform them relievers Ryan Helsley, Phil Maton and Steven Matz are available, according to multiple league sources. All three pitchers will be free agents at the end of the season. Reliever JoJo Romero is also drawing interest from rival clubs, though he will not be a free agent until 2027.<\/p>\n

Helsley, who wishes to remain in St. Louis, recently described his chances of being traded as \u201c90 percent.\u201d The two-time All-Star closer is the longest-tenured Cardinal and expressed his hope for an extension<\/a> in spring training. But the Cardinals\u2019 decline in July, combined with Chaim Bloom and a new front office taking over after the season, squashed all potential extension conversations.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe likelihood is probably as great as it\u2019s ever been for me to get traded,\u201d Helsley said recently to\u00a0The Athletic.<\/a><\/p>\n

St. Louis will entertain offers on Nolan Arenado and Sonny Gray. Both players have full no-trade clauses but could be motivated to waive them for the right fit. Mozeliak has started to gauge the interest of a handful of contending teams, though the talks are described as preliminary. The odds of either player being traded before the deadline remain slim, but the Cardinals are financially motivated to move their contracts. Gray is owed $35 million in 2026, his final guaranteed year of his three-year contract, and Arenado has $31 million (not including deferrals) remaining over the next two seasons.<\/p>\n

The Cardinals\u2019 attempts to trade Arenado date to the offseason. Arenado provided Mozeliak with a list of five teams he would consider waiving his no-trade clause for: the Los Angeles Dodgers, New York Yankees, San Diego Padres, Boston Red Sox and Houston Astros. St. Louis believed it had a trade in place to send Arenado to Houston, but he vetoed the deal at the time. The Cardinals were unable to find a suitable trade partner for the remainder of the winter, leading to Arenado\u2019s remaining in St. Louis.<\/p>\n

Arenado has posted a stellar year defensively, but his offensive decline is worrisome. Arenado entered play Friday hitting .241 with an OPS of just .677. His last homer came over a month ago, June 21, against the Cincinnati Reds. Arenado, 34, has never demanded a trade from St. Louis, but he has been vocal about his preference to play for a contending team. Eugenio Su\u00e1rez represents the best available third baseman on the market, but a team looking to upgrade the hot corner could target Arenado as a potential change-of-scenery candidate. Similar to in the offseason, however, a team interested in acquiring Arenado must also be willing to take on a significant portion of his contract. Arenado must also be willing to expand his list of approved teams, and the third baseman has not yet indicated he\u2019d be willing to do so.<\/p>\n

Multiple teams have inquired about All-Star infielder Brendan Donovan, with the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers known to have interest. Both the Dodgers and the Yankees were major pursuers for Tommy Edman last year, with Los Angeles edging out New York in a three-team trade that sent Erick Fedde and Tommy Pham from the Chicago White Sox to St. Louis. Donovan, a super-utility player who is hitting just under .300 this year, is a similar player to Edman and was part of the reason St. Louis felt comfortable trading Edman.<\/p>\n

The Yankees made their first splash of the deadline Friday afternoon, acquiring third baseman<\/a> Ryan McMahon from the Colorado Rockies for pitching prospects Griffin Herring and Josh Grosz. It\u2019s unclear whether netting McMahon changed the Yankees\u2019 interest in Donovan. The Dodgers expect to be one of the more active buyers this deadline and are looking to add a left-handed bat that can play the outfield. Donovan\u2019s natural positions are second and third base, but he\u2019s serviceable in both corner outfield spots.<\/p>\n

Donovan is not considered untouchable, and the Cardinals will listen, team sources said. But the asking price is sky-high, and St. Louis is in no rush to part with him, as he still has two years of arbitration remaining. Other position players gathering varying levels of interest are Iv\u00e1n Herrera, Alec Burleson and Lars Nootbaar. The Cardinals will not part with one of their position players unless they are blown away by the offer, and their conversations have not progressed past initial check-ins.<\/p>\n

\u2014 The Athletic\u2019s Fabian Ardaya contributed to this report.<\/p>\n

(Photo of Ryan Helsley: Joe Puetz \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. LOUIS \u2014 As the St. Louis Cardinals teeter above .500, president of baseball operations John Mozeliak has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":47126,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[363,99,1231],"class_list":["post-47125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-mlb","tag-sports","tag-st-louis-cardinals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47125"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47125\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}