Cardinals' John Mozeliak Will Be Surprised If He Doesn't Make Trade Involving Outfielders
The St. Louis Cardinals addressed their initial need to upgrade the starting pitching staff and can safely move on to address other areas of the roster.
Cardinals president of baseball operations John Mozeliak spoke multiple times on Monday about a problem not many teams have -- St. Louis has too many big-league caliber position players, which limits at-bats for the young blossoming core.
Mozeliak was asked about the possibility of clearing up the outfield logjam and was surprisingly transparent.
"The assumption is John, as you know, I'm sure, that you have so many great young outfielders, that there'll be a deal made at some point involving one of those outfielders. MLB Network's Matt Vasgersian said Monday. "Should we be surprised if there is no deal made involving those outfielders?"
"Yeah I do think it would be a surprise if we weren't able to do that," Mozeliak said candidly. "We still would like to try to improve our bullpen and if we could use one of those pieces to maybe do that, that's something we'll definitely try."
Mozeliak has been laying all his cards on the table since arriving at the Winter Meetings. He's already mentioned Tyler O'Neill as someone he's listening to offers on and even listed his current starting lineup if a game were played this week.
Notably, Mozeliak listed Tommy Edman as the center fielder alongside Lars Nootbar and Jordan Walker with Dylan Carlson as the fourth outfielder. Alec Burleson was not mentioned.
It sounds as if both O'Neill and Burleson are on the trade block. Mozeliak revealed that he's "getting a lot of hits on his outfielders" so a deal appears to be a matter of when, not if.
The Cardinals almost certainly will use those chips to bolster the pitching staff. A younger player such as Burleson could be used to acquire a controllable big-leaguer or enticing pitching prospect while someone of O'Neill's value could bring back a serviceable reliever. The latter return is most likely.
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