The St. Louis Cardinals began this season as a club that was on pace to be sellers at the trade deadline but have since turned things around enough where that might not be the case.
There's a lot at stake for the Cardinals if they can't set themselves up as genuine playoff contenders before the July 30 trade deadline. Key players could be dealt if St. Louis decides to explore a rebuild.
Shockingly, a Cardinals utility man has just been listed as a potential trade candidate with a National League rival that certainly has enough prospect capital to land him.
"Rivals don’t see the Cardinals as sellers, either," New York Post's Jon Heyman wrote Thursday. "If that changes, Tommy Edman could interest the (Los Angeles) Dodgers.
Edman hasn't played a single inning in 2024 as he's still recovering from offseason wrist surgery that, unfortunately, has taken much longer to bounce back from than expected.
The 29-year-old hit .248 with 42 extra-base hits including 13 home runs, 47 RBIs and a .706 OPS in 137 games played with the Cardinals in 2023.
The homegrown talent has been greatly missed from the shaky Cardinals lineup this season. Not only that but his versatile defensive skills could certainly help St. Louis, as they've struggled with committing careless errors lately.
After nearly failing to reach an agreement with the Cardinals this past winter, the utility man signed a two-year, $16.5 million contract -- avoiding arbitration and locking him in with St. Louis through 2025.
There have been a plethora of trade speculations regarding other St. Louis stars but Edman is not typically mentioned as a potential candidate. If there's a list of teams with the power to land him if they desire, the Dodgers would certainly be on it.
Hopefully, the Cardinals can continue to win and avoid any circumstances in which they have to contemplate trading star players away as they did last summer.
