The St. Louis Cardinals are at a crossroads with the 2026 Major League Baseball trade deadline looming in August. Sitting at 47-40 and in a National League Wild Card spot, they have a real decision to make: add talent for a push, stand pat, or start moving veterans for prospects.
That’s a very different conversation than the one this team looked like it would be having after the offseason, when St. Louis dealt Nolan Arenado, Brendan Donovan, Sonny Gray and Willson Contreras. Now, with a playoff position in hand, the Cardinals at least have room to think about buying - or at minimum avoiding a sell-off.
If they do make a move, the clearest places to look are the rotation and the bullpen. The Cardinals have earned the right to ask those questions, but not the right to get reckless.
Any addition has to come without touching the club’s top prospects. Mid-tier prospect value, though?
That’s a different story.
On Monday, ESPN’s Jeff Passan and Kiley McDaniel released an updated trade-candidate column, and one of the names tied to St. Louis was Detroit Tigers right-hander Casey Mize.
"No. 8.
Casey Mize, RHP, Detroit Tigers," Passan and McDaniel wrote. "Chance of being traded: 60 percent.
Rest-of-season impact: High if it continues to click. Years of control: Just the rest of 2026.
The buzz: While Mize has twice hit the injured list with a strained groin, his most recent start illustrates why he'll be in high demand if Detroit decides to punt. He threw seven scoreless innings and allowed one hit while striking out 10 Yankees. ...
"His fastball velocity is the lowest of his big league career, but he has four above-average pitches (fastball, cutter, sweeper, splitter) that are all performing (via runs value) as at least average pitches. ... Best fits: Braves, Padres, Cubs, Brewers, White Sox, A's, Cardinals, Rays, Diamondbacks, Blue Jays."
Mize isn’t just a name tossed into the rumor mill for the sake of it. He’s having the best season of his career, with a 2.64 ERA in 13 starts.
Last year, he earned his first All-Star selection and posted a 2.88 ERA after 13 starts. This season, he has taken another step forward.
The one obvious catch is control. He isn’t under contract beyond 2026, which makes him more of a short-term rental unless a team can work out something longer term. Even so, he checks a lot of boxes for a Cardinals club that could use another starter near the top of the rotation.
There’s also a longer arc here. Mize was the No. 1 overall pick in the 2018 MLB Draft, and his early major league years were slowed by injuries. He appeared in just 39 games over his first three seasons, with 30 of those coming in 2021, and he also missed the 2023 season because of injury.
Over the last three seasons, though, he’s started to settle in. He had a 4.49 ERA in 22 appearances in 2024, then made the All-Star team in 2025 and finished with a 3.87 ERA.
This year has been his sharpest work yet. Spotrac currently projects his free-agent market value at just over $69 million across four seasons.
That’s why Mize makes sense for St. Louis now and potentially later.
He’s 29, he’s pitching like a frontline option, and he’s the kind of arm the Cardinals could imagine not only trading for, but trying to keep. He may not carry the same name value as Tarik Skubal or Freddy Peralta, but he could be exactly the kind of starter this roster needs.
In Other News...
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The reward for that rise is a long-awaited major league debut, and the timing could hardly be more important for St. Louis. He has been effective in Triple-A this year, posting a 2.27 ERA across 36 outings, and the Cardinals will now see whether that production can carry over when the games start coming fast and the margin for error gets even smaller. [Read more 🡒]