The Cardinals may not have made a splashy deadline push, but the early returns suggest they read the market right.
St. Louis dealt away three veteran pieces at the 2026 MLB Trade Deadline - Dustin May, JoJo Romero and Lars Nootbaar - and, so far, none of them has taken off with his new club.
In return, the Cardinals added four prospects ranked among the organization’s top 25: outfielder Alexander Frias at No. 4, outfielder Josiah Ragsdale at No. 11, and pitchers Daniel Eagan at No. 22 and Sandro Santana at No. 24.
Those players are still likely a year away or more from the majors, but they deepen a farm system that has become a central part of Chaim Bloom’s rebuild in St. Louis.
The biggest immediate takeaway is simple: the Cardinals sold at the right time.
May and Romero were sent to the division-rival Milwaukee Brewers, and Romero’s situation has barely moved since the deal. He was already on the Injured List with appendicitis before the trade, has not appeared for Milwaukee yet, and the latest update says he could start a rehab assignment soon. If that happens, the Brewers could still be counting on him as a bullpen piece in the playoffs.
May has been available, but the results have been uneven. In three starts for Milwaukee since the deadline, he has logged 15 innings and posted a 6.00 ERA.
He looked sharp on August 12 against the San Diego Padres, working seven innings with six strikeouts and one run allowed. His next outing was the opposite: on August 19, he lasted just two innings and was tagged for seven earned runs.
One good start, one bad start and one average one - that’s been the story so far.
Nootbaar’s move west was a little different. He landed with the Arizona Diamondbacks, where he reunited with former teammate and close friend Nolan Arenado.
The left-handed outfielder had been a below-average hitter in the first half with St. Louis, but the Cardinals still had reason to think another team might see enough in the underlying numbers and health to take the swing.
Instead, his first stretch in Arizona has been rough. In 15 games since the deadline, Nootbaar has hit .162/.311/.270 with one home run and three RBIs in 12 games. He has walked more often than he has struck out, but the contact quality has been poor, with a 56.7% ground ball rate and a 6.7% line drive rate weighing him down.
No one in St. Louis is celebrating a former Cardinal’s struggles, especially after years of contributions.
But from a roster standpoint, the move has already paid off in a different way. May’s departure opened up innings for Quinn Mathews and Hunter Dobbins, though Dobbins is now injured, and Nootbaar’s exit gave Joshua Baez regular chances to play in the majors and mash.
In Other News...
Cardinals Suddenly Have An Outfield Opening After Pereira Setback
The Cardinals had barely gotten a look at Everson Pereira before the latest interruption hit. St. Louis claimed the outfielder off waivers from the White Sox in early August, and he gave them a useful early glimpse in 11 games with a strong on-base presence before a pitch left him dealing with a left hand contusion. His absence created a fresh roster shuffle for a club that has been trying to sort out the edges of its outfield mix as the season moves into its late stages.
Pereira went on the 10-day injured list retroactive to Aug. 22, and in a corresponding move the Cardinals activated infielder Ramn Uras from the 60-day IL. For a team that needed Pereira to keep building momentum after arriving in St. Louis, the setback leaves another opening for playing time and another question about how long the Cardinals will have to wait before they can really evaluate what he might bring. [Read more 🡒]
Cardinals May Need An Intriguing Young Arm Sooner Than Expected
Elbow and forearm issues have left the Cardinals scrambling for rotation help, with Andre Pallante on the Injured List and Hunter Dobbins joining him there as the club tries to keep the staff afloat. Quinn Mathews has already been moved into the rotation, and that is only part of the picture as St. Louis looks for enough healthy arms to bridge the gap.
One name that keeps coming up is Cooper Hjerpe, the 2022 first-round pick who is working in Triple-A and posting a 3.08 ERA across 14 starts this season. He is being viewed as a possible answer if the Cardinals need another starter soon, and with the current injuries piling up, the question is less about whether he belongs on the radar than how quickly the team may need him. [Read more 🡒]
Cardinals Fans May Revisit The Randal Grichuk Trade After This Surge
Randal Grichuk is back in the conversation for Cardinals fans, only now it is because of what he is doing at 35 with the White Sox. Mostly used as a designated hitter and as a pinch-hitter against left-handed pitching, Grichuk has been turning those matchups into real production, hitting .299 with a .937 OPS. It is the kind of late-career surge that naturally sends St. Louis back to a familiar question about the player it once developed, then moved on from after the 2017 season.
Grichuks Cardinals tenure always came with a split opinion: the power was real, but the plate discipline never fully caught up, and the reverse-split profile made him a tricky everyday fit. St. Louis sent him to Toronto after 2017, hoping the return would help elsewhere, but that deal never really delivered much for the Cardinals. So as Grichuk keeps carving out value in a narrower role, it is hard not to revisit how different things might have looked if the original investment had been handled another way. [Read more 🡒]