Trade Rumors

A couple of early season trade rumors have been going around the baseball blogosphere, particularly this site. Some of them make sense for the Cardinals and some of them make absolutely no sense.

Left Field - Apparentely Jay Payton still thinks he deserves 500 big league ABs and with the emergence of Nick Swisher in Oakland, Payton is once again the odd man out. OF depth is no doubt an issue with the Cards, as witnessed by Thursday's trio of Luna, Taguchi and Encarnacion, but this isn't the solution. Payton's salary of 4 million isn't really justified considering he has only been a starter for around 4 years and is already 33 years old. I am more inclined to sit with what we have and see if Bigbie can contribute or more of an impact bat becomes available.

Second Base - Adam Kennedy is being pushed out of Anaheim to make room for uber-prospect Howie Kendrick. Kennedy is a free agent at the end of the year and in my mind does not provide much of an upgrade over the Luna/Miles platoon. If this were more of a long-term solution I guess I would be more excited but given his contract status I would prefer to stick with the platoon and dip into the free agent pool in the offseason, which includes Luis Castillo, Mark Loretta, Grudzielanek, Ronnie Belliard, and Soriano.

Starting Pitcher - The final rumor states that the Cubs are actively shopping Maddux with interested teams including the Mets, Yankees, Brewers, Phillies, Diamondbacks, Royals, and Cardinals. First off the Royals are never an interested team and why would the Cubs trade Maddux within the division. Additionally the last thing the Cardinals need is a starting pitcher in the final year of his contract, Suppan, Marquis, Mulder and Ponson fill that role quite nicely.