3 surprising predictions that affect the Miami Marlins

3. The St. Louis Cardinals will be looking for starting pitching at the Trade Deadline.

The St.Louis Cardinals will try to trade with the Miami Marlins.

The St. Louis Cardinals will be trying to win the NL Central for the second straight season this year. Personally, I would be surprised if they do as they won't get career years from 1B Paul Goldschmidt and 3B Nolan Arenado again for one thing. Goldschmidt was worth 7.8 WAR in 2023 and won the NL MVP award with a .317/.404/.578 batting line with 35 home runs and 115 RBI. He's projected to bat .273/.358/.481 by Fangraphs' Steamer with 29 home runs and 94 RBI in 2023 and to be worth 4.3 WAR. That's roughly 4 less wins.

Nolan Arenado batted .293/.358/.533 with 30 home runs and 73 RBI in 2022. He was worth 7.9 WAR. Fangraphs's Steamer projects him to bat .269/.332/.480 with 29 home runs and 99 RBI with 5.2 WAR. That's roughly 3 less WAR. St. Louis won the NL Central over the Milwaukee Brewers by 7 games last season and they're losing 7 wins already. It gets worse from there...

The projected ERA's (Fangraphs' Steamer) for the St. Louis rotation....

Adam Wainwright: 4.36

Miles Mikolas: 4.09

Jordan Montgomery: 3.67

Steven Matz: 3.79

Jack Flaherty: 4.12

Want a bold take? St. Louis rode Goldy's and Arenado's career years along with Milwaukee's unexpected collapse to a division title in 2022. A division title that they were very lucky to have. They were easily swept out of the playoffs right after that. They are not a playoff team in 2023 without an ace. This makes me think that they turn to the Miami Marlins for just that. They will want to trade one of their many young hitters for a starting pitcher.

Can you imagine St. Louis offering Dylan Carlson, Tyler O'Neill or Nolan Gorman for trade? I can. Will that trade happen? I'm not sure that the Miami Marlins will be willing to thin the team's starting pitching depth any further, but for the right bat who knows? The two teams do line up for a trade very nicely.