{"id":536749,"date":"2026-01-24T22:05:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-24T22:05:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/536749\/"},"modified":"2026-01-24T22:05:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-24T22:05:14","slug":"2-unlikely-trades-might-make-cardinals-trade-of-brendan-donovan-less-likely","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/536749\/","title":{"rendered":"2 Unlikely Trades Might Make Cardinals Trade of Brendan Donovan Less Likely"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brendan Donovan was considered one of the hottest trade commodities before the offseason began, so why haven\u2019t the St. Louis Cardinals dealt him yet? While only Chaim Bloom knows why for sure, I speculate that two very unlikely trades from other teams might make the Cardinals trade of Brendan Donovan less likely.<\/p>\n

St. Louis Cardinals President of Baseball Operations Chaim Bloom has said from the beginning that the team will not trade Brendan Donovan unless they are blown away by an offer. That was true as the offseason began and remains true now. It\u2019s obvious that the Cardinals have still not received an offer that has compelled them to move Donovan, but why since he fits the needs of so many contending teams? I have a theory that two players who are being quietly discussed might be holding up progress on Brendan\u2019s market.<\/p>\n

In the past day, we\u2019ve also learned that the Washington Nationals have been quietly listening on offers for infielder CJ Abrams according to MLB Trade Rumors<\/a>. Talk Nats has confirmed the \u201clistening\u201d rumors, but say there\u2019s a difference between shopping and listening. Nationals GM Paul Toboni says it\u2019s highly unlikely, but he also won\u2019t rule anything out.<\/p>\n

I think many of us thought that Brendan Donovan\u2019s market would become more crystal clear after Bo Bichette signed with a team. Now that the Bichette drama is done<\/a>, there is no report that I can confirm that Brendan Donovan\u2019s trade is any closer which means Chaim Bloom still does not have the prospect haul offer he wants. I have to wonder if teams like the Giants and Mariners aren\u2019t holding out for the possibility that the Cubs will really make Hoerner available or the Nationals would trade Abrams. I can only speculate since I have not yet developed the ability to read minds (but I\u2019m working on it) if the Giants and Mariners specifically are less likely to offer the breakthrough prospects for Donovan because of uncertainty about Hoerner and Abrams availability.<\/p>\n

As I said 3 weeks ago, I would have no problem if the St. Louis Cardinals decide to keep Brendan<\/a> and continue their rebuild around him instead of trading him. There is no reason to trade him if the prospects on offer aren\u2019t a knockout. It is a gamble, though, to keep Donovan thinking he\u2019ll be a valuable trade deadline candidate. You run the risk of him suffering an injury and there\u2019s also a half year less of team control available. The general consensus was that Brendan Donovan\u2019s trade value will never be higher than it is this offseason. As of today, we\u2019re only about 3 weeks away from pitchers and catchers reporting for Spring Training (yay!) so there\u2019s still time that the Cardinals will pull together an epic Brendan Donovan trade. I think the potential trade of CJ Abrams and\/or Nico Hoerner is nothing more than a mirage. Once those possibilities disappear, I hope Chaim Bloom gets the return he\u2019s held out for.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brendan Donovan was considered one of the hottest trade commodities before the offseason began, so why haven\u2019t the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":536750,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2403],"tags":[5,160,4,673,67,65076,4311,4310],"class_list":{"0":"post-536749","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-st-louis-cardinals","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-cardinals","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-st-louis","12":"tag-st-louis-cardinals","13":"tag-st-louis-cardinals-analysis","14":"tag-stlouis","15":"tag-stlouiscardinals"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115952348345639235","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=536749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536749\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/536750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=536749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=536749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=536749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}