{"id":545877,"date":"2026-01-30T13:59:17","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T13:59:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/545877\/"},"modified":"2026-01-30T13:59:17","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T13:59:17","slug":"cardinals-all-star-projected-to-stay-in-st-louis-per-insider","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/545877\/","title":{"rendered":"Cardinals All-Star Projected to Stay in St. Louis, Per Insider"},"content":{"rendered":"

Despite endless trade rumors, there\u2019s a real shot that the St. Louis Cardinals don\u2019t trade Brendan Donovan. <\/p>\n

St. Louis has kicked off a rebuild this offseason by trading Nolan Arenado, Sonny Gray, and Willson Contreras away. It’s no surprise that insiders and analysts alike across baseball have discussed Donovan’s future. There hasn’t been a player around baseball talked about more as a trade candidate this offseason. <\/p>\n

If you like our content,\u00a0choose Sports Illustrated as a preferred source on Google<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But he remains in St. Louis as of writing. With roughly two weeks to go until Spring Training, Jeff Jones of the Belleville News-Democrat<\/a> predicted that will remain the case into the season while projecting the team’s Opening Day roster. <\/p>\n

What will the Cardinals do?\"St.<\/p>\n

Sep 23, 2025; San Francisco, California, USA; St. Louis Cardinals second baseman Brendan Donovan (33) runs to third base against the San Francisco Giants during the first inning at Oracle Park. Mandatory Credit: Eakin Howard-Imagn Images | Eakin Howard-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

“Infielders (6): Alec Burleson, Brendan Donovan, Nolan Gorman, Thomas Saggese, JJ Wetherholt, Masyn Winn,” Jones wrote. ” … With Donovan still on the team, that likely slots Wetherholt at third base and Gorman as something resembling a full-time DH. Donovan could also pick up some shifts in left field, with Wetherholt likely playing second and Gorman third in those scenarios. Donovan\u2019s departure would make that alignment more permanent.”<\/p>\n

This idea isn’t out of left field any longer. The perception around Donovan has seemingly shifted from a near-guarantee to be moved, to potentially sticking around. Robert Murray of FanSided<\/a> had a similar sentiment while noting that the Cardinals don’t feel like they need to trade Donovan.<\/p>\n

“The Cardinals’ stance on Brendan Donovan is this … the Cardinals do not have to trade Brendan Donovan right now,” Murray said. “He is under contract now and going forward. He’s a player that they really, really like and they put a really high price tag on him this offseason. If they don’t get an offer that is satisfactory to them, or does not blow them away, they will hold onto him.”<\/p>\n

Last offseason, Arenado seemed like he was almost guaranteed to be traded. The noise was endless, but he had a no-trade clause and ended up spending the entire 2025 season in St. Louis. Donovan doesn’t havea no-trade clause, but it sounds like he could follow a similar path and stick around despite endless rumors.<\/p>\n

More MLB: Cardinals Bet on 25-Year-Old Lottery Ticket With Big Fastball<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Despite endless trade rumors, there\u2019s a real shot that the St. Louis Cardinals don\u2019t trade Brendan Donovan. St.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":545878,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2403],"tags":[5,160,4,673,67,4311,4310],"class_list":{"0":"post-545877","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-stlouis","14":"tag-stlouiscardinals"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115984411689977724","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545877","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=545877"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545877\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/545878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=545877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=545877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=545877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}