Of course, the plan at this point is always to put enough out there to help the team make a run at the playoffs without actually selling the future, so with that in mind, here's my thoughts on the subject:

While Matt Holliday is certainly the sexiest name we've discussed on this board as of late, I don't think that noticeably improves our team.  Our needs, in this order, are:  bullpen help (especially from the left side), starting pitching, middle infield.

To improve all three, we either need to get incredibly lucky or we'd have to sell most of the farm, which we don't want to do, but I think the first two can be helped without doing too much damage.    The Mariners beat writer for the Seattle Times wrote a blog entry stating which players he expected to see traded and in what order.  The list was this:

1)  Arthur Rhodes

2)  Erik Bedard

3)  Jarrod Washburn

4)  Raul Ibanez

5)  Adrian Beltre

The URL for the full article is:  http://blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com/mariners/2008/07/trade_winds_blowing.html

Now, having said that, with what Seattle gave up for Bedard, I don't think they'd accept any package from us that didn't include Rasmus plus others.  But the other two guys at the top there are both options.

Jarrod Washburn, according to the writer, would pretty much be a salary dump.  Now, his stats look REALLY bad, and early on, he was exactly that.    He currently sits 4-8 with a 4.83 ERA.  However, since May 25th, he has pitched in 9 straight games, going at least 5 innings every time, and over that time, he lowered his ERA from 6.99 to the current 4.83.

Rhodes would be the one that would take a real prospect to get.  I still don't think it would be a king's ransom, by any means, but he would take at least something to get.  He makes league minimum, as his contract was a minor-league contract, and he currently has a very non-Cardinals like 3.06 ERA from the pen, and most importantly, he's a lefty.  I know the whole of the bullpen sucks right now, but I think the biggest need, seeing how Villone and Flores have been, has been the left side of that bullpen.

If the Cardinals could work out a deal to get these two, and the injured players eventually come back, we could see this as our pitching staff:

Starting Rotation:

1. Adam Wainwright
2. Todd Wellemeyer
3. Kyle Lohse
4. Jarrod Washburn
5. Braden Looper
6. (If someone falters) Joel Pineiro/Jaime Garcia

Bullpen

1. Tyler Johnson (L)
2. Arthur Rhodes (L)
3. Ryan Franklin
4. Kyle McClellan
5. Russ Springer
6. Chris Perez
7. Jason Isringhausen

Obviously the bullpen isn't entirely fixed with this move, but this leaves Perez and Izzy as the only guys who should really scare you on the mound.  (Kinda sad that those are the past and potential future closers, isn't it?)