St. Louis Cardinals trade rumors: In a jumbled postseason race, a trade could make all the difference

The 2013 St. Louis Cardinals finished the season with a .599 winning percentage. The club notched a 97-65 record that was the best in the National League. Those Cardinals ultimately won the NL pennant and came two games short of capturing the organization's second World Series championship in three years.

It's easy to paint those Cardinals as a juggernaut. To an extent, they were just that, winning nearly 60 percentage of their games—a pace they maintained for much of the season. But even with their excellent play and record, the 2013 Cards were engaged in a protracted dogfight for the NL Central crown. St. Louis wound up winning the division with the Pirates three games back and the Reds seven. Nearly a year removed from that division race, it's easy to forget that Pittsburgh sat in first place as late in the season as September 16. It took a 19-8 September record for the Redbirds to lock up the Central crown.

Juggernauts are relative. The MV3 Cardinals of 2004 were a juggernaut no matter how one cuts the cake. That magical team won 105 games and finished 13 games ahead of the second-place Astros—a squad that featured Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte, Roy Oswalt, Lance Berkman, Jeff Bagwell, Craig Biggio, and more—at season's end. Houston finished the year 10 games closer to the third-place Cubs in the standings than the first-place Cards. Such was the distance between El Birdos and the compeititon.

This year, it seems as if no NL team will distance itself from the pack the way that the MV3 Cardinals did during that magical summer a decade ago. The 2014 postseason race is a jumbled mess, with no clear juggernaut. The standings are bunched. The home stretch of each division race is shaping up to be a neck-and-neck thriller between at least two teams. This is especially true in the Central.

And there's a real possibility that the Central will produce three postseason teams for the second consecutive season.

This is the landscape that general manager John Mozeliak must judge his team against as Friday's non-waiver trade deadline approaches. While the Cardinals 2014 season to date has been disappointing in a vacuum, the club is still within striking distance. But the team that posted a .538 winning percentage through the season's first 104 games is not the same one that broke camp. All-world catcher Yadier Molina is likely to miss the entirety of the home stretch due to injury. So, too, might 2013 NLCS MVP Michael Wacha. The Cards aren't at full strength today, but an acquisition before Friday might nonetheless be enough to allow them to win the division or earn a wild-card berth—no matter how depleted their roster might be or how many other clubs are jockeying for the same.