1:11pm: The Cards and Nats have indeed had ongoing talks on a swap of the two Dylans and could complete a deal this afternoon, tweets Mark Feinsand of MLB.com. It’s not yet clear if other players are involved.
11:17am: The Cardinals crossed a pair of big items off their wishlist yesterday when they acquired right-hander Erick Fedde and outfielder Tommy Pham from the White Sox, but they’re still hoping to add to the bullpen, Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports. The Cardinals are openly shopping outfielder Dylan Carlson in a related pursuit, and MLB.com’s John Denton tweets that Nationals right-hander Dylan Floro is a name to watch if St. Louis indeed moves on from Carlson. The Nats are known to have some interest in Carlson.
A few years ago, the notion of trading Carlson for a middle-relief rental would’ve been unfathomable (though it’s of course possible that a theoretical Dylan-for-Dylan swap would also include additional minor league players to balance out the scales). Carlson isn’t all that far removed from ranking among the game’s top 10 to 20 overall prospects. The former first-rounder’s bat has wilted since a solid 2021 showing.
Dating back to 2022, Carlson has batted just .225/.310/.345 in 881 big league plate appearances. That’s come in scattered playing time — in part due to injuries — so the Nats could well view him as a buy-low option with two-plus seasons of club control remaining who could benefit from a change of scenery. (The last controllable outfielder they pried from the Cardinals in exchange for a rental pitcher — Lane Thomas for Jon Lester — worked out nicely, after all.)
Floro, 33, is on a one-year, $2.25MM contract and will be a free agent at season’s end. He’s pitched to a pristine 2.06 earned run average this season, albeit with a rather pedestrian 19.6% strikeout rate and tepid 90.3 mph average fastball. That said, Floro has walked only 6.4% of his opponents and kept the ball on the ground at a strong 47.6% clip. He’s not going to continue to see this level of fortune on his fly-balls — only 2.2% of them have become homers, compared to the 7% mark he carried into the season — but it’s been a nice rebound effort for a veteran reliever who struggled to keep his ERA under 5.00 last year between the Marlins and Twins.
Since cementing himself as a viable big league reliever in 2018, Floro touts a 3.11 ERA in 361 1/3 innings. He’s had a below-average strikeout rate nearly every season along the way, but never egregiously so, and has offset that with habitually strong command. Floro also regularly avoids loud contact, evidenced by a career 87.4 mph average exit velocity, 3.7% barrel rate and 38.4% hard-hit rate.
Floro is surely just one of many bullpen arms the Cardinals have looked into in the final hours leading to today’s 5pm CT trade deadline. Concurrently, they’re looking for trade partners for Carlson and the already-designated-for-assignment Giovanny Gallegos. The Cards may not have another blockbuster along the lines of yesterday’s three-team swap in them, but they could still have multiple trades in store today.
John Brebbia to the Cardinals for cash or PTBNL from the Dodgers
The nats should be selling not buying dylan carlson
I mean, getting Carlson for Floro is basically like the Nats getting nothing for something
He’s 25 years old and would fit nicely into the Rebuid…Florio is 33 and has Zero future with the Nats…
If the change of scenery gets Carlson back his old self of 2 years ago…this deal is a Smash for the Nats…that being said regardless of how Carlson pans out it’s well worth the Risk.
Send him, Gallegos, matz (pay his salary). work out a deal to bring the home town kid Reid Detmers from the angels!
This team is sputtering too much to give up anything of value for rental players. Any trades of consequence need to be looking at 2025.
Imagine if they had thought that way in 2006
That team is not this team. There is no Chris Carpenter or Albert Pujols on this team.
Pretty sure they didn’t have Pujols on the team at this point either. Wasn’t he on the DL? Mulder went down too though that was probably a good thing. But that team was not looking good at this point in the year. Baseball is all about staying in contention and seeing who gets hot in Sept. Dodgers are the classic example on the other side of this. They look great all season long and then choke in the playoffs, unless they shorten the season form them.
Pujols had 634 plate appearances in 2006, won a gold glove and should have won the MVP. Howard had a great year but Pujols was better.
Yep. Not suggesting Pujols wasn’t good. I just vaguely remember him going on the DL that summer. Maybe it was 07, but I thought it was the WS season
Pujols had over 500 at bats in ‘06 and 49 bombs. Didn’t hit particularly well in the series. Among other things, Wainwright was on the mound for the last out ( remember he was “filling in” for Isringhausen?). Carpenter started 1 game
(Game 3) and won it. Didn’t have to pitch again as the series only went 5 games. I remember the overconfident newspaper headline in Detroit prior to the series was “Tigers in 3”.
Found it. He was out for a bit in 06.
espn.com/mlb/news/story?id=2470238
Obviously, that’s beside the point. I was only saying the 2006 team did not look good at this point in the season either. In other STL sports, the blues should have probably sold off the team at the end of January 2019 as well. But it’s all about when they get hot.
“Cards Still Hoping…”
Could have stopped there.
Carlson has struggled but it’s been due to bad luck and injuries and epic mismanagement. He just needs to play. He should bring more than a reliever who has been lucky and only throws 90.
Add another prospect or two and get Tanner Scott from the Fish.
…and that pesky problem of not being able to hit RHP.
Hasn’t really hit lefties this year either
Fair, but that’s more of a recent development and may actually be do to pretty much no playing time. The righty problem has been there his entire career and isn’t going away. He’s a platoon player at best
The Nats would take a platoon player for 60 games of a middle relief pitcher methinks.
He needs to play. He showed what he can do in ST, I still think that he’ll go on to be a good player… If he plays. Just took many people for the OF, Siani is coming around with the bat. But, still don’t think he’s a regular.
If I’m not mistaken, the Cardinals need to make some 26 man roster moves to accommodate Pham and Fedde. Gio opens one spot. This should be interesting.
Camilo doval
He’s available. What do we get in return?
What you get in return is not watching him blow games in the 9th inning anymore
Give me Carlson and two top 20 minor leaguer’s and you can have Doval. He’s turning into a me only player and not a team player.
When they were having their postgame march into the dugout after Sunday’s near blown save, Melvin greeted all the players with a nice handshake and a couple words, when Doval’s turn came BoMel barely touched him and said nothing. Seemed cold. I think Camilo is wearing out his welcome. Hicks could be the closer in the next few days.
Zero chance a team gives up someone from their major league roster and two top 20 prospects for a guy struggling so much this year. Two of those three are reasonable with Doval’s control, but there’s a ton of risk there for any acquiring team
Peter Fairbanks or bust. Bring the hometown kid home.
He’s from Milwaukee.. not really home town if they only went to college close.
He grew up in st lou
A couple years ago, Carlson was a main piece of a speculated Cardinals offer for Soto. Now, the Cards were never going to be able to beat what the Padres offered, but still shows how far he has fallen.
The headliners there were Carlson, Walker and Gorman.. seems that went well for the Nats avoiding that.. so far.
GMs be tired today.
I keep wondering when I’m gonna click onto MLBTR and see the headline, Cardinals DFA Brandon Crawford. WTH are they waiting for????!
Or maybe after Saturday’s outing they’ve solved their pitching issues with him?
very good question, dos not seen hard to figure out who should be DFA’d
But then again we do have Marmol for our manager
It’s not a Marmol thing. It’s a he’s the only one on the bench that can play SS thing. He would have (most likely) been DFAd when Edman returned.
With Edman gone, they don’t have anyone else behind Winn. But agreed…he’s been a waste of a roster spot. Go bring DeJon back since they love bringing the oldies back
Fermin has played less than 30 games at short in the last two years in the minors, so it would be a huge risk to DFA Crawford and rely on Fermin as a backup. There’s no one else on the 40 man who can do it.
I would guess Crawford mentoring Winn is probably more valuable to them than the minimal improvement Fermin would be by using him anyways even without taking the risk into account.
I was hoping for that the last few weeks with Edman rehabbing. With Edman available you would have thought they HAD to drop Crawford since Edman is capable at SS. With Edman sent out then you can’t really drop Crawford. I know Saggese was getting in reps at SS but he isn’t ready for a call up. They never played Fermin at SS while he was up and he did not inspire confidence with the bat while here. While I hate 2 bench positions taken by un versatile Crawford and Carpenter, I don’t see them dropping them. The good news is that Crawford has barely had to play due to Winn being solid from the get go. The whole idea was that Crawford would provide solid support in case Winn was not ready. Next year build the bench without Carpenter and Crawford please!
Who’s your backup for Wynn? The depth chart shows Donovan after Crawford. Donovan has played a grand total of 8 games at short, only 1 in ‘23 and none this year. He’s nowhere near as good defensively at short as Crawford or Wynn, and there is no good minor league option. He is already playing 2nd, 3rd, Left and Right and had close to 400 at bats.
Meant to respond to the guy who wanted to DFA Crawford. As of this moment, he is still needed. 2025 he won’t be and his contract is up anyway.
Crawford is carrying a TON of extra weight. He’s not the great SS we all remember, and he has 10, count ’em, TEN hits thru 2/3rds of the season. At this point I don’t see how there’s justification for him taking up a roster spot.
The Cards still need another front line starter and a another right handed bat.
If they trade Carlson for Floro, that would be as stupid as yesterday’s trade was smart.
FFS…
I’m good with this even if the Cardinals need to ad a lottery ticket prospect or two to compete the deal. Carlson needs to be removed from the roster to make room for Pham.
I hope both guys get called “new Dylan” in the clubhouse for the rest of the year.
According to BBR, six current MLB players have the given name Dylan or Kyle, and four are Gavin. Only one is named Joe or Mike, and none are Bill. So if you want to stand out in a clubhouse today, Bill might be your best choice.
Cardinals will be 2 for 2 on trading players of the same name after Tommy Edman was moved in the deal that brought Tommy Pham. One of those fun coincidences
Do people ever really want Carlson? I swear he gets talked about a lot but who actually wants this guy?
Apparently the angels do as well
Carlson (at present) = Victor Robles 2.0
If you have room on the roster (as the Nats do) and are building for the future rather than today (as the Nats are), Dylan for Dylan is a great trade for us. There is no sunk cost (we are sending over a reliever on an expiring contract) and if he proves unsalvageable, then we release him.
Mike Rizzo’s approach is opportunistic. He collects players and sees who he can elevate. Lots of players get released: but he got a good return for Winker this year and Candelario last year.
Dylan Floro is better than John Lester and we can only hope Carlson can be as good as Lane Thomas. Let’s get this deal closed!,
Why not. Lane Thomas 2.0
Victor was decent his first year, then along with injuries, he regressed annually. At this point, I see the same with Carlson. Maybe he can turn it around. He still has time.
@wvsteve. Well said, in a lot fewer words than I used.
The cardinals have given a lot of good young players away over the years. I can name Gallen, Sandy A, Randy, Thomas, Garcia, ect. List goes on and on
When did trade deadlines get so boring?
Is this trade happening or nah?
Two Dylans, One Swap.