The major trade that is still haunting the Cardinals five years later

The St. Louis Cardinals are on track to have their worst season in decades, and one of the worst seasons in the history of the franchise. 

A pitching staff that ranks 24th in the major leagues in ERA entering play on Sunday is one of the biggest factors in that disappointment. 

It is the performance of that pitching staff that makes us turn back the clock to a regrettable trade the Cardinals made back in December 2017, when they sent a handful of prospects to the Miami Marlins to acquire outfielder Marcell Ozuna.

Two of those prospects were pitchers Sandy Alcantara and Zac Gallen.

Those names are prominent because there is a chance — and a very good chance — they could be the back-to-back National League Cy Young Award winners.

Alcantara almost immediately became a top of the rotation starter for the Marlins and reached his highpoint during the 2022 season, when won the NL Cy Young with a truly dominant performance that resulted in a 2.28 ERA and a league-best 228 innings pitched. While his 2023 season has been a little underwhelming by the previous standard he set for himself, he is still a top-tier starter.

Gallen, meanwhile, is rapidly emerging as the 2023 Cy Young frontrunner for the Arizona Diamondbacks (Miami traded Gallen for Jazz Chisholm). He finished fifth in the voting a year ago and has recorded an ERA+ of 158 and 141 the past two seasons. 

They are both front-line starters and both in the prime of their careers, and it has to be maddening for Cardinals fans to see that unfold. Especially since Ozuna only spent two mostly forgettable years in St. Louis. He was not necessarily bad, but he was also not really a game-changing player for a pair of Cardinals teams that only made one playoff appearance and never won more than 91 games. 

He left in free agency following the 2019 season for no return, signing with the Atlanta Braves.

There is always a risk in trading prospects for immediate help, and in most cases it works out in favor of the team acquiring the established player. Most prospects are not going to pan out as hoped. This is one of the rare cases where the team giving up the prospects ended up losing the deal in the long run in a significant way.

Given how bad the Cardinals rotation has been this season, they could really use a couple of arms like Alcantara and Gallen at the top of it. Every team could.