The Cardinals signed Dustin May to a one-year, $12.5 million deal over the winter as a bet on talent and health, not a long-term building block. He'd missed all of 2024 recovering from injury, and St. Louis figured that if he stayed on the mound and pitched well, he'd either anchor a rotation push or become the exact kind of trade chip a non-contender flips for prospects. Now, with the deadline bearing down, it's looking like door No. 2.
MLB Trade Rumors broke the news that the Cardinals are actively fielding offers on May.
The timing tracks. May got off to a rough start this season but has been quietly excellent since mid-April, running a sub-3.00 ERA and FIP over his last stretch with strikeout numbers and a WHIP that would rank among the better marks in baseball if he had a qualifying workload. That's the profile contenders love at the deadline: a controllable-ish arm with swing-and-miss stuff who isn't walking into free agency next winter with maximum leverage.
There's a wrinkle, though. May has scuffled his most recent time out, and that kind of stretch right before the deadline can spook a front office that's shopping him instead of quietly monitoring the market. Buyers pay for the arm that's been dealing since April, not the one bleeding runs in his last few outings — so St. Louis has an incentive to move fast before the sample size argument flips against them.
Beyond May, the Cardinals are reportedly working the phones on catcher Pedro Pages and relievers JoJo Romero and Ryne Stanek, with outfielder Lars Nootbaar and reliever Riley O'Brien also possible chips. That's the profile of a team fully in sell mode, using the last competitive summer weeks to restock a farm system rather than chase a longshot playoff berth.
For May himself, this is the second major crossroads of his career in two years — first the lost season, now a potential change of address in the middle of his comeback. Whichever contender lands him gets a starter who looked unhittable for a three-month stretch, at a price that should be far cheaper than his talent usually costs. Expect the Cardinals to keep shopping hard through August 3.