Recently, there have been reports that the Baltimore Orioles are open to trading just about anyone on their roster with the exception of Pete Alonso. Which is kind of a weird player to say you’re not trading, but realize it has a lot to do with the contract. They wouldn’t get much for him. Specifically mentioned in fact was that Gunnar Henderson is on the table. He’s not on the block, but if they are blown away, they will trade him. But the title of this post does not mention Gunnar Henderson, because
he is not the only potential 3B on the Orioles the Cardinals could trade for. I’ll look at every possible option.
Gunnar Henderson
Steamer projects Henderson for 4.8 WAR in 632 PAs, which seems fair to me. Last season was a down season at just 3.6 fWAR, but before that was a 4.8 fWAR season and a 7.6 fWAR season. He will be 26 next season. He is projected for a 125 wRC+. Despite not reaching that mark in the last two seasons, that is his career wRC+. Given his age, and I do feel slightly uncomfortable about doing this, I will project a slight decline in the second season, but not half a win like I normally do. So I will project his 2028 season at 4.5 WAR. He will be a free agent after 2028, so that means the Cardinals will be trading for 9.3 WAR.
What is his salary? MLB Trade Rumors projects $14.1 million in 2027. That is a rock solid estimate. His 2028 season could more accurately be called a guess. An educated one, but a guess. Using the 25/40/62 method calculated by Point of Pittsburgh, that would make his 2028 salary $22 million. I don’t think it would realistically be much lower than that, and has a good chance to be higher. But the lower it is, the more value he holds in a trade, so we’re only hurting what the Cardinals have to give up if we have a low salary. 9.3 WAR for $36.1 million is $56.9 million. Let’s call it an even $60 million in trade value.
I will be using Fangraphs updated prospect valuations, released in the middle of this most recent season. Thank you to Ben Clemens and that group for doing so, because I had been relying on former VEB site manager Craig Edwards’s methods, which predated the pandemic. So now it’s not outdated thankfully.
So right off the bat, we’re giving up Liam Doyle in this trade. I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s a non-negotiable, but the other option is Rainiel Rodriguez. I am for sure going with the pitcher when faced with that choice. Good news: that’s over half the value in this trade! Other good news: the rest of the value we have to make up is not another top 100 prospect. Doyle is, according to the above article, worth $45 million in trade value.
Then I’ll pick the next most obvious player to include in this trade: if we’re getting a 3B for at least the next two years, it makes sense to trade what everyone assumes is the heir apparent to the position, Jesus Baez. I’m not exactly sure what to label Jesus Baez as far as future value goes. I don’t think he’s a 50 FV guy. I’m not sure if he’s 45+ or 45. It almost doesn’t matter, because 45 is worth $14.5 million. That’s pretty much the trade.
Because we are such a good fit, overpaying for Henderson should be a lot easier than for most teams. Our overpaying will come in the form of a catcher, because their backup catcher had a 33 wRC+ last season – not a typo – and they really don’t have any noteworthy catching prospects. Cardinals need to trade their catchers anyway. This is easy. They can take either Pedro Pages or Jimmy Crooks. I would assume Crooks, because he has offensive potential. But they might prefer Pages’ defense and might prefer a great defender behind offense-first Samuel Basallo. Crooks has to be worth the equivalent of a 45 FV prospect, despite his underwhelming MLB performance. He will be 25 and had a fantastic season in AAA.
So this is, by the numbers, a pretty decent overpay. It doesn’t feel like it because Crooks feels like spare parts and the loss of Baez is easy to take when he doesn’t have anywhere to play, making it feel like Doyle is the only real loss. Imagine if Baez was a surefire SS and Masyn Winn didn’t exist, and the Cardinals had Pedro Pages and Jimmy Crooks and nobody else at catcher. This would feel like too much right? A function of how well these two teams match up is why it feels like a no brainer trade. This if course does not mean the Orioles accept this.
Jesus Baez, Jimmy Crooks, and Liam Doyle for Gunnar Henderson
Jordan Westburg
Oh man do I wish I had ZiPS for Westburg. Westburg missed the entire 2026 season to Tommy John surgery and no he is not a pitcher. I have no idea what to project him for. Steamer has him with 421 PAs, which would be generous in my mind. He missed last year, had 352 PAs in 2025, and 447 PAs in 2024. In those 421 PAs, they project a 116 wRC+ and 1.8 WAR. I would be shocked if ZiPS has this good of a projection personally.
Westburg is 27 though, and to make up for what I feel is an optimistic projection given his injury history, knocking off half a win should even things out. So while Steamer has a 1.8 WAR projection, I expect ZiPS to be lower, but more stable if that makes sense. By the way I’m not even low on Westburg, I’m just looking at his history and Steamer almost pretends he didn’t miss 2026. His projection makes sense if this was for the 2026 season. Anyway, that is 3.9 WAR across three seasons.
Again MLB Trade Rumors provides us with his salary next season. It’s only $1.5 million. Past this upcoming season, that number could vary wildly. Showing health, regardless of how the season goes would be a big deal. If he bounces back, I think his second arbitration season would be about $5 million and his third arbitration year would be worth $10 million. But this is highly variable based on his performance. That’s 3.9 WAR for $16.5 million in three seasons. That would be $22.5 million in trade value.
I have two proposals, one of them is reflected by Westburg being currently somewhat of an unknown due to injury. Come on down Brandon Clarke! I’m not sure if he’s a 45+ FV prospect or a 45 FV prospect at this point. If the Orioles consider him the former, I’m teaming him with… Jimmy Crooks again yes. If the Orioles aren’t interested in a catcher, a trade with them makes much less sense frankly.
Now, if Clarke’s status as a 45+ FV prospect have ended and he is in fact now a 45 FV, I’m switching the pitcher to Daniel Eagen. I feel fairly comfortable saying he’s 45+ FV. Pairing him with Crooks is too much value however. Let’s take advantage of that. Let’s improve the bullpen. 32-year-old Rico Garcia had a good season last year, and has an okay projection. That should roughly make up the difference. Garcia has four years of team control, but is also 32 and a reliever.
Brandon Clarke and Jimmy Crooks for Jordan Westburg
OR
Daniel Eagen and Jimmy Crooks for Jordan Westburg and Rico Garcia
Coby Mayo
I’m going to cheat on these last few guys. I can calculate prospects. I can calculate arb eligible guys where I have an idea of their future salary. But the pre-arb guys who aren’t really that established? No idea. If you did a strict WAR and then salary, you’d probably end up with more trade value than they actually had. Not to mention the difficult with projections past this season. So I’m going to use a site I’m not actually a big believer in, but they’ve done more research into this than I have, and I trust their number for pre-arb guys more than whatever number I can come up with. I’m using Baseball Trade Values.
Accordingly, Mayo has $15.7 million in trade value according to their site. Great. (If you want to compare it to the previous two guys, they think I way overstepped with just $46.8 million for Henderson, but I came pretty damn close to Westburg, who has $25.3 million)
The future value prospect numbers being really outdated is making this very inconvenient. Also, I’m learning I don’t want really want Mayo. I can’t come up with a pitcher I’m willing to part with. You know what? I got it. You guys won’t like it. I’m cashing my chips on Cooper Hjerpe in this trade. And then the second piece could be either Jimmy Crooks or Pedro Pages, depending on how much value Hjerpe actually has. In theory, Crooks is too much, but I could see Hjerpe not really having much value. Unless it’s Mayo for Crooks straight up, I don’t really want Mayo. If we have to give up anything but a blocked prospect, I’m passing.
Cooper Hjerpe and Pedro Pages (or Jimmy Crooks) for Coby Mayo
Christian Encarnacion-Strand
BTV is not a believer in this dude’s season. They value him at just $6.1 million. And to be fair, it is a grand total of 218 PAs following two absolutely dreadful seasons. And though he had a good OAA last season, the scouting for his defense is not positive and he’s been a below average 1B in his career, so to say I don’t trust that 3B defense would be an understatement. But it must be said he was quite good in a small sample (+3 in 411 innings). But all this does explain his low trade value.
I actually think I have a fair trade. CES is not necessarily the safest bet, so in response to that, I will give them a prospect that is not exactly the safest bet. Some of you will not like this. I’m sending Tekoah Roby in this trade. By Fangraphs, CES is worth roughly a 40+ FV pitching prospect. I think that describes Roby with his injury history. If you are not at all a believer in Roby’s health, this might be a good trade.
Tekoah Roby for Christian-Encarnacion Strand
Blaze Alexander
According to BTV, Alexander has $12.8 million in trade value. I’m going to be lazy and do a very similar trade. For Mayo, I suggested Hjerpe and either Crooks or Pages depending on how valuable Hjerpe was. Well, I’m going to do Hjerpe with Pages for this one. Alexander is worth less than Mayo by a few million, which more firmly puts him with what Hjerpe might be worth. Pages isn’t worth a whole lot, but is worth something. I think this is fair.
Cooper Hjerpe and Pedro Pages for Blaze Alexander
Conclusion
The Cardinals and Orioles are great fits, but it is predicated a lot on the Orioles actually being interested in a catcher. They may very well be fine rolling with Basallo and the random backup of the year. That was the Cardinals strategy with Yadier Molina. If they don’t want a catcher, the fit is not quite as clean. There’s also a good argument to be made that there’s not a whole lot of point to making some of these trades if it’s not Henderson and maybe Westburg. But I don’t know why the Orioles would trade Westburg right now, after a missing season, at his lowest value.
Blaze Alexander’s profile is more suggestive of a bench player, which is why he’s already been traded once. Both CES and Mayo have rather significant swing-and-miss in their game. And neither is expected to be all that good defensively, despite CES’ positive numbers in 2026. We kind of already have the unproven version of these players in Blaze Jordan. So I could see the Cardinals being uninterested in giving up value to players who are still kind of unreliable with not a large sample of proven success. They are only marginally more proven than Jordan. I kind of want Westburg, but again if I’m the Orioles, there’s no way I’m trading him after a lost season.
Book Corner
I mentioned I was reading a short book and a long book at the moment. The short book I’m reading is Playing Hard Ball: A Kent County Cricketeer’s Journey into Big League Baseball. The title is almost longer than the book. The author is credited as E.T. Smith, but it’s Ed Smith if you google him. Not real sure why his author name is E.T. when he’s not exactly hiding his identity. I do not remember why I got this book or when I got it, but it very well could have been on the recommendation of a VEB commentator honestly.
This was interesting, but I don’t really think I was the audience for this weirdly. This book feels made for cricket fans more than baseball fans honestly. I didn’t understand anything he was talking about whenever he was talking about cricket. And he would get into detail on specific matches, and I may as well have been attempting to read French.
And the blurbs on the back of the book suggest I am probably right about that. Not what they say, but their source: Sunday Telegraph, Daily Mail, Wisden Cricket Monthly, Daily Telegraph, and The Cricketer. I do believe these are all based in England. It was released in 2002 and he became a Mets fan, so it references the Subway series, 9/11, and the Yankees dominance.
You don’t have to be a cricket fan to like this book, but it probably helped if you were a Mets or Yankees fan or if I actually read this back in 2002, because this is pre-Moneyball, so it’s not like the baseball analysis or stats used are the greatest, not that I would expect them to be. The author clearly fell in love with baseball though and that does come across. He references Ball Four a few times, Ted Williams, has an extended section comparing Babe Ruth to the Babe Ruth of cricket, Sir Donald Bradman.
But whenever he started talking about cricket, I just could not follow what he was talking about. At all. I think you need a rudimentary understanding of cricket for this book. He tries to go through the basics of baseball to help non-baseball readers understand and either this book was really not meant for Americans and he just assumed you knew cricket or he is too ingrained in the game of cricket to realize that he didn’t do all that good a job of describing cricket to non-cricket fans.
Anyway, definitely interesting for time and place, seeing a skeptical cricket fan fall in love with baseball, and a newcomer’s perspective on baseball as a sport. I do think this was written to an audience of people who are not baseball fans more than people who are baseball fans though.
