Cardinals Talking to Nats About Dunn?

[Migrant Redbird]

Unlikely, but reported by a staff reporter at the St. Louis Post Dispatch

If the Nats are primarily looking for salary relief, I'd jump on it, even with Dunn's poor fielding skills. Use him behind Pujols for the rest of the season, then consider trading him to an AL team over the winter. Dunn doesn't want to be a DH, but he'll eventually have to accept that he's tailor made for it.

By next year, Brett Wallace should be ready to hit in the big leagues. If he can't play 3rd base adequately, he might need to take Dunn's place in left field.

Colby Rasmus will be a sophomore; he's probably leading the ROY sweepstakes up to this point.

The Cardinals offense has been riddled with injuries this season, with Glaus, Ludwick, Ankiel, Duncan, DeRosa, and Khalil Greene all on the DL or playing hurt for significant periods. Ludwick is finally back (healthy) and won NL player of the week, but the offense is still anemic. The injuries were masked by the hot early starts of Joe Thurston and Brian Barden, platooning at 3rd, but those two have returned to their projected level (and below) and the team has been carried almost entirely by Pujols.

Dunn's bat would fill a need that's more critical than the one Roy Halladay would fill. With Carpenter, Wainwright, Pineiro, Lohse, and Wellemeyer, the Cards aren't really hurting for pitching right now. Yes, replacing Wellemeyer with Halladay would be an order of magnitude improvement, but not to the degree that Dunn batting behind Pujols would be.