Goldy to the Cards? I approve of this trade

The St. Louis Cardinals have gotten slugging first baseman Paul Goldschmidt from the Arizona Diamondbacks in exchange for Luke Weaver, Carson Kelly, prospect Andy Young and a comp balance draft pick in the second round.

Even for "just" a one-year rental, it's not bad. If the Cards can resign him, it's great. If not, they'll get back at least the lost draft pick and then some with a first-round choice.

And, I approve the deal even more, as of mid-March, with the Cards doing just that, with a five-year, $130 million deal that was a bit cheaper than I thought.

(Update, March 29: The three huge bombs Goldy hit in Game No. 2 confirm me listing him as the No. 1 key to a successful Cardinal season in my season preview.)

The rise of Andrew Knizner was deemed quick enough that Mo must have considered Kelly expendible as a backup catcher and still not likely to be No. 1 as long as Yadier Molina was around.

Luke Weaver probably doesn't have too much higher of a ceiling than he's already shown in St. Louis.

Andy Young has some positional versatility, but hadn't made it to Memphis yet at age 24. He likely would have been the next Greg Garcia or Yairo Munoz, and the Cards already have both of those.

Matt Carpenter is obviously moving now, but where? Second, or third? And, what happens then to either Kolten Wong or Jedd Gyorko? If you're going to move one or the other, I move Gyorko. Two years older, more expensive contract on the one year that's left, and if he did want to walk a year from now, the Cards wouldn't tender him and so would get nothing back. (OTOH, this reduces his trade value now.)

Beyond that, I expect Wong to make a jump forward with a full year free of the double-guessing of Matheny as manager.

That said the Cards could make Gyorko a supersub again. Or if Paul DeJong struggles again, put Jedd at short. Or Munoz, of course. (Unlike what still seems to be a majority of Cards fans, and Cards ownership, I am not a DeJong fan. Weirdly, a guy like Mark Townsend at Yahoo calls him a "proven producer" when he's not.)

This would seem to rule out Manny Machado, if he was on the Cards' radar in the first place. It does NOT rule out Bryce Harper, or a free agent pitcher, or a trade for a starter.

As for the possibility of resigning Goldy? His current $14.5M plus the $13M of Gyorko add up to $27.5M. That's enough money to resign Goldy without a payroll increase. Six years at that AAV, front-loaded a modest amount?