Everyone is a buyer and seller in the offseason.

“In a general sense are we in a position and willing to make a trade where we give up a lot of value for a very valuable asset? Absolutely, yes. Yes,” Girsch said. He added later: “We have immediate help and we have long-term help, and we have to figure out how to (package that) to get what we want.”

If they want change, the market always sets the cost.

Within the clubhouse, the trade deadline was mostly met with understanding that, as one Cardinal put it, there wasn’t “an easy solution.” The players can empathize. The description the front office gave of trying a variety of targets and offers before not finding one that worked also fits the club, which has tried a variety of makeups and lineups and not found one that works.

Even the word du jour is the same, “frustrated.”

“I think more than anything there is a frustration level around here, all the way from the front office to the field, for us not being what we think we could be or really what we think we should be,” Carpenter said. The comment on changing the team’s culture “was more than anything a warning: Hey, what we’re seeing is not what we expect around here.”