Brought up in the Hot Stove thread, but it's kind of hard to discuss amongst the various ongoing thoughts in there.
....but since is been recently referenced on social media (who could have predicted??) 2035 has deemed discussion ok.
I don't know what Matt Arnold will do and what the direction given from Mark Attanasio will be, but they missed the Playoffs on the last (regular season) Game of the year and have a massive investment in Yelich and if you aren't aware, have the smallest (by a fair margin) metro population in MLB.
They ran a 130+M payroll last year and had 18 arbitration cases heading into the off-season. That team, that position is going to thin down that group. The traded Renfroe to manage salary to the Angels and surprisingly picked up Wong's 10M option although that may just be to trade him and get something (Mariners anyone?) Their top prospects are dominated by OFers, you can mostly ignore the rest of the list.
While there's a couple different paths, the most likely/reasonable path is they re-configure their team balancing performance and cost risks and head into 2023 looking to compete in a soft NL Central.
That's why they'll likely pick between Burnes and Woodruff, trade one to create 2023 opportunity (add Talent, manage costs) and try and re-sign the other. Anchor the rotation and build the opportunity you can.
I point this out in response to Mackus' comment in the other thread. While they can certainly demand 'higher rated' prospects in a trade, that may clearly not be their focus in the trade. Adding a guy like Holliday may look good for the "trade evaluation' crowd, but if you don't build out these next next couple years and are trying to compete...who cares.
So...given those perspectives....