The Cardinals traded for Jason Heyward with an eye on extending him and hoping he would be an impact player for the Cardinals. Heyward has delivered on his end and the two parties are left with little time to reach an extension before he hits the open market this winter.
A little over eight months ago, the Cardinals made the somewhat drastic, somewhat risky decision to move Shelby Miller and Tyrell Jenkins to obtain a potential franchise player in Jason Heyward. A month into the season, Heyward had yet to make an impact, and in the weeks and months following, all mentions of Heyward's stat lines were generally prefaced with "since April 23" or "since the beginning of May".