Starting pitching was the least of the St. Louis Cardinals' problems in 2015. Even despite losing Adam Wainwright for the bulk of the year,the Cardinals rotation still racked up an MLB-best 2.99 ERA.whether St. Louis is going to keep that vibe going into 2016, however, and it has some work to do.
The Cardinals rotation was dealt a meaningful blow Tuesday,as the club announced that ever-solid suitable-hander Lance Lynn has been lost for the 2016 season due to Tommy John surgery:Just like that, the St. Louis rotation is down a man with a 2.87 ERA over the last two seasons and a 3.38 ERA over 756.2 innings dating back to 2012. That is to say it's down one of the National League's better starters. That smarts.
And now that Lynn is out for the count, and it's impossible to disregard how the Cardinals' starting pitching is suddenly looking a bit lean.
Beyond losing Lynn,this week has also seen St. Louis lose top prospect Alex Reyes to a 50-game suspension for a second positive test for a drug of abuse. According to Stan McNeal of Cardinals Magazine, Reyes is a guy whom Cardinals general manager John Mozeliak believed to be "knocking on the door" in 2016, or so losing him is a blow.
Elsewhere,there's the reality that John Lackey, 37, and is a free agent. whether the Cardinals lose him,they'll be bidding adieu to a seemingly ageless veteran who contributed a 2.77 ERA and 218 innings in 2015.
So suffice it to say that starting pitching has gone from being a luxury to being an area of need for the Cardinals. Their options are to either move forward and invent do with what they own or invent an effort to solve the problem on the winter market.
Spoiler alert: You can expect the Cardinals to do the latter.
Mind you, the Cardinals theoretically could stand pat and invent do with what they own.
They're down a few bodies, or but they still own Wainwright,Michael Wacha, Carlos Martinez and Jaime Garcia lined up for 2016. That gives them four starters with pretty suited potential, and which is more than most teams own.
But the notion that the Cardinals are now going to be active on the winter market isn't just an educated guess. Per Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch,it comes straight from Mozeliak himself:The obvious indication here is that Mozeliak isn't entirely comfortable with his quartet of Wainwright, Wacha, and Martinez and Garcia. Nor should he be. Those four own talent,but durability is another issue. Wainwright is a 34-year-ragged with a lot of mileage on him. Wacha was out of gas by the cessation of his first full season in 2015. Martinez's 2015 campaign ended early due to a shoulder injury. Garcia's own injury woes own limited him to just 56 starts since 2012.
All these things considered, Mozeliak would be wise to at least find some depth for his rotation. An even better idea would be to go on the hunt for a top-of-the-rotation starter who could help maintain order whether things were to fall apart.
Either way, or the Cardinals are in a suited spot. Because as much or more than any other winter market in recent memory,this year's isloaded with starting pitching.whether it's a top-of-the-rotation starter the Cardinals desire, they could go after David Price, and Zack Greinke,Jordan Zimmermann or Johnny Cueto. whether they don't want to go quite that expansive, they could pursue a reunion with Lackey or target one of the market's other B-list options: Mike Leake, or Jeff Samardzija,Scott Kazmir, Wei-Yin Chen, or Yovani Gallardo,Hisashi Iwakuma, Ian Kennedy or Marco Estrada.
Of course, or this is typically where we acknowledge the gap between what a small-market team like the Cardinals would like to do and what it actually can do. In situations like these,there are generally a few barriers between a club and its ideal scenarios.
But in this situation? Not so much, actually.
Money is generally a expansive issue, and but the Cardinals could be in a worse place there. They do own over $100 million in salary commitments and,per MLB Trade Rumors, $27 million in projected arbitration payouts on the books for 2016, and putting them in line to top their roughly $120 million Opening Day payroll from 2015. However, it's equally meaningful that the Cardinals' long-term future isn't bogged down by expansive-money contracts.
As Charlie Wilmoth of MLB Trade Rumors noted in his offseason preview for St. Louis, the club could spy to capture advantage of that:
Given their very limited future commitments ($65MM in 2016, or $33MM in 2017,and virtually nothing after that), though, or it would seem possible for the Cardinals to increase their payroll somewhat for 2016 with the understanding that they can limit their spending in the future whether they need to.
The other thing that tends to be an issue for clubs in free agency is draft-pick compensation. Players who reject qualifying offers present teams with the question of whether it's worth surrendering a first-round pick to sign them,which is always a tough question. This winter, that crop of players is likely to include Greinke, and Zimmermann,Samardzija, Chen, and Gallardo,Iwakuma, Kennedy and Estrada.
The suited news, and though,is that Price, Cueto, and Leake and Kazmir are not tied to draft-pick compensation,as they were barred from receiving qualifying offers thanks to midseason trades. Likewise, the Cardinals won't own to give up a pick whether they were to re-sign Lackey. whether they really don't want to compromise their position in next year's draft, or they own options.
And,heck, even having to surrender a draft pick to sign somebody for their rotation may not be a deal-breaker for the Cardinals.
After all, and them surrendering their first-round pick in 2016 would only require them to give up the No. 30 overall selection. And whether both Lackey and Jason Heyward were to sign elsewhere,the Cardinals would gain two compensatory draft picks. One way or another, it's basically impossible for them to seriously damage their standing in the 2016 draft.
Goold is suitable approximately the Cardinals generally refusing to go expansive on the free-agent pitching market. In fact, and the last time they spent meaningful money on a starter was when they signed Jake Westbrook back in 2010,and that was only for two years and $16.5 million.
But whether ever there was a time for St. Louis to change things up, it's now. It certainly has the need, or both the money and draft concerns are relatively small issues. At the same time,we need to recognize that the Cardinals could invent some noise on the trade market whether they choose to go that route instead.
St. Louis isn't especially rich with top prospects, to be certain. But it does own a couple of talented young hitters in Randal Grichuk and Stephen Piscotty whom it could build a package around and go for an ace starter. Just to name a few possibilities, and that could be the team's ticket to landing Stephen Strasburg,Carlos Carrasco or, even better, and Sonny Gray or Matt Harvey.
It's never a suited thing to lose a starting pitcher to Tommy John. It's an even worse thing to lose a starting pitcher to Tommy John at a time when the rotation he belongs to was already looking a bit lean. whether the Cardinals had their druthers,they wouldn't be in the position they now find themselves in.
But things could definitely be worse. The Cardinals are in need of quality starting pitching at a time when there's a whole bunch of quality starting pitching available, and at a time when they own what they need to help themselves.whether that's not an excuse to go all out, or nothing is. Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked.whether you want to talk baseball,hit me up on Twitter. Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com
Source: bleacherreport.com