All that stands between the St. Louis Cardinals and (at the very least) a 163rd game playoff for the National League is Brett Myers, a 31-year-old pitcher with all of 1.3 wins above replacement on the season, a 4.31 ERA, and a 4.30 FIP. No problem for a lineup like St. Louis, this year’s National League leader in runs scored, right?

On the other hand, Myers enters tonight’s start on fire, recording five straight starts of at least six innings pitched and only one run allowed. He’s now a full three months removed from a 16-start stretch spanning April, May, and June which saw him yield 22 home runs and a 4.82 ERA. Since then, Myers has settled in a bit, recording a 78-to-23 strikeout-to-walk ratio and a 4.00 ERA, roughly league average in the hitters’ environment in Houston.

Which pitcher should the Cardinals expect to show up tonight?

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Chris Carpenter signed a two-year $21-million extension with the Cardinals this week. That sounds better until you realize that the team already had an option on Carpenter worth $15 million. Somehow they managed to finagle an extra cheap year out of their ace for another $6 million. How much might the oft-injured pitcher have made on the open market?

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In his final start of August, Cliff Lee went 8 and 2/3 innings without allowing a run. Lee plunked Miguel Cairo with pitch number 117, cuing Ryan Madson to get the game’s final out. Last night against the Atlanta Braves, Lee finished where he started, using only 100 pitches en route to his 200th strikeout and 6th complete game and 6th shutout of the season.

Lee is now at 106 batters faced without allowing a run — 29 and 2/3 straight scoreless innings across 4 starts. Wow.

Despite striking out an uncharacteristically low number of batters (6), Lee instead trolled the Braves hitters by inducing 14 ground balls (second only to his present season high of 17 in his complete game against the Cardinals) and allowing nary a walk.

Last night’s shutout makes complete game number 6 for ol’ Cliff Lee, pushing his statistics down to: 2.47 ERA, 2.64 FIP, 2.76 xFIP, and a 2.67 SIERA.

Lee ranks 3rd in ERA, 3rd in FIP, 2nd in xFIP, and 3rd in SIERA. And he now leads the majors in shutouts with 6, ahead of James Shields (4) and Derek Holland (4). In the NL, it’s not even close:

When it comes to the 2011 NL Cy Young race, it presently comes down to just three fellas: Cliff Lee, Roy Halladay, and Clayton Kershaw. Yes, one could make the case for the likes of Madison Bumgarner, Matt Cain, Cole Hamels, and even Daniel Hudson and Matt Garza, but the Big Three are presently sporting Cy Young statistics, residing on a plateau of their own Manly Awesomeness.
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Lance Berkman reportedly cleared waivers last week. How he went through the waiver process unclaimed is befuddling.

Certain noteworthy players pass through waivers based on a few factors. Some prove too costly in salary or years. Some may make it known they intend to invoke their no trade clauses. Others are viewed as risky and injury prone. The remaining players aren’t great enough to justify the acquisition cost, especially with a mere month remaining.

The Big Puma fits none of these descriptions. Determining why no team submitted a claim proves to be quite the tall task.

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St. Louis Cardinals general manager John Mozeliak recently told a reporter that the team has “unofficially” decided to pick up Adam Wainwright’s team option. That might have seemed like a foregone conclusion before the season, but Wainwright has missed the entire 2011 season with Tommy John surgery. The option isn’t just a one-year option, either. It is an option for both 2012 and 2013 worth a total of $21 million. Wainwright has been an outstanding pitcher in the past, and we’ve seen pitchers come back from Tommy John successfully before. Assuming the Cardinals make the decision “official,” it is interesting to speculate not only on what Wainwright has to do to make the contract “worth it,” but also on what it means for how the Cardinals perceive their near future.

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Should Hit, or ShH — pronounced like: “Shh! Be quiet or the Nazis will hear!”

Last week, while rifling through the lump of cold numbers that is the 2011 season, I stumbled upon a self-illuminating chest of gold coins: A reliable, fielding independent hitting formula. Today, we’re going to take it to the next level and get nerdy up in this beach.

Before we proceed, let’s do some of the research I did not care to do the first time around. Here are some of Should Hits’s predecessors (though they did not directly influence the creation of ShH):

FIP for Hitters
In 2010, Matt Klaassen wrote “FIP for Hitters? Defense Independent Offense.” His work in the article — though it does stay truly defensive independent and does not bring BABIP into the conversation — probably mirrors my work the most. However, his works is different both in process (he excludes BABIP and does not use wRC+) and intention (my tool focuses on regression, not really true talent levels).
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Edwin Jackson is a pitcher everyone wants to acquire, but then seemingly can’t wait to unload as soon as possible.

Or at least, that’s the impression you get from looking at his trade history. Jackson has been traded six times over the course of his career, with five of those trades happening within the last three years. He’s been traded for exciting prospects, not exciting prospects, an enigmatic center fielder, a powerful outfielder with platoon issues, and a multitude of relief pitchers. He’s 27-years-old and has yet to become a free agent, but he’s already been on seven different teams in his career. For comparison, Ricky Henderson — the prototypical man-of-many-hats — only played on nine different teams over the course of his entire career.

As Jackson was at the heart of the recent Colby Rasmus trade, I wanted to take another look at all the place he’s been. So without further ado, I present to you my pitiful, Paint-tastic attempt to visualize Edwin Jackson’s full trade history (click to enlarge):

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With the non-waiver trade deadline past us, we can take a step back and see how each contender upgraded its roster. Because the season is two-thirds over, these players might not have an enormous impact. But for a contender sitting on the fringe, or a leader wanting to solidify its position, these acquisitions could make enough of a difference now, and then a bigger one come playoff time, when everyone starts from scratch.

To project the positional upgrade the team will receive, we’ll look at the wRAA the team has received so far from the position, the projected wRAA for the incumbent, and the projected wRAA for the replacement, based on ZiPS rest of season. We’ll assume 230 PA, which is based on a prorated 700 PA season. I’m leaving out defense, because I’m not comfortable projecting 1/3 of a season. I’m also leaving out guys such as Jerry Hairston, who are injury fill-ins rather than upgrades.

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In an effort to sure up their interior defense, the St. Louis Cardinals agreed to a trade with the Los Angeles Dodgers, bringing Rafael Furcal back east in exchange for Double-A outfielder Alex Castellanos. The trade was first reported last night, but could not be made official until Furcal – a 10/5 player – waived his no-trade clause to complete the transaction.

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Ed. Note: Four people were injured in the copyediting of this article.

One word. Change one word of the trade description, and you might see a world in which the Cardinals got fair value for Colby Rasmus in their trade Wednesday night.

The consensus for the most part is that Alex Anthopoulos pulled a coup when he acquired a young left-handed center fielder with power and speed and a decent glove for his collection of spare parts. A rental starter, a rental backup center fielder, a rental righty reliever, and a young lefty reliever is all that it took to get Rasmus. But then there’s that one word — reliever.

Call Marc Rzepczynski a young lefty starter, and suddenly things might seem a little more even.

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