Do the Cardinals Need to Make a Splash?
The St. Louis Cardinals have had pretty good starting rotations in the recent past. In 2012 and 2013, they were exceptional. The rotation finished third in FIP- in 2012, and second in 2013. They were still pretty good last season, but not quite as good — they finished 11th in FIP-. That underscores a little bit of the tumult that the rotation experienced though. They needed 12 starters to get through the season, and as such it’s not all that surprising that they’re at least thinking about making a splash in the starting rotation market. But, do they need to?
There are two ways of looking at this. The first way is through the prism of last season. They had 11 guys make at least four starts, and needed a 12th starter overall. It was the first time since 2007 that they needed 12 starters, and the first time since 1999 when they need 11 guys to make four or more starts. So, it’s easy to see why they would want to build in some stability. Especially when some of the pitchers that they’re counting on have some question marks.
Adam Wainwright was not nearly as good in the second half as he was in the first, collapsed in October, and then had minor elbow surgery following the season. It’s folly to use the second half of a season to predict the next one, but it’s also hard to look at that and not be a little concerned. Especially when the pitcher in question has the age of 30 firmly in his rearview mirror and recently had Tommy John surgery.
While we’re not sure whether or not Wainwright is healthy, at least it’s with a predictable elbow injury. Michael Wacha, on the other hand, has a non-normal baseball injury, and that is definitely concerning. Pitchers have pitched and succeeded with shoulder injuries, but Wacha’s stress reaction casts his whole outlook in a murky light. Which is more than the team can say for Jaime Garcia, who is basically the boy who cried wolf at this point. He’s basically in Brett Anderson territory, and counting on him for anything seems foolish. Not to say the Cardinals are in fact counting on him. Obviously they aren’t.
You look at this uncertainty, and you can see how the team would be bullish on acquiring one of the three players mentioned in the FOX Sports report earlier this week — Cole Hamels, David Price and Max Scherzer. All three have exemplary track records of both health and performance.
It’s not all bad though. John Lackey and Lance Lynn are reliable, 2-3 WAR starters. Between Carlos Martinez and Marco Gonzales the team has at least one good pitcher, and might have two. Both Steamer and ZiPS are fans of both. And Tyler Lyon also profiles pretty well — slightly below average by ZiPS but Steamer likes him a bit more than that. In other words, the perfect swingman, and if everyone is healthy, he’s your seventh or eighth starter. Add it all up, and you have a pretty good rotation. Yes, it is short on stability, but it’s long on talent.
The talent inherent is such that we have it projected to be the fifth-best starting rotation in the game in 2015. That is with a healthy dose of Wainwright (214 IP) and Wacha (166) however. Perhaps those should be adjusted downward? I did just that, to be conservative, pushing Wainwright down to 184 IP and Wacha down to 139. You can see that on their team page now. It didn’t change things much — their projected rotation WAR went from 10.9 to 10.8. It moved them from solely in fifth place overall to a tie for fifth place with the two Sox’s.
If the team thinks that they’re not able to bank on the two W’s for that much, then perhaps they would be wise to consider external alternatives. Suddenly that great depth would be in the rotation, and even-less impressive prospects like Tim Cooney and Zachary Petrick waiting in the wings. For most teams, that’d be just fine — you put your faith in your players and hope for the best. No need to have a backup plan for your backup plan, so to speak. The Cardinals can readily identify 10 pitchers who could slot into major league starts this season. But the Cardinals aren’t in an ordinary situation.
For one thing, they only have one year of Jason Heyward and John Lackey. For another, there is the slow decline of Matt Holliday to consider, and the fact that the team still hasn’t found a credible backup for Yadier Molina. Tony Cruz is an average pitch framer at best, and last year he was well below average in that respect. And he’s always a zero, or worse, with the bat. And the offense was middling overall last year, and that was with a pretty strong performance from Jhonny Peralta. Suppose he regresses a little — as Steamer expects him to — where does that leave the offense? Flipping Martinez and some outfield prospects for Hamels or Price, or outlaying the cash for Scherzer certainly becomes a more attractive prospect when you think about it like that.
Making such a big splash for a starting pitcher would be pretty uncharacteristic for the Cardinals, so it’s not something we should expect to happen. And they don’t necessarily need to either. If they can squeeze 300 innings out of Adam Wainwright and Michael Wacha, they should end up with one of the best starting rotations in the game. If that isn’t possible, then things get a little dicier, but they have enough depth to weather the storm, and have done so before. In other words, Scherzer, Hamels or Price would be a luxury. But if the team feels its championship window is closing, then it’s certainly a luxury they can afford.
Paul Swydan used to be the managing editor of The Hardball Times, a writer and editor for FanGraphs and a writer for Boston.com and The Boston Globe. Now, he owns The Silver Unicorn Bookstore, an independent bookstore in Acton, Mass. Follow him on Twitter @Swydan. Follow the store @SilUnicornActon.
Less than a ‘splash’, they need to figure out how to beat the Giants in a short series, other than wait for Bochy to retire. That numbnuts in LA seems under control.
It doesn’t matter. 2015 is an odd-numbered year.
Sometimes, making a splash isn’t good for anyone.
[points and laughs]
[throws himself away and laughs at those who don’t]
Not seeing the Giants as all that formidable for 2015, unless more moves are coming.
The unmentioned concern is that Wainwright and Wacha could be neither healthy nor effective. Losing 57 innings of quality pitching won’t make a huge impact on any team’s season, especially since the Cards have depth. What’s problematic is if they get 300 innings out of the two and they’re closer to 3/4 starter quality, then the team’s playoff and championship chances take a drastic hit.
According to the ZiPS forecast, the Cardinals’ #2+3+4 starting pitchers project for about 500 innings and a whisker under 9 WAR.
Their #6+7+8 starters (again, from the ZiPS projections) should total just over 6 WAR prorated to 180 innings apiece. That trio (Gonzales, Lyons, Cooney) has never has health/durability troubles, so 180 IP if given the opportunity is not far-fetched.
Point being, if they lose anyone *besides* Wainwright to injury (even all of their next THREE best starters) the rotation (says ZiPS) should still produce at a distinctly above average level.
Side note: maybe this has been addressed elsewhere, but overall ZiPS projects St. Louis & the Dodgers effectively in a dead heat for top Senior Circuit WAR total among the teams surveyed thus far– a good 4-5 WAR I believe above Washington. Don’t know why Dave Cameron said in his chat of two days ago that ZiPS has the Dodgers “very clearly” the best team in the NL.
Of course, I could be missing some update or other.
Not really sure why Shields is never mentioned with the Cardinals. It fits their philosophy of not giving big years and money to pitchers (or in Shields’ case, as many years/money as Scherzer would cost). And it wouldn’t cost them Carlos Martinez, who will probably be needed as a Lackey/Lynn replacement when their contracts expire.
Joe Strauss, Cardinals beat writer, recently said the Cardinals can maintain a payroll of $170+ million, which is a far cry from what they actually spend. To me, getting Shields or Scherzer and not giving up the necessary talent to get Price or Hamels makes the most sense.
Well, while I’m sure they’d still turn a healthy profit with a $170M player payroll, I doubt their player outlay ranking will ever outstrip their revenue ranking — nor would their fans expect it to, as long as the team is highly competitive.
Last I saw, Bloomberg had St. Louis 10th in MLB annual revenue. To be 10th in player payroll, they could go to roughly $135-140M I believe. That leaves plenty of room to pay Heyward $20-25M per year going forward, provided they don’t sign Shields, who would cost perhaps $18M to provide a 1-1.5 WAR upgrade over the current #5 starter, be it Carlos Martinez or Marco Gonzales, who project by ZiPS at 2.6 and 2.5 WAR respectively per 180 innings in 2015.
Shields would certainly make some sense if St. Louis felt *compelled* to improve the rotation; but even if the organization is somewhat less optimistic re their numbers 5 & 6 starters than ZiPS, I doubt if they do (or should) feel compelled.
I think you hit the nail on the head. If there is more money to spend, I think they’d want to lock up Heyward.
It seems like a St. Louis kind of move, putting the massive investment into a star position player in his prime — though if I were them I’d be at least a bit leery of a truly huge athlete whose value is largely defined by his defense, and more specifically his defensive range in the outfield.
And also, I was dead wrong about the Cards & Dodgers leading the N.L. projections for ZiPS. The Nats are right with them at 47, give or take; I must’ve been thinking of the Tigers, as the club trailing LA and StL by 4-5 ZiPS wins.
exactly. There isn’t a better way to spend extra money than locking up a star player in his prime.
I’m in the “don’t need improvement” camp. According to Fangraphs depth charts based on Steamer the Cards have a 3 1/2 win lead over the Pirates, and six games on the Cubs. Zips hasn’t done the Pirates or Cubs, but it was very optimistic for the Cards. Of course that’s not an insurmountable gap, the division isn’t sewn up like it is over in the NL East. But it doesn’t seem like a situation where wins are at a premium like say in the AL East where the standings could end up with any team in any place. Baseball is baseball, but you gotta like the Cards’ chances at a third straight division title.
What is more up in the air is 2016 and 2017. The Cubs will almost certainly be better in 2016 than 2015, and the Pirates, as a young club, very well could be too. The Cardinals want to keep this perennial contender thing going, they’re in no rush to close their window doubling down on one season.
Furthermore, development-wise, both Carlos Martinez and Marco Gonzales are ready for starting at the major league level. Only time will tell if they end up succeeding as ML starters, but both have achieved success at every level until this one so they have earned the shot. Lyons is also in a position where the org needs to find out what exactly he is. He’s very likely a luxury 6th starter/swingman type, but we need him to have more time on an mlb mound to find out.
Next year’s pitching free agent market is bananas, and at that point the Cardinals will have a much better idea of what they have in these pieces and act accordingly.
Run suppression is not the path to glory.
The Cardinals lineup stinks. Even before the Taveras tragedy the Cardinals had a big problem. Now they are looking at the apocolypse.
It’s amazing to me that so many look at the Tigers and see a cliff in front of them that they’re about to roll off, but with the Cardinals they see only minor problems. The Cards farm looks vacant of talent and the strength of their roster is young pitching, the most fragile of MLB commodities.
Haven’t we heard this apocalypse stuff before when Edmonds, Rolen, CC29, etc were getting older and AP5 was leaving?
They replaced them with Jay, Freeze, Berkman, Beltran, etc and kept winning.
Then came Matt Carpenter, Matt Adams, Lackey, etc.
StL has a pretty good track record of finding quality, affordable replacements either through finding non-prospect age value or signing veterans to short contracts.
In the years the cards have won the ws they’ve experienced major injuries, whether its mulder, carpenter, and so on. The cardinals have not won without adversity and setbacks. They find ways. Some of those ways weren’t always obvious moves with known values.
The Cards looked like they had someone to be their #3 hitter for ten years, but he’s gone.
Will Jason Heyward blossom offensively? Will the Cards keep Heyward off the market?
If Heyward ends up filling a big hole for the Cards how will they fill the other holes? Their entire lineup looks like it will be completely dead in two years and they stunk in 2014.
I know who they have in their farm system and they don’t look like star players.
La Russa is gone. Duncan is gone. Luhnow is gone.
You don’t see a difference in their current manager and La Russa?
If Kolton Wong turns into the best 2B in MLB and Stephen Piscotty turns into a multiple All-Star then I’ll just have to admit that there is some kind of special cosmic force at work in St. Louis that cannot be understood, only marveled at.
Matheny is terrible at in-game management but if you think the Cards are going off the cliff because of that you value managers too much
They have their infield locked up for three years. Carp is anywhere from a 3 WAR to 6 WAR player. Adams and Wong will be top 3rd offensive players for 5-7 years and both are good defensive players maybe great over time. Peralta got MVP votes last year.
Heyward is a 5 WAR upgrade on last year — they will resign him
The rest of the OF is good but not great. Holliday is still a top 30 major leaguer but in soft decline phase.
Molina has no replacement,but most teams don’t have a Molina and those that do don’t have a replacement either.
Pitching staff is very deep with 7-9 guys who can be major league starters at above replacement level.
Cardinal drafts after luhnow have been great (wacha, gonzalez, wong, etc)
minor leagues are a bit thin but that’s because they just graduated about 5 cost-controlled stars to the major league roster.
How do you see that? They’ve got above-average offensive starters at every position for 2015, a young 2B who could be a 20/20 man for years to come, a developing slugger at 1B with plenty of pop who also hits for average, and two potential prospective studs to take over RF once Heyward leaves. The offense will be fine.
I dont think StL really views anything as “win now”. They’ve been winning since 2004 and have done so with a different “core” of players.
StL had a similar run in the 80s and doesnt want to repeat the 90s, so I think the emphasis is on being “continually good” and never “we’re putting everything into the next 2 years”.
I also dont think they go crazy thinking about how opponents are doing things. They’ve survived the cubs, Astros, and reds as teams that were supposed to be the new kings of the division. Those teams did not reload it develop as the cards have.
In short, panic and desperation resulting in overpays and depletion are not how they go about things.
I really don’t see the issues people have with Wainwright. So he had a dead arm in August and needed minor offseason surgery. Those kind of things are pretty routine for MLB pitchers. He rebounded very nicely in both September and his last playoff start (which was blown by the bullpen, not him). He’s perfectly healthy from any current injury concerns.
Spring training,return Wainwright to his closer roll of 2006,ala Smoltz.Drop Rosentahl to setup.Sign James Shields to cover Wanos spot.
You keep mentioning Price like he’s readily available. Are you sure you’re not mistaking him for Shields, who actually is readily available?
Whoops, this was a response to a fox report that didn’t mention Shields. My issue is with them. Apologies