What Do the Cardinals Do Now?

Following Boston’s signing of David Price, reports indicated that the Cardinals were $30 million short of the $217 million contract Price would eventually receive from the Red Sox. The deal certainly indicates that Boston was willing to spend this offseason. Given the Cardinals’ pursuit of the left-hander, however, you’d assume that St. Louis also has some money to throw around.

Except this is weird: their current roster has $126 million of commitments on it right now, and they spent $122 million on last year’s roster, and that was the most they’d ever spent on a roster. So maybe the Cardinals don’t have money to throw around. Maybe they just wanted David Price.

Still, they have losses and need to try to get better to stay atop their improving division. Losing Lance Lynn, John Lackey, and Jason Heyward means losing almost 10 projected wins.

Their uncanny ability to find 27-year-old usable bats in their farm system means that they can move some guys around. They probably won’t have to pay for the full 10 wins on the market. But they probably will have to do something. What?

There might not be anything more devil magic than this fact: despite their losses, the Cardinals are still above average at every position save right field, where Steamer has Stephen Piscotty regressing in the power department despite anecdotal evidence that he might retain his growth there. They are 16th there.

The Cardinals and Mets are the two teams projected to be above .500 with the smallest standard deviation between their positional players. In other words, there are relatively few stars in those lineups, but there also aren’t any potholes.

You could say the same about their starting rotation: no pitcher is projected for more than four wins, so they likely don’t have a top 20 pitcher next year. But if you make Marco Gonzales their fifth starter and assign the production that Tyler Lyons and Tim Cooney can add to his slot, they also don’t have a starting slot that is projected to produce less than two wins.

This could be an argument for signing a star or bust, in a way. They have the groundwork of a solid team no matter whom they sign, and they have the moving parts to accommodate almost any star they sign.

If they sign a corner outfielder like Yoenis Cespedes or Alex Gordon, they can move Tommy Pham and/or Randal Grichuk into center field. Surely they can’t be any worse with the glove than Jon Jay. If they sign Jason Heyward, he plays center field for the time being. They could even sign Chris Davis and move Brandon Moss to the outfield, and make Matt Adams a reserve-slash-DH. If they sign a star pitcher, Gonzales becomes the Jaime Garcia insurance and sixth starter. You could say it almost doesn’t matter what star they sign, they just need to get a star. They’ve set up their depth, they have their moving parts, they just need to put the star on top of the tree.

That may have been the thinking as they prepped the offer for Price, but — at least from the sentiments expressed here in Nashville — it sounds like that is no longer the thinking in the Cardinals front office, at least when it comes to pitching. A four- or five-year deal is not something “we’d necessarily do at this point” general manager John Mozeliak told Derrick Goold. Sounds like they’re considering pitchers available on one- or two-year deals for the back end of their rotation.

If that’s the case, then a signing like Doug Fister or Mark Buehrle would make a lot of sense. They’re on the bottom end of a market that still has a few interesting top-end names in it, and at this point in their careers, they might welcome playing for two years in the friendly confines of Busch Stadium. Buehrle’s five years older, but he’s been a metronome, and pushing Lyons and Collins and Gonzales into a time share with Garcia’s failing limbs seems like a good idea. All of those pitchers would be useful to the Cardinals in the bullpen when they’re not starting, and it would further even out an already even team.

And maybe, with a little luck, that would keep them ahead of the Pirates in their division and in the wild card race. But according to our depth chart projections, that’s not likely to close the distance with the Cubs. That would take a star. And they’ve budgeted for a star, they’ve proven. It’s likely to be a star hitter at this point, though. Any star hitter.