St. Louis Cardinals: 5 Unexplored Pitching Trades

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Both the starting and relief pitching markets are just about played out at the high end. The St. Louis Cardinals won’t be able to sign any free agent without splurging on dollars and years. John Mozeliak should trade for a starter instead.

Last week, Fox Sports ran a nice little slide show running through the starting pitching options now for the jilted Los Angeles Dodgers and St. Louis Cardinals. The Dodgers have already inked one of the pitchers in the slide show, Hisashi Iwakuma. The other ten are still either free agents or subjects of trade rumors.

Most of the names have already been picked apart by the Redbird Rants staff. The free agents you’d expect are on the list. Yovani Gallardo. Scott Kazmir. Mike Leake. So is former St. Louis Cardinals starter Shelby Miller, who the Atlanta Braves may soon take off the market and wait to move at the July trade deadline, when teams are more desperate and irrational.

Let me just say this before we go any further. The St. Louis Cardinals need offense more than they need pitching, even with the Lance Lynn loss. GM John Mozeliak is likely working to get a big bat. The St. Louis Cardinals have enough pitching talent at the upper levels to plug holes until, maybe, the team can add a #1 or #2 starter at the July deadline.

That said, four the names on the Fox list stand out as bombshell acquisitions should the St. Louis Cardinals pull off a deal for any of them — now or in July. Remember, talks Mozeliak is having in Nashville this week could become the foundation of a major deal struck at the deadline.  Should the St. Louis Cardinals acquire any one of the following 5 pitchers, now or then, the team will easily have one of the best staffs in baseball.

Next: Carlos Carrasco

Carlos Carrasco

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Carlos Carrasco doesn’t get the kind of attention Corey Kluber gets, but the former has emerged as a potential ace candidate who could do great things if traded to the St. Louis Cardinals. Two years ago, the Cleveland Indians moved Carrasco to the pen to figure things out. He streamlined his mechanics and dominated.

The Tribe then moved him back into the rotation at the end of 2014, and his very good four-pitch mix, including a mid-to-high-90s heater, kept on baffling hitters. That success carried over into 2015.

The Indians have a lot of good pitching. Forget Kluber, the 2014 Cy Young Award winner. Danny Salazar, a 25-year-old righthander, led the staff with a 3.45 ERA. Former first-round pick Trevor Bauer has yet to harness his command in the big leagues but has dominant stuff and is still just 24 years old.

So Cleveland can afford to trade a starter if they choose to. The St. Louis Cardinals should for Carrasco, whose 1.07 WHIP last year was just behind Kluber’s 1.05. Both totals were among the lowest in all the Major Leagues. Carrasco is 28 years old, but he may be on the cusp of making a big leap next year.

Next: Stephen Strasburg

Stephen Strasburg

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The 2016 season will be the last for Stephen Strasburg in Washington. He’ll be eligible for free agency, and he’s a Scott Boras client. That’s why his name is floating around in trade rumors. Otherwise, the 27-year-old righthander is the kind of guy you keep.

Strasburg made just 23 starts for the Nats last year, but multiple signs pointed to dominance when he did pitch. He averaged 11 strikeouts per 9, 1.8 walks per nine and a FIP of 2.84. He appears to have been a victim of porous defense in D.C. For the second year in a row, his opponents’ batting average on balls in play was over .300. That would certainly be better should he join the St. Louis Cardinals.

But let’s hope not. The downside of acquiring Strasburg is he would strictly be a one-year rental. No way would he sign an extension with the St. Louis Cardinals, and given what we’ve seen this winter, he shouldn’t. He’ll command a king’s ransom when he hits the market next year.

I’d rather the St. Louis Cardinals just let Strasburg be.

Next: Matt Harvey

Sonny Gray

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Billy Beane is one of the most unpredictable general managers in baseball. So while conventional wisdom tells us he’d never trade away Sonny Gray, his one legit starting pitcher and star player, there’s really no telling what he’d do if the St. Louis Cardinals would engage with him.

According to Baseball Prospectus, Gray’s WARP has jumped every season since 2013, when the A’s called him up and put him in the rotation. Gray was a 5.6-WARP pitcher last year, winning 14 games and surpassing 200 innings for the second straight season. With that wicked slider of his, the righthander posted a career-low 1.08 WHIP in 2015. The St. Louis Cardinals could have used that kind of dominance last year.

Believe it or not, the righthander is still just 26. Gray has sound mechanics — no weird, quirky motion or maximum effort delivery to suggest future shoulder or elbow issues. He won’t be arbitration eligible until 2017 and won’t hit free agency until 2020. If there’s ever been a pitcher the St. Louis Cardinals should empty the farm system for — which is what it would take — this is the guy.

Next: Chris Sale

Chris Sale

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Watching Chris Sale pitch is like watching a trained contortionist in the circus. You feel kind of squeamish, cringing at every twist and hitch, half expecting the left-hander’s golden arm to snap in half. I remember when Sale was coming up in the Sox system, every prospect expert insisted he had to change his delivery or suffer an inevitable career-ending elbow and/or shoulder injury.

Well, here we are, six years later, and Sale has entrenched himself as one of the more durable, dominant pitchers in the big leagues. But because he plays for the moribund White Sox, Sale is a starting pitcher the St. Louis Cardinals should check in on if they haven’t already.

The 6-foot-6, 180-lb. Gumby of a pitcher has made four straight All-Star Games, and would have won the 2014 Cy Young had he not missed a few starts that year. His WHIP for that season was an unreal 0.96. Last year, he led the league with 274 Ks.

Ask any hitter who’s face him, and they’ll tell how unnerving that mid-90s fastball and nasty slider are coming from Sale’s herky-jerky inverted-W sidewinder delivery. It doesn’t matter if you hit left- or right-handed. Well, it kind of does. Righties bat .230 against him. Lefties hit just .203.

Next: What the Big Free Agent Signings Mean to the Cardinals

Sale is under contract through 2017, and he remains an enigma to team executives and coaches, many of whom think he’ll break at any second. If the St. Louis Cardinals make the right kind of offer, maybe the Sox will come to terms that they simply can’t win, with or without Sale, as the team stands now.