St. Louis Cardinals: Three targets necessary to win the winter

The St. Louis Cardinals MUST sign a closer during the winter or will suffer in 2018.

The St. Louis Cardinals know that their 2018 roster is devoid of a closer thanks to the walking of Seung-hwan Oh and Trevor Rosenthal.  Thanks to this, the Cards have been linked to Wade Davis and Alex Colome. They aren’t alone in these interests, however, but they MUST find a closer.

Alex Colome is an interesting name. Landing him would require a trade and that assumes that the St. Louis Cardinals are actually interested. I’m not sold on this yet, but I would enjoy watching Colome in a Cardinals uniform.

Wade Davis, the top closing free agent, could come to the St. Louis Cardinals without the loss of any prospects. Again, however, the Cardinals are not the only ones who have expressed interest.

In looking closely at the two, Davis is longer tenured pitcher as he has been closing games since 2014 and racked up the following save counts in sequential order: 3, 17, 27, and last year’s 32 saves. Wouldn’t that 32 saves number look great in the box scores of St. Louis Cardinals games?

Colome is a little less proven having closed in the past two seasons only. In 2016, Colome racked up 37 saves. In 2017, Colome amassed an impressive 47 saves.

So who do I feel is the better closer of the two? Well, when looking at FIP, these two pitchers are almost identical having posted a 3.38 (Davis) and 3.37 (Colome) in 2017. WHIP is also almost the exact same: 1.142 for Davis and 1.200 for Colome. Man, the choice is tough.

Before I make a final decision, let’s look at financials. Davis was paid $10M in 2017 and will be looking for security and cash in whoever takes him. I think he will demand at a minimum a three-year deal.

Colome, younger, isn’t a free agent until 2021 and is arbitration eligible in 2018 after earning $547,900 in 2017. He certainly looks to gain money through arbitration so should the St. Louis Cardinals hold interest in him, they need to be prepared to pony up with the purse and likely buy out any remaining arbitration years.

To my verdict, at the time of this writing, Colome has been heavily rumored to the Cardinals. It would not surprise me to see the St. Louis Cardinals “bidding” on Davis to drive the price higher for rival clubs while their real pursuit is for the younger Colome.

I am okay with this and consider Colome a piece of the winning combination for the winter. I do not, however, feel that Colome is the only piece necessary to win the winter.