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

The St. Louis Cardinals need to make moves this offseason and the winter meetings are a great place to start.

The St. Louis Cardinals need a win. They need this win to come in the way of a player or players who will be joining the Cardinals roster for the 2018 season and preferably for a few seasons to follow. While the Cards lost out on their bid for Giancarlo Stanton, a winter “win” is still within reach.

Would the “Best Fans in Baseball” be content with nothing happening this winter beyond the pick up of Miles Mikolas and Luke Gregerson? Terribly unlikely. Would the St. Louis Cardinals front office be content with a winter filled with just replacing some of the auxiliary coaches? Also unlikely.

So what will it take to feel like this winter was not for waste? What do the St. Louis Cardinals need to do to convince fans that what they leave Orlando with (or without) is in the best interest of the team for 2018 and beyond?

First, let’s dig here into the idea that Mozeliak and Girsch leave Orlando (where the winter meetings are being held) without making a single move. While this would certainly be a shock to the system, this might- in all actuality- be what happens. With so many rumors circling, landing on one of these might prove impossible.

That is not to say that the Cardinals will make no further moves this offseason, just suggesting that they might depart Orlando without a completed move in hand. After Orlando, the team’s clock on trades and acquisitions does not stop but will continue until July 31, 2018 (and even then not really either).

Now that I have shocked you into believing (if you did at all) that no moves will occur while in Orlando, let’s flip the coin and look at the three moves that I believe are necessary to call this winter (and maybe the winter meetings) a success.

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.

The St. Louis Cardinals have an opening in the starting rotation by letting Lynn walk and should add a verified arm to the starting core in order to win this winter.

The St. Louis Cardinals decided to let Lance Lynn walk with only the qualifying offer issued at the conclusion of 2017. This means that there is a vacancy at the inn of the starting core. As a potential stopgap to this vacancy, the Cards added Mikolas. But is that enough?

A quick look at Mikolas who could slot in as the fifth starter, and might even if the St. Louis Cardinals snag another starter… Mikolas last pitched in Japan from 2015 to 2017. In ’15, he appeared in 21 games, covered 145 innings, posted a 13-3 record, and recorded a 2.11 ERA (0.897 WHIP).

He pitched in only 14 games in 2016 covering 91.2 innings. In 2016, Mikolas recorded a 2.45 ERA (1.167 WHIP) and a 4-2 record. This all improved yet again in 2017 when he pitched in 27 games and 188 innings. In 2017, “The Lizard King” posted a 2.25 ERA (0.984 WHIP) and a 14-8 record. Mozeliak has stated that he will be placed in the rotation.

If you are keeping score at home, this means that the St. Louis Cardinals (with no further additions) will present the following rotation: Carlos Martinez, Michael Wacha, Adam Wainwright, Luke Weaver, Miles Mikolas. This likely means that Alex Reyes will start in the pen and monitor his progression from Tommy John surgery, and this is a good thing.

But wait… The rotation listed above- not bad by any means- isn’t the most reliable. What if Wainwright doesn’t come back to form? What if the 2017 Wacha (or the World Series Wacha of yesteryear) was a fluke and he isn’t back? The St. Louis Cardinals could be looking at other holes in the rotation and that concerns me.

Enter then the idea of grabbing another top-of-the-rotation arm. Let’s be honest, the Cardinals have the farm system and the money to make this happen, so- to me at least- they have no reason not to make it so.

There are two names that make sense to me and both of them reside in the Tampa team with fellow arm Colome. These are Jake Odorizzi and Chris Archer. Yes, Archer will cost more but will certainly bring the biggest bang for the buck. Odorizzi will cost less but has been on the Cardinals’ radar for a few seasons now.

To some quick numbers: Odorizzi posted a 4.14 ERA (5.43 FIP) in 2017 and a 10-8 record. Archer posted a 4.07 ERA (3.40 FIP) and a 10-12 record. Admittedly, both of these arms were affected by the team around them.

Financially speaking, Odorizzi is under team control through 2019 and is in his second year of arbitration after earning $4.1M in 2017. The Cardinals could grab Odorizzi and buy-out the remaining years.

Archer is under team control through 2019 as well but carries two options on his current contract. He is set to be paid approximately $6.4M in 2018 and approximately $7.6M in 2019. His 2020 option is valued at $9M with a $1.75M buyout and his 2021 option (both are team options) is valued at $11M with a $250K buyout.

Clearly Archer is the more expensive arm but he is also a top-of-the-rotation guy. If I had my druthers, I would insist that the St. Louis Cardinals do all they can to snag Archer in the same deal with Colome. Send the rebuilding Rays whatever prospects it takes to get this done (but really hold some back for the next step to win the winter).

The St. Louis Cardinals need a big bat. Period.

All winter the talk has been about the St. Louis Cardinals and their pursuit of a big bat. This needs to happen. The Cardinals were daring and committed enough to bet the farm (as it were) on the Giancarlo Stanton sweepstakes. This didn’t pan out in the Birds’ favor but showed a commitment to finding that big bat.

Enter then the rumors of the Cardinals and fellow Marlins Marcell Ozuna and Christian Yelich. And lest I forget, the St. Louis Cardinals have also now been linked to having potential interest in Manny Machado. Time to dig.

Ozuna is definitely a big bat and was certainly one in 2017. Yelich, on the other hand, is more of a consistent player. Both names are interesting so let’s just post up their charts.

First, the left-handed batting Yelich:

And now Ozuna:

Notice the power difference but also notice the consistency factor. The question facing the Cardinals is whether Yelich and his .432 SLG but rather consistent .290 batting average will impact the lineup in the way that Ozuna’s .457 (.548 in ’17) might?

But wait… Enter then the supposition that the St. Louis Cardinals should dive into the Machado campaign. For compaison sake, let’s look at Machado’s chart:

Wow, right? Hang on… Should the Cardinals take Machado with his career .476 SLG over Ozuna’s career .457 SLG?

More from Redbird Rants

• Cardinals Rumors: 3 pros and cons of signing Carlos Rodon
• What’s next for the St. Louis Cardinals after Contreras signing?
• Report: Cardinals Emerge As Mystery Team for Carlos Rodon
• Cardinals: Trade targets after signing Willson Contreras
• Reflecting on the 2013 Cardinals’ top 30 prospects

Let me say that I would love to have Manny Machado in a Cardinals uniform but if we look at numbers alone, I’m not sold that his SLG, which seems to be in a minor decline (could fare better in the NL admittedly), stacks up well against the rising Ozuna. Having said that, Ozuna is an unproven commodity in terms of his slugging. In other words, we aren’t sure yet if 2017 was a fluke.

Should we even think about financials? Nope. The St. Louis Cardinals had the money to throw at Stanton, they have the money to make any of these deals happen. The real question is the prospect load it may or may not take.

If I were the St. Louis Cardinals, I would immediately contact the Orioles and find out what it would take to land Machado. I would do this simultaneously while building the deal with the Rays for Archer/Colome so that I know what prospects are going where. But I would make these deals happen first and then I would turn my attention to Ozuna if necessary.

Next: Close to Colome?

So here’s the wrap: the St. Louis Cardinals need to find a closer, a starting pitcher, and a big bat in order to win the winter. If they leave with two of these three, then the focus of spring training must be on whether Tyler O’Neill is your big bat or if you need to go get someone before the real contests begin. Thanks for reading!