The concept that you
can’t win in baseball without pitching is as old as the game itself. Leaving
yourself short of starting pitching is one of the sport’s cardinal sins. So it
seemed all the more ironic that last year that the newest victim of this old age
adage would be none other than baseball’s redbirds, the St. Louis Cardinals.
After all, blessed with a
pitching staff that was middling at best (16th in the majors ERA at 4.54, tied
for 11th in WHIP) and at times downright brutal (26th in strikeouts, tied for
the seventh-most homers allowed), no one gave the Cards a snowball’s chance in
hell of doing anything in the playoffs. In fact, the team stumbled so badly down
the stretch that it barely hung on to what seemed a sizeable lead over the last
couple of weeks.
No one saw this 83-win
team making much noise in the postseason, yet the Cardinals pitching stepped up
big time, giving up more than four runs just twice in 16 games as they fought
their way to a World Series title. Twelve times they held their opponent to two
runs or less, in what had to be among the most impressive performances by a
depth-challenged pitching staff in recent memory.
Now, here’s the rub: can
St. Louis do it
again?
The Cards have already
lost two big winners from their 2006 staff as Jason Marquis (14 wins, although
left off the post-season roster) signed with the Cubs and Jeff Suppan (12 wins and huge in
the playoffs) was lured away by big Milwaukee dollars (how’s that for an
oxymoron?).
According to
Gerry Fraley of the
St. Louis Post-Dispatch,
St.
Louis is the first defending champion
to lose two pitchers who won at least a dozen games since the 1997 Marlins. The
Marlins, you may recall, dismantled their team for the first time after their inaugural
championship season. Kevin Brown
wound up in San
Diego and Alex Fernandez missed the 1998
season because of injury. The ’98 Marlins, by the way, won 54 games.
Will the Cards be hurt by
the fact that both of these starters wound up on division rivals? I doubt it. In
fact, there may be a Trojan horse-like effect here. Marquis is simply crap, and
giving a pitcher who recorded an ERA over 6.00 $21 million proves how desperate
the Cubs were for pitching. Suppan, as good as he was at times in his three
seasons in St.
Louis, moves to the team he spent much
of his time beating up. Fraley reports that Suppan has gone 6-1. 2.44 against
the Brew Crew over the past three years, compared to 38-25, 4.18 against
everyone else. Take that sweet ERA against Milwaukee out of the equation, and a
pitcher who is slightly better than league average becomes league average at
best. It’s not as big a loss as it seems, because it’s clear Suppan is not worth
over $40 million.
However, that still
leaves the question: who is starting for the Cards in
2007?
The top of the rotation
is in great hands with ace Chris Carpenter back. In face, St.
Louis rewrote his deal and handed him
another $63.5 million over the next five years. Smart move? Well, he’s
definitely an ace, but he was already under contract until 2008, so that’s money
the Cards could have used to add another free agent starter, plus Carpenter’s
had some injury issues over the years. Look, I love Carpenter, but this one
could come back to bite St.
Louis.
Number two starter? Take
your pick: Kip Wells
or Anthony Reyes. Wells was signed (relatively speaking) for a song after
three down seasons, often marred by injury. He could be a huge sleeper or he
could be this year’s Sidney
Ponson. Reyes is someone I’ve liked for quite a while, and I
still firmly believe that if he gets 25 to 30 starts in 2007, he’s capable of
producing better results than either Suppan or Marquis.
Now here’s where things
get tricky. The Cards are currently penciling Adam Wainwright in as their number
four starter. Yes, they’re gambling that Jason Isringhausen will be healthy
enough to return as the closer. This is a team that has shown a willingness to
roll the dice, often with pleasant results, but this is a situation that has
disaster written all over it. If Izzy can’t return, Wainwright will have to
close, meaning the Cards will need at least two more
starters.
Brad Thompson may
fill one of those spots. The team plans to stretch him out in spring training in
the hopes that he can make a successful return to starting (Thompson has started
just one game in two seasons in the bigs, but did make 25 starts in the minor
leagues, including spending the entire 2004 season
starting).
Braden Looper
is another
pitcher St.
Louis will try to convert back into a
starter. For Looper, however, you have to go back to his pro debut in 1997 to
find the last time he started a game. This moves reeks of desperation.
St.
Louis might be better off giving a shot
to someone else who has starting experience like Randy Flores, Randy Keisler or Chris Narveson. Two other former
starters, Josh Hancock
and Josh Kinney, will not
be given consideration for a starting gig.
Of course, the club could
always re-sign Jeff Weaver
and/or Mark
Mulder. Weaver was a big-time playoff hero and now that all the
top tier starters are off the market, teams should start to step up their
interest levels in him. He may bag a three- or four-year deal. Mulder may yet
re-sign with the Cards (although Cleveland and
Texas are very much in the hunt), but
don’t expect him to be ready until June or to start more than 25 games after
rotator cuff surgery. This one is supposed to come to a head shortly, but it
doesn’t seem likely that the Cards are going to cave in and give Mulder what he
wants.
Who does that leave?
Mike Smith? The
29-year-old righty was signed to a minor league deal and he did enjoy a solid
season at Triple-A in 2006, going 11-5 with 110 Ks in 150 2/3 innings. Let’s
hope it doesn’t come to giving Smith a real shot, but stranger things have
happened, I suppose.
Don’t expect much
immediate help from the farm. Jaime Garcia looks like a very good one, but he has yet to reach
Double-A. Blake Hawksworth
made a nice recovery, finally staying healthy last year, but he
had a bit of control problems in his first taste of Double-A, and considering
he’ll turn 24 during spring training, his ceiling isn’t extremely
high.
St.
Louis really needs to pull a rabbit of
out its hat, if not a horse capable of making 30-plus starts without going Jason
Marquis on them. Is it too late to hope that Rick Ankiel will change his mind?
If not, Cardinals fans may have a long season in store.
Rob Blackstien runs www.RotoRob.com, a site featuring daily fantasy sports analysis. In addition to his baseball work on Rotoworld, he contributes to Rotoworld’s basketball coverage. Rob has also written for CREATiVESPORTS.com, BaseballNotebook.com and has contributed to Rotoman’s Fantasy Baseball Guide and Fantasy Football Guide.