As if the Albert Pujols contract negotiations weren’t terrifying enough, Cardinals fans have a new crisis to worry about. According to Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Dispatch, ace right-hander Adam Wainwright felt some pain in his right elbow after a bullpen session on Monday, and has traveled back to St. Louis to have his elbow examined further.
“General Manager John Mozeliak said he believes it is a ‘significant injury’ and the early word is ‘not encouraging.’
Tommy John surgery is one alternative to repair the damage for which Wainwright is being checked.
‘After his bullpen session on Monday, he did feel something in his right elbow,’ Mozeliak said. ‘I can say just based on our initial evaluation by our training staff, things do not look encouraging. But before we jump to any conclusions, we’ll just wait until the re-evaluation this afternoon.’”
This certainly puts a cramp in the Cardinals World Series aspirations. After finishing third and second in the 2009 and 2010 NL Cy Young Award voting respectively, Wainwright was expected to shoulder much of the pitching burden this season. While there isn’t conclusive evidence he’ll require Tommy John surgery to repair his elbow, it appears to be inevitable. In all likelihood, the Cardinals front office has already started discussing plans for filling the gaping hole that will be left by the 29 year old right-hander.
The Cardinals boast a pretty deep rotation with Carpenter, Garcia, Westbrook, and Lohse rounding out the top five. With Wainwright likely to miss the entire season, soon-to-be 36 year old Chris Carpenter assumes the role of de facto ace. While Carpenter might seem like a more than adequate replacement for Wainwright out of the number one slot, the difference between the two pitchers is much larger than most think. For starters, Wainwright is six years younger than Carpenter. Secondly, Wainwright has outpaced Carpenter in WAR (and several other metrics like K/9, K/BB, GB%, etc.) by a 14.0 to 9.7 margin over the past three seasons. While this is not to say that Carpenter can’t capably fill Wainwright’s shoes, his age and past injury history suggests he won’t be able to produce at a 5-6 WAR level.
As for the remainder of the rotation, they all get bumped up one spot as well, which is unfortunate because the Cardinals had them slotted in the appropriate spots. While Jamie Garcia pitched very well in his rookie season last year, he seemed to out pitch his peripherals, which will likely lead to his stats regressing back toward the mean. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but the Cardinals would be wise to not expect a 2.70 ERA this season. I also have concerns about the number of innings he’ll pitch. Last season, the team was pretty conservative with him. Once they fell out of contention in mid-September, the team shut him down, having pitched 163.1 innings, a career high. While I haven’t seen any reports indicating a 2011 innings limit for Garcia, I can’t imagine they’d let him go too far above 180-185 innings. While this would be fine coming out of the back two spots in the rotation, it’s not something you’re looking for out of the number two spot. As for Westbrook and Lohse, they’re your run of the mill, mid-30s, ground ball oriented back of the rotation starters. When healthy, they’ll each produce 2 WAR annually, but will seem out of place outside of the final two spots in the rotation.
At first, the Cardinals will likely try to fill the hole internally. Yesterday, in a separate column, Goold discussed the Cardinals “sixth starter” tryouts held on Monday. With Wainwright’s injury, those tryouts likely just became fifth starter tryouts. Of those in contention are relievers Brian Tallet, Kyle McClellan, and PJ Walters; minor league prospects Lance Lynn and Adam Ottavino; and the classic Cardinal retread, Ian Snell. While each of these pitchers would be fine choices as theoretical sixth and seventh starters, none of these guys inspire confidence as a full-time number five guy. Ian Snell has the most experience, but he’s a fly ball pitcher with terrible command. As such, he’s not really a Dave Duncan kind of guy. Brian Tallet seems semi-logical considering his 36 career starts, but his starter/bullpen splits heavily favor the bullpen over the course of his career. If he gets a job with the Cardinals, it will likely be as a lefty out of the pen. 22 year old Lance Lynn seems like a possible choice. According to some scouts, his fastball velocity is back up to the mid-90s. If true, this will probably establish him as the odds on favorite. Still, I wouldn’t be surprised to see him start out the year in AAA.
By this point, you’re probably wondering if this article has anything to do with the Red Sox. It doesn’t–well, at least not directly. Still, it could have an affect on our pitching thin rivals to the southwest, the New York Yankees. In a way, this makes it somewhat Red Sox related. How might this affect the Yankees? Glad you asked. Like the Cardinals, the Yankees have a big hole (ok, two big holes) to fill in their rotation. I don’t know about you, but I don’t believe for a second that Cashman isn’t burning up the phone lines trying to see if anyone’s willing to trade away a solid number three/four type starter or better. As it currently stands, the Yankees are faced with the possibility some combination of Ivan Nova, Sergio Mitre, Bartolo Colon, and Freddy Garcia will fill out the back two spots in the rotation. While that’s a terrifying proposition for any team, it’s especially awful for a franchise that prides itself on being the standard bearer of baseball excellence.* Prior to the Wainwright injury, they had the market pretty much to themselves. Now, with an opening in the Cardinal rotation, they have competition.
* Yes, that very much hurt to write, but it sounds good so I’m keeping it.
Both teams have a couple of options. If they go the free agent route, the market is frighteningly thin, but not bare with veteran starters Kevin Millwood and Jeremy Bonderman still available. The Yankees tried signing Millwood to a minor league deal earlier this month, but he rejected it. Apparently, 36 year old starting pitchers without contracts in mid-to-late February have the luxury of being patient. Regardless of that fact, he’s an innings eater without an injury history. Additionally, he’s been productive fairly recently, so he’s a decent option for both clubs.
Jeremy Bonderman, on the other hand, carries a lot of additional risk. He’s no longer the young buck with ace quality stuff. Unfortunately, injuries seem to have robbed him of his lively fastball and plus-slider. He’s only 28, and he proved last season that he can still pitch through an entire season, albeit somewhat ineffectively. Still, he’s better than the options either team currently has on their roster. For the cost of a minor league deal, they get a high-risk decent reward pitcher for well under $1M. It’s not a tremendous option, but it’s worth a shot.
The other option is to go the trade route. With both teams looking for pitching, potential trade partners will likely request a king’s ransom in return for a quality pitcher. While it’s acceptable for teams to negotiate the best possible deals, any trade request involving Montero, Betances, Banuelos, Miller, and Cox will probably be ignored by the Cardinals and Yankees–and for good reason.
Back in December, I wrote a piece titled “Potential Targets for the Yankees” for my other writing project, Billy Beane is my Hero. Within that piece, I laid out five realistic pitching trade targets for the Yankees: Chad Billingsley, Joe Blanton, Mark Buehrle, Matt Garza, and Derek Lowe. While Garza’s off of the board, the other four pitchers are viable options for both clubs. Chad Billingsley is criminally underappreciated in LA, but has great swing-and-miss stuff. Ideally, he’d be an excellent fit for either team. As a left-handed pitcher (Yankees) with ties to St. Louis (Cardinals), Buehrle could become an interesting short-term option for either club if the White Sox fall out of contention early. Derek Lowe has been linked to the Yankees over the past few months, but his best fit is probably with the Cardinals. Pitching coach, Dave Duncan, loves sinker ball pitchers, so he’d likely relish working with one of the best ground ball specialists in the game. Lastly, Joe Blanton doesn’t really fit well with either team, but he’s a capable warm body that will help (not hurt) his team. Again, he’s much a better option than what’s currently on either team’s roster.
While it might seem a little too early to be discussing such things (especially for the Cardinals), it’s always good to be prepared.