JUPITER - For the most part the Cardinals look like the team that left the winter meetings. Few bumps in the road saw the Cardinals escape spring training without any injuries, and yet another trade brought in more pitching. Juan Nicasio comes over from division rival Pittsburgh and gives the Cardinals more injury cushion. This team looks good and seems set for a title run.
Spring Answers
Starting Rotation : After making a series of trades that reduced the Cardinals farm system to just a bunch of warm bodies, they definitely have the arms to form a solid rotation. The Cole-Martinez-Wacha-Ventura-Cashner core is going to lead this team every week. The presence of Ervin Santana, Mike Leake, R.A. Rickey, and the newly acquired Juan Nicasio gives the team depth and security in the event of injuries. They probably don't have the best rotation in baseball, but they are solid enough that they have a great chance to win every day.
Top Of The Order : The Cardinals 1-3 hitters are set and dangerous, but the rest of the order is going to need to step up to keep the Cardinals scoring. Charlie Blackmon is set to lead off with Starling Marte hitting behind him, giving St. Louis a speedy 1-2 punch at the top of the order. Matt Carpenter is going to hit 3rd, and if he can hit 20+ HR again he will have a monster season. Hanley Ramirez is penciled in at clean-up, but his grip on the position is tenuous at best with Brandon Moss breathing down his neck. Luckily this team isn't built around a powerful offense, thanks to their pitching staff, but these hitters are going to give opponents a headache.
Summer Questions
Bullpen Depth : The bullpen is without a doubt the Cardinals biggest problem. The team is confident in Trevor Rosenthal, Kevin Siegrist, and Seth Maness, but they can't all pitch every day. The team brought in Jim Johnson on a 1-year deal before Spring Training started, but beyond him the only available arms are big question marks. Jesse Chavez, signed as a starter, has found his way to the bullpen. Seung-Hwan Oh is a 33-year old pitcher snatched from the Hanshin Tigers, and Luis Perdomo is a Rule 5 pick stuck in the majors. The team is heavily reliant on Jim Johnson putting the last two seasons behind him and rediscovering his 2012-2013 form.
Middle Infield : It's very hard to tell if the Cardinals middle infield is their strength or a major weakness. The danger is a merry-go-round without someone establishing themselves as an every day starter. Between Marcus Semien, Jean Segura, and Kolten Wong they have a rotation that can cover 2B and SS, but if one of them can't cut it things are going to go downhill really quickly. The biggest hope is that Giovanny Urshela steps up big time and Matt Carpenter can take a stab at 2B if he has to.
ST. LOUIS - With the 2015 season wrapped up the Cardinals management didn't let very much time pass before making a splash for 2016. The Cardinals were one of the most active teams at the Winter Meetings, and they may have put themselves in a good position to win the NL Central with an eye on the World Series.
NL CENTRAL OUTLOOK
The NL Central looked to be a three team race until the Pirates made a change for the future, more on that later, but for the time being it looks like Chicago and St. Louis will be going head to head for the division crown. The Cubs have the advantage of youth with a powerful core of young hitters who will be household names within the next few years, but they lacked pitching depth heading into free agency. The Cardinals have some very good players for general depth, but their lack of a third outfielder and a shortstop meant they would have to explore trade options or spend on the open market.
WINTER MEETINGS
Mike Matheny and team management hit the ground running at the Winter Meetings and tried their best to throw some haymakers in the NL Central race before the season even started. They started out with a trade for Top-50 prospect Jesse Winker, sending a number of prospects to Cincinnati for the outfielder and mercurial 2014 1st rounder SP Nick Howard. The Cardinals then followed that up with a blockbuster trade that sent outfielders Stephen Piscotty and Tommie Pham along with a number of high end prospects, most notably RHP Alex Reyes and RHP Jack Flaherty, to the Pirates for Starling Marte and Gerrit Cole. The trade significantly upgraded the CF position and added a third ace-level arm to the staff. Having Carlos Martinez, Michael Wacha, and now Gerrit Cole seems to have formed a solid base for the rotation.
The Cardinals may not have made the most trades, but they had to have been one of the most active traders. Rumors of a deal for Adam Eaton and Chris Sale circulated around the league, not to mention a trade for Mike Trout that ended up falling through. Execs across the league are probably sick of getting a call from Cardinals management and turn away when they are approached in the hallways, but they had to be aggressive to make the right moves to win now. The completed moves were definitely a 'win now' approach, but they managed to give themselves a 2-year window to do it. None of the players moved in the trade will hit free agency after the 2016 season, so this team has some time to contend with the Cubs.
The meetings closed with St. Louis making a number of key trades to firm up their roster before free agency finished up. Two major deals gave the Cardinals the roster security they needed before spending big on free agents. A trade with the Mets brought in two outfielders, Charlie Blackmon and Eddie Rosario, in exchange for recently acquired Starling Marte (who never even got to hold a Cardinals jersey) and a handful of good prospects. The final pieces fell in place when the Athletics agreed to ship SS Marcus Semien to St. Louis for Matt Adams and a few prospects, and the Brewers sent SS Jean Segura for a similar package. Management would leave the meetings feeling good out the foundation of their roster, and it would be up to the free agents to fill in the rest.
Traded for twice, Marte finally gets a Cardinals jersey.
FREE AGENCY
With 2016 likely the most talent rich free agent class in history, the Cardinals needed to be careful. A lot of teams came into the off-season with an enormous amount of money to spend, so things were likely to get crazy rather quickly. St. Louis has three very pressing needs at catcher, shortstop, and the outfield. They would need to add to the bullpen, but with Wacha-Martinez-Cole it wasn't as big of a weakness prior to the Cole trade. Luckily the team managed to bring back Yadier Molina on a 3-year deal worth $14.7 million and just to be safe they signed Ryan Hanigan to a 1-year deal worth $300,000.
Things really started to roll when the Cardinals signed three 1B in Brandon Moss (1-year, $7.1M), John Jaso (1-year, $2.6M), and Ryan Howard (1-year $2.0M) to fill the hole left by the departure of Matt Adams. Aside from Howard, these short term signings also give the Cardinals some positional flexibility with Moss (1B & OF) and Jaso (C, 1B & OF). Reports on Yadier Molina have not been encouraging as he is still recovering from off-season thumb surgery that could see him miss spring training. Molina will probably not be ready for the start of the season, so this makes Jaso the Opening Day starter behind the plate.
The Cardinals continued to fill out their offense with the signing of Hanley Ramirez in what some are calling a very risky move. Ramirez signed for a 1-year $9.3 million deal coming off his worst season as an MLB regular, and by some metrics one of the worst seasons in the history of baseball. The Cardinals will not need to worry about his historically poor defense at LF with hopes that a transition to 1B will cut down on the defensive miscues and help his bat. Ramirez could be a huge boost, or he could be an albatross, but either way he's on a low-risk 1-year deal.
After signing Ramirez the Cardinals focused heavily on their rotation. With Wacha-Cole-Martinez firmly entrenched atop the rotation, the Cardinals needed to find options to fill out slots 4-5 and beyond. They got a minor bullpen boost prior to spending on starters with the addition of Korean pitcher Seung-Hwan Oh. Oh spent the last two season in Japan closing for the Hanshin Tigers and figures to be in the running for set up work. Oh is much older than most, 33, but his experience will be valuable in a bullpen desperate for experience outside of the Rosenthal-Siegrest-Maness trio.
The Cardinals closed out the FA period by signing only pitchers and making a few more blockbuster moved. The additions of Jesse Chavez, Andrew Cashner, Mike Leake, and Ervin Santana on 1-year deals make their staff much stronger and provide some injury cover. The Cardinals made headlines with two more trades that management hope to be real haymakers in the NL Central race. The first move came with a trade for Salvador Perez and Yordano Ventura that would see Yadier Molina and Marco Gonzales pack their bags for Kansas City. Adding Ventura gives the Cardinals a solid arsenal of arms in slots 1-4 that will be around for at least the next two seasons, and the move for Perez shipped out a long term contract for a young star who is still one of the better catcher in baseball. The second move, which would leave a familiar face rather confused, brought Starling Marte back to St. Louis in exchange for Randal Grichuk, Tyler Lyons, and Luke Weaver. While giving up some major assets was not something management wanted to do, it was hard to pass up a Marte-Blackmon outfield that could power them to the World Series.
The Cardinals off-season was wilder and crazier than it has been in recent years, but it's clear this team is going for a big win in October. Win or lose, 2017 will see a major rebuilding effort that could turn over the roster yet again.
