There is just a week to go now until Major League Baseball’s non-waiver trade deadline on July 31st and the Cardinals find themselves in a precarious position. They are leading the NL Central and currently have the best record in baseball, but they also find themselves nursing injuries. General Manager John Mozeliak now has to figure out whether the cost of improving this season’s team is worth it. Personally, I question whether it is.
Last week I tweeted my three keys to the Cardinals’ second half.
Cardinals' keys to the second half: 3. Get healthy 2. Protect Wacha/Martinez 1. Get Matt Carpenter right. #stlcards
— Jon Doble (@JonDoble) July 20, 2015
Number 3 was to get healthy. Matt Holliday has now returned to the lineup and that has helped stabilize the team’s offense. The team also sent Jaime Garcia and Jordan Walden out on rehab assignments today. Marco Gonzales is close to being ready and then you have Matt Belisle expected back in August.
Number 2 was to find ways to protect Michael Wacha and Carlos Martinez. Both pitchers were supposed to be under innings limits this season, but those have seemingly been set aside due to the innings deficit with Adam Wainwright on the sidelines with his Achilles injury.
And Number 1 was to get Matt Carpenter right. It’s about time, but his slump is finally getting noticed by the media and Mike Matheny, who dropped Carpenter to 7th in last night’s lineup. Since May 3rd, Carpenter is hitting .211 with just 12 extra base hits. For comparison, he hit 17 extra base hits in April alone.
I also had someone add that the offense needed to be more consistent, but to me that is more a function of Carpenter getting right and the team getting healthy. If those two things can happen, the offense will be more consistent by default.
I’d argue that those three things need to happen whether or not the Cardinals’ acquire anybody by trade this week. If the team can’t get healthy and Carpenter can’t get right, the impact of anyone that can be acquired is minimal. It’s because of that that I believe the Cardinals should stand pat at the deadline.
The Cardinals have kicked the tires on starting pitching because of the innings load that Wacha and Martinez have had to undertake. With Jaime Garcia and Marco Gonzales eyeballing a return, you have two guys that you could have had in the starting rotation in April looking for a spot in the rotation. You can cycle either of those two or even Tyler Lyons or Tim Cooney into a sixth start or spot start to shave some innings off Wacha and Martinez down the stretch for free.
As I wrote a year ago about this time, the regular season advantage of acquiring an ace caliber pitcher is only a win or two at the most. You would make such an acquisition for the playoffs, but even then, if you don’t have Wacha and Martinez right in October, your chances aren’t very good even with a Cole Hamels or David Price.
The Cardinals don’t really need to acquire relief help with Jordan Walden due to return and a guy like Sam Tuivailala in position to make his mark on the bullpen in the second half. It might be a good place to make a value addition if you can find one, like we did with Edward Mujica a few years ago. We got Mujica from Miami and there have been some rumors that the Cardinals have checked in on Steve Cishek of the Marlins.
I’ll even go as far as to say that the Cardinals don’t even need to acquire a starting caliber first baseman. Stephen Piscotty has gotten a hit in both of his games and will get some playing time at first base. You’ve also got Mark Reynolds who has hit 214 with 4 homers in July, twice as many as he’s hit in any other month with the Cardinals.
I still believe that this team has all the pieces it needs to make a deep run into October.
Unless Mozeliak can find a player that drops into his lap at a good value, I’d rather Mozeliak just check the bet over to the Pirates and see what they do. They don’t have the pieces to go do any substantial shopping. They added Aramis Ramirez today, but he is 37 and in the middle of his worst season since 2002. Their hope is that they will catch lightning in a bottle with their former star, but that is far from a guarantee.
If he does stand pat, Mozeliak will undoubtedly catch criticism that has already been slowly building through the season. His reasoned approach to roster moves and decisions garnering frustration. But I believe that standing pat is the right choice.
You can call it drinking the kool-aid (I like Strawberry, which is also red like the Cardinals), but I trust Mozeliak. He has never had a losing season as GM and it would require a failure of epic proportions for that streak to end this season. Mozeliak has his plan and he will stick with it.
The past few deadlines and offseasons we’ve all sat here and talked about how the Cardinals should trade away our young talent and try to bring in some veterans. If this year has taught us anything, it should have been that we were right to hold onto our young talent because without them this season would look a lot more dire right now. Instead, the Cardinals have been able to absorb most of the problems they’ve encountered and continue to be the best team in baseball.
And that is by Mozeliak’s design.
And I’m not sure if I am willing to sacrifice next year’s team’s ability to do the same.
Jon Doble has been writing about the St. Louis Cardinals since 2010. You can follow him on Twitter at @JonDoble and catch him hosting UCB Radio on the fourth Wednesday of every month. Redbird Dugout is a member of the United Cardinal Bloggers.