Starting pitching was the least of the St. Louis Cardinals' problems in 2015. Even despite losing Adam Wainwright for the bulk of the year, the Cardinals rotation still racked up an MLB-best 2.99 ERA.
If St. Louis is going to keep that vibe going into 2016, however, it has some work to do.
The Cardinals rotation was dealt a significant blow Tuesday, as the club announced that ever-solid right-hander Lance Lynn has been lost for the 2016 season due to Tommy John surgery:
Just like that, the St. Louis rotation is down a man with a 2.87 ERA over the last two seasons and a 3.38 ERA over 756.2 innings dating back to 2012. That is to say it's down one of the National League's better starters. That smarts.
And now that Lynn is out for the count, it's impossible to ignore how the Cardinals' starting pitching is suddenly looking a bit thin.
Beyond losing Lynn, this week has also seen St. Louis lose top prospect Alex Reyes to a 50-game suspension for a second positive test for a drug of abuse. According to Stan McNeal of Cardinals Magazine, Reyes is a guy whom Cardinals general manager John Mozeliak believed to be "knocking on the door" in 2016, so losing him is a blow.
Elsewhere, there's the reality that John Lackey, 37, is a free agent. If the Cardinals lose him, they'll be bidding adieu to a seemingly ageless veteran who contributed a 2.77 ERA and 218 innings in 2015.
So suffice it to say that starting pitching has gone from being a luxury to being an area of need for the Cardinals. Their options are to either move forward and make do with what they have or make an effort to solve the problem on the winter market.
Spoiler alert: You can expect the Cardinals to do the latter.
Mind you, the Cardinals theoretically could stand pat and make do with what they have.
They're down a few bodies, but they still have Wainwright, Michael Wacha, Carlos Martinez and Jaime Garcia lined up for 2016. That gives them four starters with pretty good potential, which is more than most teams have.
But the notion that the Cardinals are now going to be active on the winter market isn't just an educated guess. Per Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, it comes straight from Mozeliak himself:
The obvious indication here is that Mozeliak isn't entirely comfortable with his quartet of Wainwright, Wacha, Martinez and Garcia. Nor should he be.
Those four have talent, but durability is another issue. Wainwright is a 34-year-old with a lot of mileage on him. Wacha was out of gas by the end of his first full season in 2015. Martinez's 2015 campaign ended early due to a shoulder injury. Garcia's own injury woes have limited him to just 56 starts since 2012.
All these things considered, Mozeliak would be wise to at least find some depth for his rotation. An even better idea would be to go on the hunt for a top-of-the-rotation starter who could help maintain order if things were to fall apart.
Either way, the Cardinals are in a good spot. Because as much or more than any other winter market in recent memory, this year's is loaded with starting pitching.
If it's a top-of-the-rotation starter the Cardinals desire, they could go after David Price, Zack Greinke, Jordan Zimmermann or Johnny Cueto. If they don't want to go quite that big, they could pursue a reunion with Lackey or target one of the market's other B-list options: Mike Leake, Jeff Samardzija, Scott Kazmir, Wei-Yin Chen, Yovani Gallardo, Hisashi Iwakuma, Ian Kennedy or Marco Estrada.
Of course, this is typically where we acknowledge the gap between what a small-market team like the Cardinals would like to do and what it actually can do. In situations like these, there are usually a few barriers between a club and its ideal scenarios.
But in this situation? Not so much, actually.
Money is usually a big issue, but the Cardinals could be in a worse place there. They do have over $100 million in salary commitments and, per MLB Trade Rumors, $27 million in projected arbitration payouts on the books for 2016, putting them in line to top their roughly $120 million Opening Day payroll from 2015. However, it's equally significant that the Cardinals' long-term future isn't bogged down by big-money contracts.
As Charlie Wilmoth of MLB Trade Rumors noted in his offseason preview for St. Louis, the club could look to take advantage of that:
Given their very limited future commitments ($65MM in 2016, $33MM in 2017, and practically nothing after that), though, it would seem possible for the Cardinals to increase their payroll somewhat for 2016 with the understanding that they can limit their spending in the future if they need to.
The other thing that tends to be an issue for clubs in free agency is draft-pick compensation. Players who reject qualifying offers present teams with the question of whether it's worth surrendering a first-round pick to sign them, which is always a tough question. This winter, that crop of players is likely to include Greinke, Zimmermann, Samardzija, Chen, Gallardo, Iwakuma, Kennedy and Estrada.
The good news, though, is that Price, Cueto, Leake and Kazmir are not tied to draft-pick compensation, as they were barred from receiving qualifying offers thanks to midseason trades. Likewise, the Cardinals won't have to give up a pick if they were to re-sign Lackey. If they really don't want to compromise their position in next year's draft, they have options.
And, heck, even having to surrender a draft pick to sign somebody for their rotation may not be a deal-breaker for the Cardinals.
After all, them surrendering their first-round pick in 2016 would only require them to give up the No. 30 overall selection. And if both Lackey and Jason Heyward were to sign elsewhere, the Cardinals would gain two compensatory draft picks. One way or another, it's basically impossible for them to seriously damage their standing in the 2016 draft.
Goold is right about the Cardinals generally refusing to go big on the free-agent pitching market. In fact, the last time they spent significant money on a starter was when they signed Jake Westbrook back in 2010, and that was only for two years and $16.5 million.
But if ever there was a time for St. Louis to change things up, it's now. It certainly has the need, and both the money and draft concerns are relatively small issues.
At the same time, we need to recognize that the Cardinals could make some noise on the trade market if they choose to go that route instead.
St. Louis isn't especially rich with top prospects, to be sure. But it does have a couple of talented young hitters in Randal Grichuk and Stephen Piscotty whom it could build a package around and go for an ace starter. Just to name a few possibilities, that could be the team's ticket to landing Stephen Strasburg, Carlos Carrasco or, even better, Sonny Gray or Matt Harvey.
It's never a good thing to lose a starting pitcher to Tommy John. It's an even worse thing to lose a starting pitcher to Tommy John at a time when the rotation he belongs to was already looking a bit thin. If the Cardinals had their druthers, they wouldn't be in the position they now find themselves in.
But things could definitely be worse. The Cardinals are in need of quality starting pitching at a time when there's a whole bunch of quality starting pitching available, and at a time when they have what they need to help themselves.
If that's not an excuse to go all out, nothing is.
Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked.
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