About 48 hours ago the St. Louis Cardinals got some bad news. They learned that Adam Wainwright, their 20 game winner and runner up to Roy Halladay in the Cy Young voting, had significant pain in this throwing elbow. Not good. Fast foward to 24 hours ago, and Wainwright and the medical staff deemed that he go under season ending reconstructive surgery. This is about as bad as it gets for a team that looked like it was going for it this year and had a legitimate shot to possibly win a World Series.
48 hours has gone by, and in that time I did some thinking as to what I would do if I were in charge of the baseball operations over in St. Louis. One thing that I can be certain of is that they are at the very definition of a cross roads. The situation they are in right now reminds me of where Milwaukee was when they traded for CC Sabathia and went for it all while they had a healthy (at the time) Ben Sheets and could contend for a title with a deadly 1 and 2 atop the rotation. Muck like Milwaukee, they face losing a very talented offensive player at first.
The difference between the two however is that St. Louis has not totally gutted their farm system in the process. They have made some cost efficient moves that have made them competitive, but not desperate. By adding Lance Berkman, they have some protection for Matt Holliday and allow Colby Rasmus to hide in that threatening middle of the order. With the addition of a healthy David Freese, this team has plenty of offensive production to support what used to be a solid rotation. Now they lose Wainwright for 12-18 months assuming everything goes smoothely, and they face losing both Chris Carpenter and Albert Pujols to free agency in the off season. I think it's all but assumed that Carpenter will be signing elsewhere in the winter, and the Pujols situation has gone from bad to ugly. If the two of those players leave, it puts the Cardinals in a weird position because their offense will be average, and their pitching will lack both depth and quality. Jaime Garcia was good last year, but until he shows he can stay healthy and do it consistently, he's not considered more than a number three starter or an average number two.
So here's an option that the Cardinals must, and most likely are considering: rebuild. This would mean trading Chris Carpenter and getting some value for him while he's still healthy and has a lot of potential return. If you do the deal now, you would get more in return because the team acquiring him would have a full season rather than less than half if it were at the trading deadline. If you move Matt Holliday also, you are freeing up a ton of money, and can start building around Colby Rasmus for the 2013 season when Wainwright returns from Tommy John. Let's face it, the Cardinals cannot make up for the (just over) 6 wins a game that Wainwright gives them according to WAR projections from FanGraphs. They have to do what's right for the organization and try to recoup some value while they still can.
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