Houston Astros: Team should check in with St. Louis Cardinals

The Houston Astros are almost assuredly going to be in the playoffs when October hits. It would take a collapse of epic proportions for them to not only lose the 10 game lead they have over the entire American League, but the 13.5 game wild card lead they have and the 16.5 game division lead they have.

But the Houston Astros don’t want to be the team going into October that didn’t improve itself while others did. Should the New York Yankees add a Gerrit Cole and the Boston Red Sox add a Sonny Gray, we could have a potentially historic Astros season come crumbling down early if we don’t also make moves to ensure we are the best team come fall.

Records mean nothing once playoff baseball starts. It’s a new season when the post season hits, as evidenced by only 14 of 44 teams with the best record in their respective league going on to win the World Series since the Wild Card era began in 1995. Making a trade now is not for the regular season. It’s for making sure you have the team that is best suited to contend with what are your likely playoff opponents.

Were the regular season to end today, the Astros would have the prospect of facing the following teams in the American League playoffs.

New York Yankees
Boston Red Sox
Tampa Bay Rays
Cleveland Indians

Now while a healthy Dallas Keuchel and Lance McCullers Jr. could handle those offenses, would we trust any of our number three-five starters to do so? Adding that third impact starter can make a big difference. And that’s why the Houston Astros should check in on the St. Louis Cardinals for a starting pitcher.

Obviously our two front offices don’t like each other to put it mildly. But with the Chicago Cubs recent acquisition of Jose Quintana, the Cardinals fall further behind in the division race without losing a single game in the standings.

The Cardinals and Cubs have identical records, with identical division deficits of 5.5 games and wild card deficits of 7.5 games. But the addition of Quintana gives the Cubs an impact starter and a head start on hunting down the Milwaukee Brewers for the division crown. And the longer the Cardinals wait to make a trade, the larger the gap between them and the Cubs and Brewers could grow.

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It is not normal for the Cardinals to be sellers at the deadline. Not by a long shot. But it looks like their only shot at the playoffs would be through a division crown. And they’re playing under .500 ball. Add onto the fact that their farm system was ranked 12th by Baseball America heading into 2017, do you really want to be dealing from the 12th best farm system for an outside chance at the playoffs with the clearly superior Los Angeles Dodgers looming?

The Cardinals could trade for a bat to help their offense which is ranked 19th in the major leagues in runs scored, but is that really in their best interest? They have plenty of pitching depth in their rotation, and their overall pitching has been great to tune of the sixth best ERA in baseball at 3.97 just behind our home town Astros in fifth place at 3.93.

The top four teams in ERA in the league though?

Los Angeles Dodgers- 3.15 ERA
Arizona Diamondbacks- 3.41 ERA
Cleveland Indians- 3.78 ERA
Boston Red Sox- 3.82 ERA

All four of those teams are potential challengers to the Astros World Series championship aspirations. This is why we need to play catch up. Our offense needs no improvement, that much is clear. And while fifth place in ERA is great, if your prospective matchups in the American League Divisional round, Championship round and the Major League World Series are better than you, you should narrow that gap, if not overcome it.

While the Cardinals have not come out as sellers, if they were to do so they have a variety of styles of pitchers, ages of pitchers, and a variety of contracts that could be interesting to work with. Other than Carlos Martinez, every single pitcher in their rotation could be a valued addition to our team. Especially Lance Lynn, Adam Wainwright and Michael Wacha who all have extensive post season experience.

Next: Quintana trade puts pressure on Astros

Whatever the Astros do, they need to be creative as one big trade chip came off the board today and the price tag of all these other pitchers who have multiple years of control will be quite hefty. Every team that could be considered a seller, even if they haven’t declared it, must be something to look into. Because we don’t want to see the season that will possibly be the best regular season record in franchise history be cut short because we stood pat when we could have added at the deadline.

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