The St. Louis Cardinals, according to many sources, seem to be searching for starting pitching.

The one thing the team has made sure that everyone is well aware of is the depth of starting pitching in this organization.  If that is true, then why the search for another arm in the rotation?

According to Derrick Goold of The St. Louis Post Dispatch, it appears the team feels the need for more innings in the rotation.  The loss of Chris Carpenter, the concern over Jaime Garcia, and the unknown of what kind of workload the young arms can carry has the team willing to add a known “inning eating” commodity.  Most recently, that interest has shown in the Tigers Rick Porcello.

Should the concern be warranted?  Adam Wainwright is now two springs removed from Tommy John surgery and projected to be back to his normal self.  The Jake Westbrook trade and subsequent signing was based off of his ability to pitch a high number of innings.  The Cardinals have not had two pitchers with over 200 innings just once in the last 26 years, as pointed out by friend of the site Jon Doble.

Looking at trends over the last three years for the projected six men battling for the five spots in the rotation, the concern does come through.

Wainwright was injured the entire 2011 season, having a large impact on his three year average of 143 innings pitched.  If we remove the injury season and go back a year further, his average jumps up to 220 innings.  The concern is whether or not his arm can carry that load again, but for the sake of argument in this space, I give him the benefit of the doubt.  Innings Based On Average: 220

Westbrook was brought in to solve the issue of innings pitched.  Despite nagging injuries the last few years, he has approached the 200 inning plateau, though he has not reached it.  His 2010 season was split between the Indians and the Cardinals, but was still a productive one.  His average places him second in this discussion, though he is probably the number three man in the rotation.  Innings Based On Average: 187

Garcia, the wild card of the bunch, has seen injuries and ineffectiveness effect him during his major league career.  At times, he has been a dominant, top-of-the-rotation type pitcher.  At others, he has been sporadic and wild, projecting more at the back of the rotation.  Last season was the worst in his three year average, only producing a little more than 121 innings.  So far this Spring, it appears he has righted the ship and is back on pace to be a big part of this team.  Innings Based On Average: 166

Lance Lynn is a bit harder to project based on his limited exposure at the Major League level.  Many tend to forget that he was a starter during his minor league career, however, and the three year projection goes back to grab an entire year of starting at the Triple-A level.  His average is hurt by his time in the bullpen in St. Louis in 2011, but is still respectable for a guy entering his second year in a big league rotation. Innings Based On Average: 150

The final spot in the rotation will be left to either Joe Kelly or Shelby Miller.  Kelly is the easiest to examine in this conversation, thanks to his production filling in for Garcia last season.  His workload reached a peak due to the need for him in the big league rotation last year and leaves the Cardinals hopeful that he can repeat that performance but concerned that he may have pushed too hard, too soon.  It is also important to note that his 2010 season saw him work out of the bullpen in Class-A ball for a period of time. Innings Based On Average: 138

Shelby Miller has everyone buzzing.  He ranks as one of the top ten prospects in all of Major League Baseball and the team and fans are both excited to see what he can do on the biggest stage.  He gave everyone a glimpse of his potential at the end of last season.  He may be the biggest unknown in this situation and he may also offer a saving grace.  He projects as a top of the rotation starter and will be relied upon throughout his career and that time may come as soon as this season.  Innings Based On Average: 131

The ultimate equation that you would like to apply to an ideal situation is to break up the innings based on quality starts.  A quality start requires six innings pitched from the starter and there are 162 games in the major league season.  That puts most teams looking for 972 innings from their starting rotation in a perfect world.  The Cardinals rotation will fall well short of that goal based off of these projections. Innings For Rotation Based On Average: 854-861

That leaves the team about 110 innings short of where they would like to be.  The name that is driving the most attention right now is Rick Porcello, who’s three year average puts him at 183 innings.  Even if he was slotted to fill the five spot in the rotation, this gains the Cardinals around 50 innings.  A drastic improvement but not one that reaches their goal.

The Cardinals are relying on one of the pitchers in their rotation to overachieve their average and the addition of Porcello, or someone similar, to pick up the remainder of the balance.

Ultimately, the move may not be necessary but at the same time, it is not a bad one.  Assuming the team doesn’t have to part with any key components of the future, a trade for Porcello makes a whole lot of sense once you take a look at the numbers.

Bill Ivie is the editor here at i70baseball.
You can follow him on Twitter by clicking here.

It’s a so far, so good Spring Training for the Kansas City Royals. As of Wednesday, March 20, the Royals lead the Cactus League with a 18-6 record. There’s no major injuries. Mike Moustakas and Eric Hosmer are playing well. The team hasn’t done anything that makes you scratch your head, at least not yet. They even made a good decision moving Hochevar to the bullpen. In other words, it’s an abnormal Royals Spring training.

There’s some roster spots up for grabs, but they’re more set than the Royals let on. For instance, the “battle” between Bruce Chen and Luis Mendoza for the fifth starting spot. If you go by stats alone, Mendoza is clearly having a better spring, with a 0.82 ERA in three games with 11 innings pitched, giving up an earned run and no home runs. Meanwhile, Chen has a 7.90 ERA in four games with 13.2 innings pitched, giving up 12 earned runs and seven (seven!) homers. So Mendoza should get the fifth starting spot, right?

Royals manager Ned Yost says he’ll decide the starting rotation this Friday and I’m betting Chen will get the fifth starting spot and Mendoza will be a long reliever. Why? Remember, Spring Training stats are meaningless and with Chen’s 14 years in the Majors, he’ll get the benefit of the doubt. Mendoza has six years of Major League experience, but except for 2008 and 2012, he’s had limited playing time. If anything, Yost is a traditionalist and he’ll go with the longtime Royals starter Chen over Mendoza. I’d be surprised if Yost chooses Mendoza over Chen.

This isn’t a battle for a roster spot, but with David Lough having a great spring (a .500/.513/.711 line, with 19 hits, six doubles, a triple and five RBI over 20 games and 38 at-bats), He’s making an argument to have a shot at right field. But it’s likely Lough will go to AAA Omaha.

It doesn’t matter what Lough does, he’s not supplanting Jeff Francoeur in right field. Yes, over 22 games and 53 at-bats, Frenchy has a .208/.250/.396 line with 11 hits, three doubles, two triples, a home run and seven RBI. Remember when I said Spring Training stats are meaningless? They still are, even when some fans want them to apply to Francoeur.

Like Chen, Frenchy has several years of Major League experience over Lough, who debuted in the Majors last year. Francoeur provides “veteran leadership” managers like Yost want to see. Plus the Royals don’t want to have a $7.5MM a year player on the bench. Unless Francoeur suffers injury or the Royals trade him, Lough will be in Omaha. Or Yost might surprise us all and choose Lough over Jarrod Dyson as a fourth outfielder. But with Dyson’s experience and speed, it’s not likely the Royals choose Lough over Dyson. If Lough stays on fire in Omaha and Francoeur crashes and burns, Lough might get a long-term roster spot with the Royals this season.

In the battle for second base, I believe Chris Getz will start at second base and Johnny Giavotella will go to AAA Omaha. This spring, Getz has a .359/.419/.513 line and over 20 games and 39 at-bats, Getz has 14 hits, three doubles, a home run (yes, Getz hit a home run) and six RBI. Meanwhile, Giavotella has a .273/.289/.409 line over 20 games and 44 at-bats with 12 hits, three doubles, a home run and 11 RBI. Despite Getz’s higher line, they have similar offensive numbers.

But it all comes down to defense, and Getz still has the edge. Like Chen and Francoeur, Getz has more Major League experience than Giavotella and Yost will go with the “safe” bet. Now with Getz’s recent issues with injuries, there’s a good chance Giavotella will be with the team sometime this season. But his offense and defense will need to improve if he wants to stay at second.

Salvador Perez will be the starting catcher this season, but there’s competition between Brett Hays and George Kottaras for the backup catcher role. Both are veteran backup catchers and with similar spring offensive numbers (Hayes with a .241/.313/.483 line, seven hits, a double, two home runs and eight RBI, Kottaras with a .269/.424/.346 line, seven hits, two doubles, and three RBI), it’s honestly a coin flip between the two. Either player will be a good backup catcher and let’s hope Perez stays healthy so Hayes and Kottaras stay backup catchers.

Besides the starting rotation, Yost won’t make his final roster decisions until the end of Spring Training. Unlike previous years, there’s not a real bad choice for Yost to make. But whatever roster decisions the Royals make, everyone on the roster has to play to their potential for the Royals to have a good season.

After a 6-16 start, Royals fans should no longer give this organization the benefit of the doubt.

This column was supposed to be about Albert Pujols’ slow start and how that might affect the Royals’ ability to sign Eric Hosmer to a long-term contract. However, that idea will be saved for another day. Going into Tuesday night’s game, the Royals had won 3 out of their last 4 games, and fans were given reason to believe that things were looking a bit more positive after the 12 game losing streak the team had just snapped. And then tonight happened. The Royals were blown out 9-3 by the Detroit Tigers, while Luke Hochevar had his 2nd historically horrific first inning of the young season.

Royals fans have taken the organization to task for this year’s slogan, “Our Time”. But is this really any different than any of the other BS that has been spewed to the fan base over the last 20 years? “The Process” is appearing to be nothing more than another meaningless phrase used to dupe a naive fan base that has endured so much misery that they are willing to latch onto any positive sign that may present itself, even if it happens to be nothing more than smoke and mirrors.

The Royals can use whatever catchy, feel-good phrases and buzzwords they want to use. Royals fans will not be falling for this anymore, nor should they. There isn’t much more to say at this point. The Pujols/Hosmer column may or may not be written. If things continue down this road, it won’t matter whether Pujols is making Hosmer more sign-able. Because he will be ready to hop on the first bus out of town when his contract is up, just like Johnny Damon, Zack Greinke, Carlos Beltran, and pretty much every player worth keeping that has come through Kansas City in the last 20 years has.

There is a famous line in the film A League of Their Own where Tom Hank’s character says, “Crying… Are you crying? There’s no crying in baseball.” I have always remembered that line. For some reason, a slight variation of that popped into my head when I read yesterday’s Post-Dispatch article about Mike Matheny. “Sleeping…Are you sleeping? There’s no sleeping in baseball”.

Matheny was too excited to sleep before his first Grapefruit League game as a manager. He decided to pop out of bed at 3 am and was at the park a little after 4 that morning. It reminded me the St. Louis Cardinals went from the game’s most experienced manager to its least within a few weeks of winning the 2011 World Series. While it is too early for any kind of “spring training report card”, I do want to make some early observations regarding the Matheny era, and pose some questions as to what Cardinal fans should keep on their radar early in the season. After all, a two-year contract does not leave a lot of time for learning on the job.

I have generally had good feelings about the Matheny hire. Mozeliak had been grooming him for the position, and Mozeliak certainly has earned the benefit of the doubt on big decisions like this. Matheny seems to be doing all the right things early on in the job; consulting the right people, reaching out to the players, reaching out to former (and estranged) Cardinal legends. He has provided a smiling face to the media, which is certainly a welcome change.

He faces a lot of challenges as well. As previously alluded to, he does not have a lot of time to earn his stripes – losing will not be tolerated with the Cardinals 2012 roster. If the team is hovering around .500 at the All-Star break, you can bet there will be some fans calling for his job. Despite losing Albert Pujols, Dave Duncan, and Tony LaRussa, the general consensus in Cardinal Nation is that the 2012 team is better on paper than the championship 2011 team due to the addition of Carlos Beltran and the return of Adam Wainwright. There is a lot of pressure on Matheny.

Something I have encouraged people to keep a close eye on is the Cardinals first twenty-seven games of the 2012 season. After Opening Day with the Marlins, the Cardinals play twenty-six consecutive games against the NL Central (ranked the worst division in baseball). The schedule is kind to Matheny this season, as interleague play pits the Cardinals against the second weakest division in baseball, the AL Central. While that seems to be an advantage, I put a lot of importance on the early games for so many reasons, not the least of which is Matheny setting the tone for his managerial reign.

Here are a few early observations.

1. Matheny runs a tight ship. The practice schedule runs on airport time. Matheny does not round to the nearest five minutes. If you are a pitcher you better be ready for you session to start at 9:38 am, because that is when the skip has it scheduled.

2. Matheny puts emphasis on player development in spring training. Look at the number of at-bats and innings pitched already for the younger prospects in the first two games of the spring. More than that, I was intrigued at how Matheny worked the prospects into the hitting and pitching groups during the first two weeks of spring training. LaRussa seemed to have a more “show me what you can do” approach in spring training, where he got his key guys a lot of reps and let everyone else try to earn a shot. Matheny is putting a bigger emphasis on the organization’s responsibility to develop the next wave of players that can contribute at the major-league level. Could you imagine LaRussa putting Tyrell Jenkins in Chris Carpenter‘s throwing group on the first day of camp?

3. Matheny is a “hands-on” manager. LaRussa would typically watch Grapefruit League games from just outside the dugout. Matheny is inside the dugout, working and instructing the team. Matheny is out on the field throwing batting practice.

Some intriguing questions to be answered.

1. Game management

How will he use his bullpen when the games really count? What kind of pitch count will the starters be on? Will he bunt and steal? I hear mixed reports. On the one hand, I see where he is working with the team on better base running and stealing, and that he wants to better utilize the bunt and hit-and-run. On the other hand, I hear how he is going to use advanced metrics much more than LaRussa did. In Sabermetricville, bunting is a crime unlike any other….never, never, never give up outs. How will Matheny manage moving runners over in traditional sacrifice situations.

2. Handling veteran players

This, in my opinion, is his greatest challenge as a manager. He is not only managing a lot of guys close to his own age, he is managing some former teammates as well. Will he command the respect of the clubhouse or be a “player’s manager”? Is it possible for him to be both in his first year? Will the veterans show him the same level of respect they showed LaRussa. It is hard to move from a friend and a peer to a boss.

Yadier Molina‘s quote yesterday about Matheny getting to the park so early, was very interesting to me. He said, “It’s OK if he gets a little nervous. I get nervous, too, every time”. I certainly could be reading too much into that, but that is not a comment I would make about or to my boss. Again, I know it is a stretch to read anything into that one comment, but it got me thinking about the relationship between Matheny and the veteran players. If they ever get the sense that Matheny is just Mozeliak’s puppet, he could have a very hard time keeping control of the clubhouse.

With all of that being said, I do expect Matheny to be successful. I want him to be successful. He is a great baseball mind, a hard worker, a man of great integrity, and someone that cares deeply about carrying on the Cardinal Way. He seems to have enough fortitude to handle criticism and the constant questions regarding his experience.

Watching the first two games of spring did cause me to think a lot about the new manager and his role. It really sunk in that someone new is calling the shots from the dugout, and we do not quite have a blueprint for their game management style. While there is uncertainty still in so many areas, one thing is for sure…Matheny is not sleeping on the job.

Let’s lay off Alcides Escobar, okay people?

The 24-year-old Venezuelan-born shortstop was the key piece in the trade that sent Zack Greinke to Milwaukee, and within hours after the trade, Royals fans were complaining about being ripped off.

Doubtless, Alcides had a rough year in 2011. He batted only .235 over the course of 145 games, and his on-base percentage was well below .300. In 552 plate appearances, he walked only 36 times while striking out 70. He did manage to steal 10 bases.

But the expectations for this young man were so much higher. In Milwaukee, Escobar was believed to be the Second Coming of Derek Jeter. He was the prospect upon which all future hopes were pinned.

After one horrendous year, those hopes were thrown out the window, and Escobar was shipped out of town along with a few prospects to land Greinke and to rebuild what is now a fully loaded Brewers squad.

Fans have been awfully quick to write off Escobar because of his 2010 performance. But let’s be realistic: this young man has played in a grand total of 192 Major League games. One hundred ninety-two. That’s barely over a full season. He’s still extremely young, and he hasn’t yet reached his peak age, the “sweet spot” so to speak, when a ballplayer reaches his full maturity level (usually between 26 and 30).

Let’s give Escobar the benefit of the doubt.

Escobar is a lock to win the starting shortstop job in Kansas City. And that’s a good thing: defensively, Escobar is a huge upgrade from Yuniesky Betancourt, who also left town in the Greinke trade (good luck with Yuni, Brewers fans!). Alcides will get a long-term chance to prove himself.

That being said… nobody in this year’s Royals lineup can assume guaranteed job security – not even Billy Butler, who is without question the best hitter on the team (and one of the most underrated hitters in the league) and the club’s first baseman, and who should feel the glut of slugging first base prospects nipping at his heels.

The shortstop position is no different, especially with 2010 first-round draft pick Christian Colon looking like a natural fit for that spot in the future.

But Alcides has a little wiggle room. Even if he repeats a lousy 2010 performance, he may have competition in Spring Training 2012, but I’m certain he’d still be the front-runner for a starting position.

At his very best, Alcides Escobar has the potential to be Jeter-like. At worst, he’s a light-hitting glove wizard. Those guys may be a dime a dozen in the world of baseball (see: Getz, Chris), but every team has at least one roaming the middle infield and anchoring the back of the lineup. Somewhere in the middle is a great fielder and an above-average hitter who can use his speed to generate runs.

There’s nothing wrong with that.

Matt Kelsey is a Royals writer and associate editor for I-70 Baseball. He can be reached at mattkelsey14@yahoo.com.