3 STL Cardinals trade targets that would be immediate team stat leaders
By Josh Wilson
If the St. Louis Cardinals acquired these trade targets, they would be immediate leaders on the team statistically.
The St. Louis Cardinals are thought to be ideal sellers at this year’s MLB trade deadline, but don’t be shocked if they end up playing the game as purchasers. The Cardinals, as bad as they have looked, believe their roster is better than results show.
Furthermore, St. Louis exists in the NL Central, which remains one of the most up-for-grabs divisions in MLB.
So, with that in mind, players have been floated as possible incoming targets as frequently as outgoing. Pitching is one of the areas the team needs the most help in, particularly in the starting rotation. Today, we’ll look at possible targets the Cardinals could be considering at the deadline, and how those targets would rank among existing Cardinals in various stats.
Same rules as when I did this for the Braves. It has to be a target someone other than me first pitched, and it also needs to be a relatively conventional stat that the player would rank top-three in this season if their number was transferred over as-is to the Cardinals table.
So, with the rules set, let’s take a look!
Eduardo Rodriguez has a better WHIP than anyone on Cardinals starting staff
With a 1.005 WHIP, Eduardo Rodriguez has a really strong WHIP no matter what team you stack him up against. Among starting pitchers with at least 50 innings pitched, he’s seventh in the MLB in WHIP.
As a reminder, WHIP is walks and hits divided by innings pitched. 1.20 is considered really good, 1.1 is elite, and anything at or below 1.0 is hard to do in the majors.
Rodriguez would join a staff where the strongest starter in this metric is Jordan Montgomery at 1.223. Rodriguez blows everyone else out of the water in this metric.
Even better with Rodriguez is when he does get in rare dicey situations, he has done just fine. In high-leverage situations, he has an ERA of 2.45 with an opposing average of .182, per FanGraphs.