Oswalt a Cardinal?

Roy Oswalt says he wants to pitch in St.Louis. That seems like a great opportunity for the Cardinals to improve their pitching staff with another veteran arm. However, because Oswalt wants to continue to be a starter and is looking for a one year deal worth ten million dollars no deal has been reached. The Cardinals already have five starting pitchers under contract and the two pitchers that they would consider trading, Kyle Lohse and Jake Westbrook, both have full no trade clause. Oswalt's desire to make ten million is more than the Cardinals have to spend on payroll. These problems, however, can be solved, the question seems to be is Oswalt who has had back problems the last two seasons worth the money and the trouble.

The Cardinals seem to think he is since the have been shopping right handed reliever Kyle McClellan for trade in-order to free up payroll dollars to sign Oswalt. Moving McClellan and signing Oswalt still leaves the issue of six starters. A issue that most major league teams would love to have, the possible answers to this problem are numerous. The obvious answer is to let spring training success decide who moves to the bullpen. The team could ask Lohse and Westbrooke if either of them want to make the move to the bullpen. The team could always just send one of the two players to the bullpen the most likely candidate is Westbrook since he did pitch from the pen during the playoffs last year. Another, much less likely answer is to go with a six man starting rotation.

I know how crazy that sounds but hear me out, Wainwright is coming back from Tommy John surgery, Carpenter just pitched a career high number of innings (237.1combined regular and post season), and Garcia suffered from fatigue late last season. That is the core of the Cardinals rotation, and if they add Oswalt with his back problems it makes sense to limit the number of innings they all pitch. This would keep all of the starting pitchers rested, productive, and ready for the playoffs. It also has the added benefits of keeping the bullpen fresh, as well as, a built in insurance policy in case any starter goes to the dreaded DL. It doesn't sound so crazy when you put it into that perspective, however, its possible that problems with current starters who don't want to loose the innings pitched,or possible wins, could arise, and there is always the possibility Oswalt himself may not like the idea.

The way I see it is,Oswalt's desired pay is to high, for a guy who want to play for a certain team, however, his desire to continue to start is reasonable as long as he is capable. If Roy Oswalt really wants to pitch in St. Louis he needs to be more realistic about his compensation. It is his desire to come to St. Louis, a club who already has five starters. If the Cardinal organization is willing to trade away young talent in order to pick him up, give him a spot on the starting rotation and possibly cause problems with players they already have under contract. Then Roy needs to lower his asking price and be willing to accept any role the organization comes up with.