Cardinals land John Lackey from Boston

On Thursday the Cardinals were busy on trade deadline day. They picked up starting pitcher John Lackey from the Boston Red Sox, along with prospect LHP Corey Littrell for right fielder Allen Craig and starting pitcher Joe Kelly. I'll get to Lackey and the others soon. As for Littrell he seems like a good pitcher for depth, he's young and right now in 19 games and 18 starts he's 5-5 with an era of 3.60, he's pitched 100 innings in his seconds minor league season. He has 91 strikeouts and 38 walks. In his future he could be best as a middle reliever or a back end of the rotation type of guy. That's if he reaches the MLB, his stats seem like he has a chance.

Littrell can reach 89-92 on the radar gun, besides his fastball; he throws a curveball, cutter, and a change up. He was ranked the the Red Sox 36th best prospect at the time of the trade.

As for John Lackey, the Cardinals get a starter who has been a big game pitcher in his career, he's not scared to speak his mind. He'll battle on the mound. In 2013, Lackey became the only starter to win to clinching World Series games for two different teams (the Los Angeles Angels in 2002, and Boston Red Sox 2013). The Red Sox signed Lackey as a free agent in December, 2009. The contract was a five-year deal worth $82.5 million. In the contract the Red Sox put a clause in his deal that said if he missed any season due to an injury, they'd have a club option for $500,000 in 2015.

He would later end up having Tommy John surgery and ended up missing the 2012 season. He was able to pitch his way back after having Tommy John surgery. So, he's strikeouts always have been about the same in his career, except for the 2011 season. He also gets lots of credit from people for the Red Sox success in 2013.

Now for Allen Craig and Joe Kelly. It's sad to see both leave. We all need to know that in sports it's always a business. So fan favorites who mean a lot to a team do get traded. Just because they get traded doesn't mean it's the end of the world. Craig was one of the best RBI' machines over the last couple of years. For whatever reason his power seems to be on the decline. And the Cardinals have someone named Oscar Taveras who has been waiting to play full-time.

Taveras mastered triple-A, so why send him to back to Memphis, when there's pretty much nothing left for him to learn? If you had been in a GM shoes what would you all have done if you had to find playing time for Taveras in the MLB? The Cardinals weren't going to trade him, even though there were rumors about him being traded. There's always rumors, teams even wanted Matt Adams? Would you have traded Adams, who's the Cardinals best hitter? I wouldn't have.

I hope Craig does well in Boston, I wish him luck. It's time for Oscar Taveras to play full-time, he has it in him to be a good player. Any GM would have been in a hard situation deciding what to do with both Taveras and Craig. In the end both are starting, so that should be good for both players.

Joe Kelly he's young, but still learning and can improve. Why did the Cardinals trade him you might ask? Easy, they wanted to upgrade their rotation. They need pitchers who can eat innings if they want to make the playoffs. Ever since Michael Wacha got injured and landed on DL, pitchers not named Adam Wainwright and Lance Lynn haven't been going deep into innings. That has made the bullpen become overworked. You don't need a bullpen overworked, when trying to get a playoff spot.

Kelly can help the Red Sox, it was kind of like spring training again for him though. And that's because he's just getting off the DL, and refinding his pitches. He was getting killed in his last four starts, with an era of 7.32 combined for those starts. So, does it make sense to let Kelly stay starting or find pitching who can help make the playoffs or decide to tank it and miss the playoffs?

In Lackey, they get a proven starter who can eat innings and at this point is better than Kelly. Would I have liked to see Kelly stay? Yes I would have. But the Cardinals goal is to always make the playoffs isn't that the goal every season? After all no one knows what will happen in the playoffs once a team gets in. This team have the offense to scoring runs, and can hit. I think the team needed a wake up call somehow and someway. Teams need wake up calls at times, even if it means shaking up the roster.
Allen Craig had been struggling. And didn't seem to be helping the team much, when given chances to see if he could bounce back. Maybe it's because he needs a new team to refind his power. If that's the case, Craig should do well in Boston.

In the end we can be glad the Cardinals are trying to do their best to make the playoffs. And trying to fix one of their main problems which has been starting pitching, ever since Wacha landed on the DL. Keep in mind the rest of the teams like the Pirates and Brewers didn't do much to try to improve, even though the Brewers got a nice player in Gerardo Parra. Other than that the other teams didn't improve. I think those teams sent a message that the trade market is too high.

And if the Cardinals need to add a little offense they still can make a trade in offense, which I could see happening. That's if teams prices drop on players. A lot of the reason to why prices are so high on players is because there are two wild cards now, so there are lots of teams who think they can make a playoff push. So teams now days tend to want to play it out and see if they can make a playoff push.

Just to name a few August trades from the past who ended up helping the team are: John Axford, Larry Walker, and Woody Williams. At least the Cardinals didn't panic and trade the farm for a rental for a few months. When there's no guarantee that the player would stay. And you don't want to give up a prospect you could regret in the future, Micheal Brantley is a perfect example of that who comes to mind. I'm sure the Brewers wish they never traded him.

All in all this should turn out to be a good trade for both teams. The Cardinals also have a ton of pitching depth who could be ready for the MLB soon. One of those pitchers who isn't far off is Marco Gonzales, just to name one of them.