The American League-leading Astros have shown interest in a bevy of starting pitchers leading up to Monday’s trade deadline, and the latest is Cardinals right-hander Lance Lynn, tweets Jon Morosi of MLB Network. While the teams were recently embroiled in a hacking scandal that resulted in Major League Baseball forcing the Cardinals to send two draft picks and pay a $2MM fine to the Astros, the clubs are “comfortable” dealing with each other, per Morosi.
As Morosi points out (on Twitter), Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow is quite familiar with Lynn, having been in St. Louis’ front office when the team used a first-round pick on the hurler in the 2008 draft. Lynn has enjoyed a nice career with the Cardinals since debuting in 2011, but with his contract up at year’s end and the Redbirds sitting at 51-52 (3.5 games out of the National League Central lead and seven back of a wild-card spot), he could move in the next couple days.
With the exception of 2016, which he missed on account of Tommy John surgery, the 30-year-old Lynn has typically been good for 30-plus starts and at least 175 innings of strong work per season. That has been the case again this year in his return from the procedure, as Lynn has logged a 3.21 ERA, 7.98 K/9, 3.06 BB/9 and a 44 percent ground-ball rate across 120 2/3 frames (21 starts). Lynn has also registered an 11 percent infield fly rate, which ties him for 20th among starters, and posted a 9.1 percent swinging-strike mark that’s right in line with his career mark (9.2). Additionally, per Statcast (via Baseball Savant), Lynn’s terrific .305 expected weighted on-base average against is in line with his actual wOBA allowed (.298).
On the negative side, Lynn’s velocity hasn’t gotten back to its previous levels, and there’s some luckiness behind his stellar run prevention. FIP (4.83), xFIP (4.45) and SIERA (4.39) indicate there could be regression coming, and both Lynn’s .225 batting average on balls in play and 82.3 percent strand rate look likely to trend in the wrong direction as the season progresses.
Regardless of any red flags, Lynn’s track record and results this year have put him on several teams’ radars as Monday approaches. If the Astros win the derby for the $7.5MM man, he’d presumably join Dallas Keuchel, Lance McCullers and Charlie Morton to comprise their top four starters, though Brad Peacock and Mike Fiers have pitched so well out of their rotation over the past couple months that it would be unwise to discount them.
This makes no sense
Why not?
Nah.
lol a lot of teams are interested in Lynn. It’s one thing to be interested, it’s another to actually attempt to acquire him
Cardinals are heading for being doomed to be a second division team in 2018! No moves… grow some balls Mozeliak! Hockey will be starting in a couple of months… something to look forward for the STL sports fan… The Deadbirds are going nowhere!
Have the Astros e-mailed the Cards about this, or did we just hack their system to find out?
hilarious…
Not really
that was sarcasm if you couldn’t tell.
Ah, sorry couldn’t tell
Yeah if the Astros called it is just customary and more than likely attempting a feeler on their relievers. this rumor is thin.
The Cards are just sitting back waiting for the right offer right now. I don’t think he should go unless they atleast get 2 mid level prospects because they could just give him a QO at the end of the season and get an extra draft pick
He might accept a QO of 18M!
He would.
I don’t think he would. He’ll get a long term deal. He won t pass that opportunity up. Probably a 5 year deal.
Say he makes 10 starts between now and the end of the season. That would put him at around 175 to 180 innings his first year back from Tommy John. A team like the Astros could maybe skip him in the rotation a few times, but other teams he could land on will likely not have that luxury. How his arm holds up going into the playoffs would be a question mark. He could conceivably be used as a long man out of the pen in the playoffs, but if he pitches very well down the stretch, you’d want him starting in the divisional series.
Since he is a rental, teams are not going to really care about his long term outlook unless they intend to resign him. They will just pitch him as much as they need. It might sounds cold-hearted, but it’s true.
They came to their senses and are interested in Lynn instead of Samardzija.
Samardzija sucks. He’s only had success in the NL. Just an average pitcher in AL
Thats my point Lance Lynn is an ace compared to Samardzija. Shark would be a 6th or 7th starter for some teams. Glad the cubs got rid of that cancer.
I don’t begin to know how well their rotation has been all season but the Astros offense is World Series capable, should be aiming higher for a difference making starter
Lynn is arguably the 3rd best starter available behind Gray and Darvish.
JV is better than Lynn and has 7 playoff wins. The other 3 have zero playoff wins.
Ummm… if we want to go by post season wins, Lynn has 5, 1 World Series and 4 playoffs. He has 14 postseason starts including 2 in World Series, so if you want playoff experience he’s your man
that’s funny Lance has like 5 or 6 post season wins and a ring
JV isn’t better than Lynn, as far as this season is concerned.
JV *was* better
Plus JVs salary for the next two seasons is a deal breaker.
Lynn has tons of playoff and World Series experience so that’s worth quite a bit to a contender
Lynn for Whitley, that’s all I want haha.
The Cardinals already have tons of RHP prospects. Really no LHP or infielders though, that are significant.
Lol. Um no. No way Astros trade Whitley for him. He is viewed as untouchable along with Tucker. And for good reason. That said, Keith Law rated Astros farm at #4 for mid season rankings. A deal can be made here.
Never ever trust anything that Morosi says about the Cardinals. None of his rumors have ever been accurate.
I don’t understand why the Cardinals don’t seem to want to resign Lynn. I get they have 3 big starting pitching prospects, but if any of them don’t work out or someone is injured, there’s still spots. Wainwright won’t last forever and Wacha is so hit or miss, that leaves you with Leake and Martinez of who is left to start. With Lynn you’ll have that certainty of a rotation spot.
Being a 85% fastball pitcher, he would suffer at home with the ‘stros
I think they view him as a reliever.
That’s funny
Would Love to see Cards hold onto Lynn and resign him to a respectable contract. He’s been around 7 seasons now and comes to play, has a little old school mentality and Loves being in St. Louis. Not to mention I bet they don’t get a descent return for him. Waiting game next 24 hours.
Hard to believe the guy when he has no mention of McHugh in Houstons rotation.
Right. I think people dont really understand the Astros situation. A trade for Lynn would be for BP help, not starting.
Just because the cards trade him doesn’t mean they can resign him.
But he will be a valuable commodity. Now that teams are not loosing first round picks, there will be more buyers. More buyers equates to higher dollars.
Lynn for Colin Moran.
trade Lynn, Rosenthal, Grichuk, and Jose Martinez for Harper
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahajahahahaha
6 innings 2 earned runs 3 strikeouts today
6 innings and 1 run for Astros 6th starter on Saturday. Still, he could be a valuable BP piece for Astros.