So who will the #Cardinals use to replace Matt Adams?

Matt Adams, out for
awhile after a Joe Kelly
baserunning oops

After part 1 and part 2 of my discussion on how the St. Louis Cardinals should replace out-for-the-year first baseman Matt Adams, it's time for further thoughts.

One is: Do nothing. With Adam Wainwright out for the year and Marco Gonzales injury-dinged, the Cards don't have a lot of pitching staff depth. They obviously don't have infield depth. That leaves just outfielders as trade bait. And Mark Reynolds isn't significantly worse than Adams. The team doesn't need to replace a 5-WAR player, after all.

Related to this is "be patient," whether the Cards do nothing for the rest of the year, or just for right now. We're not even close to the All-Star break, a traditional start-up on "moving day." And, with two wild cards in each league, teams stay in the playoff hunt longer.

Matt Holliday, pretending to be a first baseman.
Brian Stull/STLBaseballWeekly.com

Two is: Don't get trolled by Matt Holliday, or the idea of him playing first, as he pretended to do during fielding practice yesterday. (Per one comment, he's not even wearing a first baseman's mitt.)

Second, per Viva El Birdos, this would be a horrible idea. Not just a bad idea, but a horrible one. The man can't stretch, has little range, little judgement on balls, and at 3B in the low minors, had a sub.-900 fielding percentage. Yes, you read that right.

OK, so no Holliday.

Second, I've cooled back off on Ryan Howard. He's not THAT much better than Adams, and even if Ruben Amaro ate 80 percent of his contract, there's still a $10M buyout after the end of 2016, unless Ruben eats some of that. And we all know that RAJ doesn't make trades lightly or readily.

Third, then: So, who else?

Bernie Miklasz has a list of possibilities. Let's take a look at a few.

Ben Zobrist? I'm definitely down with that, if the price isn't high. Price can't be too high as, unlike the A's, the Cardinals couldn't make a qualifying offer to him with his free-agency eligibility at the end of the season. Plus, per what I said above about "not out of it," while the A's are way back in the AL West, their run differential isn't bad, and no wild card is coming out of the AL East. Billy Beane's not moving him before the ASG, if at all.

Ike Davis? Could be interesting, but might also be pricey on a trade, at least right now, precisely because he's cheap and under arb control for another year, appealing to Beane.

Daniel Nava? Went on the DL the day Bernie wrote the column. Nope.

Daniel Murphy? No chance the Mets move him, battling for the NL East lead with the Nationals lacking, for various periods of time ahead, Stephen Strasburg, Jayson Werth and Doug Fister, among others.

Travis Ishikawa? There's reasons the Giants DFAed him. This blog, citing a likely self-proclaimed expert that the market for Ishikawa would be "strong," shows the cluelessness levels sports can reach. Instead, Ishikawa cleared waivers without a nibble and he's still with the Giants, down at AAA Fresno.

Adam Lind? Yeah, he's got both some average and some bop. But, per Bernie, the Brewers might not sell cheap. He also fields as bad as Adams or Reynolds, and his righty-lefty splits are about 2/3 as bad as Adams, which isn't good.

Fourth is going back to largely standing pat, but including seeing if Xavier Scruggs has anything to offer. (Moving Stephen Piscotty to yet another position does not seem good, and the Cards have nobody else to really consider at either Memphis or Springfield.)

So, if you're a Cards fan, just hand on for now, and maybe hope for the A's to crater more, and soon.