Do the Cardinals make sense for Kyle Lohse...again?

In a piece for Grantland Wednesday, author Jonah Keri made an educated guess that Kyle Lohse would end up back with the Cardinals when all is said and done. SB Nation's Grant Brisbee took a look at Lohse a few weeks ago and also concluded, begrudgingly, that Lohse would end up back with the Cardinals. St. Louis is a popular landing spot for Lohse given the unexpectedly dry market for the pitcher's services, but what sort of deal could he expect to get from the team?

As it stands, the Cardinals don't have a need for Lohse or any other free agent starting pitcher. Adam Wainwright, Chris Carpenter, Jake Westbrook, Lance Lynn, Jaime Garcia, Shelby Miller, Joe Kelly and Trevor Rosenthal are all under team control in 2013 and all started games at some level for the organization in 2012. Even with the injury concerns - the health of Garcia's shoulder is still a question, and it's uncertain how much the Cardinals will be able to get out of Carpenter - there's enough depth there that the team hasn't been linked to any pitchers this offseason.

In that sense, the Cardinals and Lohse don't seem to be a fit. But Lohse is still a valuable pitcher and, cost aside, would have a spot in any MLB rotation. In 2012, his age 33 season, Lohse had the best year of his career, winning 16 games and posting a 3.6 WAR according to FanGraphs. That WAR was good enough for 28th in baseball among pitchers. Lohse could be and has been a contributing member of a rotation for a contender.

It was those numbers and that belief that led Lohse and agent Scott Boras to turn down the Cardinals' $13.3 million qualifying offer earlier this offseason. The expectations were that Lohse and the rest of the free agent starting pitchers would cash in huge paydays this winter. And to some extent that has come to fruition - Zack Greinke got six years and $147 million from the Los Angeles Dodgers, and Anibal Sanchez, who posted a 3.8 WAR in 2012, got five years and $80 million from the Detroit Tigers. Even Edwin Jackson, whose WAR was almost a full win below Lohse's last year, recently got a four-year, $52 million deal.

There are likely a few reasons Lohse hasn't inked a long-term deal yet. Derrick Goold took a closer look at one: the loss of a draft pick, and subsequent loss of the bonus attached to that pick, that comes with signing Lohse. Lohse's age - he'll pitch the entire 2013 season at 34 - is also presumably working against him.

Questions about how good Lohse will be going forward also make his value tough to figure. Over the past two seasons, Lohse has generated 6.1 wins above replacement; in his previous 10 he was worth a total of 18.6. A pitcher who relies on changing speeds and generating weak contact - Lohse's BABIP the past two seasons was .269 and .262, respectively - it's fair to wonder if Lohse is worth the kind of money he and Boras are looking for.

At this point, Boras's best bet may be a "pillow" deal for Lohse in hopes that next year's offseason is more lucrative for his client. It's not a foreign concept for Lohse and the Cardinals - it was a similar-type deal that brought Lohse to the Cardinals in March 2008. Other teams won't forfeit a draft pick for one year of Lohse's services, so the Cardinals are likely Lohse's only option for such a deal. And it's the only deal the Cardinals would presumably sign as well, considering the talent that should be close to major-league ready this season and certainly by 2014.

Lohse turned down a one-year, $13.3 million offer a few months ago, but given the position Lohse is in the terms of a one-year deal shouldn't approach that number now. The offer should instead be cheap enough that the Cardinals get the better end of the deal. If Lohse were to produce another 3.6-win season, $13.3 million would be a slight bargain; if we assume, due to aging, regression to the mean, luck normalization, etc., that Lohse is closer to the 2-win pitcher he's been over the course of his career, a $13.3 million deal would actually be a win for Lohse.

Going by the calculation that each win above replacement is worth $5 million to a team, Lohse, producing at or slightly above his career WAR-per-year, would be worth something around $11 million next season. Given that the Cardinals have arms like Miller, Rosenthal and Kelly who are all capable of producing around 2 wins next season (Kelly, regarded as the pitcher with the lowest amount of upside of the three, produced 1 win in 107 innings last season) they shouldn't pay the premium for Lohse. Instead, the Cardinals should push for something closer to the one-year, $8 million range. They are in the driver's seat, after all.

Does a deal like that make sense for Lohse, a pitcher who received Cy Young votes a month ago? Probably not. So maybe projecting him to be a member of the Cardinals in 2013 doesn't make sense, either.