Losing Adam Wainwright to an Achilles injury is a major blow to the Cardinals. It does not mean that St. Louis has to immediately go out and try to find an ace to replace the 33-year-old right-hander whose 41 wins since the start of the 2013 season lead the major leagues.The Cardinals know this, and first will try to patch their rotation with internal options. General manager John Mozeliak gave a fairly honest a se sment of the timeframe that St. Louis will deal with on Sunday, in .MORE: If you get into May and early June and you dont feel like the internal options are the solution you were hoping for, then you might have to look outside, Mozeliak said.The biggest reason for the Cardinals to wait is that the trade market Ryan Pressly Jersey in late April would not be favorable at all. A desperate enough team with enough to offer can always make an offer that cant be refused, but the point is that losing Wainwright should not make the Cardinals desperate enough to make a panic move.Since 2009, Wainwright has Hector Rondon Jersey dependably been worth just north of 4 wins above replacement per year, with WAR figures of 4.4, 4.5, a mi sed season, minus-0.4 after returning from Tommy John surgery, 4.2 and 4.3. At 0.4 through three-plus starts this season, he was trending the same way.The concept of replacement level is important here, because that is what the Cardinals presumably will be plugging into their rotation in absence of a hasty trade. Between Tim Cooney, Marco Gonzales, Tyler Lyons, Zach Petrick, Carlos Villanueva, Boone Whiting and, if he can get his own health i sues sorted out, Jaime Garcia, there is a solid chance that the Cardinals have an internal option who can be above replacement level. But but lets say for the sake of argument that they all zero out.The Cardinals have played 17 of their 162 games, which means that they would expect to lose four Robinson Chirinos Jersey wins over the rest of the season as a result of Wainwright giving way to someone at replacement level. For every 36 games the Cardinals stick with a replacement-level option, they would be costing themselves one win.The trade deadline is July 31, the day of the Cardinals 102nd scheduled game of the season. Between now and then, with the rotation patchwork performing at replacement level, the Cardinals should expect to win 2.3 fewer games than they would with a healthy Wainwright.Again, thats with the a sumption that the performance the Cardinals get from their fill-ins is at replacement level. It also does not take into account the po sibility of better-than-expected performance from Lance Lynn, Carlos Martinez and Michael Wacha, with the latter two in particular having impre sed so far and certainly having the potential to blo som into star-caliber pitchers at the age of 23.Re-evaluating their situation in May or early June is the wise move for the Cardinals, and exactly what you would expect an organization as succe sful as St. Louis has been to pursue. Between now and then, the Cardinals would expect to win one fewer game without Wainwright. The fear of losing one game because stopgap pitchers perform at replacement level instead of above it is not worth Francisco Liriano Jersey paying the steep premium that would be required for a panic trade.Without going so far as to push for a trade right this very minute, , Its one thing to replace your fourth or fifth starter with organizational fill, something entirely different when its the guy who annually provides 230 innings and a shot at a Cy Young. ... The Cardinals cant fake their way through this one.The point of the organizational pitching depth is for the Cardinals not to have to fake their way through it. The ask is not just on whoever fills the rotation spot vacated by Wainwright, its on Lynn, Martinez, Wacha and John Lackey to all be just a little bit better, then for that organizational depth to pay off by being better than replacement level.Get through the next six weeks that way, and by the time the trade market starts to soften up, the Cardinals will be in a more favorable position on the trade market. The immediate gravity of losing a pitcher as good Preston Tucker Jersey as Wainwright leads to thoughts like Strau s of a seismic shift that should move (the Cardinals) to take a hard look at tonights opposing starter, Cole Hamels. St. Louis may well want to get involved in the chase for the Phillies star left-hander, but its worth the potential price of a marginal win to wait and find out for sure.