TOWER GROVE — While watching the Yankees gain on the Red Sox and restore karmic balance to the AL East, I was struck by New York’s trio of rookie pitchers. Not that they sprang from the minors to stabilize a rickety rotation. No. The thought I couldn’t shake about the young guns was this:

They could have been Cardinals.

This is not some what-if, some speculative reporting tethered to rumors and guesses. This isn’t revisionist writing  or even historical fiction. It isn’t hindsight. (OK, OK, it’s a little bit of hindsight.) But the Yankees are charging into the postseason  with help from  three rookie pitchers — Ian Kennedy, Philip Hughes and Joba Chamberlain – and all three could be part of the club’s rotation next year. Meanwhile, the Cardinals are tossing out TBA after TBA, bracing themselves for another offseason quest for starting pitching and pledging to look within for a prospect  who is there … somewhere.

Those prospects (at least three of them) were there.

Ripe for the picking.

And  the Cardinals passed.

A recap: In 2003, with the 425th pick overall, the Cardinals selected a righthanded pitcher out of La Quinta High School in Westminster, Calif. He wasn’t the highest profile prospect on his high school team. He wasn’t even the highest regard Ian. But Ian Kennedy had the profile of a pitching prospect, and he was bound for Southern Cal and represented by Scott Boras, which meant signability issues. The Cardinals took. Felt they had a chance. But this was near the beginning of a high school-phobia that gripped the Cardinals. Kennedy wanted too much. The high risk of spending on a high school pitcher spooked the Cardinals. So off to college Kennedy went.

A year later the Cardinals had the 19th overall pick.

That was about all they had, as the club went into the amateur draft without any cross-checkers and less than the best amount of information available on several highly touted prospects. The Cardinals had their eyes on a third baseman — Josh Fields. When he was taken 18th overall, the Cardinals draft directors reset and wrote out a list of three players, all pitchers, that they wanted to draft. That list was presented to some of the club officials. It read:

• Philip Hughes, RHP
• Glen Perkins, LHP
• Chris Lambert, RHP

For some of the Cardinals’ baseball operations, Hughes was the clear choice. He had the 6-foot-5, 200-plus-pound frame. He had the stuff. Scouts said he had the feel. Baseball America called him, at the time, the “complete package.”  He had one drawback, in some eyes. Three words: High school pitcher. The 2004 draft is infamous in these parts and its partly because it was The College-Try Draft. The Cardinals went with Lambert.  (Lambert “will spurn a promising future in hockey,” said USA Today.) Perkins went 22nd overall to  Minnesota. Hughes went 23rd.

Hughes was the top prospect in the Yankees organization entering this season, according to Baseball America. Perkins was the second-best prospect in Minnesota’s organization. Both have  been  in the major leagues this season, and Hughes is 4-3, 4.75 in 11 starts for the Yankees. Lambert? He was just picked as the player to be named later in the Mike Maroth deal with Detroit.

He topped out as a struggling Triple-A reliever for the Cardinals.

Fast-forward to 2006, and the Cardinals are on the clock at 30th. Coming out of USC was a familiar righthander, one the Cardinals were believed to have their eye. Sources differ on whether the Cardinals had renewed interest in Kennedy. He had arm issues, a less-than-ideal frame. But he had talent. And he might slip. He didn’t. Kennedy went 21st overall. (In the draft room that day, Kennedy was rated rather low on the Cardinals’ board and there were some surprised exclamations when the Yankees snapped him up.)

The Cardinals took Adam Ottavino, a college pitcher, with the 30th pick and eyed another college pitcher in the supplement round.

It wasn’t Joba Chamberlain.

The pitcher from  Nebraska was part of a Big 12 duel of aces between Mizzou’s Max Scherzer and the buoyant fireballing Cornhusker. The Cardinals saw Chamberlain several times but seemed lukewarm on him going into the draft. There were health concerns. Triceps tendinitis. Knee surgery. The Cardinals looked south instead and were pleased when Chamberlain went 41st overall and they nabbed Chris Perez at 42. So, Kennedy is getting mentioned as a playoff reliever for the Yankees and Chamberlain is a bona fide Broadway sensation with 24 strikeouts in 18 1/3 innings and a teeny 0.49 ERA in 14 appearances.

Perez is off to Team USA and will get a chance to pitch his way onto the major-league team this spring, though some feel his delivery needs to be refined before he’ll get make the most of that chance. Ottavino spent the season in Class A, where did … well enough. While the Cardinals ponder where Ottavino belongs this coming season, the Yankees have their own dilemma with Chamberlain.

Is he a starter? Or the heir apparent to closer Mariano Rivera?

Decisions. Decisions.

This game of shoulda, woulda, coulda with the draft can be played with any franchise. Think San Diego would like to rethink that Matt Bush over Justin Verlander selection? Or perhaps they’d consider Stephen “Dirt” Drew?

The how of these draft misses are everywhere. It’s the why that concerns us.

The Yankees future rotation contrasted with the Cardinals craving for pitchers reveals how one team has the financial wherewithal and philosophy to take chances while another  prefers to stick to slot and measured selections. Ottavino signed for slot at $950,000. Perez signed for near slot at $800,000. Somewhere inbetween, Chamberlain received the highest bonus of any player selected in 2006’s supplemental round — at $1.15 million.

There’s more going on here than slot work, though.

There’s just misfires, misreads, a preference for early returns instead of long-term gains.

Lambert signed for $1.525 million, Perkins for $1.425 million and Hughes for $1.4 million. Not too much difference. Perkins and Hughes improved. Lambert struggled to find the consistent velocity that made his scouting report glow in 2004.

In  2005, the Cardinals had picks 28 and 30, going with  torchbearer Colby Rasmus and Tyler Greene. Ten picks after Green, the Dodgers swung for the fences, took Luke Hochevar and whiffed on signing him. With the 42nd pick, Boston took Clay Buchholz. (Heard how that one turned out? No-no you haven’t? C’mon …) And, at 43, the Cardinals selected Baylor righthander Mark McCormick. Rasmus is a bona fide future star. Greene has struggled; McCormick has spent most of his pro time injured. Both were safe, sturdy, track-record picks. So is it better to have picked and signed, or to take a mighty swing and miss?

That’s the organizational philosophy facing the Cardinals as they insist they want to be better at picking, grooming and debuting in-house talent.

Particularly at pitching.

Detroit appears set for several seasons because of a risk-taking approach to the draft. The Tigers — who, granted, have routinely picked higher than the perennial contending Cardinals — have had talent slip to them in the draft because of signability issues and they’ve pounced. Verlander, for example. Or Andrew Miller and Cameron Maybin, who are also in the majors. This year, it was Rick Porcello, the prep pitcher the Cardinals had rated as the best high school pitcher in the draft. The best high school pitcher in the draft who was available at 18 when the Cardinals picked.

They called his advisor. They checked to see if they could pay the price.

They picked Pete Kozma.

The prep shortstop, who is seen a safe and predictable prospect, signed for slot, at $1.395 million. Porcello, who is a risk by the nature of high school pitchers, signed at well above slot, going for a $3.58-million bonus at pick No. 27. His total package is worth a reported $7 million guaranteed. He’s a costly miss if he’s a miss. But if he’s a major-league starting pitcher, he’s a bargain in today’s market.

The Yankees have the  bank account to take even bigger gambles than Detroit. In short: They can afford to make a mistake. With the  30th pick overall, the Yankees took Andrew Brackman this past summer.  An NC State basketball, Brackman  has few college innings and a whole bundle of upside. He also needs Tommy John surgery. So, the Yankees were maybe the only team who could afford to take the risk and  pay his price  –  $3.35 million.

Big gambles. Big payoffs.

There is plenty of logic to the Cardinals leaning toward signing free-agent pitchers who have a major-league track record as opposed to spending at the front end on the fleeting promise of a prospect. But the Cardinals stated goal is to develop the next generation of pitchers from within. They have done that in the bullpen. They are starting to do that several positions.

Starting pitching remains their white whale.

They have a few pitchers steadily climbing toward the majors — Mitchell Boggs, Ottavino, Jaime Garcia, etc.  – but they don’t have an eye-popper. They’ve sided with safe. With a few notable exceptions. For example: In 2005, the Cardinals coveted Jay Bruce, wanted to draft Jay Bruce, and new they wouldn’t get the chance at the Cincinnati farmhand who just won Baseball America’s minor-league player of the year. So, they identified a player like Bruce, a high-risk, potentially high-reward pick that had the chance to be Bruce.

The player the Cardinals identified as Bruce-like? Rasmus.

So watch the Yankees’ uprising. Check out the rookie pitchers who could have been Cardinals and consider the youth-infused rotation the Yankees will have next summer or the season after. Building from within takes more than saying so. It means taking some leaps. Reaching for a few Rasmuses,  aim for a Hughes, even if you end up grabbing a few duds along the way.

But don’t dwell on the comparison for long. Bygones, you know.

And there’s all these free-agent pitchers to comb through as the Cardinals rebuild a rotation for 2008.

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