Because if a pitcher doesnt win games when he's getting 1-2 runs in run support makes him a bad pitcher? I'm glad dumb dumbs like you dont vote for the Cy Young.

WTF?

This isn't just a kill shot, it's a decapitation. Our heads have been ripped off and the Gods of Baseball have taken a diarrhea shit down our throat stumps, while whipping us with our eviscerated entrails.

We could not be anymore ****ed.

Dude, it's way to early to tell how 2011 will play out. I'm not saying who ever the new starter is will replace Waino, but if the starter has a season like Nunez did in '05(except he would be pitching and not hitting), the Cards would have a shot.

This. Come On man the most talented team doesn't win the ws every year. Murders row of pitching? How'd that turn out for Philly last year? We won it in 2006 with less talent than this team. It's not hopeless yet.

I'd be stunned if we finished higher than third in the division. Stunned.

It's way too early to tell. None of us know how the season will play out. For all we know, Cincy could lose Cueto and Milwaukee could lose Greinke. Strauss reported that if the Cards are near the top of the division or WC, they'd likely make a trade for a SP.

Who is going to be 1 2? Reds and Brewers?

With what?

The farm system is barren, and I don't want to give up Miller for a rental.

1. Brewers
2. Reds
3. Cardinals
4. Cubs
5. Astros
6. Pirates.

Maybe when you look at it on paper right now. But, the other division teams could fall apart too.

The reds.....chocked big time in the playoffs and at the end of the year.

The brewers.....they have no heart. Greinke could easily meltdown

The cubs....they always underperform

You don't they'd give up a guy like Greene to get a guy like Hernandez?

Felix?

There's nothing underperforming about the Cubs. The team makeup just isn't that good. HR or nothing hitters, no speed, bad defense, and mediocre pitching.

No, not that Hernandez. Livan. I'm thinking an innings eater. That could also be Milwood.

With carp aging and now waino.... No way they trade Shelby for anyone.

Livan's peripherals just scare the shit out of me. His WHIP is always astronomical, and he's usually good for an ERA of 4.5 or higher, even if he had a good year last year.

I'd rather hope that Ian Snell gets his shit together. That was one move I actually liked.

Another route the Cards could go is trading for Gorzelanny.

It's also no guarantee that Garcia is going to be able to handle another 180+ inning load. I'm seriously, seriously concerned about his ability to make it through a whole season.

Why the hell would you want him?

Bernie speculated about us bringing in Millwood. Better than nothing, I guess. Probably better than half of what we have.

What this guy said!

If this is a legit option, you know we are ****ed beyond belief.

This isn't 2004, we don't have the best lineup in the NL. We can't win 104 games with 6 inning starters who give you an ERA in the mid 4's.

He could be better than who ever the Cards throw in the 5th spot. But I'd rather have an innings eater like Hernandez, but yet have a decent ERA. Can't think of anyone.

Perfect Duncan makeover candidate. Cheap to cut if it doesn't work.

Gorzelanny is a career NLC pitcher with a 4.68 ERA. He's terrible. The only thing he brings to the table is that he's LH.

That is correct. I didn't realize what Gorzelanny's stats were last year. I thought he had an ERA under 4, I was wrong. I think the Cards need a rental pitcher that is an innings eater and yet is decent. Looking at the list of 2012 FAs, I can't find anyone that fits that category, except maybe Hernandez, but I doubt that.

I would like Bonderman over Milwood, but that's just me.

I don't know if there are any solutions to this year. I think we may just have to weather the storm and hope Pujols re-ups, and take it anew in 2012.

Pretty crushing blow to a roster that had some chance to contend with the questionably allocated duct tape applied this offseason. Obviously anything can happen and solid players can arise from nowhere this time of year. However, the odds of success decrease quite a bit when perhaps the 2nd best player on your roster is out for the season. Replaced with Batista or Snell or others brought in to cover the shittyness of Lohse who is now the 4th starter?

Might be the melancholy of the past two weeks being a Cards fan but I am seeing a 75-80 win team with Pujols either leaving or signing a brutally expensive contract.

What are your thoughts on Millwood?

Bartolo Colon and Freddy Garcia are both signed to contracts that allow them to become FA's if they dont make the Yankees roster out of ST. Either one of those would be a decent 1 year fix. Their stats arent that great but their ERA should dip under 4 in the NLC.

I was thinking about mentioning them. I'd rather it be Garcia that would be cut, but I want to see how Colon does in ST.

He's a 36 year old who has posted 5+ ERAs 3 of the last 4 years.

Yeah, but he might do better in the NL.

Maybe.

****.

:sulk:

I just think it's one of those things where there are no solutions, and an attempt to solve the problem is just going to cause more issues down the road.

He's an innings eater, but he is awful. At this point, I'd take Hernandez over him, but I doubt that is a realistic option.

Yeah, it's sort of like choosing the prison you're going to be locked up in for the next year.

I just read a Yahoo story where they reference Carp said he wouldn't be opposed to a mid season trade. Anyone see the real quote?
http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news;_yl...urycards022411

Sadly, I was thinking that before Waino got hurt.

It orginated from a reportersw question that asked if his views were like Pujols, no matter what, no matter if they are out of the race, no trade to any team.

He said, no, if we are out of the race and it will help the Cardinals and I like the team, i would consider the trade.

That sounds a lot more benign than the Yahoo story lead on.

Damn dude, I know losing your ace is a frikkin blow, a huge frikkin hill to overcome. But, we have done it before with Larussa, Pujols and Molina on the team. They know how to overcome adversity. Larussa loves running as the underdog and playing the diss card. Never undersetimate a united locker room, if it happens.

If Berkman can stay off the DL. Produce close to his normal.

Rasmus can step up his game.

Freese can stay healthy and produce


I'm not saying this couldn't be a lost season. but.....

We can make up some of those lost games from waino's loss if those things happen. Big if's, i know but lets wait until we see how they jell, how Berkman, Rasmus and Freese step up to the plate before declaring a lost season.

Big ifs

I agree. Lohshe is also a wild card. What if he returns to old form? Another Big if, I know but jeeezzz its not beyond the realm of possibility that we should just give up on the season before the first pitch is even thrown in spring training.

I had absolutely no hope of even wining a playoff game in 2006. I thought it was going to be an embrassment. a few weeks later I was watching them win the WS live. Strange chit happens in baseball.

Lets wait at least a month before declaring this team done.

I don't think Lohse is a wild card really, he's just terrible. I do think Westbrook will be interesting and whoever gets the 5 spot will be the story to watch for me. I just hope somebody sticks as opposed to rotating bodies through there with no real solution- hell bring back Felipe Lopez

thata my point. No one is expecting anything but a disaster from Loshe. If he actually pitches like a "normal" MLB pitcher that would gain us 4-5 wins of the 10 wins we lost with Waino's loss.

july 4th for me.
sec

You guys aren't spelling his name correctly. It's LOhSE.

Remember, you can't spell LOhSE without LOSE.

FML

:facepalm:

It's not all sunny and rosy, all clear skies ahead, even my homerism can't stretch that far. It's not all lost yet. lets wait a little while before giving up on the season.

Bernie's column:
http://www.stltoday.com/sports/colum...2165a5616.html

Seems he agrees with me and the majority of Cardinal nation....not all is lost.....yet

Before Wainwright's injury, Baseball Prospectus gave the Cardinals a 51.1 percent chance of winning the division, with Milwaukee next in line at 27 percent, Cincinnati third at 13.2 percent, and Chicago fourth at 8.1 percent.

After the injury, when Baseball Prospectus recalculated its playoff odds, the Cardinals came out on top again, but by a slimmer margin.

With no Wainwright, BP still gives the Cardinals a 37.9 percent chance of winning the NL Central. Milwaukee was next with 32.6 percent, followed by Cincinnati (18.7) and Chicago (10.2).

This lines up with the attitude down in Jupiter, where the Cardinals are training instead of mourning.

IF Berkman is healthy
IF Freese is healthy (never has happened, BTW)
IF Garcia can handle a 200 inning load (Good luck with that)
IF Westbrook doesn't regress
IF LOhSE doesn't put up a sub 5.50 ERA
IF Franklin somehow manages to keep his smoke and mirrors act together
IF Carpenter can pitch three straight seasons without major injury (never happened)

This team is paper thin.

You never know, mang. Look at the '06 Cardinals. That team was worse than this one but got hot at the right time.

Uggla will hit past his prime. The question is will his shitty D be moved to 3B.

I mean, will Uggla be moved to 3B after this season? I don't see Chipper coming back after 2011.

They weren't really worse. They had a lot of bad injuries, and the guys got healthy at the right time, and we suffered the most fortunate injury in recent memory when Izzy went down, which allowed Waino to take his spot, and the bullpen had the most unsustainable run of luck in history.

But really, that team had respectable power, and the infield was immeasurably better.

Rolen had a near .900 OPS at third and 22 bombs. We aren't getting anything close to that. The outfield had guys that put up 19, 22, and 19. Not to mention you had a crack-free Spiezio off the bench as a really good utility player, Pujols had his best year,and a legitimate 2nd baseman in Ronnie Belliard.

Are you insane? That was basically the same team that had come off multiple 100 win seasons. Granted, they were near the end and sputtered down the stretch (and imploded the following year), but they were nothing resembling this spit-and-toilet paper disaster we're dealing with this year, nor did they have to deal with the Pujols contract distraction.

Tell me the injuries they had. Edmonds, Albert went on the 15 Day DL, Izzy, who else? I do agree that the infield was better(Ronnie didn't come to the Cards until the deadline, remember?)

It's not impossible for the OF to put up similar or better numbers than the '06 OF. Holliday is better than Duncan, Colby is better than a banged up Edmonds and Berkman can probably put up the same production as Encarnacion did offensively. And I'm still excited about Allen Craig coming off the bench.

I would venture to guess that any of the other clubs in the division has a long "if" list that they have to go right to win the division.

Rolen's shoulder was ****ed up, Edmonds missed 50+ games, Eckstein missed almost 40 games, and we had only three pitchers who made more than 17 starts

You know what the difference is? They aren't relying on guys with long injury histories to put together complete seasons.

The Brewers' best, most important players are all super durable.

You can use the injury ? about the Reds, for Volquez and Cueto, and for Rolen, but really not anyone else.

They may have a deeper bench but they still have issues between the ears. Neither the reds or brewers have shown any mental toughness that would be needed to get 90 wins in this division.

Tony has proven tim and time again that he can lead underdog teams to overperform to their level of talent. Maybe he can do it again, maybe not. But I'm not ready to throw in just yet, before the first pitch is even thrown in spring training.

Was Tony displaying that "mental toughness" when he was intentionally ****ing with Rasmus, or when he ran Rolen out of town, or when the entire locker room combusted last year under his petulant leadership?

You know what his "mental toughness" is? Dave Duncan, Chris Carpenter, Adam Wainwright, and Albert Pujols. And before that it was Dave Duncan, Dave Stewart, and Mark McGwire.

I can't defend the stupid ass things Tony does like chasing off rolen and picking fights with a 5 tool player. Makes no sense to me.

But the historical record is there.

FYP

Yeah, that'd be awesome if he did that and then re-signed with us. Otherwise, the guy is worth the contract based on merchandise alone.

There are rare occasions when players supersede the value of a contract. They become so enmeshed into the fabric of the organization that they essentially become one and the same.

This is the problem with a sabermetric approach to the game. The guy isn't a disembodied 1.020 OPS, 45 HRs, and 8 WAR. You can't always have a dispassionate, robotic approach to building a roster.

If the Cardinals trade Pujols, or if they let him leave, they'll pay for it for the next decade plus.

But again, Hamas - how do we actually improve with Albert? Again, this is not the Phillies, we're not trying to keep a championship caliber club intact. We're trying to hold together a team that has underachieving 3 of the last 4 seasons and pissed down its leg in the remaining one.

Sure, we could re-sign him and probably not get any worse for it. Cardinal management could choose to expand payroll in a manner that allows us to keep Pujols, Holliday, WW, Molina, etc...

But over the last 4 seasons, we've seen that a team built around that core group just isn't very good. Worse still, it damn sure isn't entertaining. I'll take losses if it's an entertaining product, but this club is boring and mediocre. It's far FAR less than the sum of its parts. If we sign Albert, we're locking ourself into 5+ years that are going to be almost exactly the same as the last 4, except that Holliday, Pujols, Molina and Carp will be older (or retired), WW will be coming off major surgery and Rasmus will likely be gone altogether.

Sure, the real problem is probably Tony LaRussa, but he's not going anywhere if Pujols comes back, book it. And if he doesn't leave, we're probably stuck with his little stooge Mozeliak as well. Sorry, but that's just not worth it. I simply will not watch this club any longer if that's what we're stuck with.

Even setting that aside, unless you're the Yankees and can spend whatever you want, it's just not wise to spend premium dollars on a non-premium position. It's just not that hard to get a 1b that plays premium defense and can give you 20 HRs and an OPS of .850. No, that's not Albert, but take the additional $25 million you'd save and allocate that towards a legitimate 3b option, or a SS that can hit, or a 2b that doesn't blow. Suddenly you're a far deeper lineup.

The Yankees can have that expensive 1b AND a deep lineup because they have bottomless pockets. Ditto the Red Sox and to a lesser extent, the Phillies and Mets. The Cardinals do not.

If the ballclub wants to actually win anything, it needs to move on. When you consider Albert's inevitable decline, Tony's influence on a poison clubhouse, and the questionable baseball logic in signing a 1b to a big money deal, I just don't see a happy ending to this. And just wait and see what happens to the legacy of Albert when he's in his mid-30s, putting up an OPS of .900, battling nagging leg injuries and toting around a contract that prevents us from competing.

I'll go on record now - if we re-sign Albert, we'll make the playoffs in fewer than 1/2 of his remaining seasons (in a shit division), and we won't win a single pennant, let alone championship.

Absolute nonsense.

The 2006 squad blew the doors off the rest of the NL for the first 6 weeks of the season, then came injuries. When the guys came back healthy in September/October, suddenly we looked like the team that came out of the gates like a house afire.

The talent gap between the 2006 squad and the 2011 squad is staggering.

Hamas is spot on, this is a 3rd place club.

Milwaukee
Cincy

St. Louis

Chicago

Pittsburg
Houston


If Milwaukee can put together a bullpen, I could see them winning 95 games. They have a dynamic offense, a potentially elite SP staff and excellent team chemistry. If they are motivated and managed well, they could walk away with the division.

Cincy is the same team as last year, but better. They've replaced Harang with Chapman and guys like Bruce, Stubbs and Votto will only improve. I think they have a 92-93 win team.

The Cardinals will struggle to win 85. If forced to go on record now, I have them as an 80 win team. The team can't strike anyone out (bullpen included), they try to coax ground balls and they have the single worst defensive infield in MLB...makes sense to me. Berkman's already missing time because of a balky elbow (yeah, I'm sure that will improve), Rasmus is having daddy issues again and never did learn to lay off junk last season. Albert's going to press in his contract year and we know that leads to him expanding his strike zone.

Honest to god, I can see this team winning 70 easier than I could them winning 90. I don't see a single thing I like about this ballclub. The only upshot is that Larussa is probably the worst frontrunner I've ever seen, but he's at his best when he's an underdog. The Kile season was the best managing job I've ever seen and the 2004 squad wasn't far behind. Those were teams that were counted out that LaRussa somehow coaxed effort and energy out of. Last years team was a pathetic pile of slump-shouldered dogs. If they do that again this year, they could truly be a 90 loss team.

your memory is not very clear on the end of the 2006 regular season. They were not on fire heading into the playoffs. They limped in, back doored in, fell into it because the rest of the division didn't want it either.


No friggin way you thought the 2006 team would do anything in the playoffs but get embrassed. If so, prove it....

Holy shit, Carp and Boggs were both taken out of the game early because of injuries. WTF have the Cards done to piss off baseball gods? I dunno what Boggs injury is, but Strauss said that Carp's might involve something with his hamstring.

I actually did.

I have no idea how I'd go about rooting up the posts on my Cardinals board, but as soon as the Astros lost the game that put the Cardinals in, I felt renewed. I told anyone that would listen that we could match up with anyone we faced in the playoffs. In fact, with every series I predicted the Cards in the right number of games.

I was genuinely excited about our chances going into that post-season. I like what Weaver had shown. I loved that Izzy was shelved and I thought I saw traces of Edmonds and Eck getting their form back. I also believed that any squad that had Carpenter to take the mound was capable of winning a 5 or 7 game series.

EDIT: Found my post - check your rep

ROFL The only person in Cardinal nation who thought we had a chance. Touche :thumb:

Now, why can't you be a little bit more upbeat this year before the first pitch is even thrown?

What the **** do you think? When you don't pay the best player in the game what he's worth, the Gods frown upon you.

I still think the cards may be allowing the market to set the value of pujols instead of bidding against themselfs like they did with Holliday. It's a dangerous game. Hard feelings can develop during the year. But the cardinals surely realize that they can afford pujols because he will pay them back from a marketing aspect in those later years when his on the field skills are declining.

They didn't bid against themselves with Holliday. They let him hit the market. The difference is that the market will give Albert 30 mil, other teams didn't want to give Holliday 7/120.

WRT: Marketing
If the Cards realized that, they would also realize that the risk of potentially saving $20 million on the contract isn't worth the risk of losing the best player in the history of the franchise and a generational talent.

I agree. Someone, it only takes one team, will give him $300 million. It should be the cardinals.