"Official" 2011 St. Louis Cardinals Thread
 

This is so unreal. We were dead. No hope. A season over. Somehow, someway we find some team chemistry and squeak into the playoffs on the last day of the season.

Only to find us facing one of the best pitching staffs assembled in years with home field advantage. We somehow, someway find a way to beat the best pitcher in baseball on the road in an elimination game.

We have to go on the road and beat the team with the best home record in baseball. A team who mortgaged their future to make this run .We somehow, someway find a way to beat them on the road and make our 18th World series trip.

We take game 1, we give away game 2 and home field advantage. Albert goes off for probably the best performance in World Series history and we take game 3 easily. Games 4 & 5 our bats fall asleep, Phone gate happens and its not looking too good.

Game 6, one of the best baseball games of all time and it takes place in a season ending go home game. Cardinals are down 2 runs in their final chance on the season, twice. They are down to their final strike of the season, twice. They give up a 2 run homer in extra innings. In the bottom of the inning their final 3 batters are a combined 3-26 in the Playoffs and a pitcher because the bench is empty. Somehow, someway they get some runners on and the comeback player of the year drives in the tying run. Mr. Freese hits the walk off home run. We will see you tommorrow night.

Game 7, With our bulldog on the mound pitching on 3 days rest he is able to give us 6 good innings and get us to within 9 outs of our 11 World series title. Texas meltsdown, probably left over from last nights game and its over.

The underdog, come back team who had no business even being in the playoffs wins a World championship. They make movies about events like this in life. Events that you remember even if your not a fan of the sport or team for the rest of your life.

When it is your team.......Priceless


.http://www.chiefsplanet.com/BB/signa...gpic7293_9.gif

GO BLUE JAYS!!!!!!!

Cards won't win the division unless their defense is mediocre.

Staying on track though, and with an unbiased opinion, I will say that St. Louis edges out Cinci for the Central crown this year. It could really go either way, though.

Cincy had tons of breaks last year. It's not Cincy I'm worried about, though. It's the Brewers that I'm worried about. They have a nice 3 with Greinke, Gallardo and Marcum followed by Wolf. Not bad. And if they get production from Gamel and McGhee is used in a utility role, their offense will be scary.

Well before they got Greinke or Marcum I didn't think they'd be a serious contender in the NLC until they got a TON of help in the pitching department. Even still I'm not sold that's going to equate to a ton of help, everything's going to have to go right for them with both guys. I still say Cinci/STL will win it.

I heard that they moved opening day to 3/31 at 4pm EST

I need a AL team to cheer/jeer for. Am a braves fan and won't root for another NL team, but since the Phillies are upstaging Stankees and every other elite team, I know the Braves won't stand a chance.

Blue Jays

The Padres-Cards game was always schedule for 3/31,

Oh was it?

Braves Midwest - Royals.

99.99% positive. Only game that was moved(I think) was the Giants-Dodgers game.

Buck, no way in hell the Padres win that opening series.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=6025055

Wanna bet on it?

yeah, thats always been the asumption. If it doesn't get done by spring training, its all over. welll at least till after the season.

2011 St. Louis Cardinals=True Grit

Nick Punto has been signed. No problem with that, except I wanted Descalso to make the roster.

Any time you can sign a 33 year old broke dick utility infielder with career splits of .247/.321/.322 and have him most likely take the spot of young prospect with an actual possibility of being a productive (and above replacement level) player, you've gotta do it.

I ****ing despise Mozeliak and LaRussa.

I view Punto=Brendan Ryan, except with less potential to hit. But this basically means that Greene's going to make the roster and Descalso won't, so I'm pissed.

Dude, you know Ryan being shown the door was a locker room improvment not an on the field move. We needed or in reality, Tony wanted a veteran bat off the bench. Greene has had multiple chances and he will get another chance before this broke dick gets his chance.

He's not talking about Greene. He's talking about Descalso.

jeeezz WTF has Descalso ever done? Especially anything ro get mad about not getting playing time in the big show.

He showed potential in September. I'd rather have him on the roster than Skip, but that's just me.

noone that posts in this thread likes Skip either.

Who gives a rats ass about St. Louis baseball, this
 

is Chiefs Planet so get your stupid St. Louis baseball thread back to St. Louis..........what a joke........

By your logic, that means there shouldn't be any Mizzou threads, KSU threads, KU threads or Royals threads.

Your ignorance is showing. I'd be careful showing your lack of education. Someone might take advantage of you.

And if you are butthurt, the ignore function is available for you to use.

This happens from time to time. We just neg rep them, tell em to use ignore and they go away.

I was talking about Daniel Descalso, and Tyler Greene's never really been given a fair shake. Hell, he was more productive than any other 2B or SS last year, but that didn't stop them from keeping him in Memphis until September.

Greene at least has a twinge of power, and he can draw a walk.

What scares me more is that we still haven't learned anything. We could have had the O-Dog twice, but Skip Schumaker is the Jack Steadman of MLB 2Bs. Forget that, Steadman actually did something right once.

He can hit minor league pitching and play defense. Which is more than you can say for Skip Schumaker.

hey, I'm not defending Skip. I'm as baffled as the rest of us as to why he gets all this leeway. We all assume because Tony likes him, but who knows. I wish they would have made Skip the 4th outfielder at least and got a legit 2B but I'm not the GM...yet.;)

Rarely do MLB players come up from the minors and start games right off the bat and get to play through slumps. Same with Craig. You need to make the most of your oppertunity when it happens and not thinking I'd be doing better if I was a regular starter.

And Greene has been given many starting oppertunitys. He needs to show something this year.

Actually, most prospects at least get a fair shake and an attempt to prove their muster. Tony's incessant meddling in the lineup causes guys to bounce back and forth between Memphis and never get a rhythm. On top of that, they are never given extended starting play to see if they can get in a groove at the big league level.

Greene had 104 ABs last year between multiple trips up and down and a September callup.

Some of the people who got more ABs for the Cardinals in 2010:

Randy Winn
Pedro Feliz
Aaron Miles
Nick Stavinoha

Here's the best stat, though. Schumaker was 3rd on the team in ABs.

:Lin:

Tony LaRussa is a product of Walt Jocketty and Dave Duncan.

Agreed.

I think 104 AB's at the major league club should give you a chance to show your stuff.

on this we can agree. His constant tinkering is a detterment, not an addition to production.

You should know that hitting at the major league level is fine China delicate.

When you are getting 6-7 ABs a week, you can't get into a rhythm. LaRussa never allows his young players 20-30 consecutive ABs to get in a groove at the plate. He's too much of a meddling dickhead.

I like Skip fine as a utility outfielder/infielder option...just not as an everyday starter.

Says the douche who calls himself Coltman.

**** you, idiot. If you don't like it, don't post here. It's really that simple.

correct, thats the majority opinion in here. Utility fine and dandy, but we needed a legitamate 2B.

Here's what I heard from my uncle who's friends with a Cardinals minor league coach..... not a lot different from the other rumors out there, but I'd thought I'd share anyway,

All the scuttlebutt among the minor league coaches is that the Cardinals are offering $30 million a year for 7 years or a $300 million lifetime contract that continues on with the Cardinals organization after his playing time is done.

This guy, apparently, posted this in the 2010 St. Louis Cardinals thread:

:shake:

Unfortunately, looking around MLB, there are only a handful. Nobody available this offseasonthat really stood out, maybe Orlando Hudson, but I certainly wouldn't overpay someone as inconsistent as him.

Holy shit if true. He couldn't turn that down.

That would be very smart of the Cardinals to do. :clap:

WTF has Punto ever done? Descalso might actually be able to contribute as a starter to a major league team. Punto absolutely cannot.

And again - the Ryan thing was a copout. Blaming Brendan Ryan for the 2009 squad laying down is a pathetic excuse thought up by a curmudgeonly manager that didn't feel like dealing with a hyper player. Ryan was energetic. He wasn't a malcontent, he was just a high-strung guy. That doesn't do a damn thing to explain why the Cardinals were the worst team in baseball against sub .500 teams from August forward. That's a problem that lies direction with the manager's inability to inspire his team. But that require an assumption of blame by the Infallible Ego.

He's essentially become my grandfather at this point. Brendan was the irritating grandchild that he didn't want around anymore so he got booted. We took the single best defensive player on the squad (yes, including Molina) and threw his ass out of town. Not for baseball reasons, but because our manager didn't like him. Now we have a 'pitch to contact' staff that relies on a defense built around a guy that was so bad at playing SS that the Dodgers chose to play an OFer there instead of him when Furcal went down last season.

Oh yeah, and we have a first baseman in RF instead of the GG caliber guy we had last season because said player decided he wanted playing time and questioned the mighty LaRussa about his role. Nah, can't have gamers on your squad - he's gotta go.

So now, on a team that considers Dave Duncan one of its greatest strengths, we're paying TWENTY MILLION to our 4th and 5th starters. Oh, and we're paying another $14 million to a below replacement value 2nd baseman masquerading as a SS, a 1bman playing RF and a 5th OFer playing 2b. To complicate matters, we're counting on a 3b that hasn't made it through an entire season healthy in nearly five years with a backup that is unlikely to put up an OPS of .600 next season and for his career has a SLG% that's the same as his OBP, for an ISOP of approximately zero. Awesome - gotta love that kind of production from your corner IF.

This is the most poorly constructed baseball team I've ever seen. It makes no sense on any level. They built a pitching staff that relies on its defense, the proceeded to field one of the worst defensive squads in baseball. They have an offense that's contingent upon production from the 3 thumpers in the middle of the lineup (presuming Berkman hits) and yet they haven't found any OPB guys to put on either side of them. To top it all off, they're probably going to finish mind-****ing Rasmus this season before blaming him for the failings of 2011 and trading him for a B level prospect next season.

The only plan in place seems to be to do whatever LaRussa wants and hope it's enough to get Pujols to re-sign. Gotta keep that cash cown in Cardinal Red.

This team is rotting from the bench and it's completely rudderless. If that means Pujols walks - so be it. We're not going to win a damn thing with AP and LaRussa on this squad going forward. LaRussa will absolutely hamstring this team for as long as he's here. And I used to worry about losing Duncan if LaRussa left, but seeing as how we're content with paying 7 figures to our 4th and 5th starters at this point, I'm not real sure WTF we need Duncan around for either. It's not like he knows anything about mechanics (by his own admission).

The worst thing that could happen to this team this year is an 80 win season. If they don't win 95, I hope they win 70.

Blow the whole damn thing apart.

Jose Lopez was available. Jorge Cantu is still out there and has at least played the position effectively earlier in his career.

Descalso can play. I watched him in the spring and he was clearly a ML caliber player. He rotated in and out with Dovanan Solano and the difference was night and day - Descalso is a MLer that just needs a crack.

When the bar you have to clear is Skip Schumaker, there's no such thing as a lateral move. There are probably more than 100 people in the majors and minors that could've been had easily that could play better 2b than Skip.

Then again, that would require that Mozeliak actually do his job or LaRussa admit failure. Lord knows that's never going to happen.

Yeah, and Lance Berkman was once an effective CF. Those days are over, for both. Like I said, not alot of good 2b in MLB, let alone on the FA market.

Seriously though, I'd rather ride with the unknown or lesser known quantity in Descalso than to open the season knowng full well there is a mountain of suck to overcome at 2nd, just my opinion.

For you Fantasy Baseball guys out there....Fantasybaseballinsiders.com

My son started this site last spring, he puts a ton of time into it. Give it a look see. Thanks.

Cantu to the Padres for $850K

The Padres gave 100K more for a guy with 25HR/100 RBI potential than we gave for Nick ****ing Punto.

I'm sorry, but anyone that ever again attempts to utter a positive word about John Mozeliak and Tony LaRussa is nothing more than a braindead homer.

These guys are absolutely ****ing terrible. Congratulations on the World Series that Walt Jocketty won for you, Tony. Now get the **** out of town and take your scarf wearing lapdog with you.

Cantu is 29 next year...younger than our boy Skip, in fact.

Care to explain to me why he couldn't play 2b anymore? I mean it's not like he's a converted OFer or anything, he actually came up as a 2b. So why has he completely lost the ability to play the position during what would be his baseball prime years?

Lance Berkman is 35, that's why he can't play OF. Cantu is still young and still has the ability to play the position.

Too bad it's blocked by superstars like Skip Schumaker and the utility role is now filled by stalwarts like Nick Punto.

This team blows. It absolutely goddamn blows.

I've wanted the cock sucker gone for years. I'll always believe he cost us more World Series than he won. And over the past couple of years his endless tinkering and obvious favorite-playing (regardless of on-field suckage) have absolutely ruined us.

Until last year I've always thought that Larussa's teams overperformed to their talent level.

Now we know there were locker room issues. There are.is a veteran/younger player gap in the locker room, in part because of Larussa. Tony has always treated the rookies and younger players different than Carp and Pujols etc.

I have no problem with Rasmus and Pujols being treated differently. I'm cool with that part of it.

Just who would you guys want instead on Larussa?

At the risk of being 'that guy' - I'd honestly take any major league manager other than Dusty Baker. LaRussa's done here. His clubhouse his poison because he's poisoned it. He has unfettered control over the organization and he's become a curmudgeonly dicatator. It's like Congress to me at this point - I don't care who you put in, but get the present guy out. He's a carcass that's rotting the well.

However, I'm not completely devoid of substance here. Here are candidates I'd actually like to see get a look:

Ron Warner in Springfield has always impressed me a great deal. From a developmental standpoint, AA is the most important step and he's done a pretty solid job with some of our better prospects down there. He has a great rep among the players and he's come up with the organization (drafted and played in the Cardinals minor league system for 9 years). He's the kind of guy that could step in with a bench coach like Mike Matheny and really get you a re-built organizational attitude.

Bochy could've been had and he's been, IMO, the best manager in baseball for several years. The job he did in SD was outstanding and he finally got the credit he deserved in SF. He's probably not leaving now, though.

Hurdle would've been more of an old-school manager but he still had a players manager approach in Colorado. He'd have definitely taken the STL job over the Pitt job.

Girardi was rumored to be interested in the Cardinals job before we showed no interest and he moved along.

Terry Pendleton would love to come here and get a shot and I think he'd be a great manager; he's been a very good hitting coach and was always a smart player. He would be my 1a with Warner being my 1b.

Fredi Gonzalez could've been had after the Marlins fired him for daring to insist that his superstar hustle, but we missed the boat there as well (though in fairness, Albert would not have been please with the Gonzalez hire as he can't be bothered to run out groundballs).

Bobby Valentine never got a fair shake because he was stuck with incompetent management in NYM, but he still did a very good job with those teams and has shown he still has the touch in Japan.

Ted Simmons has the pedigree and managerial track record for the role. Tony Pena could be in line for another crack at a ML job as well.

If you want more names, I can keep on giving them to you; it wouldn't be hard at all. But here's the important part - I wouldn't have made the hire, Chris Antonetti would have.

He's the guy that was going to take the Cardinals GM job when we canned Jocketty. He's one of the best young baseball minds around and he'd have been a fantastic hire for us. But he was told that he was stuck with LaRussa and Luhnow so he declined the job and decided to wait out the Indians gig (he was an assistant when we made him the offer). Worse still, any other qualified candidate did the same thing and we got stuck with an organizational stooge in John Mozeliak.

LaRussa should've been fired the day Jocketty was (or more accurately, LaRussa should've been fired instead of Jocketty). When the organization insisted on keeping him, they virtually eliminated the entire pool of front office talent and got left with this worthless coffee-getter we currently employ. So he essentially jumps when LaRussa tells him to and we have a completely dysfunctional organization for our efforts.

The ultimate blame falls on Bill DeWitt for being a gutless piece of shit and putting us in this position.

This is what happens when you allow unchecked control of an organization. Bright minds don't want to come into the job and you end up with organizational group-think run amok. You end up with career yes-men like John Mozeliak tasked with running the ship. You end up with crotchety dictators like Tony LaRussa running talent out of town and building his teams around 'scrappy' hustlers that won't rock the boat...or play baseball worth a shit.

In short - you end up with a bad baseball team.

It's coming, folks.

If you wanted to stay in house Jose Oquendo has done a great job with the world baseball teams he's managed. If we were to go outside there are a LOT of names who could really do well here. I wouldn't be opposed to giving Terry Pendleton or Tony Pena a shot if we wanted to keep it in the family.
DJ said anybody but Dusty but I'd like to add Bobby Valentine to that list.

Jose Oquendo would be more of the same.

I want the entire major league staff shown the door, all the way down to the bullpen catcher.

Blow this bitch up. If Oquendo stays, the cliques and double standards stay.

your just a bowlful of sunshine today. ;)

"You're"

Asshole.

:D

Don't worry dude, its looking like Pujols won't get the big long term money you say will ruin us long term anyway.

Yeah, but that was before I realized that Mo can't be trusted to spend the money wisely anyway.

If we don't re-sign Pujols, we're going to allocate his money to Jimmy Rollins (I'm think 4/60), Mark Ellis (2/8) and Jonathan Papelbon will get the rest, with Berkman moving to 1b. Oh sure, he'll make some noise about signing Jose Reyes and Ricky Weeks, but he'll **** it up. And since he's essentially a monolith that's incapable of doing two things at once, he'll end up overpaying for leftovers like Rollins after the market dries out. Then he'll have to get LaRussa his big money closer in order to appease his hurt feelings after we let Albert walk.

John Mozeliak is comically bad at his job. He's truly truly awful at it. In fact, he's so bad at it that for the first time in baseball history, a team has geared its entire offseason around fleecing another GM in July. From their roster moves all the way to who they hired as their Vice President, the Padres have geared their offseason around Mozeliak being a shitty horsetrader.

Think about it - what players have the Padres gone after? Harang, Bartlett, Hudson and now Cantu, all guys that would be great fits for the Cardinals (not to mention Ludwick). Now why the crap would the Padres go hard after all those guys?

Simple - because when July rolls around they know that Mo only has their number in his rolodex. Edmonds, Greene, Ludwick....he pretty much only deals with the Padres at this point. Then they signed away Mo's right hand guy in John Abbamondi in order to further grease the tracks. The Padres see that the Cardinals have a shit roster and they know that LaRussa is a tool that will refuse to admit his failings. As such, he'll stamp his feet until Mozeliak is forced to make a deal, preferably ridding him of another one of those damn kids that screw up the clubhouse.

So when we trade Colby Rasmus to the Padres for 'veteran leaders' Aaron Harang, Jorge Cantu and Orlando Hudson in July, don't say you weren't warned.

You do realize that if Pujols does leave, he has a good chance of going to the Cubs. You really want to face a motivated Pujols that many times a year? Watch him start to break record in a frikking Cuibs uni?

Now now, you misunderstood me.

I now fully favor a Pujols extension. Give him $40 million/season if you have to. Afterall, the extra $10 million was just going to go to another glorified 4th starter like Jake Westbrook anyway.

**** it, might as well spend on the known quantity. At least Mozeliak won't screw that up.

Though I can't shake the idea that he'll simply skim over the contract and miss the language that AP's agents add in later giving Albert exclusive dominion and control over Busch Stadium after he retires. Oh well, maybe they'd get the Ballpark Village built at that point.

The Cubs owner hasn't exactly paid any contracts near elite 1B level. Wouldn't surprise me at all if Pena stays there more than a year. Not to mention the Cards have like 42 million coming off the books after this season and after '12 if they don't pick up any options.

We don't have any money. In 2013 we will want to keep Waino (barring injury or production loss)that won't be cheap. Garcia will warrant big bucks and so will Rasmus. If I can have any of those or Pujols, I'll take Pujols. But to have them all on the team in 2013? Your talking 60-70 million just for those 4 players, thrown in Holidays 17 milion your over 80 million in 5 players. And now what about Molina? Going to let him walk?

The owners of the team sold the parking structures that were a throw-in with the deal for more than they purchased the team for shortly after buying it.

I'm disinclined to believe they don't have any money. The DeWitt ownership group owns the team free and clear and the debt service on the stadium is reasonable. Hell, they could borrow against the franchise and come up with another several hundred million if necessary (ignoring whatever personal wealth they've accumulated outside of baseball).

The Cardinals have plenty of money.

He was a horrible 2B, and Berkman will be playing the OF, just not CF. Will Cantu be playing 2B for SD?

Nope, he'll be playing primarily 1b/3b.

And he's no worse at 2b than Skip Schumaker, but unlike Schumaker, he can actually hit a baseball.

Cantu at 2b wouldn't be any worse there than Theriot will be at SS or Berkman will be in RF. In fact, the situations are extremely similar.

Theriot's range has fallen so badly that the Dodgers chose to play a guy at SS that had played more major league OF than he had infield over the last 4 seasons over him when Furcal went down (Jamie Carrol). Theriot could play it, but the Dodgers chose not to play him there because he can't play it very well.

Berkman was such a good defensive OFer that he hadn't played the position in 4 seaons. Hell, the Astros couldn't even get an NL trade partner for him so they essentially gave him away to the Yankees to be a DH. Sure, Berkman could play OF, but not very well.

And the Cardinals have made these two players the center of their offseason plans. Full time starters at positions that were manned by GG caliber players last season. And again, lets not even get into the fact that we're looking for an upgrade on Skip !@#$ing Schumaker. I'm not trying to replace Craig Biggio or Ryan Sandburg here - I'm talking about the worst defensive 2b in all of major league baseball.

Ryne Sandberg

Asshole.

:D

Damn. I was pretty positive I'd spelled his last name wrong but I had no idea he spelled his first name Ryne.

I like him even less now. What kind of douche allows his parents to spell his name like that? He was literally born to be a Cub.

Are you talking about Cantu?

Yeah. Word is that the Padres are considering him in a platoon position at 1b w/ Hawpe, of all people and that he'll play 3b as his performance warrants.

He's a strange pickup for them. I wonder if they're not trying to push Headley a little more.

Like I said, it just looks to me like the Padres are stockpiling guys that would fit very well in STL in order to bend Mo over again in July.

My bad, I see that you were.

If they'd signed Cantu as a 3b, I would be all for it, as I think Freese is still unproven at the ML leve, and agree about Cantu's bat vs. Skips; that said, I still don't think there are many good 2b in MLB. The Cards have drafted a couple (Zachary Cox can play there, and also Peter Kozma, a 1st rder in '07), but neither have panned out yet.

Also, the farm system has largely disappointed in recent years. I asked Derrick Goold about the new acadamies built in '06 in Columbia and the Dominican, and he pontificated that the Cards would have a "pipeline" of talent from those areas by 2010. Well, after watching the MLB "Top 50 Prospects" special, and seeing only 1, Shelby Miller, crack the list, I was even more disappointed.

Hopefully, all will be good. I think they'll be better than you think.

John Mozeliak isn't the GM of this team, Tony LaRussa is.

A couple of other things:

1) One of the reasons why Antonetti didn't take that job is also because of the bizarre, incestuous relationship between Luhnow and Mozeliak, not just the "you have to have TLR, etc"

2) Cantu would be a horrible defensive 2B, but he's at least semi-mediocre at third

3) Kozma will never take an AB for this team at the big league level

4) Schumaker isn't the worst defensive 2B in baseball, he's the worst 2B in baseball.

Wasn't Antonetti basically the GM in waiting in Cleveland?