"Official" 2011 St. Louis Cardinals Thread

[BigRedChief]

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


.

[BigRedChief]

Originally Posted by BigRedChief

Buster onley is tweeting that albertgeddon is here. No deal is done and will not get done.

He is also
Tweeting that it's the yearly salary that's the hold up not the years.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by frazod

Jesus Christ, give the man his 10 year contract and ****ing be done with it.

Pujols is competitive enough that he'll retire on his own if his skills start to erode. Once he quits, the contract is over.

**** me, how dumb are these people?

This is a horrid approach.

No, he won't quit once his skills start to erode, not at $30 million/season. You can't honestly tell me you believe he'll simply walk away from that kind of money when he's presently sitting here demanding it to begin with. And he'll be within shouting distance of some serious records at the time.

Besides, "give him whatever he wants is" what had Howard getting the contract that ****ed us to begin with. Albert won't be worth the money he makes in the very first season of that contract, there's just no way. We've seen the best he has to offer and at 31 years old, he's going to be declining from the very first AB of that deal.

By 35 we'll be lucky if he's worth 1/2 that and we'll still be locked into it for 1/2 a decade.

Cardinal baseball existed before Albert. It will exist long after Albert and I'm far more worried about winning games than I am appeasing a surly superstar. His petulance is what has led to the poison clubhouse over the last couple of years and lets not act like his presence is paramount to winning a WS, afterall only 10% of WS winners since he arrived have had him. The Carpenter window has closed up, he's done. So if the Cardinals decide to rebuild going forward around Wainwright, Rasmus, Holliday, Garcia and Miller, they'll be ahead of 1/2 the teams in baseball already.

They'll survive without Albert Pujols. And if their alternative is giving a 31 year old 1st baseman 10 years or 30+ million, they're frankly better off without him.

[BigRedChief]

Strauss is tweeting that Albert is in camp and that his car is parked in the owners spot.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by BigRedChief

He is also
Tweeting that it's the yearly salary that's the hold up not the years.

So Albert's leaving St. Louis over $2-3 million/season and I'm supposed to believe he'll "retire when his skills start to erode"?

Bye, Albert. If some other franchise is dumb enough to give you the deal you're looking for, I hope it's the Cubs and we piss pound your grumpy ass.

[BigRedChief]

Cardinals official website is saying the talks have ended and no contract is done and no further talks are planned

[BigRedChief]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

So Albert's leaving St. Louis over $2-3 million/season and I'm supposed to believe he'll "retire when his skills start to erode"?

Bye, Albert. If some other franchise is dumb enough to give you the deal you're looking for, I hope it's the Cubs and we piss pound your grumpy ass.

Espn is reporting that the cardinals final offer didn't even put Albert in the top 5 baseball players avv salary. If true that would insult the he'll out of me. I'm the best player in baseball and you don't think I even deserve top 5 money?

[DeezNutz]

Originally Posted by BigRedChief

Espn is reporting that the cardinals final offer didn't even put Albert in the top 5 baseball players avv salary.

Huge mistake by STL, if this is true. While I agree that 10 for 300 is ridiculous, 7 for 210 or 8 for 240 would have been easily doable. And the franchise would have recouped this investment EASILY based on the revenue that this single player generates.

[seclark]

imo, i don't think either side expected to work out a contract until after this season.
sec

[Frazod]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

This is a horrid approach.

No, he won't quit once his skills start to erode, not at $30 million/season. You can't honestly tell me you believe he'll simply walk away from that kind of money when he's presently sitting here demanding it to begin with. And he'll be within shouting distance of some serious records at the time.

Besides, "give him whatever he wants is" what had Howard getting the contract that ****ed us to begin with. Albert won't be worth the money he makes in the very first season of that contract, there's just no way. We've seen the best he has to offer and at 31 years old, he's going to be declining from the very first AB of that deal.

By 35 we'll be lucky if he's worth 1/2 that and we'll still be locked into it for 1/2 a decade.

Cardinal baseball existed before Albert. It will exist long after Albert and I'm far more worried about winning games than I am appeasing a surly superstar. His petulance is what has led to the poison clubhouse over the last couple of years and lets not act like his presence is paramount to winning a WS, afterall only 10% of WS winners since he arrived have had him. The Carpenter window has closed up, he's done. So if the Cardinals decide to rebuild going forward around Wainwright, Rasmus, Holliday, Garcia and Miller, they'll be ahead of 1/2 the teams in baseball already.

They'll survive without Albert Pujols. And if their alternative is giving a 31 year old 1st baseman 10 years or 30+ million, they're frankly better off without him.

I wonder if you'll feel this way if he breaks everybody's career record as a Cub? And maybe you'd care a bit more if you spent five days a week in ****ing Chicago.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by BigRedChief

Espn is reporting that the cardinals final offer didn't even put Albert in the top 5 baseball players avv salary. If true that would insult the he'll out of me. I'm the best player in baseball and you don't think I even deserve top 5 money?

Depends on the # of years.

If you're 31 years old, you play 1b and you're getting 8 yrs, there's a good argument to make that it shouldn't be in the top 5.

The Cardinals are absolute fools for not getting this done at the same time as the Holliday contract, like they should have. However, I'll give them some credit for sticking to their guns here. They determined his value, they offered him that and he's decided he's worth more.

He'll start next season at 32 years old. Good luck to him in finding a team that is going to give him a contract that pays him $27 million for his age 32-40 seasons.

It took a combination of incompetence from Mozeliak and unbridled hubris from Pujols to make this happen.

Frankly, if it means that LaRussa's cabal of mindless sluggers is gone and we return to an era of fundamentally sound, versatile baseball - I can live with it. Duncan brings us nothing anymore as he's gotten so lazy that he just demands that we spend $20 million on pitchers that fit his profile rather than $1 million on a pitcher he can get the best out of. McGwire has been a complete disaster and LaRussa absolutely spoiled the well last season down the stretch.

If Pujols could've been had reasonably, I'd have liked to see him a lifetime Cardinal if for no other reason than nostalgia. But at the same time, I think I'd rather just move on than see another 8 seasons like the last 4. And at the money Albert would be demanding, that would probably be our best case scenario.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by frazod

I wonder if you'll feel this way if he breaks everybody's career record as a Cub? And maybe you'd care a bit more if you spent five days a week in ****ing Chicago.

And I wonder if you'll feel the same way when he goes to Chicago and is giving them a .850 OPS for $30 million/season.

Lets not act like it's been all wine and roses in St. Louis these last 4 seasons. We've had 3 shitty years and 1 good one that fell apart in the playoffs. All of that came with Albert Pujols at 1b and all of that came with Carpenter and WW in their primes. It also came with a young Yadi and a cheap Ludwick.

Signing Albert guarantees those last 4 seasons are pretty much our apex. Yadi's not getting younger. Berkman's no Ludwick. Carpenter's on the way out and WW is getting more expensive. Oh, and Albert's salary is about to double. It isn't like this Cardinals team was setting the world on fire as currently constructed so why are we so heartbroken over the possibility of having to break it up?

The Cardinals could very easily be better off for turning the page on this era and moving forward.

[DeezNutz]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

Depends on the # of years.

If you're 31 years old, you play 1b and you're getting 8 yrs, there's a good argument to make that it shouldn't be in the top 5.

I believe that there are certain athletes that defy conventional logic, however generally sound, who are so important, financially and emotionally (for lack of a better term) to a region that they can never truly be paid what they're "worth."

Jordan is the obvious example. He could never be paid what he was worth to Chicago and the NBA more broadly. For STL, I believe Pujols is in this discussion.

Thus, you go 8 for 240 without thinking twice. Rather, you feel damn glad that you have this player locked up for the rest of his career. The Pujols contract should NOT prohibit other moves. You make your money back on him.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by DeezNutz

I believe that there are certain athletes that defy conventional logic, however generally sound, who are so important, financially and emotionally (for lack of a better term) to a region that they can never truly be paid what they're "worth."

Jordan is the obvious example. He could never be paid what he was worth to Chicago and the NBA more broadly. For STL, I believe Pujols is in this discussion.

Thus, you go 8 for 240 without thinking twice. Rather, you feel damn glad that you have this player locked up for the rest of his career. The Pujols contract should NOT prohibit other moves. You make your money back on him.

Perhaps. I've said that ownership would curry a lot of favor from me if they fronted a 'Pujols tax' and essentially paid out of their own pocket for the luxery of making Pujols an icon in STL.

But they've decided not to do that. So from that standpoint, all I can do is look at it on a purely baseball level.

From a baseball perspective, it's absolutely insane to pay that kind of money to a 32 year old player that plays the easiest position on the diamond to fill.

Ownership has failed the fans in that it refused to go all out to ensure a fan-favorite and historically significant player stayed in STL. However, they've also made what is almost certainly a smart baseball decision.

[DeezNutz]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

Perhaps. I've said that ownership would curry a lot of favor from me if they fronted a 'Pujols tax' and essentially paid out of their own pocket for the luxery of making Pujols an icon in STL.

But they've decided not to do that. So from that standpoint, all I can do is look at it on a purely baseball level.

From a baseball perspective, it's absolutely insane to pay that kind of money to a 32 year old player that plays the easiest position on the diamond to fill.

Ownership has failed the fans in that it refused to go all out to ensure a fan-favorite and historically significant player stayed in STL. However, they've also made what is almost certainly a smart baseball decision.

On the whole, I don't disagree. But I also think it's difficult to ascribe a ceiling to an elite talent like Pujols. Most indicators suggest that he'll have another 3-4 strong years and then trail off, but Pujols has shown that he's an exception in a number of different ways.

I think he's the type of pure hitter who can have another really, really good six years. Would the last two years of the contract be ridiculous? More than likely, but, as I said before, Pujols would have long since provided a return on ownership's investment.

Claims that STL would be "crippled" by the contract would be PR bullshit from ownership.

[Frazod]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

And I wonder if you'll feel the same way when he goes to Chicago and is giving them a .850 OPS for $30 million/season.

Lets not act like it's been all wine and roses in St. Louis these last 4 seasons. We've had 3 shitty years and 1 good one that fell apart in the playoffs. All of that came with Albert Pujols at 1b and all of that came with Carpenter and WW in their primes. It also came with a young Yadi and a cheap Ludwick.

Signing Albert guarantees those last 4 seasons are pretty much our apex. Yadi's not getting younger. Berkman's no Ludwick. Carpenter's on the way out and WW is getting more expensive. Oh, and Albert's salary is about to double. It isn't like this Cardinals team was setting the world on fire as currently constructed so why are we so heartbroken over the possibility of having to break it up?

The Cardinals could very easily be better off for turning the page on this era and moving forward.

I realize all this. And sadly, I also realize that all that "I want to stay in St. Louis forever" bullshit carries about as much weight as when Lebron James said how much he loved Cleveland. It would be one thing if we could determine where he lands, but apparently that's not an option. Pujols as a Red Sox, or an Angel, or (God forbid) a Yankmee would suck, but Pujols as a Cub would basically be our own personal Ruth to the Yankees moment, and I want no ****ing part of it.