of Duncan, and so have most people. A first baseman, he should be moved to some team which could use someone at that position. He isn’t contributing much here. Meanwhile, Mr. DeWitt, spend some money re-sign pitchers who produce for you, like Kyle Lohse…...and get a closer. I know – I know – this is getting tired but so what? Chicago and Milwaukee are being aggressive and they’re doing just fine these days.

I don’t think they’ve budgeted money for more pitching for the local team. They have a nice clothing store though where you can get your “remember the world series t-shirts. I’m sure they will just let Kyle Lohse drift away. No one planned for him to be very good maybe.

how pitchers that pitch in a certain style, can be depended upon to remain healthy, no matter what repairs they’ve had done. Why should Wellenmyer return to low mileage performance? Why won’t Carpenter blow up his new elbow? Are they going to change their delivery’s?

the cards aren’t very good batters compared to the patient, strike zone oriented Brewers. But there are other teams that will beat them. We need to take care of business where we can. Everyone else might choke like in 06.

We have to get CRAZY HIGH! when we sweep the padres, and then fall through the FLOOR! when we lose three in a row. WE MUST!

Actually.. that whole “even keel” thing doesn’t sound so bad…

I agree with the whole “long season, stay put, don’t rush to any conclusions” mentality put forward by many on this blog. If anything, that’s smarter than trading the farm-hands away for rental relievers…

I guess the question I have is: do we really feel like we are going to be in the playoffs come the end of September? And if not, would it be better to make decisions for next year, including trading away Lohse, shutting down ( or at least being extremely conservative) with Wainright and Carpenter, and potentially using August/September as an audition opportunity for players who may have play and or trade value? This list could include all of the minor-leaguers already called up this year, as well as Anderson, Salas, etc.

I know that’s a tough pill to swallow, (especially for us fans…) but if the reality of being a “buyer” is trading 3 wins in 2009/2010 for 1 win this year (which, I think, the “stand-pat” folks rightly rail against), shouldn’t we also consider the inverse role of being a seller, and trading 1 win this year for 3 wins in 2009/2010 ?

2008 head-to-head:

Cardinals vs. Nationals: 5-1
Cardinals vs. Padres: 6-1
Cardinals vs. Astros: 8-4

13 games over .500

Cardinals vs. other opponents: 38-40

What does this mean? I’m glad you asked:

- The ‘Birds have taken care of business against these three lesser teams. However, they’ve only got three games left against Houston, and they’re done with Washington and San Diego.

- The ‘Birds have been mediocre against the rest of the league. 7-8 in interleague, 31-32 vs. the rest of the National League. The worst head-to-head record is against the Brew Crew: 4-8.

Let’s say the Cardinals take two out of those last three against Houston, and finish .500 against all other opponents combined. (Reasonable? I think so, but you’re welcome to disagree. That’s what this site is all about, right?) That’s 14 games over .500, or an 88-74 record. That’s a successful season, especially when compared to most preseason expectations. Last year’s wild card winner had 89 regular season victories plus a one-game playoff win to get in. The only problem with thinking wild card is the Cards’ current standing as the 3rd place team in the division.

Wainwright and Carpenter should help my proposed 14-game over .500 scenario come to fruition, but the bottom line is the Cards gotta take care of remaining games with the Cubs and the Brewers in order to be there at the end. Otherwise, we’ll be reprising the roles of last year’s Mets and Padres—decent season, but not good enough to play for the big prize.

TSF

if you don’t have concerns about wainwright, you are confident piniero will be his ok self, and are not worrying about welley, then you’ve got your top three starters right there. Plus you’d have carp, who is certainly a question mark, but has potential to be anywhere from a solid back of the rotation guy to regaining his cy young form and a bevy of young pitchers to take that 5th spot. Any staff is full of questions, but it seems like the cardinals also have lots of obvious potential answers. I think most people would agree that signing loshe for that much balleyhooed “reasonable price” would be great, but what a reasonable price might be and what he might actually demand come winter are the biggest question marks of them all regarding the rotation. As for the bullpen and MI, i’ll obstain from discussion for the moment.

You will have mediocre teams for periods of 3-5 years when you’re trying to rebuild your farm system. To be honest, our 3-5 year period probably started in 2006, even though we won the World Series that year. There weren’t any big free-agent signings that offseason, no big-time stud player coming in at the deadline, and we didn’t trade away a bunch of prospects to bring someone in either. Last year the club overachieved for a good two months of the season (July, August), and was pretty poor the entire rest of the season (April, May, June, September). Obviously injuries played a big part in both of those seasons, but even teams that spend huge amounts of money have issues when a number of key players go down. Just look at how the Yankees struggled this season with all the pitching injuries and injuries to key players like Posada, Matsui, and A-Rod.

This club is entirely overachieving anyone’s expectations to this point. I had them at 80-82 for the season and at this point they’re 12 games better than that. If Carpenter and WW can combine to give the team 22-25 starts down the stretch, there’s no reason that this club can’t be in the playoff hunt all the way down to the wire.

I do think this team sets up very well for 2009 as well. If Rasmus plays even half as good as we all think he will, he’s going to be a giant upgrade in the outfield. Along with Ankiel and Ludwick, they will have, arguably, the best defensive outfield in the big leagues at that point. Pujols and Glaus are in the top five in the NL at their positions, and I’m sure that an offensive minded middle infielder is on the shopping list for Mo in the offseason, as we don’t currently have any MLB ready players at those positions. I would target second base, since that seems to have to most likely number of quality candidates on the free agent market. Orlando Hudson would be my choice, Mark Ellis would probably be my second choice of the available guys.

I think the rotation is going to be fine. You get Carp, WW, and Piniero back and hopefully the other two spots can be filled from the minor leagues with guys like Todd, Garcia, and Boggs. The offseason pickups should be in the bullpen. A good lefty reliever is needed unless Tyler Johnson can return from injury. Everyone seems to forget the Josh Kinney could be ready to pitch again next year and he was an instrumental part of the bullpen in 2006 as a set-up man. With TJ and Kinney in the fold, Perez or McClellan becomes your closer, Motte will hopefully be ready to pitch at the big league level, and Franklin can go back to middle relief where he belongs. That gives you a roster of something like this:

C Molina, Scrap-Heap Backup
1B Pujols
2B Kennedy, FA Ack (Hudson, Ellis),
SS Ryan or FA Ack
3B Glaus
MI Miles, Hoffpauir, Barden
CN Freese
OF Rasmus, Ankiel, Ludwick, Barton, Mather

SP Carp, WW, Piniero, Boggs, Garcia
MR Franklin, Kinney, Johnson, Springer(unless he retires), FA LOOGY
SU Motte, McClellan, Todd
CL Perez

I left Duncan off of the list as I expect him to be traded if Rasmus makes the ballclub. At that point he’s got nowhere to play and someone will be looking for a left handed hitter with power who can play 1B or corner outfield.