Duncan has had great success of taking pitchers with performance issues and turning them aces. Think about who are aces going into each season have been the last few years and how much of that you could contribute to Duncan.
  
2002- Daryl Kile: he was a classic Duncan type pitcher. He was a pretty good pitcher for most of his career. We picked him up after a couple of truly ugly years in Colorado and he flourished in his 2 and 1 half seasons in St. Louis.

2003- Matt Morris: he was one of the few guys who we developed in the system and was an all star caliber player. Duncan probably had a good effect on him because once he left St. Louis he was very average.

2004- Woody Williams: he was another Duncan project. A guy who had some average years in San Diego and then was dominant in his first 2 partial years in St. Louis and very good in 03 as well.

2005- Mark Mulder: he was the one guy who we acquired with the intention of him being our ace. He had a good year in 05, although he was overshadowed by Carp, and then you know the rest.

2006- Chris Carpenter: we picked him up in 04 after some ineffective and injury plagued years in Toronto. He was a different type of pitcher than Dunc usually goes for because he had some legitimate stuff and potential, but we got him off the scrap heap anyway and he was great.

2007- Chirs Carpenter

2008- Adam Wainright: the next Matt Morris? He certainly has follow a similar pattern. He spent a year in the bullpen but is slowly starting to turn into one of the best young pitchers in the game. If he is healthy all next year, I would be shocked if he doesn’t win at least 15 games.

Pujols obviously is the rock. The guy who will make our team a contender just by stepping on the field. But I think that it is Dunc’s ability to turn around pitchers career’s and develop some young studs that have really helped us win.

is a huge part of this. Huge.

and a two time Cy Young (who only won one of them) being vastly underpaid helped this greatly.

When I look up and down that list, and think of the last ten years, the list reads pretty much “successful clubs to unsuccessful clubs.”

This fanpost

How quickly we all forget Walt. He was astute and willing to make bold trades. He also was masterful at maximizing ROI (er, Return On Investment) and getting key contributions by buying low on cheap FAs.

Think about how cheaply he managed to find a solution at 2B for all those years. Or his foresight when finding FA pitchers like Carp or Suppan. Those were absolutely fundamental to the high ROI in terms of wins per dollar spent. Not to mention guys like Kiko Calero. Or lower profile trades like acquiring Fernando Tatis, Darryl Kile, Dave Veres or selling high on Kent Bottenfield.

He also gets little credit for emphasizing defensive players – and defense has traditionally been undervalued when it comes to a player’s salary. Think of all the years we benefitted from a cheap Matheny, Vina, Grudz, Renteria, etc.

Edmonds was only a steal because he signed a 6 year deal in 2000 to keep him in st louis. He was traded to us in his final season before free agency by the angels and could of been just a 1 year fix if we didn’t sign him.

being in a division where 4 of our 5 competitors have underperformed.

Most and Least Cost-Effective Franchises 1998 — 2008

Rank…Team…( Act. – Exp. Wins)
#3……STL….( 6.3 )
#5……HOU…( 5.4 )
#16….CIN….( -0.2 )
#20….MIL….( -3.0 )
#23….CHC..( -3.7 )
#26….PIT….( -4.4 )