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Cardinals news and notes: BP annual, Waino, and El Gallo's hair

Will the Cardinals miss the playoffs in 2016? That and a review of yesterday at VEB.

By Alex Crisafulli@alexcards79 Feb 5, 2016, 7:00am EST

Nicolas Stellini of Beyond the Box Score wrote an interesting piece yesterday casting doubt on the Cardinals' chances of making the playoffs in 2016. It hits most of the usual points (aging core, unproven youngsters) but is very well written and worth a read nonetheless. Since 2000, the Cardinals have won the NL Central ten times (I count '01) and other than the offseason heading into 2008 when they were coming off their only losing season since 1999, I'm not sure they've been overlooked more than they are right now. If the Cardinals somehow win the NL Central again in 2016 it might be their most satisfying division title yet.

Here's what you missed yesterday at VEB:

BP 2016

I turned in a book report on the Baseball Prospectus 2016 annual and received a B-. Typical. But I couldn't recommend this book more. Although this is wrong:

Adam Wainwright

Like the rest of us, Joe Schwarz misses baseball. He's passing the time by making a very good point that for the Cardinals to make a run at the NL Central, Adam Wainwright needs to be a Comeback Player of the Year candidate. Wainwright is projected by ZiPS to be worth 3.6 zWAR but as Joe points out that's taking his injury history into account since he's projected to only be good for 156 innings. If he can throw north of 200 innings as he easily did in 2013 and 2014 that could go a long way.

El Gallo's hair

What I admire most about these pictures of Carlos Martinez is not his different hairstyles but that he's loyal to his barber.

Anthony Garcia

Here's the Red Baron's profile on OF prospect Anthony Garcia. From the piece:

Nonetheless, I'm betting on Anthony Garcia. He's become a forgotten prospect among national list-makers, I can only assume due to two full seasons stuck at Palm Beach putting up lackluster numbers. His overall package of offensive production, though, could make a big-time impact at the major league level if it translates, which is something I can't say for many other prospects in the upper levels of this system.