The St. Louis Cardinals' Rafael Furcal backup plans get even weirder

Last week we wondered whether the St. Louis Cardinals really expected Rafael Furcal to play a starter's share of games this season, despite his many and varied injury problems. On Monday Joe Strauss answered: No, probably not. Here's the blockquote, which should make the Cardinals' decision to go with Ronny Cedeño and Pete Kozma as their primary backups at the position even more confusing:

Depth at the position no longer is an option: Internal estimates classified 100 starts from Furcal this season as a "home run."

Back when I thought the Cardinals must have been expecting Rafael Furcal to play 120-140 games in 2013 I could at least chalk up their indifference toward superior 2B/SS options like Hiroyuki Nakajima, Jed Lowrie, and Stephen Drew to a fundamental disagreement about Furcal's health.

But if Strauss's internal estimates are coming from someplace with the authority to add infield depth, I can't even rely on that rationale anymore. Now the decision to shore up the Cardinals' bench with Ty Wigginton and Ronny Cedeño instead of one middle infielder who was definitely better than Daniel Descalso is just completely inexplicable to me. Cedeño is a nice backup for a team that has a starting shortstop and a starting second baseman, but he's unimpressive depth for a team that doesn't quite have either one.