I was one of the people that have been surprised by the Cardinals the last 2 years. I really thought they would tank once they lost Pujols and LaRussa. But if they can replace Pujols, I'm going to believe they can replace Beltran.
I was one of the people that have been surprised by the Cardinals the last 2 years. I really thought they would tank once they lost Pujols and LaRussa. But if they can replace Pujols, I'm going to believe they can replace Beltran.
I am okay with two divisions in each league, prefer just one but 4 is two many and the whole WC system is a joke. The regular season should mean something, if not lets drop it to say 100 games, and then have a playoff in each division which gets you a division champion who then plays the other division champion to decide who plays for the WS....
Down side of multiple divisions, that is why I would prefer just 1 division in both leagues, then you have the top teams in each league play in the WS, like they use to, but that will never happen due to TV. So the only other viable option is going with two divisions like we use to have, and in that system you will have times where the winner of a division may have a worse record then a team in the other division that didn't win their division.
They played in the most competitive Division in the league, and had only 2 wins less than one of the NLCS representatives.
Plus it's not like they were given a free shot at the playoffs. Their penalty for not winning the division was a 1-game play-in, on the road, no less.
You don't see it because you don't want to or because you're sure they haven't? They have the best fielding CF'er in the game right now. He has great speed. If his bat plays they have improved significantly from Jon Jay's weak arm and inconsistent routes to the ball.
Peralta is average to above average fielder with decent power and OBP. He's a significant offensive upgrade to Kozma.
The departure of Freese takes away one of the weaker bats from last year and replaces it with Carpenter who is a strong fielder....particularly at 3rd. They are replacing Freese's bat with Wong. While Wong struggled in his 59 plate appearances last year, his bat played awfully well at every stage in the minors. Wong also has very good speed. In any event, if he struggles, Ellis will get more at bats and that's a known quantity.
You can argue until the cows come home about Adams struggles vs lefties, but he hit 17 HR's in about 300 AB's and was a one man wrecking crew when Craig was injured late last year. There's a lotta pixie dust in that organization. Craig plays a better RF than Beltran and we all know about his hitting.
From the Cardinals' perspective, they have removed all weaknesses. With Garcia coming back, some starter is going to the pen. They aren't likely to have that early bullpen weakness that stunted them last year.
We can all point to Taveras and Wong and say what have they proven? It's a fair question. The same one we used to discuss Miller, Kelly and Wacha last year.
That darned farm system keeps grinding out quality players.
Last edited by Halfway between; 12-20-2013 at 05:53 PM.
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