House of Cards?

With spring training almost upon us, it seems like a good time to take a look at the Cubs various Central Division rivals, and what their outlooks are for the season. Seems like the best place to start is the top. The St. Louis Cardinals posted the best record in the league, and held off the Astros for the NL Pennant in '04. The question is, can they repeat? The Cards had a terrific offense last year, and at first glance, they don't appear to have lost too much in that department. The major losses there were Tony Womack (who had a career year) and Edgar Renteria, who will be replaced by David Eckstein and the great Mark G.. Both are fairly steady players, who should do well in St. Louis, as they'll slide into a powerful lineup where they won't be expected to do too much other than get on base. The other major change for the position players is Yad Molina taking over for Mike Matheny behind the plate. Some would say this is a major question mark and talk about Matheny's steadying influence behind the plate. As someone who thinks that Matheny is an overrated hack, I'll call it a push, at worst. To me the Cards biggest problem in the field will be avoiding injuries. While this is an aspect of the game that can't be predicted, here's what we know about the Cardinals: Reggie Sanders has never played more than 140 games in a year; Larry Walker's played an average of 124 games a year throughout his career; Albert Pujols played last year with a bad foot, decided not to have surgery on it, and is already complaining that it hurts (not a good sign in February); despite sitting out several meaningless games at the end of the year, Scott Rolen was still so banged up he was ineffective in the playoffs; and both Eckstien and Grud have missed significant time with injuries the last two years. While the Cards can afford to lose one or two guys from their lineup, their limited finances will prevent them from plugging any further holes that could develop in their lineup.

St. Louis strengthened their pitching staff by aquiring Mark Mulder this offseason (he'll step in for Woody Williams, who's deal with the devil expired during the playoffs), but in doing so, they also may have turned one of their major strengths into a weakness. While the Cardinal's starters were effective in 2004, a good part of their sucess was due to their bullpen. It's a lot easier on a starting pitcher when he knows he only has to get through the 6th inning, and with Tony LaRussa able to employ Steve Kline, Ray King, Kiko Calero, Danny Haren and Jason Isringhausen in the late innings, a huge load was taken off the starting staff. With Haren and Calero traded to Oakland, and Steve Kline sharing a locker room with new buddy Sammy Sosa, the Cardinals' starters are not going to have it as easy this year. I see this weakening of the bullpen as the best thing that could have happened to the Cubs, as in most their games against St. Louis last year, the Cub bullpen faltered down the stretch while the Cardinal bullpen was able to halt Cub rallies and hold them down after the starters had been knocked out.

Final assessment: While the Cardinals still have the major peices intact from their division winning team, they are not as strong as last year. If they can avoid the injury bug again St. Louis should still win the Central, but they won't be sneaking up on anybody this year, like they did in 2004.