Day 18: St. Louis Cardinals

The entire schedule of when team recaps will be.

Team: St. Louis Cardinals

2007 Regular Season Record: 78-84

Cost per Win: $90,286,823 / 78 = $1,157,292 per win

2007 Season Recap: The Cardinals won the World Series in 2006 but they didn’t follow up that championship well at all. They finished 3rd in the NL Central and posted a record of 78-84. They ended up 7 games behind the Cubs in their division even though they were only one game back of the division lead on September 7th. They finished the season 9-16 which could have been worse but they won their last 5 games to make their record look a lot more respectable.

A lot of the problems for the Cardinals started with a beat up pitching staff. Their ace Chris Carpenter pitched on opening day but that would be the only game he appeared in all season as he was soon but on IR. Their other ace, Mark Mulder, didn’t make a start until September 5th and only played in 3 games because he wasn’t completely healed from the surgery he had the previous off-season. He was very ineffective in his starts allowing 17 runs in 11 innings, all 3 losses.

There were a couple bright spots on the pitching mound in 2007 though. First was Adam Wainwright who starred as the closer in the 2006 championship run. In his first season as a starter he recorded a record of 14-12 with a 3.70 ERA which led the team in wins and he was the most consistent starter. Another quality pitching performance came from closer Jason Isringhausen who recorded 32 saves and a 2.48 ERA; in addition he only had 2 blown saves. It’s a shame Isringhausen didn’t have more save opportunities because he could have competed for some awards if he would have had more leads to work with.

On the offensive side of things the Cardinals had mixed results. The biggest story of the 2007 season was Rick Ankiel who made his return to the majors as an outfielder after completely self destructing as a pitcher a few years earlier. He played in only 47 games but he had 11 home runs and a .285 batting average which is pretty good for his first time as a regular batter in the majors. Albert Pujols had another impressive season but it went mostly unnoticed because it is expected anymore. He finished the season with a .327 ERA and 32 home runs which for a lot of players would be an MVP season but for him is just normal so he didn’t even register in the MVP vote. Other notable performances came from Skip Shumaker and David Eckstein.

Key Free Agents: OF Jim Edmonds, SS David Eckstein, UT Aaron Miles, 3 additional outfielders; The Cardinals are losing some serious experience going into 2008. Veteran Gold Glover Jim Edmonds was just traded to San Diego for a prospect and Eckstein has already signed with the Blue Jays but the Cardinals have signed Cesar Izturis to replace him. Another likely loss is Juan Encarnacion who took a foul ball to the eye near the end of the season and will most likely not play baseball again if he is even able to regain full sight.

Offseason Needs: Even with a lot of offseason losses I don’t think the Cardinals are in that bad of shape. They could use depth in the outfield and some experience but there is a lot of talent there that could put up some great numbers so I would like to see them get a chance to show how they can perform. There are rumors that Scott Rolen is on the trading block and if he goes then there is a hole at third base along with the hole that already exists at second base. The bottom part of the pitching rotation scares me a bit but there is some talent there it is just a matter of whether they can get the full potential out of it. The one thing the Cardinals do have is a strong farm system and that will be to their advantage in 2008 when they see how a lot of guys can play in the majors. I expect a lot of call ups and send downs all the way through the season.

Prediction for the 2008 season: I personally would like to see the Cardinals get back to the playoffs but I don’t think it is going to happen. I have hopes that they can get their record above 500 but they just don’t have the talent and experience to compete with the Brewers but I think if things go right they will end up second in the division and only a few games back of the wild card but won’t be able to get a good enough record to take the wild card. I predict some improvement for 2008 but not enough to get to the playoffs.