FanPost

What the Competition is Doing: Cardinals Editions


Yesterday I reviewed what the Brewers had been up to. Mostly rebuilding the bullpen with ex-Pirates. Today I'll look at the Cards, who present a very different picture. They scored a lot of runs and gave up relatively few. In fact their 117 run differential was 36 runs larger than the Reds', Still the Cardinals finished second. Go figure.

Team

Won

Lost

RS

RA

Reds

97

65

669

588

Cards

88

74

765

648

Brewers

83

79

776

733

Pirates

79

83

651

674

Cubs

61

101

613

759

As you can see, the Cardinals didn't do much this winter. They signed Randy Choate, a field goal kicker, er LOGY. He'll be 40 when his contract expires, and he figures to have 150 appearances totaling 70 innings. For a good team, that could be huge. The Cards also signed Ty Wigginton. I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that he will be more productive than Jamie Romak. Henry Alvarado is 16, so he shouldn't have any bearing on the situation. Alex Reyes is two years older, so ditto.

Cardinals

Player

Type

Years

Value

Date

J.R. Towles

Minor

12/19/2012

Ty Wigginton

Signed

2

$5.000MM

12/14/2012

Alex Reyes

IFA

$0.950MM

12/13/2012

Jake Lemmerman

Trade

Skip Schumaker

12/12/2012

Randy Choate

Signed

3

$7.500MM

12/05/2012

Jamie Romak

Minor

11/20/2012

Justin Christian

Minor

11/17/2012

Rob Johnson

Minor

11/13/2012

Henry Alvarado

IFA

$0.150MM

11/01/2012

One big difference between the Cards and the rest of the NL Central is that the Cards have a great minor league system, arguably the best in baseball. Is Oscar Taveras the next great Cardinals star? To quote John Sickels, "Seems like it to me."

Passing the Cards won't be easy. Might they sign Lohse? I don't think so.

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