So, what changes do we need to make for next year?

[Fan_In_NY]

Holliday - he'll get his money, somewhere, on the basis of his good regular season stats - but he may have to play for some team that doesn't go to the postseason too often so nobody sees him as the gutless choker he turned out to be.

He's also been a NLCS MVP so I think its pretty reckless to consider him to be a chokerl. I don't know if you can call him any closer to a choker than you can at calling him the next Mr. October based on 2 showings in the postseason.

[robbotis]

Less K's.
Too many in a lineup of:

Ankiel
Ludwick
Rasmus
Holliday
De Rosa
Glaus


You can live w/ one or two high strikeout guys, but this team had too many.

[Justme]

The Cardinals would like to lock up third baseman Mark DeRosa, who's due for offseason wrist surgery, and there's mutual interest in a one-year contract with 42-year-old John Smoltz.

"In a perfect world, if I could have one more run, gosh, that would be great," Smoltz said.

The Cardinals are likely to look for a cheaper alternative to 15-game winner Joel Pineiro, due for free agency, and La Russa expects outfielder Rick Ankiel to seek a regular job elsewhere. They'll almost certainly cut ties with infielders Troy Glaus and Khalil Greene, who had contracts worth more than $18 million last year but contributed little.

Kyle Lohse, a 15-game winner last year but unused in the playoffs, struggled with his command after getting hit by a pitch on the right forearm in late May and finished 6-10. He vowed not to pick up a baseball again until January and joked that he'd bat with Barry Bonds-style body armor next season.

[Fan_In_NY]

Less K's.
Too many in a lineup of:

Ankiel
Ludwick
Rasmus
Holliday
De Rosa
Glaus


You can live w/ one or two high strikeout guys, but this team had too many.

The Cards had the 3rd lowest K's in the NL this past season and less K's than the last two World Series winners (including the Red Sox who don't have to use a pitcher). Of course not all of those guys you listed played the whole year this past year with the Cards so without doing anything the number would definately go up. But looking at that list there are 4 free agents on there and the Cards aren't bringing any more than half of that list back in all probability. So I guess you will see an improvement there.

[JL21]

From another thread, I'm gonna run with this:

We gave 1525 PA to Ankiel, Thurston, Duncan, Greene, Greene, Barden and Stavinoha. That's 25% of our PA to guys with OPS+ from 62 to 83 and the majority in the lower end of that range.

Richie's got a great point. Oh, I don't begrudge them for giving a lot of those at-bats to those guys this season for various reasons. But it amounts to 2 to 2 1/2 full seasons- 1/4 of your everyday lineup- OPS+ing in the 70's. A quarter of your lineup was Aaron Miles' career line.

What I'm driving at is that it's not going to be hard to upgrade over all that. Freese over Thurston alone should be worth 1/2 a win, maybe more. If Holliday is back for a full season (gutless choker accusations aside), it'd be a huge upgrade over the 65% Dunkiel, 35% Holliday season they had in 2009. Getting improved bench play, and not having a ton of AB's going to Duncan and Ankiel and Thurston and K. Greene as regulars for 2 months of the season, can and will go a long way.

[cards2468]

more cowbell

[ghostrunner]

Saw some comments over at the PD to ditch McRae and hire Larry Walker as hitting coach. Not sure if that makes a big difference, but I miss Larry.

[cards2468]

Saw some comments over at the PD to ditch McRae and hire Larry Walker as hitting coach. Not sure if that makes a big difference, but I miss Larry.

I'd try making Big Mac an offer. He's turned down the Rockies a couple times, but maybe he's finally ready to come out of hiding.

[Fat_Bulldog]

From another thread, I'm gonna run with this:

We gave 1525 PA to Ankiel, Thurston, Duncan, Greene, Greene, Barden and Stavinoha. That's 25% of our PA to guys with OPS+ from 62 to 83 and the majority in the lower end of that range.

Richie's got a great point. Oh, I don't begrudge them for giving a lot of those at-bats to those guys this season for various reasons. But it amounts to 2 to 2 1/2 full seasons- 1/4 of your everyday lineup- OPS+ing in the 70's. A quarter of your lineup was Aaron Miles' career line.

What I'm driving at is that it's not going to be hard to upgrade over all that. Freese over Thurston alone should be worth 1/2 a win, maybe more. If Holliday is back for a full season (gutless choker accusations aside), it'd be a huge upgrade over the 65% Dunkiel, 35% Holliday season they had in 2009. Getting improved bench play, and not having a ton of AB's going to Duncan and Ankiel and Thurston and K. Greene as regulars for 2 months of the season, can and will go a long way.

Wow. That's a great breakdown.

[phins]

From another thread, I'm gonna run with this:

We gave 1525 PA to Ankiel, Thurston, Duncan, Greene, Greene, Barden and Stavinoha. That's 25% of our PA to guys with OPS+ from 62 to 83 and the majority in the lower end of that range.

Richie's got a great point. Oh, I don't begrudge them for giving a lot of those at-bats to those guys this season for various reasons. But it amounts to 2 to 2 1/2 full seasons- 1/4 of your everyday lineup- OPS+ing in the 70's. A quarter of your lineup was Aaron Miles' career line.

What I'm driving at is that it's not going to be hard to upgrade over all that. Freese over Thurston alone should be worth 1/2 a win, maybe more. If Holliday is back for a full season (gutless choker accusations aside), it'd be a huge upgrade over the 65% Dunkiel, 35% Holliday season they had in 2009. Getting improved bench play, and not having a ton of AB's going to Duncan and Ankiel and Thurston and K. Greene as regulars for 2 months of the season, can and will go a long way.

You beat me to it. I was going to latch onto that little tidbit as well. Finding a way to not have to get that many at bats to players who OPS in the 70's will be helpful. An uptick in the production of DeRo would help as well. I wonder if they really do plan to give Freese a shot at starting, but even if he is a guy who fills in, he makes the bench stronger, and reduces the at bats for the "70's crew" that much more.