Brian34Cook

Dire predictions are off-base
03/30/2008


It's usually a good laugh when baseball writers quote anonymous scouts who make high-minded, heavy-handed rulings on various teams.

For example, Jon Heyman of Sports Illustrated recently quoted an unidentified scout who compared Cardinals chairman Bill DeWitt to the tyrannical, hopelessly incompetent Baltimore Orioles owner Peter Angelos. "They're doing to St. Louis what Angelos did to Baltimore," the scout said. "They're ruining the tradition.''

Huh?

Lookit, I've taken some shots at DeWitt for being reluctant to open DeWallet, but to liken him to Angelos — who has destroyed a once-proud Orioles franchise — is absurd to the point of dementia.

The Cardinals were an Angelos-like mess when DeWitt's ownership group took over in 1996, and what we've seen is one of the more successful runs in franchise history.

Elsewhere, the Chicago Tribune predicted a 69-93 last-place finish for the Cardinals and explained: "No team in the majors has lost more talent since last season — Scott Rolen, Jim Edmonds, David Eckstein, Preston Wilson, Troy Percival and Kip Wells, most notably."

Whoa, now. Wilson had 64 at-bats last season and hit .219. Edmonds posted career lows in homers and RBIs for a full season and couldn't cover much ground in center field. Rolen hit a whopping eight homers. Eckstein had a sore back and a career-high 20 errors. Percival pitched 40 innings; somehow this isn't the equivalent of the Yankees losing Mariano Rivera.

And Wells? He was 7-17 with a 5.70 ERA. Let me put it this way: Even when Eddie Cicotte lost on purpose for the 1919 White Sox, he wasn't as bad as Wells.

But I'm confident that manager Tony La Russa and pitching coach Dave Duncan will find a way to hold things together in a reasonable fashion.

I say this for several reasons:

— Despite having their 2007 season and team fabric torn asunder by death, drugs, drinking, catastrophic injury and age-based decline, the Cardinals still managed to be only a game out of first place on Sept. 4. There's little chance of the 2008 Cardinals being asked to endure as much cruel adversity as the 2007 version. The relentless La Russa has innate survival skills, and his teams often take on his personality.

— The starting pitching isn't great, but it's deeper and should be an improvement over 2007, when the rotation tossed the fewest innings and had the highest ERA for a non-strike year in franchise history. Rather than dwell on pitchers who have been lost, the Cardinals can actually look forward to pitchers coming back (Chris Carpenter, Mark Mulder). And some promising arms are close to being ready in the minors.

— Two words: Albert Pujols.

— Last season the Cardinals received the leanest production from the No. 4 spot in the lineup of any team in either league. There's more muscle now, with Troy Glaus or Rick Ankiel tabbed to bat behind Pujols. We aren't talking 1927 Yankees here, but the middle of the lineup won't be as anemic.

— For the first time in many years, the Cardinals appear to have good young position players and pitchers waiting near the footlights, ready to step up in case of an emergency. That list is topped by No. 1 prospect Colby Rasmus. The organizational depth has been upgraded, and that should help build a protective firewall.

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