They're Older, I'm Not Sure They're Better

At this point, the St. Louis Cardinals seem content to sign free agents to minor league contracts. Hopefully they won't need Ian Snell or Miguel Batista this year, or if they do, they opt for P.J. Walters, Lance Lynn, or one of their minor leaguers who might actually have a major league future. Considering their manager, there's little chance they'll go that way, but I can hope.

Looking over the moves they've made this off-season, it's hard for me to believe they've improved. Jake Westbrook for an entire year should be an improvement over what they trotted out as the 4th starter in between Brad Penny's injury and Westbrook's arrival. It has the added bonus of relegating Kyle Lohse to 5th starter, which means the bar for him to be acceptable got just a little lower. The bar for him to be worth the contract the team gave him is still high, and based on his last 2 seasons, far beyond his reach. What worries me is the Cardinals may have to rely on him more this season. Westbrook, Carpenter, and Garcia have all had Tommy John surgeries in the last few years. Carpenter threw the second-highest regular season innings total of his career at age 35. Garcia threw more innings than he has in any season since he was drafted, and topped 150 innings for the first time since 2006. Still, if people stay healthy, the rotation should be solid, maybe even better than last year's, depending on how Carpenter ages, and how well Garcia adjusts to the league making adjustments to him.

The bullpen shouldn't be too different, though I'm not sure who the Cardinals have decided on as the 2nd LOOGY LaRussa will just have to have, now that Denny Reyes is in Philly. If they can avoid wasting innings on the likes of Mike MacDougal the right side should be OK, with Franklin, Boggs, McClellan, Motte, and hopefully Salas. Not great, but OK.

I've already said a lot about the acquisition of Theriot, and subsequent trade of Brendan Ryan. Quickly recapping, the loss of Hawksworth to acquire Tally Ho is no big loss. If Tally Ho were going to be used as a platoon partner for Skip, someone to face the lefthanders Schumaker is helpless against, it'd be tolerable. But to downgrade from Brendan's defense to Theriot's at SS is imbecilic, especially considering Duncan's insistent on getting groundballs. Right now, other than Albert at 1st, the infield defense looks like shit, and I don't buy that Theriot will hit well enough to compensate.

They added Lance Berkman to play right field. I don't know whether it's a good signing or not. Berkman says he's lost a lot of weight so he can move better. That's good. He still hasn't played outfield regularly in 3 or 4 years. That's bad. I don't doubt that even now, he could outhit a Jon Jay/Allen Craig platoon, which is what the Cards were looking at in right prior to Fat Elvis' arrival. That's largely because I'd fully expect LaRussa to favor Jay over Craig for playing time, and I don't expect Jay to replicate last year's offensive production. His defense would almost surely be better than Craig or Berkman's, but not by so much it would make the difference. Now those two should be the backup outfielders, though Tony will probably give Jay far too many starts in center over Colby. I hate LaRussa these days. I keep waiting for one of his feuds with players to get his ass booted, and it never happens.

Hopefully LaRussa will let Craig play 3rd, whether he's spelling Freese, or taking over for him if Freese can't stay healthy, or Freese's first 2 months were a fluke. Craig was able to stick at 3rd up to AAA, until the Cardinals moved him to the outfield to make room for Brett Wallace, who hasn't been tried much a 3rd by any of the team's that have had him since. This can mean Craig is truly horrible at 3rd, worse than a guy everyone else sees as a 1st baseman/DH. Or it means the Cardinals can't evaluate third base defense for shit. Or they didn't see a pressing need to get Craig time at 3rd. He can't be worse than the Aaron Miles/Felipe Lopez combo of last year. Or the Joe Thurston Experience of 2009.

Signing Gerald Laird for backup catcher frustrates me. He hit worse last year than Jason LaRue, which gives Tony absolutely no incentive to play him, which means he'll overuse Molina - again. They could have just used Bryan Anderson. I have no doubt he can outhit Laird, and he's a lefty, which offers some matchup possibilities, which LaRussa ought to love. Except TLR doesn't like his defense, supposedly, even though Anderson has apparently busted his butt trying to improve under Mike Matheny's tutelage. Also, there are rumors one of the Cardinals' starters doesn't like pitching to Anderson, who knows why. My money's on Carpenter, personally, because he seems like kind of an overly intense asshole, and there are only a couple of pitchers on the staff with the cachet for it to matter if they don't like a catcher. It's pretty much him or Wainwright, and I don't see it being Wagonmaker.

As I recall, there were rumors some of the veterans didn't like Brendan Ryan either, and that may have expedited his exit. My thought is this: these guys aren't playing on the sandlots with neighborhood kids. They're being paid to play baseball, so they are professionals. Part of being a professional is accepting they don't get to pick their coworkers. If they want that power, they can go start their own team. Until they do that, they can suck it up, do their best, and trust their teammates are doing so as well. They don't have to like their teammates, they just have to work with them.