St. Louis Cardinals Preview

In order to make hash out of the Cardinals 2005 prospects, or their 2004 season, or their offseason moves, or pretty much anything about the Cards during the Tony La Russa era, you need to know two things. First, you need to know how manager La Russa organizes a baseball team, and what the characteristics are of the teams he wins with. Then you need to know how GM Walt Jocketty goes about adapting to Tony's needs and the team's budget constraints. Only then can you figure out how well the 2005 edition conforms to Tony's personal model and how likely it is that Jocketty will be able to provide help if needed.

Tony La Russa, like most good veteran managers, has a team profile that he prefers. If his team fits the profile - and has enough talent to contend - Tony will likely win his division. If not, then usually not. Tony's favored profile, to the surprise of many who have seen his offenses, is almost entirely pitcher-driven. When Tony has three good veteran starters who give him good years, he wins, without exception in his history. When two veteran pitchers turn in good years, he's on the bubble. When only one is hot, he doesn't win. Offense is all but irrelevant, which is very odd, but also very true.

The last two years could not be a better pair of examples of this. In 2003, Tony's closer, Jason Isringhausen, had arm problems early. This forced Tony to badly overwork his two functioning ace pitchers - Matt Morris and Woody Williams - just to stay in the pennant race early in the year. Eventually, Izzy came back, but by then, Matt Morris was headed for the Disabled List and Woody Williams was getting hammered. The end result was that Tony got approximately one good season between the two pitchers, and didn't win a thing, in spite of all the offense that team possessed. They collapsed late, just when the starting pitching failed.

In 2004, everything went right. Tony opened with four functioning veteran pitchers, plus Jason Marquis, who isn't exactly a veteran. Izringhausen was healthy, so Tony didn't have to overwork any of those starters. All five starters came through except for minor injury problems. Tony got approximately four good whole seasons out of them, and won 105 games. The offense was certainly all there, and Tony would not have won THAT many games without it, but he would have won.

The arms for Tony's staffs, not to mention the bats for his lineups, come from GM Walt Jocketty's idiosyncratic approach to acquiring playing talent. Basically, Walt looks over his team in the offseason and identifies his solid starters and his question marks. Then he floods spring training with low-cost gambles at the questionable spots, waiting to see who has one last good season left in them.

For example, in 2004, Walt/Tony had a solid starter at every position except second base and left field. Many teams would have looked at all the other starting talent and just accepted that two lineup spots were going to be undermanned. Walt, however, took a different course. He invited every free second baseman and left fielder he could find to spring training. He'd gotten a respectable half season out of Bo Hart at second in 2003, but Hart isn't a serious talent, so in came Tony Womack and Marlon Anderson, who had the extra feature of being able to play left. Walt also brought in every available left fielder, from Ray Lankford to Brian Hunter. As luck would have it, Womack and Lankford had something left, so they got the starting jobs, with Anderson kept around as an overall backup.

If you think about it, this is a good plan. Walt isn't looking for people who are going to be solid starters for a decade - he's already got all of those his budget can afford. He's just looking for a player who can put up one last decent season at an open spot. He takes enough such gambles that, although the odds of any one of them working out might be small, the odds of just getting one winner out of the pack are good.

Walt is also willing to be patient, a quality that also played into the success of 2004. In 2003, one of the pitchers he brought in to compete for rotation spots was a very injured Chris Carpenter. Carpenter produced nothing in 2003, but he was arguably the Cardinals' best starter in 2004, and Walt waited for that. Tony Womack is a similar case, taken one year later, except that he recovered from his injury much faster than Carpenter and was ready to help by opening day. And you know, when the Yankees decided to gamble that Tony Womack had found some miracle formula and completely revitalized his career, Walt was willing to let him go and bring in a new crew of second basemen.

The last piece of Walt's plan involves trade-deadline moves. As most fans know, Walt is notorious for bringing in people like Will Clark, Chuck Finley, and, of course, Larry Walker late in the season to fill holes. This plan has two facets. First, you can often get good players cheap if you wait until the deadline, especially if you're willing to gamble on injuries and age. You can gamble on injuries and age if all you're really looking for is a couple of months' help in a pennant race. And second, you often have a much better idea of what your needs are by then. Again, in 2004, Ray Lankford, although a huge help in the first half, got hurt late, leaving left field in bad shape. Larry Walker was the solution to that. Had Lankford stayed healthy and, say, Womack been hurt, Walt would have known to go looking for a second baseman, not an outfielder.

The effect of all this is to maximize payroll dollars. By holding out a couple of million payroll dollars until the trade deadline (no one in St. Louis believes Walt's spring claims as to how much money he has available any more), Walt is able to put the money where the team's needs are, rather than wasting it on expensive redundant players. This is important to the Cardinals because their payroll makes them what basketball calls a "bubble" team - their payroll is usually about 8th in baseball, and there are 8 spots in the playoffs. Walt's approach has gotten the Cards into the playoffs far more often than that would predict - more often than 50 percent.

The entire plan appears in the current 2005 Cardinals. They traded, in effect, starting shortstop Edgar Renteria for Mark Mulder, David Eckstein, and Mark Grudzielanek. That is, the money they would have had to pay to keep Edgar is what paid for the other three. Mulder is yet another veteran starter who might give Tony a good year (replacing the used-up Woody Williams). Tony needs that more than his monster lineup needs Renteria. Eckstein and Grudzielanek are currently the starters, but both are vulnerable, and if either disappoint, Walt still has money available for the trade deadline, just in case.

So, are the 2005 Cardinals guaranteed to win? Well, I wouldn't bet against them. There is a lot of talent on the roster, hardly a surprise coming off 105 wins. In particular, the starting rotation is loaded with five good arms, and Tony only needs three. However, the Cardinals do have the most injury-prone roster among the competition. Virtually all the starters, both in the lineup and the pitching staff, have injury histories. They could get unlucky and have half the team on the DL by July. But that's not likely. And even if they do have injuries, and even if their stars don't all duplicate their 2004 seasons, and even if David Eckstein proves beyond all doubt that he absolutely, positively cannot play shortstop on defense, they should have enough depth to slide on by the Astros and Cubs and maybe the Reds. Besides, Walt still has those $2 million or so in his back pocket, waiting for the trading deadline.

Two final notes. First, the injury cases, at least in the lineup, are a deliberate part of Walt's plan. Walt is always on the lookout for players like Jim Edmonds and Scott Rolen, who have been hurt and who are in trouble in their current clubhouses. He trades for them relatively cheap, and relies on Tony to handle their personalities, and on the sheer number of them to overcome the injury risk. That is, the Cardinals can afford to lose, say, Jim Edmonds for a couple of months as long as Rolen and Larry Walker stay healthy, and vice versa.

And last, if Mark Grudzielanek falters at second base, starting looking for mentions of the retired Roberto Alomar in the papers. Tony La Russa spent most of February chasing Alomar around, trying to sign him to compete for the second base job. Robbie went instead to Tampa Bay, where he thought he would get a sure starting spot. Well, Alomar ended up retiring a few weeks ago, but who's to say that will stick if a contending team comes calling rather than the Devil Rays?

2005 ZiPS Projections

Name          ERA   W   L   G  GS     INN    H   ER   BB    K  HR 
Isringhaus   3.00   4   1  63   0    63.0   52   21   21   62   3 
Tavarez      3.25   6   3  71   0    72.0   67   26   24   43   1 
Mulder*      3.63  16   9  30  30   206.0  195   83   63  149  15 
King*        3.66   4   3  81   0    59.0   54   24   25   42   2 
Carpenter    3.81  11   7  25  25   156.0  152   66   36  128  20 
File         3.95   2   2  43   0    66.0   72   29   17   23   4 
Borland      4.00   4   4  56   0    63.0   56   28   29   62   6 
Lincoln      4.08   5   3  50   0    64.0   62   29   24   48   6 
Reyes        4.09   4   3  59   1    66.0   58   30   27   73   9 
Reyes        4.11   6   5  19  19   105.0   98   48   31  104  16 
Morris       4.13  13  11  31  31   192.0  192   88   54  138  24 
Journell     4.20   5   5  32  12    90.0   83   42   43   77   8 
Marquis      4.28   9   9  31  26   166.0  163   79   62  118  18 
Thompson     4.44   6   5  22  11    77.0   79   38   25   49  10 
Suppan       4.52  13  12  32  32   195.0  206   98   62  111  24 
Eldred       4.57   4   4  56   0    67.0   66   34   25   55  10 
Rust         4.64   4   4  53   2    66.0   63   34   37   52   6 
Wainwright   4.70   5   6  22  22   113.0  111   59   47   93  16 
Pearce       4.72   4   4  21   9    61.0   65   32   19   42  10 
Flores*      4.75   6   6  40  18   127.0  127   67   59   91  15 
Cali*        4.89   2   3  61   0    70.0   66   38   41   56   7 
Parrott      5.03   7   8  25  25   145.0  150   81   69   95  19 
Gissell      5.24   7   9  31  16   122.0  135   71   44   92  21 
Pulsipher*   5.36   2   4  39   0    42.0   42   25   29   28   4 
Bauer        5.54   3   5  43   3    78.0   80   48   56   44   6 
Ankiel*      6.59   1   3  15   7    41.0   36   30   43   41   5 

Name         P    AVG   OBP   SLG   G  AB   H 2B 3B HR   R RBI  BB   K SB CS 
Pujols       lf  .347  .435  .659 160 622 216 46  2 48 141 144  91  63  4  4 
Rolen        3b  .295  .393  .538 150 546 161 37  3 30  98 107  80  94  7  4 
Edmonds*     cf  .287  .402  .588 145 471 135 33  2 35  88 100  89 134  4  4 
Gall         1b  .280  .337  .444 136 511 143 31  1 17  68  73  41  66  2  2 
Gonzalez     lf  .275  .325  .407 147 528 145 29  1 13  70  66  37  57 11  8 
Seabol       3b  .271  .321  .445 126 458 124 24  1 18  64  66  31  90  4  3 
Eckstein     ss  .265  .333  .328 139 551 146 22  2  3  76  47  43  45 15  7 
Sanders      rf  .245  .310  .447 132 445 109 24  3 20  60  70  38 105 15  6 
Walker*      rf  .254  .361  .432 116 366  93 21  4 12  52  52  55  74  5  3 
Hart         2b  .271  .315  .382 131 490 133 23  5  7  69  47  27  90  9  5 
Berger       rf  .243  .315  .435 111 395  96 23  1 17  58  62  39  71  5  3 
Schumaker*   cf  .267  .330  .333 131 483 129 20  3  2  61  36  42  66 16 13 
Grudzielanek 2b  .284  .326  .391 114 412 117 24  1  6  52  48  22  57  3  2 
Cedeno#      rf  .265  .322  .363 134 419 111 19  2  6  52  39  36  72 13  6 
Harris#      2b  .266  .341  .350 110 383 102 17  3  3  55  34  41  65  3  4 
Luna         ss  .281  .342  .357 118 370 104 12  2  4  60  33  32  61 11  7 
Bell         3b  .221  .267  .398 115 412  91 20  1 17  49  57  23  93  7  6 
Guerrero#    2b  .281  .314  .343 111 367 103 16  2  1  46  30  15  48 15  8 
Nelson       ss  .225  .289  .318 117 418  94 19  1  6  52  36  35 105  7  4 
Gorecki      cf  .219  .271  .302 130 453  99 16  2  6  60  36  30  69 14 10 
Molina       c   .273  .332  .341  97 311  85 10  1  3  32  33  27  37  0  1 
Mabry*       1b  .278  .343  .469  87 209  58 10  0 10  26  35  21  49  0  1 
Cresse       c   .231  .280  .361  75 299  69 18  0  7  35  33  18  88  0  0 
McKay*       c   .239  .285  .332  91 310  74 12  1  5  29  33  18  47  1  2 
Taguchi      cf  .248  .289  .346 125 298  74 15  1  4  36  32  15  47  6  6 
Nunez#       2b  .245  .311  .344 116 253  62 10  3  3  30  25  22  43  4  4 
Mahoney      c   .255  .305  .356  74 239  61 13  1  3  24  23  15  40  2  1 
Diaz         c   .224  .273  .298  88 272  61 12  1  2  22  21  12  24  2  1 
Lemanczyk    cf  .203  .249  .232 109 375  76  6  1  1  66  20  20  70 27 13