2012 Cardinals Season Thread

[milladrive]

A new baseball season always makes me happy. Feel free to discuss the 2012 Cardinals season here.

[dominik]

sad that a moderator has to open the reigning WS champions thread...

[Bothrops Atrox]

I was feeling really good about this team until Carpenters tri-anual mega-injury. The offense is very deep (especially when Craig gets back), the bullpen is stocked with young, live arms, and the team's defense should improve over last years by a large margin. Of course it seems like every position player on the team is injury-prone, so things could turn around in a hurry.

The starting rotation is not very good. People around here keep talking about the "depth" of the staff, but I do not see it. We have on great pitcher, who will be lucky to go over 200 IP. Garcia is no #2 pitcher and Loshe is no #3 pitcher. Westbrook is no #4 pitcher. I fail too see the hype surrounding Lynn, and why he is the reason why Oswalt for $6 million is such a terrible investment. People talk about Miller, but he is a big unknown and may not be ready to start this year. If Carp can come back in timely fashion, the rotation is strong. If not, I expect a lot of high-scoring games.

I think they will contend for the NLC division and maybe for the second WC spot.

[Blackout]

Cardinals win 4-1 over Miami Marlins

you cards fans need to start posting more

[Bulldog19]

We don't need to post about every win. Cardinals fans have an expectation to win a lot of games every year. Unlike other teams in our division, we expect to win every year and not once every 15 years...

[pikesteve22]

The starting rotation is not very good. People around here keep talking about the "depth" of the staff, but I do not see it. We have on great pitcher, who will be lucky to go over 200 IP. Garcia is no #2 pitcher and Loshe is no #3 pitcher. Westbrook is no #4 pitcher. I fail too see the hype surrounding Lynn, and why he is the reason why Oswalt for $6 million is such a terrible investment. People talk about Miller, but he is a big unknown and may not be ready to start this year. If Carp can come back in timely fashion, the rotation is strong. If not, I expect a lot of high-scoring games.

I think they will contend for the NLC division and maybe for the second WC spot.

I gotta disagree with you on the rotation. Garcia definitely has the stuff to be a number 2 if he can learn to control his composure. Lohse has been a plus pitcher for the Cardinals when he's been healthy, and obviously Wednesday was a terrific outing for him. If Westbrook can keep the ball down, as he seemed to be doing during the spring, he's a sold wormburner, and if he can keep the weight he lost off this season, I could see getting a solid 190 innings from him.

Lynn's a question mark, but at some point you have to give them a chance. He was solid in relief last season, and he did decently in spring training this year.

I'm curious if we'll see Rosenthal in the majors before we see Miller. Rosenthal by all accounts had a better spring training, hence his jump from Low A to AA. Miller, on the other hand, came in too lean for the coaches' liking and never really found his groove in his limited appearances.

The opening line for Cardinals wins this year is 84.5, and I'd take the over even with Carpenter's absence.

[Blackout]

no replies in 15 days????

[Bothrops Atrox]

Well, so far so good, I guess.

The good news is: we are 11-5 with zero pitches from Carp, 3 poor starts from Waino, a very poor beginning of the season from Holliday, and a rash of DL stints already, including Berkman, Craig, Jay, Linebrink, and Shumacker.

The bad news: Loshe is not Tom Seaver, Lynn is not Bob Gibson, and Westbrook is not Greg Maddux. Big regression from those guys is coming. Furcal, Freese, Jay (when healthy), and Beltran cannot keep up these paces either. Schedule has been very soft so far too.

Really haven't learned a lot about the long-term outlook of the team, other than everybody on this team is one blade-of-grass-not-cut-short-enough from a 15-day DL stint (or worse).

[StanTheMan]

Some of the young players... Matt Carpenter, Cruz' D and handling of the staff/pitchers, etc. I like.
a lot.

I do like the bullpen immensely, Garcia's potential/upside as well as Lohse when he pitches at te higher end of his "window" of probable results. I'm less excited about them all with Dave Duncan 1,000+ miles for them at all times.


btw... This particular board has never been a hot spot. Big deal. Call Tom Herr and complain if you'd like.

[Bothrops Atrox]

Some of the young players... Matt Carpenter, Cruz' D and handling of the staff/pitchers, etc. I like.
a lot.

I do like the bullpen immensely, Garcia's potential/upside as well as Lohse when he pitches at te higher end of his "window" of probable results. I'm less excited about them all with Dave Duncan 1,000+ miles for them at all times.


btw... This particular board has never been a hot spot. Big deal. Call Tom Herr and complain if you'd like.

I think our staff's solid performance by the end of the year will show how overrated pitching coaches really are.

[StanTheMan]

I think our staff's solid performance by the end of the year will show how overrated pitching coaches really are.

You mean the guys who were previously coached by one of the greatest pitching coaches of recent times?


Pitching coaches do more in a week than McGwire's sorry *** does all season.

[Bothrops Atrox]

You mean the guys who were previously coached by one of the greatest pitching coaches of recent times?


Pitching coaches do more in a week than McGwire's sorry *** does all season.

Not sure what mcGwire has to do with any of this, but oooookay.

I am not saying that pitching coaches are irrelevant, but I do not think a pitching coach makes or breaks pitchers. pitchers do that. In fact, Duncan forcing the "pitch to contact" idea only works when he has great defenses. He stunted a lot of power arms by telling them to real it in. there are a lot of cases of big prospects that never materialized and some cases of veterans that struggled to counteract the famous cases. I like the guy, but I wasn't losing any sleep when he left. that is all I am saying.

[StanTheMan]

Ummmm. He's the hitting coach.
And less important than the pitching coach imo.

[Bothrops Atrox]

Ummmm. He's the hitting coach.
And less important than the pitching coach imo.

But I don't recall anybody mentioning him in this thread, much less praising him. Still not sure what he has to do with the importance of the pitching coach.

[StanTheMan]

But I don't recall anybody mentioning him in this thread, much less praising him. Still not sure what he has to do with the importance of the pitching coach.

You were diminishing the importance of pitching coaches. I disagreed with that, and mentioned that the pitching coach does more than McGwire does to provide a comparison The hitting coach does more than an Advance Scout, who does more than an advertising secretary, who does more than a part time ticket taker, who does more than the goofy college kid selling foam fingers and pennants in the upper deck.