The 133rd season of Major League Baseball is upon us. Over the next month and half, we will be taking a look at each ball club, leading up to the Expert Predictions of the esteemed staff at Sparty & Friends. We are previewing each team, from worst to first. Today we stroll thru the Gateway to the West;  St. Louis.

Yawn. These are your 2009 St. Louis Cardinals. They are made up of a ton of boring white guys and King Albert. They had there usual good season last year, overachieving when you look at all the injuries they had. The rotation pitched over their head to a man, Dave Duncan may be the best pitching coach in the business. The Cards pretty much give you the same thing almost every year; they play smart and do all the little things well, base running, moving runners, playing solid defense. They bore you to death with fundamentals. They are MLB’s version of the San Antonio Spurs, without all the titles.

Last Season:86-76 (4th place in the NL Central)

Who’s Gone:P Randy Flores, P Jason Isringhausen, SS Cesar Izturis, P Tyler Johnson, 2B Adam Kennedy, P Braden Looper, SS Felipe Lopez, 2B Aaron Miles, P Mark Mulder, P Russ Springer, P Ron Villone

Who’s New:SS Khalil Greene, P Trevor Miller, P Dennys Reyes

Projected Lineup:
1.Skip Schumaker (RF)
2.Rick Ankiel (CF)
3.Albert Pujols (1B)
4. Ryan Ludwick (LF)
5.Troy Glaus (3B)
6.Khalil Greene (SS)
7. Yadier Molina (C)
8.Brendan Ryan (2B)
9.Pitcher de Jour

Projected Rotation:
1.Adam Wainwright
2.Kyle Lohse
3Chris Carpenter
4.Todd Wellemeyer
5.Joel Pineiro

CL: Chris Perez or Ryan Franklin

Key Bench Players:
Brian Barden 2B/3B/OF, Chris Duncan OF, Colby Rasmus OF

Manager:Tony LaRussa

Line up: The Cards can hit it far, the question is can they hit it often. Pujols is the best player in the game by a pretty large margin, his numbers over his first 8 years are staggering. In fact, if you were to just use numbers to decide the best, King Albert would be the greatest hitter in the history of the game. Here is his 162 game average: .334, 42 HR, 128 RBI, 45 2B, 124 Runs and wait for it……………only 66 K’s. Only 8 players in history have had that type of season one time, let alone average it for 8. Guys with names like Ruth, Gehrig, Williams, and DiMaggio. Good company to keep, good company indeed. Not to mention he catches everything and is the best base runner (he gets a lot of practice) on the team.

Now that Bud has declared that the game has cleaned itself up, when a reliable test for HGH is developed, I nominate Ryan Ludwick to pee first. Don’t get me wrong, I have no proof of anything and I don’t care to point fingers at guys they very well may have worked their ass off to get where they are. All I’m saying is when a guy that had 28 HR and 96 RBI in his 6 year career, goes out and pops 37 dingers and knocks in 113, well as they say in Mizzou, “show me”. It doesn’t help that he’s on the same roster with Troy Glaus and Rick Ankiel. I say he doesn’t get close to the numbers again.

The rest of the line up is ho-hum, Molina is good hitting catcher, which means if he played another position he’d be a crappy hitter. The team signed Greene, who hit the cover of the ball in 2007 before becoming Rey Ordonez last year. He probably will rebound a bit, but he has a long way to go.

Schumaker may actually end up being the opening day second baseman, as LaRussa loves to experiment. More importantly, that would open the door for Colby Rasmus, a kid that is supposed to be able to do everything. If he plays and he hits, Glaus gets and stays healthy and Ankiel and Ludwick have decent years, the Cards will score a bunch of runs.

Starting Chuckers: The rotation was very good last year, thanks to Duncan. Wainright is great when healthy, but he only started 20 games last year. His curve is filthy. Kyle Lohse pitched for a contract last year and got it. He was the most underrated pitcher in the NL last year, look at his stats. I think he’ll go back to a 4.50 era and suck. Todd Wellemeyer is another guy most people outside of Budtown have never heard of. He only went 13-9 with a 3.71, made 32 starts and chucked 191 innings. Joel Pinero………meh.

The wild card in this rotation is Carpenter of course. After being the best pitcher in the NL in 2005 and winning the world series in 2006, he has had 2 injury destroyed years. Pitchers just don’t come back after the injuries he’s had and time he’s missed. At least they don’t come back and pitch well. Carpenter has been great this spring and seems to be a top notch guy and a great teammate, I hope he stays healthy this year. Maybe Ludwick can help him out……….

Late Chuckers: Yuck. I would trade the Cards pen for the September version the Mets have run out the last two seasons. No set up guy, an incumbent closer in Franklin that wasn’t very reliable, he blew 8 of 25 saves opportunities last year. That’s atrocious. Jason Motte was good last year as was Josh Kinney during his September 7 game scoreless streak. If Chris Perez can solidify the closers role early, they may survive. If they start a revolving door in the 9th inning, forget it.

Prediction: The Cards will  do what they usually do, win more than they lose and hang around most of the year. The bottom of their division is horrendous, and outside of the Cubs no one else is that impressive. They will make a run at the wild card, losing out to the Marlins. 86-90 wins.

patphish is Senior Editor at Sparty and Friends. He can be reached at patphish@spartyandfriends.com

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