The last three weeks we took a look around the outfield. Beginning this week we start working our way around the infield. Starting with perhaps the most important position within. Where defense, especially where the National League is concerned, carries as much weight as offense. Shortstop.

For the Cardinals the infield figures to look drastically different than opening day in 2011.  Lance Berkman takes over at first base, Rafael Furcal returns to shortstop, and it appears Tyler Greene, yes that Tyler Greene will get a shot as the starting second baseman. This could be the year that David Freese establishes himself as one of the best third basemen in the sport after his breakout October.

I digress. Rafael Furcal gives the Cardinals their best opening day starter at short since Edgar Renteria. Now before all the David Eckstein supporters get all hot and bothered understand, as scrappy and terrific as he was, Furcal offers a better defensive presence and hits leadoff. The hope for St. Louis is they get more of the Furcal they saw in St. Louis after the trade than the one in LA or masquerading as the Cardinal shortstop during the playoffs.

In a division with a legitimate All-Star, Starlin Castro, holding court up on the north side of Chicago and plenty of rookies and new comers 2012 should prove an interesting year in the NL Central. Here is the breakdown.

Cubs shortstop Starlin Castro logged an impressive 2011. With 21 steals and a .307 average, the 21-year-old has developed a terrific profile for a leadoff hitter and if he can expand on his power next season he could join the top tier of shortstop options. Castro had five hitting streaks of at least 10 games, and he finished the season with a streak of reaching base safely in 40 consecutive games. He finished with 57 multi-hit games, tied for the NL lead with three others, and led the league in at-bats. What Castro does need to improve upon is his defense — he led all Major League shortstops with 29 errors.

Rookie shortstop Zack Cozart had Tommy John reconstructive surgery only 11 games into the 2011 season.  Since the surgery was on his non-throwing elbow, Cozart has already resumed baseball activities and is thought of as a top candidate to ultimately capture the shortstop position full time. During those 11 games for Cincinnati — including nine starts — following a July 7 promotion from Triple-A Louisville, Cozart batted .307 with two home runs and three RBIs. His career in the Majors began with a seven-game hitting streak.  Shortstop has been one of the most unstable positions for the Reds over the past several years, and that’s something they very much want to correct.

New to the NL Central is Jed Lowrie.  Lowrie, a switch-hitter who has been injured often in his four-year Major League career, will become the Astros’ starter at shortstop. In his time with Boston The 27-year-old was never able to accumulate more than 300 at-bats in a season.  Lowrie doesn’t possess great range at shortstop, but his strength is his ability to hit left-handed pitching. He’s a career .326 hitter with a .385 on-base percentage against left-handers, but against right-handers is just a .214 hitter with a .293 on-base percentage. One thing Lowrie will bring is playoff experience, having helped the Red Sox reach the postseason in 2008 and ’09.

The Brewers signed Alex Gonzalez, filling the most glaring hole on their roster before at the Winter Meetings. Gonzalez has played at least 110 games in eight of the past nine seasons — he sat out 2008 because of a family issue — and is considered a plus defensive player. He was with the Braves in ’11, hitting .241 with 15 home runs and 56 RBIs. Offensively, he is similar to his predecessor, Yuniesky Betancourt. Gonzalez (.270 on-base percentage) and Betancourt (.271) had the lowest on-base percentage of qualifying National League hitters.

The Pirates have filled their hole at shortstop, replacing Ronny Cedeno with Clint Barmes. Barmes played a Gold Glove-caliber shortstop last season for the Astros who elected not to bring him back in 2012. Barmes led all regular NL shortstops in 2011 with a 7.9 ultimate zone rating, a sabermetric statistic that calculates how many more runs a player saves on defense than an average replacement.  Barmes missed the first couple of weeks of the season after breaking his hand in Spring Training and wound up hitting .244 with 12 homers and 39 RBIs.

The 34-year-old Rafael Furcal came to the Cards from the Dodgers in a Trade Deadline deal and hit .255 with a .316 on-base percentage in 50 regular-season games with St. Louis. Furcal had a rough time at the plate in the playoffs, hitting below .200 in both the NLCS and World Series. What keeps him in the game is his defense. Even at 34 his range and arm are among the best in baseball.  Furcal turned a National League shortstop-high 36 double plays and was ranked second in both total chances (238) and assists (155).

Looking back on 2011 and based on past performance, career trends  and my mood today here is how I see them stacking up in 2012.

1. Starlin Castro
2. Alex Gonzalez
3. Rafael Furcal
4. Zack Cozart
5. Jed Lowrie
6. Clint Barmes

In a division with a legitimate All-Star, Starlin Castro , holding court up on the north side of Chicago and plenty of rookies and new comers 2012 should prove an interesting year in the NL Central.

Follow Derek on twitter at @SportsbyWeeze

For those of you who consider yourselves to be “big”Cardinals fans, I have a challenge for you: Name the Cardinals’ starting shortstops over the past 4 seasons. It doesn’t sound like a hard question, but I myself could not come up with all of them without doing a little research. It’s not a trick question, I’m not including any one-day minor league call-ups here, I’m simply asking for the names of the players who’ve been given a legitimate opportunity to claim the starting job as their own. I’ll give you a hint: since World Series MVP David Eckstein left town following the 2007 season, there’s been EIGHT of them…and that’s exactly what makes the question so hard to answer. Eight different starting shortstops over the past four seasons for a franchise that had only four different starters at that position over the previous 25 years: Ozzie Smith (’82-’96), Royce Clayton (’96-’98), Edgar Renteria (’99-’04), and David Eckstein (’05-’07). It’s hard to believe, really.

We’ll get to the answer of the question in a little bit, but first I want to look at a different question: “Who is going to be the Cardinals’ starting shortstop in 2012?” There are plenty of options, and some are better than others, but for a team needing some stability up the middle, it’ll be interesting to see who gets the job. Let’s take a closer look at some of the options.

Raefael Furcal
Rafael Furcal battled through injuries most of the season, but provided a big jolt to the Cardinals’ offense. He had a disappointing World Series at the plate, but had several key hits in the Cardinals’ frantic playoff run and in the NLDS and NLCS. Furcal just turned 34 years old, and has seen his stolen base total plummet over the past four seasons. Furcal is exceptional in the field defensively, and though his batting average was only .231 this year, he typically hits around .280 and draws a decent amount of walks. He also blended well with the other Cardinals’ players and helped the team to a World Series title. It remains unclear whether the Cardinals plan on keeping Furcal, who’s now a free agent.

Jimmy Rollins
Jimmy Rollins is the most interesting free agent shortstop on the market now that Jose Reyes has signed with the Miami Marlins. Defensively, Rollins is sound like Furcal, committing just 7 errors last season at short. Rollins is a year younger than Furcal, and also brings a little more power to the plate… but those numbers have faded a bit, and it’s important to keep in mind that Citizen’s Bank Park is one of the friendliest hitter’s parks in the league. Rollins carries a .268 career batting average, and has never hit .300+ for a season. The perception is that Rollins will be the most expensive shortstop on the market, so it’s unclear whether the Cardinals’ management team thinks he’d be worth significantly more money than Furcal

Ryan Theriot
Theriot is a decent hitter who brings a little power and didn’t strike out much last season, but his he has to hit better than .271 to make up for his deficiencies on defense. Theriot had 17 errors in just 91 games last season, and doesn’t have the range that Rollins and Furcal have. Theriot will be 32 years old heading into the 2012 season.

Tyler Greene
If Tyler Greene is the starting shortstop for St. Louis next season, I will be shocked. Is he an inexpensive stop-gap while the team looks for a long term solution at short…yes… but he has done nothing at the big league level to show he’s ready to take over the everyday starting job. Greene’s defense and offense have struggled, and at 28, he just may not be everyday big league material.

By all accounts, the Cardinals send one of these players out to play between second and third on Opening Day next season, but none of them appear to be long term solutions (though Rollins would likely sign for a few years). With that in mind, it’s time to go back to our original question: “Can you name all eight of the Cardinals’ starting shortstops over the past four seasons?” We’ve already named three of them in Furcal, Theriot, and Greene. We’re missing Brendan Ryan, Julio Lugo, Felipe Lopez, Cesar Izturis, and Khalil Greene. If you knew them all off the top of your head, I’m thoroughly impressed. Let’s just hope this question doesn’t become even harder in the years to come.

St Louis just completed a three-game sweep of the Baltimore Orioles, winning last night 9-6. Lance Berkman hit two home runs and drove in three. Jon Jay also homered for the Redbirds.

When these two franchises get together – and it has only happened twice, the other occurring over a lazy weekend in 2003 – nostalgia aficionados think back to when both teams played in St Louis, and the 1944 World Series. The Browns moved out of St Louis following the 1953 season, partially because they were cash-strapped, partially because the American League was tired of Bill Veeck owning the team.

Very few folks remain in St Louis who saw the Browns play and it is safe to say no one in Baltimore, unless they moved to Maryland with the Browns, cares they were St Louis’ other franchise some 58 years ago. Anyone hoping the Orioles would dress up like the Browns during this series was disappointed. That did happen once though – during Baltimore’s lone visit to St Louis.

June 7, 2003 found the Cardinals 4 games over .500 and in third place, 2 games behind Houston. Baltimore was 2 games under and in fourth, trailing the Yankees by 5 and a half. Garrett Stephenson and Sidney Ponson started for the Cardinals and ‘Browns’, respectively, and in a sign of things to come Stephenson gave up a first-inning home run to Melvin Mora, staking Baltimore to a 2-0 lead. The Cardinals came right back; after leadoff singles by Miguel Cairo and JD Drew, Albert Pujols doubled to score Cairo. Drew, however, was thrown out at home trying to tie the game. Ponson walked Jim Edmonds next, then got Scott Rolen looking and Edgar Renteria on a lineout.

The Orioles immediately pushed the lead back to two in the second, thanks to a leadoff home run from Deivi Cruz. The score would stay that way until Cruz returned to the plate in the fourth and homered again. It was the second, and last, multi-HR game of his career. Stephenson gave up a third HR – in the sixth, to Jeff Conine – and was lifted by Tony LaRussa two batters later instead of facing Cruz a third time. Kiko Calero came in and struck out Cruz to end the sixth.

In the meantime Ponson was cruising. Following the Pujols double he retired 21 of the next 22 hitters, allowing only an Edmonds single leading off the fourth. Dustin Hermanson relieved Calero to start the eighth and promptly gave up singles to Luis Matos and Mora, both of whom scored when Conine followed with a double. St Louis got multiple runners on in the bottom of the inning on a pinch-hit single from Orlando Palmerio and a double from Cairo, but Cairo managed to get hit by Drew’s ground ball to short. Pujols struck out looking with runners on the corners to end the inning.

Baltimore tacked on a meaningless unearned run in the ninth, and Ponson completed what he started, winning 8-1. Ponson threw 29 complete games in his career, and this was the first of three he threw in 2003.

What makes this game memorable? Two things. It is currently the only game the Cardinals have lost to Baltimore. And, it remains the only time since 1953 the St Louis Browns played the St Louis Cardinals.

Ryan Theriot is projected to be the Cardinals Opening Day shortstop, and Skip Schumaker the second baseman. Many have expressed anxiousness at how well they will play defensively. How will Theriot and Schumaker compare to recent keystone combinations?

Fangraphs started keeping defensive data in 2002, so let’s look at Cardinal combinations starting with there. Take a walk down memory lane and remind yourself of these duos. When multiple players played the position in a season, I chose the guy who started the most games there.

• 2002 – Fernando Vina and Edgar Renteria
• 2003 – Bo Hart and Renteria
• 2004 – Tony Womack and Renteria
• 2005 – Mark Grudzielanek and David Eckstein
• 2006 – Aaron Miles and Eckstein (yep, Miles; 471 PA)
• 2007 – Adam Kennedy and Eckstein
• 2008 – Kennedy and Cesar Izturis
• 2009 – Skip Schumaker and Brendan Ryan
• 2010 – Schumaker and Ryan

Interesting that 2009-2010 marked the first time since 2000-2002 the same two players started the majority of games at second and short.

Using UZR/150 from Fangraphs, here is how each individual performed.

• 2002: Vina -0.8, Renteria 5.8
• 2003: Hart 7.7, Renteria 6.1
• 2004: Womack 2.7, Renteria 0.6
• 2005: Grudzielanek 9.2, Eckstein -6.9
• 2006: Miles -5.4, Eckstein 1.7
• 2007: Kennedy -1.8, Eckstein -13.6
• 2008: Kennedy 18.0, Izturis 8.6
• 2009: Schumaker -8.5, Ryan 9.6
• 2010: Schumaker -17.2, Ryan 12.1

We see a ton of variation in these statistics, even among those with multiple seasons at the same position. Ryan was the best defensive shortstop of this group, Renteria was very good, Eckstein was ultimately not very good during his time in St Louis. On the other side of the bag, Kennedy was above average defensively for most of his career (despite the wide statistical variation seen in St Louis), and Schumaker is well below average.

For the one-season guys, starting at second base, Vina and Womack were in their primes before advanced defensive metrics came to be, making it hard to generalize this one season as indicative of their careers. Hart only played part of one more season (2004), again making it hard to determine if 2003 is an accurate reflection of his talent. Grudzielanek had some very good defensive seasons with the Royals after leaving St Louis, and his 2005 score is right in line with those years. Miles is poor defensively and has seen his innings in the field at second base decline every season since 2006. Izturis has long been considered an excellent defensive shortstop and his career numbers back that up.

Back to the 2011 pairing. Virtually everyone who has weighed in on the subject projects Theriot as below average defensively at short. However, his pre-2010 numbers were pretty good by UZR/150: 4.4 in 2007, 2.3 in 2008, 4.1 in 2009. Only last season did he show a marked drop-off (-18.1), but he only played 246 innings at short (in comparison to at least 850 in each of the previous 3 seasons). Theriot will probably not play to the level of Renteria, Ryan, or Izturis, but he almost certainly won’t be as big a liability at second as Eckstein was in 2004 and 2006. Schumaker is a below-average second baseman and will continue to be so.

Theriot will be a step back from Ryan, but is not as weak a defender as Eckstein was. There won’t be a superhighway up the middle for ground balls to take into the outfield. This combination will not be as stone-fingered as the 2006 and 2007 Cardinal versions were. In fact, given the trend of having one position post a negative or average UZR/150 and the other a positive, 2011 should be just like 7 of the last 9 seasons in St Louis up the middle.

Shortstop has been one of the most talked-about positions all year, during the season and off-season. Only three players spent time at shortstop in 2010, but Brendan Ryan was the obvious starter at short for the majority of the summer.

Felipe Lopez and Tyler Greene also contributed throughout the season, but both played less than 25 games at shortstop compared to Ryan’s 139. One thing they call had in common though was a poor season at the plate. All three batted lower than .231 and put together the worst offensive SS group of any team in the National League.

(Combined stats of the three players and NL ranks)

Those numbers above may very well be why John Mozeliak and the rest of the Front Office crew is looking for middle infield help this winter. Stephen Drew, Miguel Cabrera, Juan Uribe, Edgar Renteria, and Orlando Cabrera are among shortstops drawing interest from the Cardinals, and all three have had great success at the plate throughout their careers. Drew has averaged 70 RBI per season in five years, Tejada is an 8-time MVP candidate, Uribe was ranked second in the MLB with 24 home runs in ’10, Renteria hit .290 as a Cardinal, and Cabrera hit .288 from 2007-2009 and has averaged 18 stolen bases per year in his career.

Although all of those options would provide very needed help on the offensive side, none can account for Brendan Ryan’s glove. Ryan has proved to be one of the best defensive shortstops in the Majors. In the 2010 season, he ranked fifth in the MLB in defensive WAR, first in assists, fifth in putouts, first in total zone runs, and second in range factor. There were some who thought Brendan Ryan should have won a Gold Glove, something which none of the five mentioned above can say.

Ryan has vowed to make strides at the plate, and if he does, he could very well become one of the best shortstops in the National League. Which is why he will likely be the starter in 2011. He’s proved that he can hit in the big leagues. If you combine his 2007 and 2009 numbers, he hit .291 with a .345 OBP in 570 AB.

Even if his struggles with the bat continue, his glove is too good to part ways with. Management’s best bet is to improve the offense at second base, maybe third base, and stick with Ryan at SS. If his bat doesn’t come around, his defense will still be there, and he will always be a very cheap asset to the St. Louis Cardinals. Now, and in the future.