The St. Louis Cardinals opened Spring Training camp Saturday with a markedly different cast compared to the past 16 seasons.

Former manager Tony La Russa wasn’t in Jupiter, Fla., this weekend to lead a new group of Cardinals through their calisthenics and everything that comes with the first few weeks of Spring Training. Instead, La Russa retired days after winning the World Series, and he will now help out his buddy Jim Leyland and the Detroit Tigers.

As La Russa moves on to do whatever he wants during his retirement, Cardinals camp will start to look a lot more like it did in the decades before La Russa showed up in 1996.

Most notably, Whitey Herzog and Ozzie Smith will be at camp to help out the current group of Cardinals. That should be a welcome sight to Cardinals fans.

Even though La Russa won baseball games for the Cardinals (1,408 to be exact), he didn’t always have a good relationship with important members of Cardinals history. Smith played his final season in 1996 for La Russa, but the two developed a frosty relationship as La Russa tried to install Royce Clayton as the new shortstop to replace Smith.

Smith hasn’t been at a Cardinals Spring Training camp since.

This isn’t to say La Russa discarded the history and tradition of the St. Louis Cardinals. He was well aware of how important the history of the franchise is to the community and even pushed to bring the Budweiser Clydesdales back to Busch Stadium to circle the field as they did back when Gussie Busch owned the team.

La Russa also kept former second baseman and manager Red Schoendienst on staff as an assistant both in Spring Training and during the season. And, La Russa chafed at the idea of passing Schoendienst on the all-time win list for Cardinals managers, even though he eventually surpassed Schoendienst’s mark by nearly 400 wins.

Still, La Russa always had his own way of doing things, and his methods often did not include advice from other Cardinals heroes. But, this year Herzog, Smith, Schoendienst, Lou Brock and Bob Gibson are all expected to be central figures in Cardinals Spring Training camp under new manager Mike Matheny.

In addition, former centerfielder Jim Edmonds will return to the team as an instructor for Spring Training and former closer Ryan Franklin will be an assistant to general manger John Mozeliak.

Edmonds’ return to the team as an instructor surely wouldn’t have happened if La Russa was still the manager. Although Edmonds and La Russa had a great run together during the 2000s, their relationship soured once the Cardinals traded Edmonds to the San Diego Padres following the 2007 season and he eventually ended up with the hated Chicago Cubs.

This season was going to be the beginning of a new era in Cardinals history regardless of how Matheny set up camp, but it is nice to see some of the Cardinals legends wear the red jersey with the birds on the bat logo across their chest.

So as the doors to 2012 Spring Training open, hopefully this year’s team adds to the impressive history set forth by many of the people who will lend a helping hand for the next six weeks.

BBA Names Arizona’s Gibson, Tampa Bay’s Maddon Top Managers
Top Blogger Organization Awards Connie Mack Award For 2011

Arizona Diamondbacks manager Kirk Gibson and Tampa Bay Rays manager Joe Maddon were named the 2011 Connie Mack Award winners today by the Baseball Bloggers Alliance. The Connie Mack Award recognizes those considered the top manager for the season.

Gibson took over an Arizona team that finished last in the National League West in 2010 and led them to a divisional title in his first year on the job. Gibson’s Diamondbacks led all year long and finished a comfortable eight games ahead of defending World Champion San Francisco to move on to the postseason stage. Voting was done before the Diamondbacks lost to the Milwaukee Brewers in five games in the National League Divisional Series.

Gibson was a unanimous winner, scoring the top slot on all 21 ballots cast by the portion of the membership that voted on the National League award. Ron Roenicke, whose Brewers defeated Gibson’s squad, finished second in the balloting, while St. Louis Cardinal manager Tony La Russa finished third.

Maddon was rewarded after leading his team to the largest September rally in history, leading his Rays from nine games back in the wild card race to passing up the Boston Red Sox on the last day. As in the National League, voting did not take into account the Rays falling to the Texas Rangers in four games in the American League Divisional Series.

Maddon received the top billing on 22 of the 25 ballots cast for the American League voters, easily outpacing Detroit’s Jim Leyland and Texas Ranger manager Ron Washington. Washington garnered the three first place votes that did not go to Maddon.

The complete voting results are as follows (first place votes in parenthesis):

American League
Joe Maddon, Tampa Bay (22) 113
Jim Leyland, Detroit 48
Ron Washington, Texas (3) 37
Mike Scioscia, Los Angeles of Anaheim 13
Joe Girardi, New York 9
Manny Acta, Cleveland 5
John Farrell, Toronto 1

National League
Kirk Gibson, Arizona (21) 105
Ron Roenicke, Milwaukee 39
Tony La Russa, St. Louis 16
Charlie Manuel, Philadelphia 13
Clint Hurdle, Pittsburgh 7
Terry Collins, New York 5
Bruce Bochy, San Francisco 3
Freddi Gonzalez, Atlanta 1

The Baseball Bloggers Alliance was formed in the fall of 2009 to encourage cooperation and collaboration between baseball bloggers of all major league teams as well as those that follow baseball more generally. As of this writing, the organization consists of 316 blogs spanning all 30 major league squads as well as general baseball writing.

The BBA is organized under a similar structure as the Baseball Writers of America, where blogs that follow the same team are combined into “chapters” and only two votes from the chapter on an award are counted. The blog chapters that are focused on general baseball were allowed two votes as well, which they could use both on the same league or split between the two leagues.

Chapters generally followed one of two methods when casting their ballot. Either representatives of the chapter were given the ballots for voting or a “group ballot” was posted, accounting for both of their votes.

Notably, though the Alliance’s awards come out well before their official counterparts, the BBA selections have matched those of the Baseball Writers of America in all but two instances in the past two years. This, of course, does not include the Goose Gossage Award that is exclusive to the BBA.

Ballots are posted on the respective blogs and for this award, were tabulated on a 5-3-1 point scale for first through third place. In the interest of transparency, links are given below for the ballots. Chapter affiliation is in parenthesis. Those chapters that decided on the group method are noted with an asterisk.

American League
Advanced Fantasy Baseball (Fantasy)
Baltimore Sports and Life (Baltimore)
Baseball Is My Boyfriend (Texas)*
Baseball North (Toronto)
Boston Red Thoughts (Boston)*
Contract Year (Oakland)*
500 Level Fan (Toronto)
The Flagrant Fan (General)
Kings of Kauffman (Kansas City)*
Misc. Baseball (History)
Monkey With A Halo (Los Angeles of Anaheim)
Motor City Bengals (Detroit)
North Dakota Twins Fan (Minnesota)
Old English D (Detroit)
The Rays Rant (Tampa Bay)
Rise of the Rays (Tampa Bay)
Seattle Mariners Musings (Seattle)
The Tribe Daily (Cleveland)*
Twins Trivia (Minnesota)
Victoria Seals Baseball Blog (Other)

National League
Advanced Fantasy Baseball (Fantasy)
Appy Astros (Houston)
Blog Red Machine (Cincinnati)
Cincinnati Reds Blog (Cincinnati)
Dugger Sports (Philadelphia)
The Eddie Kranepool Society (New York)*
The Flagrant Fan (General)
I70 Baseball (St. Louis)
Left Coast Bias (San Diego)
Misc. Baseball (History)
On The Outside Corner (St. Louis)
Padres Trail (San Diego)
Prose and Ivy (Chicago)*
Raise The Jolly Roger (Pittsburgh)
Rockies Woman (Colorado)
22 Gigantes (San Francisco)*
Victoria Seals Baseball Blog (Other)

Prior Winners: 2010: Ron Washington, Texas; Bud Black, San Diego
2009: Mike Scioscia, Los Angeles of Anaheim; Jim Tracy, Colorado

The official website of the BBA is located at baseballbloggersalliance.wordpress.com. The BBA can be found on Twitter by the handle @baseballblogs and by the hashmark #bbba. For more information, contact Daniel Shoptaw at founder@baseballbloggersalliance.com.

During this week, guest writers from around the Internet will drop by to break down the 2011 season and how it looks for the teams in the American League Central. Today’s post comes from Jennifer Cosey as she takes a look at the Detroit Tigers.

Although the mound is still tarped over and the grass lies dormant, Tigers fans will soon gather at Comerica Park for the club’s annual TigerFest on January 22. It’s stealing a few hours from the dreary off-season. It’s warming the glacial Winter by rubbing elbows with fellow die-hards. It’s glimpsing Spring, and the day when the ballpark stands will be full and raucous again.

So what do Tigers fans have to look forward to in 2011? At the Winter Meetings, Jim Leyland said “You might as well make up your mind that this is going to be a true dogfight in the Central division.” If you’ve braced yourself for the skirmish, let’s see how are things looking in the Tigers’ armory.

Pitchers/Catchers

Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer are a formidable front-end duo. Last year, when Scherzer was sent down to the Tigers’ AAA affiliate in Toledo, he immediately looked at game film and identified a flaw in his mechanics. He corrected the problem right away, and began destroying minor league batters. In his first game back in the majors, he struck out 14 batters. I like his ability to evaluate and adjust.

Although Rick Porcello had an uneven sophomore season, look for him to do well, as long as he can keep his ground ball to fly ball ratio healthy. The back end of the rotation…volatile. Armando Galarraga, outside of his imperfect game, was a man afraid to throw strikes much of the time. Phil Coke will attempt to make a successful transition from reliever to starter.

There may still be an addition to the starting rotation, as the Tigers have had reported interest in Brad Penny. If there are no acquisitions and someone falters, Andy Oliver and/or Jacob Turner could get the call. Jim Leyland said that Turner’s secondary pitches were better last year than Rick Porcello’s were at a similar point in his career. Great, now pundits everywhere will be salivating over his debut. Don’t rush the kid (please).

The Tigers took a bit of a risk adding Joaquin Benoit to the bullpen. Sure, he sparkled last year for the Rays, but before that he was injured and mediocre. However, if he pans out, and if Ryan Perry continues to progress, and if Joel Zumaya can stay healthy (all right, all right, you can stop laughing now), our pen will be strong. These are a lot of “ifs.” Closer Jose Valverde was mostly stellar last year, until Leyland hung him out to dry on July 31, in a 61-pitch outing that ended in a Tigers victory, but which I feel may have largely contributed to Valverde’s tendonitis.

Alex Avila has the catcher’s starting job all to himself this year, since Gerald Laird could not even occasionally bob over the Mendoza line. I like his defense. Good footwork. Takes initiative to “catch” up since he didn’t don the mask until four years ago. Unfortunately, he may have also been allowing Laird to mentor him at the plate. Victor Martinez will log time behind the dish against lefties. The Tigers will love his bat at DH, but I don’t want to see too much of him in a catcher’s mask, because of what we’d lose defensively.

Infield

Last season, when Brennan Boesch’s bat was riddled with holes, and Magglio Ordóñez went down with a broken ankle, Miguel Cabrera was left exposed. The result was a ridiculous number of intentional walks (32), more than double the number issued to the next highest players in the AL, Joe Mauer, Robinson Cano and David Ortiz (tied at 14). This year, with Ordóñez signed to a one-year deal, and Victor Martinez added as a free agent, Cabrera will see a lot more hittable pitches.

Infield defense will be solid at the corners (yes, Cabrera is turning into a good first baseman). Brandon Inge, while dismal at the plate, plays hustle defense with the best of them. If we can get around 20 home runs from Inge, we should be happy.

Up the middle? Well, Jhonny Peralta at short was giving me nightmares, until I saw him play there for most of his time in Detroit last year. He was not great, but surprised me with acceptable glove work. Second base looks to be a carousel featuring Carlos Guillen, Will Rhymes and Scott Sizemore. Last year, Guillen couldn’t stay healthy, Sizemore looked rancid (but was recovering from a severe ankle injury) and Rhymes may have overachieved, especially offensively.

Outfield

Austin Jackson looks to follow up a rookie-of-the-year caliber season with a solid sophomore campaign. However, he featured an unsustainable BABIP of .396 last year. Look for him to be fine, if he can cut down on the Ks a little.

Right fielder Magglio Ordóñez signed a one-year, $10 million contract with the Tigers, despite Scott Boras’ best efforts to pimp him out elsewhere. Ordóñez worked out for the Tigers at the winter meetings, to show he is healthy after breaking his ankle last season. His always-average defense looked a bit better last year after an intensive off-season workout program spent with football players from the University of Miami.

Ryan Raburn looks to nab the starting job in left field, but he’ll face competition from Brennan Boesch, Casper Wells and a now healthy Clete Thomas. Raburn started last year like a man who forgot to bring his bat to the park, but turned it on around mid-season. He’ll have to better than that if he hopes to beat out the other hopefuls.

Forecasting

I must preface this by saying that I abhor making predictions. I love baseball because there is a game almost every day, and it’s nearly impossible to know what a 162 game schedule will bring. Don’t make me remember the 2008 Tigers team, which on paper looked like a behemoth, and wound up in the cellar.

Prior to last year’s season, after some arm-twisting, I looked at my tea leaves, and said that the Tigers would win 85 games. They fell short, and finished all square at 81-81. Failed to make the playoffs…again.

What will the Detroit Tigers do in 2011? Why don’t you tune in with me on March 31, and we’ll find out together.

Jennifer Cosey runs a blog from a Detroit Tigers fan’s view over at Old English D.