Spring Training games are in full effect with all 30 teams,  including the St. Louis Cardinals, took to the field to start getting ready for the season.  Meanwhile, Major League Baseball has opened the vaults and given the world access to video clips that were previously locked away.

The Cardinals were a powerhouse team in the National League in the 1980′s.  Three appearances in the World Series, including winning the championship in 1982, as well as some key moments throughout the decade had many people watching the team very closely.

Today, i70baseball brings you nine classic moments from the Cardinals in the 1980′s, courtesy of Major League Baseball.

Use the navigation controls below to take a look at each of the videos.  Leave us some comments and tell us the moments you most remember from the 1980′s in St. Louis.

Bruce Sutter Closes Out 1982 World Series

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Bill Ivie is the editor here at I-70 Baseball
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Although the St. Louis Cardinals looked poised for another exhilarating run to a championship while up three games to one on the San Francisco Giants in the NLCS, the Giants came back to win the series. Instead of looking at the series as a complete failure by the Cardinals, a more realistic view might show the Giants were simply a better team in 2012.

Sure, the Cardinals had Chris Carpenter, Adam Wainwright and Kyle Lohse, a trio of starting pitchers who have a combined three Cy Young awards and 30 wins this season. They also had a lineup that had the fourth highest batting average in Major League Baseball.

Unfortunately, the Giants had a team better equipped to win baseball games. There’s probably a reason they won 94 games and the Cardinals won 88. The Giants have a lineup that can produce runs without hitting a homerun. They had 31 RBIs in the NLCS compared to 19 for the Cardinals.

The Giants also have really good pitching. That shouldn’t have been a surprise to people who follow baseball. The starting rotation with Matt Cain, Ryan Vogelsong, Madison Bumgarner and Barry Zito is as good of a rotation as any in the league. Closer Sergio Romo also filled in terrifically for injured closer Brian Wilson.

As for the third aspect of the game, the Giants defense was substantially better than the Cardinals. The Giants didn’t give up an unearned run in the entire seven-game series while the Cardinals gave up 10 unearned runs on six errors.

Could the Cardinals have won the series and gone on to win their second World Series in a row? Certainly, they were just one win away, but it would also be unfair to think the Giants are an unworthy opponent for the Detroit Tigers in the Fall Classic. The Giants already proved plenty worthy by winning the first two games of the series heading into play Saturday.

The same thing happened in 1996 when the Atlanta Braves came back from a three-games-to-one deficit to beat the Cardinals in seven games. The finish to that series was actually even worse than the 2012 version. The Braves beat the Cardinals 14-0 in Game 5, 3-1 in Game 6 and 15-0 to close out the series in Game 7.

No playoff elimination is going to be even close to fun. In fact, the final three games of the NLCS were about as brutal as it gets for the losing team’s fans. This year’s loss certainly carried plenty of disappointment given how the team had always come back from seemingly insurmountable odds.

But there is also another way to look at it. The Cardinals probably shouldn’t have made it as far as they did. The team battled injuries to nearly every position player at some point in the season, the bullpen didn’t get its act together until the postseason and the team lost several key pieces from the 2011 championship team.

Manager Mike Matheny did a wonderful job leading the team in his first season. He has the respect of the players and the team has a collective will power that keeps it from getting left behind on the field and in the standings.

The Cardinals will be back next year. They might not win the World Series in 2013. There will be teams such as the Giants who have a well-established team that can make a run through the playoffs. But, there is little reason to think they would completely fall apart and not play competitive baseball throughout the season.

Unfortunately, next season is still six long, cold months away.

Game 5 of the NLCS did not go quite as planned for the St. Louis Cardinals, though that should not have been much of a surprise as the game unfolded. The Redbirds now head back to San Francisco to face the Giants in Game 6 Sunday evening.

Everything started off great for the Cardinals. They weren’t hitting much off Barry Zito, but Lance Lynn held the Giants without even one hit through three innings. But for some reason, this series has been largely defined by what happens in the fourth inning. Maybe the hitters are taking that long to settle in, or maybe the second time through the lineup these starters have been easier to figure out. Regardless, the fourth seems to be the flashpoint for weird stuff to happen. And for the Cards, it was a disaster that meant the game.

Lynn forced a comebacker that could have turned into an inning-ending double play. Instead, his throw was low and Pete Kozma was late getting to second base (the replay clearly showed Kozma hesitated momentarily, like the thought the play was going to first). Lynn yipped his throw, and it caromed off the bag. The Giants scored a run, and it turned out to be the only run they would need. But Lynn never recovered to finish off the inning, and the floodgates opened. By the time the top of the fourth was over, it was 4-0 Giants.

Missed plays in the playoffs seem to have exponentially more impact on the games—and often the series—in which they occur. The list is long and distinguished, from Ian Desmond’s miss in the ninth inning of NLDS Game 5 to Don Denkinger, Bill Buckner, Steve Bartman, and everything in between. The big difference is that last night’s gaffe came early in the game, and the Cardinals had more than ample opportunity to mount a comeback or even simply get on the board. They accomplished neither. And that’s what really cost them Game 5.

In the bottom of the second inning, the Cardinals had second and third with no one out and failed to score. After the debacle in the top of the fourth, Allen Craig led off with a double; again, they failed to score. They outhit the Giants 7-6, but could not push a run across. In fact, aside from Lynn’s meltdown inning, the Giants only collected two hits and plated one run. They were far from great Friday night. But the breaks went their way, most of the Cards’ hardest-hit balls were hit right at them, and now the series shifts back to the West Coast. It was the perfect storm, and this time the Cardinals were on the wrong end.

When the Cardinals win games this postseason, they do it in different ways: scoring early and often, getting stellar pitching, coming through dramatically when it matters most, etc. But when they lose, the formula is always the same: they cannot string hits together and they cannot score runs. The Cards have now lost four games in these playoffs, and in those four losses their run totals are 2, 1, 1, 0. It’s the same as it was all season, really. The bats in this pretty formidable lineup have a knack for going completely silent for an entire game.

So what does it all mean? Nothing, really. Because we’ve seen this before, as recently as Game 2 of this very series. The Cardinals have won the next game after each of the previous three power outages by scores of 12-4, 9-7, and 3-1. Despite the weirdness of the top of the fourth inning, despite having a chance to close out this series at home, and despite being unable to hit Barry Zito of all people, the Cards still look…well, normal, frankly. It’s easy to look at a three games to one lead on the surface and think, “Yes! Close it out! Nail the coffin shut! Giants are done!” But before this NLCS started, who would have honestly thought the Cardinals were that much better than the Giants to predict this thing would be over in five games?

Back to San Fran they go, where Chris Carpenter will face Ryan Vogelsong in Game 6 of the NLCS. When they squared off in Game 2, Carpenter was the victim of a weird four-run fourth inning full of yipped throws and missed calls on the basepaths, and Vogelsong dominated the Cards by allowing one run over seven innings. Sounds familiar, right? Just another day at the office for the St. Louis Cardinals and San Francisco Giants.

Chris Reed also writes for InsideSTL Mondays and Bird Brained whenever he feels like it. Follow him on Twitter @birdbrained.

Strange things happen when the baseball gods begin waving their magic bats over the otherwise earthly progressions of the game.

Sometimes the ball bounces funny; sometimes it doesn’t bounce off anything but a seat in the stands. Sometimes it takes an odd, fateful curve fair…or foul. Good teams lose games they shouldn’t, bad teams win games they shouldn’t, and the order of the standings can look completely different from week to week.

But baseball is and forever will be a numbers game. Advanced baseball statistics are a cottage industry these days, yet a .300 average, 30 home runs, and 100 RBI will never be looked at as a bad year.

Other numbers seem to just come from nowhere. The St. Louis Cardinals, most recently, were the direct object of such weirdness. By this point, the tale is well-known: 10.5 games back on August 25; three games back with five to play; clinching on the now-infamous night of Game 162. It took 11 postseason wins to clinch their 11th World Series championship in 2011, known forever for the Game 6 heroics that culminated with David Freese’s dramatic walk-off home run in, of course, the 11th inning.

That kind of stuff never happens more than once if it happens at all. That’s why it was so magical. But even the best of the best and the worst of the worst can’t keep baseball from bringing it weird every once in a while. Last season, the Pittsburgh Pirates lost a heartbreaking 19-inning game to the Atlanta Braves on a possibly bad call at the plate. The Pirates never recovered, and soon skidded out of playoff contention—a place they had not been since 1992, when they lost the NLCS to none other than the Atlanta Braves on a Game 7 walk-off single that scored former Pirate and notorious base path clogger Sid Bream. This year, the Pirates and Cardinals hooked up for their own 19 inning affair. The winner would take two of three in the series. It meant the difference between a tie for the second Wild Card spot or the Bucs leaving St. Louis with their heads held high and some breathing room. And the Pirates’ fortunes were different this time around; they beat the Cards to claim a two game lead on the playoff spot. Yet somehow, less than a week later, the Cardinals have leapfrogged the Pirates in a four-game swing that has the Redbirds out in front in the second Wild Card spot by two games. Sometimes even momentum gets smacked back to the ground by karma.

To get there, the Cardinals beat the NL Central-leading Cincinnati Reds 8-5 Friday night. But this wasn’t a typical victory. The Reds led 5-2 after five innings, and the game was inching dangerously close to getting into the hands of the vaunted Cincy bullpen. Starter Mat Latos was cruising along, as he had done for the entire month of August to this point: going into Friday’s game, Latos had an ERA of less than one over four starts and averaged over seven innings per start. Then, almost out of nowhere, the Cardinals caught fire and torched the Reds in the sixth. When it was all said and done, Latos finished only five innings and allowed seven earned runs, equaling what he had allowed over his last six outings combined.

So now, the Cardinals find themselves looking at that magical date again: August 25. Except they are currently in a playoff spot, and are only one and a half games back of the Braves for the top Wild Card slot. If the season ended today, the Braves and Cards would play each other for the NL Wild Card. Funny how that works, huh? The Cards are also only six games behind the Reds in the Central. They don’t need to rely on a miracle run this year. But that doesn’t mean they don’t have one in them.

Last year, the Cardinals were a team that exceeded expectations at the end of the year to do what they did. In 2012, they have never quite lived up to expectations. Their offensive output and pitching prowess have not translated into the win-loss record everyone expected. The Cards constantly seem to be getting in their own way when it comes to putting together a run of victories. Their current winning streak stands at four, and this would be the best possible time to win six in a row or 10 of 11 or something. Is it possible? Certainly. Is it likely? Who knows…

But that’s why they play 162. The Cardinals got a big win Friday night; a win by the Reds Saturday renders it almost meaningless. And then they’ll do it all over again on Sunday. A pitch here, a bloop there…win or lose, as long as there are outs to give and games to play, nothing is impossible and nothing is decided.

Chris Reed also writes for InsideSTL Mondays and Bird Brained whenever he feels like it. Follow him on Twitter at @birdbrained.

David Freese has a lot going for him in his short career.

He’s already an NLCS- and World Series-MVP.

He’s the hometown boy who saved St. Louis’ favorite sports team from elimination, that was only one strike away, and led the team to its eleventh World Series.

And that was all accomplished without even playing a full MLB season yet.

Now Freese might face his most difficult test ever; replacing Albert Pujols.  Freese, who had nine hits all spring in 48 at-bats, has 10 in half as many at-bats (24) in five games. He has hit safely in every game and has four multi-hit games

After St. Louis’ favorite son left this past offseason, there was a void of sorts left in the hearts of every Cardinals fan. Pujols was a larger-than-life character that had close ties to the community and was all around a generally good guy. And that was just off the field.

On the field, Pujols won the Rookie of the Year award, and took the Cardinals to three World Series in a period of eight years, winning two of them.

With the big slugger gone, people in St. Louis are looking through the jersey racks trying to find that one name that resonates the most with them. Fan favorites Yadier Molina and Chris Carpenter have contributed so much to the Redbirds in their respective careers, but your old-time fans—as well as your younger ones—are going to be polarized towards David Freese.

Although it might be too early in the season to call it, after a few short games, Freese has shown no World Series hangover. Baseball has been nothing but business for the soon-to-be 29-year-old. With an average over .400, Freese looks like he’s playing at a level that could easily have him averaging over .300 by season’s end.

Having to pick up the slack for Pujols’ exit, Freese has answered the call and has been an RBI machine with increased power. If there’s one way to win over young fans and baseball purists alike, it’s to produce.

As he was in last year’s postseason that led to a World Series, Freese has been a huge part of the Cardinals’ early domination of the MLB.

Will David Freese build off his postseason success?

Had things gone slightly differently last season, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation.

Had the world champion St. Louis Cardinals not clawed back from 10½ games behind in the wild-card race with 31 games to play — or 8½ games back with 21 to play, or three back with five to play — to sneak into the playoffs on the last day of the regular season, David Freese wouldn’t even be a topic of discussion as fantasy owners prep for draft day.

David Freese earned MVP honors in both the NLCS and World Series, but is that enough for fantasy owners to make him a top option at a weak third base position?

Entering 2011, Freese barely cracked the ESPN top-20 rankings at third base, and he did little during the regular season to boost his stock, finishing outside the top 250 on the ESPN Player Rater and ranking just 22nd among third basemen by hitting .297 with 10 dingers and 55 RBIs in 333 at-bats.

Oh, what a difference a few extra weeks can make. Freese looked like a different player over the course of the Cardinals’ 18-game postseason run, batting .397 with five home runs and a playoff-record 21 RBIs and earning MVP honors in both the NLCS and World Series. Not only that, but his game-tying, two-run triple in the bottom of the ninth inning (with two outs and two strikes, no less) and his game-winning, walk-off homer in the bottom of the 11th in Game 6 to force a Game 7 will go down as two of the biggest postseason hits of all time, which could inflate Freese’s draft day price tag by themselves.

The first problem with gleaning too much from Freese’s postseason outburst is obviously the small sample size. An 18-game hot streak in June or July, no matter how impressive, would go largely unnoticed in the grand scheme of a 162-game season, so we shouldn’t put extra stock into a hot streak that happens in October. One can argue that a hot streak late in the season is more telling than one in the middle of the year, as I suppose it’s more likely to be a sign of growth, but there isn’t precedence for players showing new skills in October and having them carry over into the following season. In 2008, for example, B.J. Upton hit just nine home runs in 531 regular-season at-bats and then went on to hit seven homers in 66 at-bats in the postseason, causing many to predict that we’d see a power surge in 2009. Upton did eventually cash in on some of his untapped power potential, but it didn’t happen in 2009, when he hit just 11 dingers in 560 at-bats.

So if we remove last year’s postseason from the equation and take a step back to get a big-picture, helicopter view, what do we see? Despite turning 29 years old in late April, Freese has just 604 big league at-bats under his belt over three seasons. And that leads us into the major concern with Freese: his ability to stay healthy. The Cardinals third baseman missed more than half of the 2010 season with an ankle injury, and a left hand injury sidelined him for 51 games last year, not to mention a concussion that forced him to miss time in August. We currently have him projected for 470 at-bats — a plateau he could very well reach — but if we’re simply going off his big league track record, expecting even that many may be optimistic.

Injuries aren’t the only problem when evaluating Freese. Despite the .794 slugging percentage in the playoffs last year, there are questions about how much power potential he really possesses. While Freese hit 26 home runs at Triple-A in 2008, he hasn’t hit more than 13 homers in a season since and has just 15 dingers in 604 big league at-bats. Yes, part of that is attributed to his inability to stay healthy, but the metrics don’t say there’s a ton of power upside here. Last year’s fly ball rate was just 23.1 percent — down from 29.1 percent in 2010 — and his 16.7 percent HR/FB rate could regress in 2012, which obviously doesn’t bode well for a future power spike.

That said, we shouldn’t completely rule out the possibility for some future power growth, either. At nearly 29 years old, Freese is in his hitting prime, and it’s fair to assume that his power numbers last year were at least somewhat negatively affected by his hand injury. He wouldn’t be the first player to have some of his power sapped by a hand or wrist injury, after all.

As mentioned, Freese hit 26 homers in 131 Triple-A games in 2008, so it’s not like he’s never shown the ability to hit for power. And while his isolated power (which measures a player’s raw power in terms of extra-base hits) last year was just .131, he posted a .238 ISO in 664 Triple-A at-bats between 2008 and 2009. That’s not to say his minor league power will ever fully translate, but let’s face it, he probably hasn’t even been in the big leagues long enough for us to make that determination considering we’ve basically seen only one full season’s worth of playing time from Freese. Heck, it took former top prospect Alex Gordon nearly 1,500 big league at-bats before he finally put things together last season, and Freese wasn’t even half the prospect Gordon was. A full season of at-bats — still far from guaranteed, obviously — could result in a level of power production we haven’t yet seen from him at the big league level.

If all else fails, there’s one thing Freese has already proved he can do, and that’s hit. Despite a less-than-ideal contact rate (77 percent) in his big league career, he boasts a .298 batting average in 604 career at-bats, he improved his strikeout rate last year, and had he qualified, his 24.6 percent line-drive rate would’ve ranked fifth in the National League. He was also a career .307 hitter with a .384 OBP in the minors. Perhaps his batting average last year was aided by his .356 batting average on balls in play, but he’s been a high BABIP guy his entire professional career, so that’s not a huge concern. Projecting Freese to settle in as a .280-.300 hitter seems like a safe bet.

However unlikely it may be, the absolute best-case scenario with Freese in 2012 is that he stays healthy all year, shows growth in the power department and continues to hit for average. Should all of that happen, the result could be something close to a .300 average with 20-25 homers and 90-100 RBIs. Those numbers would mirror the season fantasy owners just got from Aramis Ramirez, who hit .306-26-93 last year and was a top-five fantasy third baseman. The odds are that Freese will fall well short of those numbers (particularly the home run total), whether because of injury or simply failing to produce, so don’t draft him with that kind of production in mind. Still, it’s reasonable to think there could be some untapped potential in Freese’s bat, with the upside being a top-10 fantasy third baseman, and potentially more given the lack of many high-end options at the position.

Based on current ADP data at Mock Draft Central, Freese is being drafted 162nd overall and 11th at third base. That’s several spots higher than our ESPN rankings, which rank him 16th at the position. (Note: ESPN live draft data will be available in early March.) This means that, in a standard 10-team league, Freese can generally be drafted in the 17th round or later. For the injury risk involved, that’s not a bad spot. If you’re going to draft Freese, it’s best to plan for some time on the disabled list and not expect more than the 10-15 home run power he’s displayed thus far. That way you won’t be disappointed if the injury bug bites again or he fails to make strides in the power department, and you still have some potential upside built into his draft slot if everything goes right.

David Freese is the subject of the April 2012 Computer Desktop Calendar from D-Two.net.  Get yours here.

Former Cardinal killer, Carlos Beltran, now sets his sights on helping the Cardinals return to the playoffs in 2012. John Mozeliak has assembled two of the “Killer B’s” from the 2000s Astro’s teams that had many intriguing battles against the Cardinals not only during the regular season, but the playoffs. Beltran joins David Freese, Rafael Furcal, Adam Wainwright, and Lance Berkman in the “if he stays healthy the Cardinals could have a really good team” category. The club has accepted considerable risk in their approach to replacing Albert Pujols by having four of the eight spots in their lineup filled by players that are substantial injury risks. On the flip side, the Cardinals have assembled an incredible group of veteran players that know how to win and can still produce at a very high level. Beltran is one of those players.

On a personal note, the first time I saw Beltran play was for the Royals in 2003. I have never been as wowed by an athlete’s natural ability as I was that day as I sat in the outfield and watched Beltran cover center field with such ease. One year later, he almost single-handedly beat the Cardinals during the 2004 NLCS. During those 7 games, Beltran accumulated the following stats in only 24 at-bats: 12 runs, 4 home runs, 4 stolen bases, 5 RBIs, and a slash line of .417/ .563/ .958.

His 2004 season earned him a huge contract with the New York Mets, where he was expected to be the leading piece in a return to the World Series. From 2006-2008 Beltran had very impressive stats:

                          AB         H         HR      RBI       SB           BA           SLG%

2006             510       140       41       116      18         .275        .595

2007            554        153       33       112      23        .276        .524

2008            606       172        27       112     25        .284        .500

He was a great player four years, ago….so what? Yes, Beltran has lost a step since then, but he is still a very good baseball player. The general consensus heading into the 2012 season is the Cardinals are stronger on paper with the addition of Beltran and regaining Wainwright, than they were going into 2011 with Pujols. Even though Beltran will not be in 2004 NLCS form for 162 games this season, what can we reasonably expect from him in 2012, his age 34 season?

In 2011, Beltran reached 520 at-bats. This was a meaningful milestone following 308 ABs in 2009 and 220 in 2010. Outside of those two seasons, Beltran has remained very reasonably healthy, and takes a harder rap for health than necessarily may be deserved. Since 2001, Beltran has never once had less than 510 ABs in any season. Here is how his 2011 season broke down:

                         AB         H           HR      RBI      SB        BA           SLG%

2011              520       156        22       84        4          .300       .525

I can guarantee you Mike Matheny would take a duplication of those numbers in 2012. I’m not a big believer in spring training statistics, but I can say Beltran has looked very good so far. He is seeing pitches well, and the ball is jumping off his bat. The proposed opening day batting lineup of Furcal/Greene, Beltran, Holliday, Berkman, Freese, Molina, Jay, Furcal/Greene, is pretty solid. Matheny has a lot of options with this lineup having three of the first four lineup spots manned by switch hitters (Furcal, Beltran, Berkman).

Something else Beltran brings to the club is a strong clubhouse presence. He is not a loud or showy guy, but he is the consummate professional that goes about his business every single day, and provides a calming influence to his teammates. Mozeliak has done a good job of getting the right clubhouse mix. Lance Berkman is the joker of the bunch, but also the one to always give a straight answer and take the heat when things go wrong. Chris Carpenter (aka Darth Carp) shoots fire from his eyes and leads by example or by cussing at his teammates. Matt Holliday is becoming more and more vocal and active in mentoring young players following the departure of El Hombre out West. And Beltran brings a lot of experience to the table and a hunger to get that first World Series ring that to this point has alluded him.

You can bet he is glad to not have to be on the other side of a Wainwright curveball as he begins the journey for a ring in 2012.

Can’t lie, I’m pretty excited about writing this piece for i70 this year.  I’m hoping to look like I actually know what I’m talking about, and maybe just go ahead and extend my streak to two.  You see, last year, for the “Key Player” project, I wrote about a young man by the name of David Freese.  My incredible good fortune insight, luck stunning analysis, and fluke happenstance major league scout-like analysis identified the eventual NLCS and World Series MVP more than 7 months ahead of time.

Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

Is there a single player, let alone pitcher, whose 2012 season will be more important to the St. Louis Cardinals’ success this year?  To borrow a phrase from the recently departed Tony LaRussa, if Adam Wainwright isn’t, then he’s certainly tied for first.  The organization, the fan base, and the entire National League had high expectations for Wainwright’s first season back to the bump following his Tommy John surgery a year ago.  For months, everyone has anticipated his return, and many of us have expected/hoped for dominance–an important arm if the Cards are to return deep into the 2012 postseason.  And that was before Carpenter went down.

“Hey, maybe one of these days, we can pitch during the same season again. Whaddya say?”

It’s been a year and a half since we’ve seen Waino pitch in a game, so it’s easy to see how a person could forget exactly just how dominant this guy has been.  For those who remember him as “pretty darn bueno”, but exactly how bueno is escaping you at the moment, here’s a quick recap on the last two years he’s pitched.

So, let’s see…something along the lines of 21 wins, an ERA near 2.21, 10 CGs, 214 Ks, a sub-one WHIP, and a Cy Young Award, all in about 227 innings should pretty much meet expectations, right?  Holy 12-to-6s, those are some ridiculous numbers!

Honestly, it’s probably ludicrous to think Waino’s 2012 campaign will be anything close to either of his past two seasons.  The one thing that drives many of these numbers (save ratios, and the “all important” win category), is IP–a number sure to be significantly lower this year.  I said in another post on another site that I could see him going more than 200 innings this year, a number that I’d now argue against.  170 to 180-ish seems more like reality at this point, though, you just never know for sure.

One thing is certain, though, with Carpenter out indefinitely, all eyes will be focused on Wainwright every time he takes the ball.  I remember many very similar conversations a year ago, though the names were exactly the opposite–let’s hope Wainwright’s April & May turns out better than Carp’s did last year.  The reality is, Wainwright’s season probably lands somewhere between Carps’s low points of April & May (a 1-7 start, with win #2 coming on June 23rd), and the highlights (wins in deciding games 5 vs. Halladay in the NLDS & game 7 of the World Series).

Big picture, long-term, though…I trust that John Mozeliak will work with Mike Matheny to be sure that Adam Wainwright & his workload are handled in 2012 in a way that’s best for Waino over the course of his career.  So, if we don’t see the Wainwright that we know he can be (and maybe even better with that new arm), be patient–better to have him long term & healthy than sacrifice it for a run at another ring, and risk a more serious injury, and threaten his career.

Remember when they shut Jamie Garcia down down the stretch in 2010?  If you don’t think that worked, maybe you haven’t considered all sides of the argument.  And before you jump in with the “but Chris Carpenter…” rebuttal, remember Waino is 30 and if he keeps doing what he’s done, he’s headed for a $20MM/yr range-type deal.  Carpenter, on the other hand, will be 37 in one month, and just inked a two-year $21MM deal–likely the last deal of his career.

My supposition is that by the time June rolls around, we’ll know if we might be talking about the future possibility of Chris Carpenter and Adam Wainwright pitching in the same rotation ever again, and by the All-Star Break, I’ll bet we know one way or the other.  One thing’s for sure, Adam Wainwright is going to be a critical piece going forward in 2012 and beyond!

*Way to go, Kyle McClellan.

Earlier today we introduced the UCB All Time Cardinal Team Tournament.

This tournament of 64 different Cardinal franchises will start today here on i70baseball and on Pitchers Hit Eighth.

The Buck Region belongs to us and our match-ups follow below.  Please take the time to vote on the various games and help us determine who the best of the best really is.

Voting for this round will close on Saturday, March 17, at 8:00 p.m. Central Time

The 1942Cardinals hold the record for the most wins in franchise history (106). They won the World Series, only losing one game to the Yankees. Enos Slaughter was the team’s top performing player posting a 7.1 WAR.

The 1917 Cardinals finished 3rd in the National League with a 82-70 record. Rogers Hornsby led the team in WAR, posting a 9.2.

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The 1947Cards posted a 89-65 record while finishing second in the National League. Whitey Kurowski was the best on the team, posting a 6.2 WAR.

The 1957 team was also a second place finisher, posting a 87-67 record. Stan Musial would lead the team with a 6.6 WAR.

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 The 2005 team won 100 games, yet lost in the NLCS to the Houston Astros.  Albert Pujols led the team with a 8.2 WAR.

The 2008 team would finish in 4th place while posting a 86-76 record.  Albert Pujols would lead this team with a 9.6 WAR.

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The 1943 team would win 105 games and lose the World Series to the New York Yankees.  Stan Musial led the boys with a 8.9 WAR.

1977 was a sentimental pick.  The year I was born, the Cards went 83-79 and finished 3rd in the National League East.  Ted Simmons led the team with a 6.3 WAR.

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 In 1944 Cardinals won a World Series title after winning a second consecutive 105 win season.  Stan Musial would post a 9.1 WAR to lead the team.

The 14th seed is the 1914 club.  They finished 81-72, 3rd in the league.  Pitcher Harry “Slim” Sallee led the team with a 4.8 WAR.

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 2009 would see the Cardinals finish at 91-71 and lose the NLDS to the Los Angeles Dodgers.  Albert Pujols would led the team with a 8.8 WAR.

The 1991 Cardinals would finish in 2nd place, their highest finish under Joe Torre.  Ozzie Smith would led the team with a 4.7 WAR.

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The 1935 Cardinals would finish second in the league despite a 96-58 record.  Dizzy Dean posted a 7.6 WAR.

1989 would give the Cardinals a 86-76 record, good enough to finish third.  Ozzie Smith would lead the team with a 6.3 WAR.

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The number two seed represents the site well, coming from 1985.  The team won 101 games and lost the World Series to the Royals.

The 15th seed comes from the year prior, in 1984.  They would finish 84-78 and third in the division.  Bruce Sutter’s 4.5 WAR would lead the team.

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Please vote and share the brackets with your friends.  The polls will close on Saturday and the winners will move on to next week’s rounds.

This past weekend I watched my first spring training games, courtesy of the MLB Network. Naturally the first game I saw included the St Louis Cardinals – they played their complex-mates, the Miami Marlins, on Saturday.  Kyle Lohse started, there was a rain delay, and the Cardinals eventually lost 3-1.

After Lohse worked his innings Lance Lynn came on to throw.  Lynn has changed his number from 62 last season, now 31. Normally that fact would just be trivia,  but the number 31 struck a chord this time.  It once belonged to Bob Forsch.  Now, it is not the first time someone has worn #31 since Forsch was traded to Houston.  Six other men (5 pitchers and Bo Hart) have worn the number.  But Bob Forsch died last fall, six days after throwing out the first pitch of Game 7, so this time it was different.

Cardinal teams after 1974 and before Whitey Herzog took over in 1980 generally were not very good.  From the start of 1975 through the end of the 1980 season the club was 40 games under .500 (466-506).  They had a few interesting pieces – a sublime catcher, a ‘mad’ relief pitcher, a future MVP – but the starting staff had a lot of turnover and not much lasting talent.  Except for Forsch.

Did you know Forsch was the winningest pitcher at Busch Memorial Stadium (1966-2006)?  He won 93 games there (Bob Gibson is second, with 72).  Forsch also appeared in the most games as a pitcher (231), threw the most innings (1395), had the most losses (59), and struck out 576 hitters, second only to Gibson’s 933, at Busch.  You definitely know he is the only Cardinal pitcher to throw more than one no-hitter, that he won 20 games in 1977, and famously hit Jeffrey Leonard ten years later to, perhaps, change the psychological nature of that rather contentious NLCS.  Cardinals went to the World Series.

Near as I can tell, there is no plan in the works to honor Forsch, and there should be.  He will never make it into the Hall of Fame; his only year on the ballot (1995) he received 2 votes.  He likely will not have his number retired by the Cardinals, either.  But he deserves to be remembered, and not just with Bob Forsch Day.  Sewing a 31 patch on everyone’s uniform would be a little awkward, seeing as Lynn currently wears the number.  RHF on a sleeve, or even an old-school black armband, would not be too out of place or ostentatious.

Honor the third winningest pitcher in St Louis Cardinal history.  Honor the man who pitched in 3 World Series.  Honor Bob Forsch.

Mike Metzger is a freelance writer who also blogs about the Padres.  Follow him on Twitter.