It’s time for another United Cardinal Bloggers unified project. Each December we individually write what we believe were the Top 5 Cardinal stories in 2010. Now this can be a daunting project due to so many things happen in a baseball season and it doesn’t have to be “in season”. Some of mine are off-season things that I believe impacted the team.

Why did I put them in the order they are in? I believe some of the earlier things greatly influenced some things later on. Here goes:

1. The hiring of Mark McGwire as hitting instructor had a profound influence on the rest of the year. Management was chastised for hiring him, McGwire was seen as a person just trying to save his career and the players felt the pressure of doing well under his tutelage. He had not major league coaching experience. The team had its moments of good hitting but for the most part Big Mac was getting the heat. Some players were said to not like his style of hitting advice, some were rumored to say  they were going back to their old ways and at least one went home to daddy for his hitting advice. This move also sent currents into some of the other stories for 2010.
2. Second story finds the Cardinals INABILITY to beat bad teams, those under .500. It is well documented that the 2-8 stretch near the end probably was doomsday City for the Birds. This inability came from several sources. The team had little chemistry, had good pitchers going through bad stretches, lack of timely hitting and an field manager that didn’t show us the fire he had in the past.
3. The bad karma. This entails several issues wrapped up together to make my point. The Rasmus/LaRussa falling out was part of that. Tony had times that Colby didn’t play or get much time. Rasmus issued a decree and someone on the clubhouse uttered it outloud and it became sports news. To go along with that, Brendan Ryan was getting yelled at on National TV by Carpenter and called out for varying things by his manager. “Why Can’t we Be Friends” was not the song in the clubhouse. Couple all of this with the trade of a productive right-fielder while we are in or near first place and the morale goes down and the team falls flat. Ludwick wasn’t a savior but he had some glue possibilities. He left town and John Jay went in the tank.
4. The emergence of Jamie Garcia. The lefthander was in a three-way battle for a starting spot in Spring Training and won out. LaRussa was giving a spot to a rookie pitcher. That in itself was newsworthy. At times, Garcia was brilliant and other times he was good. But seldom was he flat-out bad. He was a bright spot on a rather mundane season.
5. The FIGHT. Chris Carpenter is a guy I want on my team but lately he has found many things to complain about. It was this fight that the Cardinals found out they were not as tough as they thought they were. Yadi has swagger but we couldn’t sustain back-up and we folded to the youthful Reds with stamina. It ended our season for all purposes.

Now there are many things that can be written in a Top 5. I am saving my Pujols contract issue for 2011 and the return of LaRussa could be sprinkled in. To me, it started with McGwire as hitting instructor and we clenched up from there.

Hope everyone has a great 2011!!!!!

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The Baseball Bloggers Alliance is a wealth of information for the baseball enthusiast, that is for sure.Tuesday, I wrote about what the hot topics were in the National League. Today, I hope to save you some time by choosing a few blogs and letting you know what’s the buzz around the American League.

• BirdsWatcher in Baltimore is looking at their left field position and how it may shake out.
• In Boston, Bosox Injection looks at the Ellsbury saga from last year and his horrible start.
• Several teams are showing interest in Brad Penny and Detroit Tigers Scorecard Blog is one of them.
• Our friends at i70 baseball ask if Alcides Escobar is the greatest Royals shortstop ever.
• The Twins Worse-case Scenario Survival Handbook is ready for you at North Dakota Twins Fan page.
• If Pettite is gone from Yankees, then is Brad Penny a viable replacement asks Yanks Go Yard.
• Seattle Sports Insider makes it plain that the Mariners should get Chris Capuano.
• Chicken Fried Baseball believes the signing of Darren Oliver means CJ Wilson can go to the rotation for the Rangers.
• 500 Level Fan, A View from the Cheap Seats, does a 2010 review on the Blue Jays.

That’s the Buzz in the American League.

Last night we completed the year end edition of Blog Talk Radio United Cardinal Bloggers show. For an archived version click here.

Tomorrow: I will be completing an assignment for the United Cardinal Bloggers with the my Top 5 stories in 2010.

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Everything comes back to money.What would it take to sign a player? Let’s consider a left-handed pitcher that didn’t pitch in 2008 and 2009. He went 4-4 last year in limited action for the Brewwers. His best years are almost 5 years removed. yes, I want to take a Looksee on Chris Capuano.

The Cardinals are lacking in pitching from the left side. We currently have Garcia, Tallet and Miller on our 40 man roster for that purpose. We could use another former starter with some upside. Now, does Capuano have that? I am not for sure, however, if we could sign him for $1M that could prove beneficial. Last year he made $0.5 for the Brewers.

He has a very good walk-to-strikeout ratio. He hasn’t given up alot of long balls. Tome, we sign him with an agreement that if he is not up with the big club by a certain date, he can opt out of his contract.

What do you think, a Looksee on Capuano?

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A few links around the United Cardinal Bloggers world finds:

Fungoes- He is in Day 5 of his 12 Days of Christmas writings.

RetroSimba wants the Cardinals to talk to a player that knows success vs Zack Greinke.

The United Cardinal Bloggers 47-page 2010 in Review is still available for reading and downloading.

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Tomorrow we scour the American League blogs to bring to you what they are saying.

Follow us daily on Twitter.

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Sometimes during the off-season and especially in the doldrums of winter in the Midwest, things get a bit slow. With that in mind, we have decided check out others blogs around the National League on Tuesdays and American League on Thursdays. What better place to find those than the Baseball Bloggers Alliance webpage. We are a proud member of the BBA and will use some of our fellow members blogs to let you know what they are saying with our “Whatchu Talkin’ bout” weekly series.

• Venom Strikes – takes a look at the Diamondbacks pitching rotation.
• Braves blogger Tomahawk Take is trying to find ways for his team to produce some runs.
• The Chicago Cubs have Cubs Billy Goat Blog wondering of they should pursue another pitcher for their rotation.
• In Cincinnati, Blog Red Machine reflects back up the their first place National League season.
• Rocky Mountain Way states a major need was met just before Christmas with the acquisition of Matt Lindstrom.
• What is needed to complete a great off-season is the theme from Feeling Dodgers Blue.
• It’s all about pitching. Hello Greinke, Marcum and Saito and good-bye Capuano from The Brewers Bar.
• Mets blogger, On The Black, does double duty asking whether the Mets should retire Ed Kranepool’s number and has a write-up on newest Met Chin-Lung-Hu.
• A blogger from the Phillies, Phighting On, rejoices in their signing of JC Romero instead of Dennys Reyes.
• Pirates fans and bloggers are not all in despair. Rum Bunter has a season review and talks about the youth movement in Pittsburgh.
• Yours truly, CardinalsGM, highlights that key members of the bullpen are getting old, or is it mold?
• FriarHood gives us a glimpse into his Top 12 all-time Friars (Padres) and more.
• Splashing Pumpkins gives us his admitted bias on what the starting nine hitting projections would be for his Giants in 2011.
• Washington Nationals blogger, TheNatsBlog, looks at comparative WAR spending of Nats vs other large spenders in the off-season.

That is a look around the National League on this Tuesday. Thursday we will snoop around the American League and check out the Baseball Bloggers Alliance blogs and what they had to write about.

If you like this concept of looking around let me know so it give me direction until Opening Day.

CardinalsGM is on Facebook and Twitter.

Some friends of ours: Sign the keep Pujols petition and NothinbutSports .

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Mold. It can ruin anything it comes into contact with. It can spread to the other parts and cause the destruction of all it touches. Sometimes it needs to be cut our or scraped away. Mold usually occurs when things are out too long unprotected. That is why my premise of there’s mold in the bullpen has me worried. The bullpen is getting old and especially from the left side.

I suppose everyone in the bullpen has equal importance. However, it appears to me that the Cardinals are putting some extra importance on two players for next year. They happen to be the oldest members of the bullpen. Success is paramount for Ryan Franklin and Trever Miller for the Cardinals to even sniff the post-season.

Miller is an important left handed reliever to be the LOOGY guy. Trever was born in 1973 and will be 38 years old shortly after the season begins. with only 2 lefties out of the pen, we need him to pitch like his 2009 season where he stuck out 46 while only waliking 11 batters in 70 games. Last season his ERA and WHIP both went up along with his walk-to-strike out ratio. He is needed to rebound.

The closer role will start out in the hands of Ryan Franklin. Ryan was born in 1975 and was set to retire upon the end of 2010 season . He needs to get a bit better as he  came in with higher numbers in walks, WHIP, ERA and he gave up 5 more home runs last year as opposed to the year before. I thought Franklin was in the retirement mode near the end and changed his mind. He will be given the opportunity to close but watch out for Jason Motte coming in.

The other lefty in the pen is a newcomer that was born in 1975 also. Brian Tallet has some numbers that are alarming. His ERA is high, his peripheral make you wonder what the Cardinals thought they are getting. They see something many don’t in this case. Maybe this is a Duncan project. Tallet is the 3rd oldest bullpen member.

Color me concerned because there’s mold in the bullpen.

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The big deals were flying around in November and December.

Jayson Werth got his big deal. Carl Crawford got set for life with his monstrous contract. Cliff Lee spurned a few million dollars for a return to Philadelphia. All this came along in December with other deals coming and going. It looked like Christmas was set…. and then along came Zack Greinke. He swoops in by changing agents and demanding to be traded from the Kansas City Royals.

Greinke steals the show. All the bloggers, writers, sports hosts are talking about his trade to the Brewers. Forget Werth, Lee and others everybody wants to talk about the man that has an anxiety disorder. How can he have this when he is married to former Miss Daytona BeachUSA Emily Kuchar ? Does he not go out and attend her activities?

In all fairness to Donald Zachery Greinke he seems to have turned the corner on the anxiety thing. He went out the last two years and has pitched marvelously. He garnered the Cy Young in 2009 and started the 2010 season with a 24 inning scoreless streak. The man has come into his own. Many teams were after his talents as a pitcher. The Brewers got it done, just in time for Christmas.

Zack: You are the Greinke that stole Christmas.

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We wanted to take just a second and let you know that the United Cardinal Bloggers Android application is now available! Cardinals GM is included in this awesome app. If you want to keep up to date on Cardinals information and blogs and own an Android powered phone – check out this app!

You can scan the code below with you Android phone to automatically start downloading the UCB Android App.

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Since I am the CardinalsGM in the bloggosphere, I thought I would let you all in on what I gave to some of the players and management during this Christmas season. I took care in picking the right thing to give them to enhance the 2011 Cardinals in their quest for a championship.

Here goes:

To one of the newest member of the team, Lance Berkman, I went out and got him a contract from the Fountain of Youth Water Company. They will deliver to him H2O everyday in hopes that he reverts back to his former days of glory while a member of the Astros.

Also a new member of the team is Ryan Theriot and for him I gave him a 1 year supply of performance enhancers from GNC. This will bulk him up a bit and get some power out his position.

A lot of us have probably been told to “get thicker skin” when someone has offended us in a very disrespectful way and whoever it was that did the bad deed, they’ve decided not to apologize for it. I got some skin care products that are guaranteed to produce thicker skin for Colby Rasmus.

Left fielder Matt Holliday was next on my list. Matt has everything but he has a tendency, according to him, to get hungry while playing a game. What does he do to curb that? HE eats Barbecue Sunflower Seeds. Yep, I gave him a year’s supply of them to help him along while waiting for Rasmus to catch the next fly ball.

This is the first winter I was able to get a gift to Mark McGwire. I had to really think about how to get something that will help the team. Mark almost didn’t come back this year because he wanted to spend more time with his family. We do know that Mark did produce during the season. What he produced was triplet girls. Does Andro do that? I got Mark a laptop computer with Skype already installed so he can see and hear his family at almost all times.

Ace pitcher Adam Wainwright has to be so frustrated to finish second place in the Cy Young award. I want to make sure he has a good attitude when he takes the mound for 2011. So for Adam I purchased a replica Cy Young award for him to take on the road while he mows down the opposition.

Manager Tony LaRussa is a man that has been around the ropes for a long time. What could help a future Hall of Fame manager have a better year? Every night he is on Fox Sports Midwest after the game doing a Press Conference. Sometimes he gets irritated and then people get made at him. I bought him THIS book!

There is only one thing to get ALBERT PUJOLS. A new contract. I gave him a contract for 8 years at$30M per year along with a lifetime service contract after he is done with baseball. He will receive $5M per year for his ambassadorship with the Cardinals.

I am not going into ALL the gifts for ALL the players at this time.

Those are my Christmas gifts to enhance the 2011 Cardinals

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During the winter doldrums I dream about watching baseball. St Louis Cardinals style, of course. So then I decided to put together what I feel would be the line-up card for opening day. How to construct a batting order popped into my head. What would I like to see at every spot in the order? I went back in Cardinals History and looked at some of the more successful teams and how they were put together. Here goes with the CardinalsGM lineup card.

Lead-off batters should be quicker than snot, be able to take a walk and be a slash hitter. This translates into a good on base percentage for the #1 hitter. I won’t be able to distinguish for all the batting spots but I believe in the modern era of baseball Lou Brock was the Cardinal that did this best. Looking at our currently available players for this I don’t see any real good lead-off hitters. It appears to me that Ryan Theriot is a better selection here than Skip Schumaker due to Theriot’s ability to steal bases more consistently.

Who bats after the lead-off might be a part that is most overlooked in my opinion. Now we need a player that can bunt the runner over, conduct a successful hit and run play and take a few pitches in the count to get the lead-off a chance to steal a base or two. Ted Sizemore complimented Lou Brock as well an any I can remember. Here is where our new right fielder will pay dividends. Lance Berkman has a reputation as a good eye that takes tons of walks coupled with a very good on-base-percentage.

Batting in the 3 hole is a player that has some power and can particularly be an extra base machine. Plenty of doubles would be preferred in this spot. A RBI spot needs an automatic RBI guy. I am not looking for just shear power in this spot. The Cardinals have plenty of them in their illustrious history. I would prefer to see Matt Holliday bat in this spot but Albert Pujols will be entrenched here as long as LaRussa is the manager. Remember, Tony has won a few more games than I have.

The clean-up hitter. Everyone’s bread and butter guy. Pure raw power is what I want in this spot of the order. He can be a gap hitter, too. I want someone here that cleans the bases. What he should also possess the the ability to hit a sacrifice fly to plate the runner for a run. I am putting Pujols in this spot but we will see Holliday bat 4th most of the time.

What do I see as a 5th place hitter? After all, I just cleared the bases with my clean-up guy. I want similar attributes as the 3rd hitter but I would like to see a bit more speed here to begin the process over of getting on base. Possibly more of the gap type hitter than power would prevail here. This means I put Colby Rasmus as the 5th spot hitter. 15-25 homers and 10-20 stolen bases is what I hope to get.

We go back to contact hitter at the sixth spot but with a touch of power. Somebody than can hit the ball hard and move runners along. Some managers like their second best home run hitters here but I don’t buy into that. Here I place David Freese to bat sixth if he is ready at the start of the season.

This is not a nice thing to say but the 7th place hitter is just a line-up filler. What every you have left on the field you put them here and hope for some success. Yadi Molina gets this duty in my line-up.

I give the 8th place hitter a bit more of a role in the order. This player must have some patience to take a walk or the ability to get hit by a pitch. Something to try to get on ahead of the pitcher to get him out of the way in the line-up. Skip Schumaker bats 8th for me in this batting order.

9th place hitter is the pitcher, not at the 8th spot.

So let’s recap on how to construct a batting order.

Theriot

Berkman

Holliday

Pujols

Rasmus

Freese

Molina

Schumaker

Wainwright/Carpenter/Garcia/Westbrook/Lohse

Your thoughts are always appreciated!

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