According to the lyrics from the Black Eyed Peas:

I’m a be, I’m a be I’m a I’m a I’m a be.

I’m a be, I’m a be I’m a I’m a I’m a be

I’m a be, I’m a be I’m a I’m a I’m a be.

I’m a be be be be I’m a I’m a be.I’m a be be be be

I’m a I’m a be.

I’m a be be be be I’m a I’m a be.

I got to thinking this morning as I stopped at my local Casey’s General Store about the Cardinals. You see when you go to Casey’s almost any topic can and will get discussed. So I am there while baseball is bantered in the middle of Cubs/Cardinals territory and a guy tells us he is a Yankees fan. After I give my condolences and everybody laughs he begins a short retort about the winning franchise.

Here is my thought. Do we want to be THE team or are we happy with being a WANNABE team? In other words, would you be a happy Cardinals fan if they spent over $200M dollars every year and attempted to get the best players money can buy or would you be happier to stay $100M-$120M with less than the best players and take your best shot at a World Series title?

I know fully well the Yankees have not been wildly successful at clinching the top prize but they have won a few and are almost always in the running for that chance. Now we see the Boston Red Sox on their spending spree along with the Philadelphia Phillies replicating that idea. Guess who is favored to win now? Doesn’t mean they will.

Are you just as pleased as a Cardinals fan to see Jake Westbrook and Kyle Lohse at the end of your teams rotation as opposed to the Phillies fans watching Roy Oswalt and Cole Hamels? Won’t they see better quality baseball day in and day out? As a fan does that bother you?

Would you rather say I’m a be or a wannabe?

I vote for the BE. I want to watch my team scratch and claw for every run. I want to see a .240 hitter go 4 for 5. I am happy to have my #4 starter go 6 innings and some bullpen dudes finish it of for that patented, “That’s A Winner!“

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I would imagine you have heard those words. Parents will tell you that know matter how you spin it, the results are still the same. How true. This got me to thinking about the Brendan Ryan trade and then former presser that have come out of Busch Stadium in the past years. Many believe Tony LaRussa is a spin doctor and has been for most of his Cardinals career.

Let’s examine what “spin” is and what a “spin doctor” does.  The word spin is a “verb” used to show one side of a story without shedding light on all aspects of it. It may be omitting certain details in order to make a situation better or worse than it really is. I would suppose that many people, depending on your politics in the world, believe that Fox News spins stories and MSNBC spins them another way.

What is a “spin doctor” do? They are the one that controls the information that goes out and tells you things to make people believe a certain way. In other words, spin doctor is often used to describe public relations experts. So is Tony LaRussa and th eCardinals s;in doctors? Do they control the information that goes in and out of the organization? Absolutely.

But that is not all bad. We hear about a pitcher with an injury and then bloggers and forums talk about the spin. What happens when the truth is told? The value of the player goes down. The reputation of some may suffer. Peoples lives are impacted.

What about a trade such as Brendan Ryan? We hear it is in the best interest but they are not specific. What if they get specific? Will other teams shy away? Will they offer nothing? Maybe Brendan has a bad habit. Do we need that information? Since when do they owe it to the fans to tell everything? If I am the owner or CEO of a corporation or a sports team and I paid multi-millions of dollars it is nobody else’s business what goes in inside the walls or arena.

In the past we hear of the Ozzie debacle where Tony LaRussa chose to play Royce Clayton over “The Wizard”. Do we really need to know what went on or what was said? No we don’t. There are cases after cases in baseball and around the world of spinning going on that really doesn’t affect us but we have this “need to know” mentality.

Just remember: No matter how you spin it, the results are still the same.

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Don’t care. Doesn’t matter.Never work. Too radical. Probably won’t happen. Those are words we hear every time someone has a plan for baseball realignment. I wouldn’t want 2010 to end without me presenting some form of realignment to you.

What frosts me now is that all divisions are not equal. They don’t have the same number of teams in them. How is that fair and equitable? Doesn’t the NL Central have six teams (no Pirates jokes allowed here) in its division? Look at the American League West and you find four teams in it. Something fishy about that.

The word radical is always thrown into the mix on discussions about realignment. Traditionalists jump up and down and wave their fist at you and then remind you of the old days of plain ol’ 2 league days. They want no changes. In Selig-land, where the mighty commissioner rules, he doesn’t seem to say much about it.

Let’s take a look at the plan I like. The plan is not new and I did not invent it, however, I am tweaking it for my own purposes.

We go with the eight-team format. In this day and age of travel being costly, this is one way of helping offset some of the cost. My revised plan allows for more geographic rivalries which allows for fans of the other team to travel to see them against their counterparts (think Cubs-White Sox and Cardinals-Royals) as they play each other more often. The eight-team format has proven that a 154 game schedule can work and would be easy to implement.

East League: New York Yankees, New York Mets, Boston Red Sox, Baltimore Orioles, Washington Nationals, Philadelphia Phillies, Pittsburgh Pirates and Cleveland Indians.

Central League: Chicago White Sox, Chicago Cubs, St. Louis Cardinals, Milwaukee Brewers, Minnesota Twins, Toronto Blue Jays, Detroit Tigers and Indianapolis 500′s.

South League: Tampa Bay Rays, Miami Marlins, Atlanta Braves, Texas Rangers, Houston Astros, Kansas City Royals,Cincinnati Reds, New Orleans Hurricanes.

West League: Los Angeles Angels, Los Angeles Dodgers, San Francisco Giants, Oakland Athletics, San Diego Padres, Colorado Rockies, Arizona Diamondbacks and Seattle Mariners.

What I have done is made them almost geographical, added two teams for easy scheduling and easy playoff distribution, lessened travel costs and I will dump the DH (that is the problem, losing jobs) to make this work.

Baseball realignment ideas are always radical.

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Here is what I have for Cardinals offensive projections as of now for 2011. I will most likely review this before the season begins.

Let’s crunch my thoughts on these numbers.

Schumaker is a bit of a concern, Will they stick with him at second base for the year? With LaRussa, I believe so. Skip will have an average year with fewer hits and lower batting average due to some less playing time.

Lance Berkman can be baffling. We have no way of knowing but I am giving him the benefit of the doubt and call it that this will be a big offensive year for Lance. He will love batting in front of Albert and Matt.

Albert Pujols is in for a monster year. Not even the fact that contract time is around the corner because he has already earned that. It’s just going to happen!

Matt Holliday is smooth and will also have a bit of an uptick in his numbers.

Rasmus will have a slight down turn. So much has been written about Colby and Tony that I am not sure he will get the opportunities he has in the past.

If David Freese stays healthy he may provide the key to winning the pennant. He has the offensive skills to produce.

Yadier Molina is likely to see a bit of a downturn due to overwork. Yes, it doesn’t seem to bother him in the past but time has a way of telling you things about you body.

Our new shortstop, Ryan Theriot, appears to be happy he is a Cardinal player. I see an upturn in his offensive numbers from his other years.

From the regular bench we have John Jay with a few less hits but a higher batting average and Allen Craig is going to struggle. He sees competition in Lance Berkman and I feel that won’t sit well.

That’s it, my 2011 St Louis Cardinals Offensive Projections.  In the next few days I will project some pitchers stats for the 2011 Cardinals season as well.

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(sung to the tune Charlie Brown by The Coasters 1959)

Fe-fe, fi-fi, fo-fo, fum

I smell smoke in the auditorium

Brendan Ryan, Brendan Ryan

He’s a tryin’, that Brendan Ryan

He’s gonna get traded

Just you wait and see

(Why’s everybody always pickin’ on me)

That’s him on the field

Playing with the laser shield

Listenin’ to headphones on his Sony

Trying to hide them from Sir Tony

Brendan Ryan, Brendan Ryan

He’s a tryin’, that Brendan Ryan

He’s gonna get traded

Just you wait and see

(Why’s everybody always pickin’ on me)

Who’s always leaving his glove on the wall

Who’s always forgetting sunglasses in the hall

Who’s always throwing spit balls

Guess who (who, me) yeah, you

Who walks in the clubhouse, cool and slow

Who calls the manager , Bossy Daddy-O

Brendan Ryan, Brendan Ryan

He’s a tryin, that Brendan Ryan

He got himself traded

That’s for darn sure.

He’s gonna get a gold glove

Just you wait and see

(Why’s everybody always pickin’ on me)

=========================================================

Brendan will be missed in St Louis but many believe he created most of his own problems.

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This is a collaborative work of several members of the United Cardinals Bloggers. It is a 46 page year end review of 2010.

Click the link below.

The Year In Cardinal Baseball

Please make a visit to these contributing Cardinal bloggers a part of your daily reading.

Josh Gilliam, Pitchers Hit Eighth
Justin Husley, i70 Baseball
Bill Ivie, i70 Baseball
Tom Knuppel, CardinalsGM
Erika Lynn, Cardinal Diamond Diaries
Tim McCullough, Future Redbirds
Matt “Pip” Philip, Fungoes
Daniel Shoptaw, C70 At The Bat
Steve Sommer, Play A Hard 9
Angela Weinhold, Cardinal Diamond Diaries

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We are all critics in baseball. We write about the good trades and the bad trades. We take our favorite team and over value their players. We put together fantasy trades that only help our team. But what do we, the common fan know about players and their value? As Yogi Berra said, “You can observe a lot just by watching.”

Throughout history we have talked about how one team got cheated as soon as the trade was made known. One good example of being “dead wrong” was the Ernie Broglio for Lou Brock trade. Immediately people were sure that the Cardinals made a bad trade. Why did we know that? Because you can observe a lot bu just watching and we had watched Broglio star for our team and Brock was young and inexperience. Later we found our first thought was wrong.

Where am I going with this? Brenda Ryan was traded today for Maikel Cleto. We watched Ryan field the ball that many shortstops could never get to. Throw from places others wouldn’t think about. We saw it with our own eyes. We knew he was a star in the making. Our hearts told us he was valuable. So why did it only get us a Class A pitcher with a 10-27 record and a ERA over 5? Those that watch baseball for a living, have the training and experience saw the WHOLE package. Brendan was a light hitter and that entered into the equation. His value wasn’t as high outside of the Cardinal faithful. You can observe a lot by just watching and we chose to NOT see he lacked in the bat. Brendan is 29 years old and if he hasn’t figured it out by now, it is not likely he will.

We didn’t appear to get much in return by I like the ideas he is a 21 yr old fastballer. Shows some upside.

Bottomline: I am not sold this was a good deal but did Ryan really have a future on the Cardinals?

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Ah, the good old days. Ken Boyer and Dick Groat would man the left side while Julian Javier and Bill White were on the right side of the infield. They got to a lot of groundballs to win games. Curt Flood was silky smooth in the outfield. Championships were won in the 60′s due to the spectacular defense and then along came Dal Maxvill who was a weaker hitter but had a smooth glove. Remember when defense was important in St. Louis?

More championships came in the 80′s. The Wizard, Ozzie Smith, almost flawlessly came up with groundballs up the middle and Tommy Herr and Terry Pendleton were known gloves. Hardly anything got through that wasn’t hit hard. The outfield had Willie McGee who could go after them and Bake McBride could fly. Andy VanSlyke anchored right field and if he couldn’t catch it, he could throw them out with his fine arm. Remember when defense was important in St. Louis?

What has happened to that theory? Now we preparing to trade our best, and maybe the leagues best shortstop for some prospects. What do we do about it, we add a much weaker glove in Ryan Theriot at short and use a converted outfielder at second base. Manning the hot corner we use a hitter in David Freese. The 2011 outfield will find Lance Berkman, who hasn’t played outfield in like a millenium along with Matt Holliday who is just serviceable. Remember when defense was important in St Louis?

I guess those were the good old days.

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Here goes in no particular order: I start at the Rookie League in Johnson City with Ryan Copeland. He is a graduate of Illinois State University where his career numbers for 4 years had him walking 46 and striking out 251 batters. He carried that success to the professional side. At 5’11” 185 lbs, he throws from the left side. Lefties are at a premium. He ended with a perfect 7-0 record in 13 games where he started 6 of them. Ryan tossed 53.1 innings, gave up 39 hits, 11 ER’s, 3 HR’s and opponents hit .202 against him. To top that, he walked 7 batters and struck out 48. This is a tremendous ratio. For these numbers, I make Ryan Copeland one of the  Cardinal Prospects for 2011!

Next up is pitcher Kevin Thomas. Born in 1986 he is 6’3” 215 lbs and throws right. At Palm Beach he had some great numbers. His record was 10-2 in 107 innings where he started 14 games. His ERA was 2.27 and he gave up 93 hits and opponents hit .238 against him. His 38 walks to 94 strikeouts are numbers that deserved accolades. For these numbers, Kevin Thomas is one of the Cardinal Prospects for 2011!

Alex Castellanos was also at Palm Beach this year. He is a right fielder with some consistency. He is 5’11” 180 lbs and throws and bats right. Alex was in 129 games, hit 13 homers, 7 triples along with 35 doubles. He drove in 57 RBI’s and had 19 stolen bases with a .481 SLG. What he needs to work on it appears is he struck out 112 times. For this consistant season, Alex Castellanos is one of the Cardinal Prospects for 2011!

How can you improve on a 10-0 record? Daniel Calhoun pitched at the Quad Cities this year and remained perfect. At 6’3” and 220 lbs, this lefthander had some impressive stats. He started 6 games and pitched 96 innings with a 3.75 ERA. He gave up 9 HR’s and opponents hit .283 against him. Get this…. 19 walks and 83 strikeouts makes this jaw dropping. For this, Daniel Calhoun is one of the Cardinal Prospecst for 2011!

Matthew Adams is a first baseman. What must it be like to see Albert Pujols in line ahead of you? Adams played for the Quad City Bandits with some very good numbers. He is 6’3” 230 lbs and throws right and bats left. He hit .310 in 121 games with 22 homers and 41 doubles with 88 RBI’s. He ended with a .541 ALG. For these numbers, Matthew Adams is one of the Cardinal Prospects for 2011!

Blake King was a right handed thrower this season for the Springfield Cardinals. At 6’1” 195 lbs the throws right and had a 4-3 record in 68 innings. He posted a 2.91 ERA, giving up 40 hitsm 23 runs and 5 homers. His ratio was 48 walks to 84 strikeouts and opponents hit .173 against him. Blake King is one of the Cardinal Prospects for 2011!

Next up is Matt Carpenter a third baseman. Between Palm Beach and Springfield he contributed with 13 homers, 5 triples and 31 doubles. A .316 batting average with 69 RBI’s in 133 games. He only had 8 errors in that time. Carpenter is 6’3” 200 lbs and bats left and throws right. For this season line, Matt Carpenter is one of the Cardinal Prospects for 2011 !

Lastly, I end with a Memphis Redbird player. We have catcher Steven Hill. He hit .271 with 24 homers, 1 triple and 28 doubles. In 102 games, he drove in 92 RBI’s. This right handed hitter, Steven Hill is one of the Cardinal Prospects for 2011 !

Several other players are worthy, I am sure. I will give a short list of others to be considered: Of course on everyones list is Shelby Miller and then Daniel Delscalso, Lance Lynn, Nick Addition and Phillip Cerreto. I could have included many of the players that yo-yo’ed back and forth to the Cardinals but chose not to include them. They are Cardinal Prospects for 2011!

Feel free to get my attention and show me the errors of my ways in this post with your thoughts and comments. Let me know who you think are top Cardinals Prospects for 2011.

A very similar column was written a few months ago but I revisited and revised it to make it current.

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What is Cardinal Nation?        

It is a conglomerate of people that spending large amounts of time following their St. Louis Cardinals via television, radio, twitter, Facebook pages and/or in person. They discuss it at work, at play, at church and other inappropriate times to get the latest word on their passion. It is simply a nod to the guy in the mall wearing The Birds on the Bat shirt as you and your wife walk through. Also, it can be a “remember when” type of talk about former Cardinal greats throughout history and the game you watched on television last night. It is straight baseball talk about every team in Major League baseball  It is the gentle and sometimes not-so gentle discussions with Cub fans over the latest series or past great games between the teams. Cardinal Nation is a community.

It  is a known entity. Wikipedia has this definition:

Cardinal Nation, or Redbird Nation, is a term that describes the massive popularity of the St. Louis Cardinals baseball franchise, and the celebration of professional baseball, not just in St. Louis, but through a large portion of the Midwest and South.

Many writers have crowned Cardinal Nation fans as the best fans in America. People write about the team and then they read each others writings and the United Cardinal Bloggers has been formed.

Cardinal Nation gets excited when new players join the team. Even former rivals that once were viewed as the enemy get welcomed to St Louis. A new player gets added and the talk becomes “what number will he wear“?

The stars of the game love to play in St Louis and hometown heroes like Pujols will even get a Pujols Week written about him and they never want him to leave like this Cardinal Nation online petition to keep him in St Louis.

I think you get the picture as to how awesome Cardinal Nation has become and how well respected it is.

Oh, and one more thing, they even have a countdown to Opening Day!

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