Apologies for the longer-than-usual postseason layoff; the World! Series! Victory! coincided with a nonzero amount of homework and kept me away from the site just long enough to squander all of my playoffs momentum, AL style. That said, I’m back in the saddle? now, so expect the usual offseason meanderings on a regular basis.

One of the common themes has already begun to spring up: the Cardinals can’t be complacent in the offseason. Nate Silver’s SI.com piece is a pretty ordinary example of the kind of thing we’ll be reading until pitchers and catchers report. It’s sound advice, and teams are usually loath to follow it. The last several World Series teams, for example:

The 2002 Anaheim Angels went 99-63 and did the whole shock-the-world! thing despite not having any typically great players. Their best hitter, an aging Tim Salmon, hit .286/.380/.503; their best pitcher, Jarrod Washburn, rode a fluky home run rate to an ace-like season despite a decided lack of ace-like stuff.

So they came into 2003 with, startlingly, the exact same lineup and rotation; only postseason hero Francisco Rodriguez pushed his way into the bullpen full-time. This reliance on the same team, filled with players having fluke seasons as it was, left them with a 77-win club. They lost almost 120 runs on offense, due to predictable regressions from Salmon, Scott Spiezio, and David Eckstein, among others; Ramon Ortiz and Jarrod Washburn fell back to their established levels despite their youth, and Kevin Appier and Aaron Sele aged all at once. Without an ace, there was nobody in the rotation to fall back on when those four stopped pitching over their head.

The 2003 Marlins are, obviously, a peculiar case; I think we all understand their build-n-burn strategy at this point. As successful as it’s been, I don’t think I could stand watching it on a regular basis.

In 2004–I’m told they played a World Series that year, though I don’t seem to remember it–the Red Sox had the biggest incentive of all to stand pat: they had reversed the curse! These were the most loved Red Sox, well, ever. It was a given that they would succumb at least once to what Silver in his article calls the “hometown surcharge”; the problem is that they did so in the wrong places. They let Pedro Martinez, maybe the best pitcher of his generation, go to the Mets for four years, $53 million. It’s defensible to avoid an injury-prone pitcher who asks for that much, but it’s not defensible to turn around and spend four years, $40 million on Jason Varitek, a 33-year-old catcher. They also stood pat with the solid-but-unspectacular Kevin Millar, and were left holding the tab when he became more unspectacular and less solid in 2005. That said, they did do what I hope the Cardinals are sure to attempt: they upgraded at at least one position, signing Edgar Renteria.

The Cardinals should have a pretty easy time upgrading at certain positions in 2007; the last two spots in the rotation, for example, would have a hard time producing 350 innings of 6+ ERA if they were trying, and Yadier Molina is a better hitter than the one who couldn’t break a .600 OPS this year. But it would be very good to see the Cardinals make a point of legitimately upgrading at one position that they were okay at. My ideal 2007 Cardinals team would look something like this, right now:

1. David Eckstein, SS: The Cardinals are very lucky that he didn’t become a free agent after this season, because he fits the Platonic Ideal of the player that’s overvalued after the playoffs: scrappy white guy in his 30s who plays hard and had some big hits in the World Series. Poor Eck was a year and a Scott Boras offseason away from three years, $25 million.

2. Ray Durham, 2B: He’s an old, injury prone middle infielder, so normally I would beg the Cardinals to avoid signing him, but the difference is he’s much, much better than the average old, injury prone middle infielder. (Mark Grudzielanek 2004.) Durham is exactly the kind of player that tends to age well: he’s got plate discipline, he hits for a solid batting average, and he started off lightning fast and developed power as he aged. Kenny Lofton, Marquis Grissom, and Reggie Sanders, among others, have parlayed those skills into never-ending periods of usefulness.

3. Albert Pujols, 1B
4. Scott Rolen, 3B

5. Jim Edmonds, CF: pick up the option. Consider: $7 million in this baseball economy gets you the next step up from Juan Encarnacion, and that’s only if you dangle multiple years in front of him. Edmonds’s lost season, concussions and all, still left him with an .821 OPS and, according to Zone Rating, excellent defense in center field.

6. Carlos Lee/Chris Duncan platoon, LF: Here’s the question: how big a splash do the Cardinals want to make? I’d be fine with them avoiding Lee like the plague, since he’s overvalued–five years, $75 million seems to be the order of the day. But Chris Duncan/Nick Stavinoha, or whatever the Cardinals go with in left, is a risky proposition, and after a year of grousing about the ownership’s pursestrings they could be looking to impress the fans with a big deal. I certainly wouldn’t cry myself to sleep if DeWitt pushed Jocketty to sign somebody in the Lee mold.

7. Juan Encarnacion, RF: Zone rating also liked Juan’s defense; I’m sure that is going to make a lot of people discount it entirely, but I thought he played pretty well out there. He plays defense like Jim Edmonds hits: every once and a while he’ll do something that looks totally asinine, but he does a lot of things well that don’t get noticed. The total Juan package is completely average and intensely frustrating, but there are worse players to have.

8. Yadier Molina, C: Mike Lieberthal is a free agent; I’m not sure how he feels about being a backup, but how cool would it be to have a second catcher that actually gives the Cardinals a different look for once?

1: Chris Carpenter
2: Anthony Reyes

3: Adam Wainwright: Yeah, yeah. I just think it’s easier to move him back into the bullpen if he struggles in 2007 than to move him into the rotation if the Cardinals need him in, say, 2009.

4: Jeff Weaver/Suppan: I think Weaver’s going to be cheaper, so I’d probably go with him; with two youngsters in the rotation the Cardinals need a guy who can chew up innings. Here’s hoping that whichever pitcher the Cardinals don’t sign takes a big, overpriced contract from New York or Boston and wins 20 games with a 4.25 ERA.

5: Mark Mulder?: It’s like the Sidney Ponson gamble, only with upside! I like Swamp Gas, divorced from the god-awful trade that brought him here, and I like gambling on injured pitchers with good stuff. If he doesn’t work out, or if he’s not available immediately, the Cardinals can give a few starts to Brad Thompson or Chris Narveson and see what happens; it’s good that their farm system has finally afforded them that luxury.

That’s not a great rotation, but just by default it’s worlds better than what existed this year. This isn’t an ideal offseason for the Cardinals to come into money, but you don’t get the luxury of picking your free agent class; let’s hope Jock makes do with what’s out there.

• The Cardinals won the World Series! Just in case you missed it.
• Tony La Russa should probably go into the Hall as a Cardinal now; he’s 977-803 with two pennants and a World Series Championship with the Redbirds, and 798-673 with three pennants and a championship with the Athletics.
• But he never won a championship on Jeff Weaver’s back when with the Athletics.

How does this win balance out our karma? Let us count the ways. Chronologically:

• Curt Flood sliding in the outfield in 1968; Curtis Granderson slipping in the outfield, 2006.
• The Curse of Don Denkinger: Kaput, if it was ever put in the first place. Keep in mind that P.T. himself, Kenny Rogers, had a Jorge Orta number of two.
• Sure, the Cardinals may have been bad in the regular season this year–+19 in run differential–but that’s nothing compared to what the -20 Minnesota Twins did to Our Redbirds in 1987. Strangely enough, and you should pass this on to anybody who laments such a terrible team winning the World Series, the sky did not fall that year. The best news is: they still owe us a run!
• Jimmy Fallon and Drew Barrymore can haunt us no more; I’m sure Eminem and… Sofia Coppola? are unhappy that they’ll have to rewrite the ending to Fever Pitch 2, but these things happen.

Pick up Edmonds’s option. Make sure La Russa doesn’t get the Dick Vermeils and retire for a year. Upgrade at a position. Get this team rolling. Those aren’t really dominoes, but what can I say–I’m a little giddy right now.

The legend began right over here. Catch up, or don’t, and I’ll be updating with more spiel every few minutes right here. Get your reload buttons ready.

Holy crap, what an awful play by Chris Duncan. Edmonds should have gone for it, but you’ve gotta catch the ball. And another home run from Sean Casey. You can’t do that, but at least the error is off the board for good. By the way, if anyone talks about the Cardinals being a poor club that got hot in the World Series, keep in mind that Sean Casey is raking, too. It happens for everybody. Weaver continues his unflappable routine, so there’s that.

For all Verlander’s struggles so far, only Yadier Molina and Albert Pujols have made decent contact off of him. They’ve largely been unforced errors.

Belliard adds himself to the list to lead off the bottom of the fourth, but nothing comes of it. Yadier gets another hit; I’d almost bunt him over just to get Weaver in this inning. Taguchi reaching base? Also works.

Unbelievable. I just… I just don’t know what to say about The Year of the Pitcher Error. Somebody should get Brandon Inge a card, or something.

Fifth inning: Weaver gets right back into things with a series of sidearm sliders to retire Brandon Inge. He’s just taunting Curtis Granderson with high fastballs at this point, but the issue is that he doesn’t have anything else with which to fool lefties. A walk’s better than a home run, I guess, because he’s got plenty of tricks to get righties like Craig Monroe.

Verlander’s starting to hang curveballs, as opposed to losing them in the dirt. That’s bad news for Justin Verlander.

Sixth inning: Tim McCarver is harping on Duncan remaining in the game in right field. It’s a valid point, certainly, but I think this is La Russa being La Russa; normally he would be giddy to get the chance to use a defensive replacement, but I think this is a move that looks ahead to a possible game six or seven, in which he wants Duncan to be confident. I’d probably rather have the defense, but I’m not the manager.

What a play by Weaver. How is this the same guy? If he gets Sean Casey out here I’m probably going to buy a Jeff Weaver jersey. He goes back to the tailing fastball to try and win one for the merchandise department.

Wow–and Duncan makes another error in right field. I hate it when Tim McCarver is prescient, so very much; we’ll be hearing about this for the rest of the game. Okay, Weaves, get out of the inning without a run scored and I’ll still consider that jersey. He starts off with a high slider that Pudge can’t handle, and then bam–the sidearm sliders of death, one right after the other. He would be one unhittable ROOGY.

Meanwhile, Verlander definitely has the curveball working now–has ever since his third attempt on Pujols–but nobody can stop the Yadi Train.

They just showed some old Tigers footage of Weaver, and wow–his stuff was just ridiculous back then. It still breaks sharply, but not nearly as much. But that hasn’t mattered yet.

Seriously, Jeff. Win this game, I buy the jersey. Tell the kids in the bullpen the same thing, I’ll buy a Josh Kinney… well, I’ll iron something onto a t-shirt.

Eighth inning: holy crap. I seriously don’t know what to say about Weaver and the Tailing Fastball of Death, except that if he were a woman we would’ve eloped already.

Ninth inning: hey, look who’s batting second! Wainwright had better retire Magglio, if for no other reason than to quiet Tim McCarver (who has taken Sean Casey on as some kind of surrogate Jeter for the duration of this series.)

One down; thank you to the Fatlete. Wainwright gets ahead of Sean Casey and still stays away from the curveball. 1-2 count–everybody in the stadium is looking for it, and Casey fouls it off. Another hit from Sean Casey. That’s alright, he’s off the field now–I think that breaks the curse.

A pitcher throws to his first baseman. That most boring of plays. Two down.

Placido, I love you, but you know what St. Louis needs here. Do it for Fredbird.

Oh, no–Brandon Inge? Really? Are the baseball gods so devoid of any other kind of irony that they have to go for the cheap stuff?

And they don’t!

Ladies! and! Gentlemen! Your 2006 World Champions, the St. Louis Cardinals, eliminators of the Curse of Jimmy Fallon and Drew Barrymore. It’s been a bad year. It’s been a good year. It’s been a year.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a jersey to customize.

Much like Jeff Suppan, I’m all over the place tonight; the livebloggery began here.

Fourth inning: while I closed up the loose-ends–posted this entry, linked to it from the other one, used Firefox as a workaround so that the link actually appears on AOL’s weird blogging platform (I’m a Safari fan, myself)–Jeff Suppan retired the 8 and 9 hitters. That’s the Soup I like to see. And just after I write that he buries Curtis Granderson with a nasty curveball. Looks like he took a page from the Jeff Weaver Book of Not Caring and just got right back on the horse.

Til’ Death has gotten the John Mellencamp treatment; never have I been less excited about a heavily-promoted sitcom. Was there really a meeting in Fox Studios where someone fought for this one? “You know what I think the world needs? Another sitcom about a husband and wife who dislike eachother intensely.” The Lockhorns had better be collecting royalties on this.

Meanwhile, another shot for Jim Edmonds against Bonderman. And another out; I still like this matchup, but I’d also love to see the Cardinals take him out before J. Baseball gets another shot at him. I love the Scott Rolen matchup vs. anybody at this point; what a hustle play on that double.

Yadier! The easiest way for the Cardinals to upgrade at a position next year is for Yadi Molina to not suck so historically with the bat; the way he’s swinging the bat, it might happen. It’s good to see the Cardinals scratch some runs together; I’d love to see a big inning, but a run’s a run no matter how it’s scored at this point.

The fifth and sixth pass without incident. That’s good, because I was otherwise occupied, but bad because the Cardinals flailed on a great chance to tie the ballgame. I’m sorry, but there’s no way I’m not lifting Aaron Miles for a pinch-hitter in that situation. He’s just not a good hitter.

Seventh inning: so Jim Edmonds hasn’t done anything, but I’d like to remind everybody that I called that error. From the AOL blog:

I would be a little surprised if he goes hitless against the kid, in spite of that strikeout. If nothing else, they’re making him work; maybe they’re trying to make the bullpen play defense early.

Obviously this is the one major weakness of the Tigers that we failed to take into account. Great play, also, by Pujols to get himself thrown out. Seriously. Now it’s up to the bullpen. Can they please be unhittable just a little bit longer?

Eighth inning: this has really been the chance for Braden Looper to earn his contract; he saw little time in the first two series, but La Russa’s gone to him increasingly often in high leverage situations here. And it doesn’t pay off immediately, as Pudge smacks a double down the line. I can’t blame La Russa for this move, since Looper’s been great against righties all his career, but it’s never fun when the execution just isn’t there.

So Blooper misses out on his chance at Cards heroism, and Wainwright seals the deal with a tie-game double. Cards still have the advantage now that they’re out of that inning, what with home field advantage Todd Jones still in their corner.

Meanwhile, in the commercials, Fergie (of Black-Eyed Peas fame) manages to make John Cougar John Cougar Mellencamp Mellencamp look downright palatable. Just a stunning display of music-shillery ineptitude on the part of Our Sponsors.

Can Aaron Miles bunt off of a guy who throws 100 to get Yadier Molina to second? I have nightmares that start out exactly the same way. He manages to avoid the Worst Possible Outcome, but just barely.

Joel Zumaya - Juancar. I’m a Juan backer, but that strikes me as one of the most unfair matchups of all time.

WKKHG:LKH But it doesn’t matter! What an almost-play by Craig Monroe, who got a bad jump but nearly went all Jim Edmonds NLCS on the ball. Great job by Eckstein of pulling the unpullable.

And here we go. Adam Wainwright, in the longest closer-mentality stint of his career, to give the Cardinals a huge lead in the World Series. I do believe Tommy Lasorda lives for this.

Wainwright has been a little hyped up sometimes, but he goes right after Monroe and gores them both. And then–wow. What a game. The Cardinals did some terrible things with runners on base, and Suppan was far from perfect, but the Tigers just made more mistakes. I’ll take a win any way it comes–let’s keep The Cheat out of this series the old fashioned way, yeah?

Wow. I said most of what I have to say on the other blog, but that was a two-blog performance from Carp.

As for the atmosphere, it was pretty electric. The pre-game was mostly devoted to scouting out the hundreds of different Kenny Rogers signs on display; my personal favorite was a block-caps version of “WHAT DO I TELL MY CHILDREN ABOUT CHEATING?”

The crowd began to get a little restless after Ronnie Belliard failed to drive in a run with the bases loaded, but from the moment Edmonds’s double popped past first base the fans seemed utterly confident in Chris Carpenter’s ability to hold the lead. And, thank goodness, our confidence was well-founded. His start is probably the most dominant one I’ve ever personally witnessed; it’s the difference between striking out a lot of batters, and looking like you could if you wanted to. Only one ball–that missile-shot that Pujols snared–seemed like it came from a genuine major league swing. Otherwise, he was totally in control, and it was very obvious.

One thing I did get enough of: that god-forsaken Cha Cha Slide sample that they play at the game now. You know the one: “Everybody clap your hands! CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP [five minutes pass in rhythmic clapping] CLAP CLAP!” We counted for this game, and its use matched up pretty well with my estimate: nine times. Someone needs to hogtie the DJ before the game and give the interstitial music back to Ernie Hays, because I’ll be a much happier man if I never hear that song outside of a wedding reception hall again. They also played “We Like to Party” by the Vengaboys–better known as “That Six Flags Song” or “Please, please make it stop” or “Really, Dan, you have so much to live for and it’s only a few minutes long”–three times. In full.

Because I’d have trouble getting internet access in Busch Stadium, I think, and it’d be hard to balance my nachos on top of the keyboard. Long, rambling post over at the AOL blog thing, if you can’t bear to watch the Cardinals without imagining my thesaurus straining under the weight of my obsessive-compulsive word shuffling. Don’t worry, I wouldn’t think about watching the game without worrying about someone noticing a particularly embarrassing punctuation gaffe, so it’s a symbiotic thing.

Continued from over at AOL.

The top of the fourth inning ended so fast that I didn’t have time to observe anything; Rogers is just tearing through this lineup. Make him work, guys.

A rare cogent observation from Tim McCarver; he noted that Sean Casey wasn’t pushing off his back leg. The usual Fox battery of replays, for once, didn’t contradict him. Casey leans way into a pitch and gets on base. That’s just a terrible call from the officials; I’ve never seen someone be so blatant about it.

And, of course, it leads into a nightmare scenario; bases loaded, nobody out, lefty at the plate. And Weaver strikes out Curtis Granderson on three straight curveballs. He had a reputation for being a headcase, but Weaver’s looked pretty unflappable since joining the Cardinals. He then proceeds to drop sidearm for his first pitch against Craig Monroe; the guy certainly isn’t afraid top try things differently in the middle of a game.

Molina and Weaver should just invest in some walkie-talkies–they’ve had a lot to say to each other thus far. Another first pitch sidearm slider from Weaver to Polanco, and then a groundout. What an inning! Were the Yankees and the Angels watching the same pitcher I’m watching now? This guy wouldn’t be spooked if Ty Cobb came up from underneath home plate swinging a pitchfork.

Fox Sounds of the Game and Preston Wilson both finally prove their worth in the same exchange: “I haven’t seen this many people with painted cat faces since… I don’t know, Cats.” Can we trade him to the booth for Eric Byrnes? I wouldn’t have to hear Byrnes yell into the microphone!! like he’s calling Hulk Hogan out for a steel cage match, and I wouldn’t have to watch Preston strike out. This would be a best-of-both-worlds scenario.

Weaves did his job, but once again the offense has failed to put runs on the board against a soft-tossing lefty. Kenny Rogers has officially made my least-favorite-pitchers list, although it’s been fun to see sportswriters pretend they had nothing to do with his old Playoff Choker persona.

And down go the Cardinals; it’s important to know that Todd Jones sucks, at least.

I started to liveblog over on AOL, and since that’s a two-man operation and I don’t want to monopolize the real estate I’m going to finish it up here. So read up, and then come back here. I’ll wait.

Fourth inning: Verlander’s delivery seems shaky–his arm angle on the last pitch to Juan Encarnacion seemed all out of whack, much higher than usual. How about Ronnie Belliard’s hair? He just humiliated Magglio Ordonez and his gerry curl. How can he possibly top this? I’m thinking rainbow hair dye in game five.

Reyes has looked nasty since that first inning, in which he nibbled as badly as he has all year. Since then he’s been throwing the fastball with reckless abandon, and I like it. If you’ve got a changeup as good as Sir Flatbrim’s, it’s almost as useful as leverage as it is as an actual pitch.

Fifth inning: Verlander continues to refuse to throw the fastball to Chris Duncan. For a highly touted guy with a fastball that’s touched 98, that’s odd behavior; obviously you pitch to a player’s weaknesses, but you can’t ignore your own strengths.

Reyes is cruising now; he should give Jason Marquis a lesson on how to survive without a breaking pitch. Preferably when J-Marq’s about to join a new team.

Sixth inning: in which the Cardinals appear to have Justin Verlander’s number. Wow. Rolen just looks totally comfortable in the batter’s box right now; I haven’t seen his swing look that smooth in some time. Let’s make the bullpen work.

Speaking of which: Rolen just looks like his old self in general. He barreled into Inge, there, and had to go out of his way a little to do it. I think Inge regrets straying anywhere near the baseline on that one.

Reyes is working so quickly I don’t have a chance to talk about him–I haven’t seen him this confident in his fastball since he left a hittable one in Jim Thome’s wheelhouse three months ago. Just a huge game.

Seventh inning: the great, great thing about liveblogs: I run out of things to say around the seventh inning. The most I can say about the opening half: mediocre performance of God Bless America.

A little more excitement in the bottom of the inning; Reyes gives up a massive Comerica out to Pudge Rodriguez, and then gets right back to business, throwing like nothing happened. He’s looked just unflappable–this makes me very happy about 2007, if nothing else.

Eighth inning: Jim Edmonds continues to look good. Juancar, on the other hand–he could still use some work. Anthony Reyes is my favorite person, ever.

Ninth inning: Brandon Inge is just not having a good day out there. Leyland shows he’s Tony’s best friend by making a reliever change down six runs with two outs and one runner on base in the top of the ninth inning.

So, as that miserable Taco Bell commercial plays: does Tony bring out Young Reyes for the ninth? I’d just throw Kinney in there, but that doesn’t seem like a very La Russian move for me. And–yes, here comes Reyes. What a huge complete game this would be. And there it goes–Monroe drops a bomb into the left field seats. Still a gutsy performance by a guy who’s going to need to be gutsier still when he’s the number two starter in the rotation next year.

Tim McCarver quote: “[Ivan Rodriguez] isn’t just a natural born leader, he’s a natural born hall-of-famer.” It’s a good thing he decided to play baseball anyway, it’d be weird if they just elected him. Timmy Mac, you make these games so enjoyable.

In comes Braden Looper, who proceeds to look like a closer. What a game. Cogent thoughts later. Be happy.

In a classic case of not going far enough down the blogroll AOL Sports shot me an e-mail the other day, and now I’ll be blogging the Cardinals end of the World Series for them over here. So be sure and say hi; I’ll posts excerpts here whenever I post over there, and this blog should get some not-fit-for-AOL updates should I get particularly frustrated about a given game.

And astonishingly enough, the Cardinals are still in the World Series. I remembered watching the Office and being very happy about that, and then I’m sure I turned on the Cardinals game, but it was kind of late and I was a little tired and who knows what kind of strange things the mind can come up with when inhibitions fall to tiredness. A backup outfielder making the best Second-best third best? catch in playoff memory? Yadier F. Molina?

But here it was, Friday in Columbia, and the Royals fans were still shocked about Jeff Suppan, NLCS MVP. I still had an irrational hatred for Endy Chavez. I still had a rational fear of Justin Verlander. Everything seemed about right.

So I looked up the Tigers and I was a little surprised by what I saw. Some notes, from a cursory glance at their Baseball-Reference page.

• They’re mostly ace-less. From the hushed tones in which their rotation was discussed during their series with the Yankees and the Athletics one would think that their team was like the 2002-vintage Athletics, built around three aces that could go against anybody’s number one. On the contrary, the Yankees actually possessed similar frontline guys. The difference is that the Tigers can go the whole series without starting someone whose ERA+–normalized ERA, in which 100 is the league average–is under 111. In that regard, they’re similar to–though less impressive than–the 2005 White Sox, who had four starters with an ERA over 115. (And a frontline starter, Mark Buehrle, to boot.)

  Yes, the Tigers are built such that they will only give up a pitching advantage in the game(s) Chris Carpenter pitches. That said, if power pitching is your thing the Tigers aren’t your team; only Jeremy Bonderman fits the classic strike-em-out profile, and Kenny Rogers rode to the rescue with one of the lowest K/9 marks from a solid starter in recent memory. Bonderman makes mistakes, and the rest of their starters can be knocked around if you’re patient.

• They’re the anti-OBP dream team. Regarded as a solid-hitting team almost by default, the Tigers nevertheless had the lowest on-base percentage of any team in the playoffs. They were 12th out of fourteen teams in the category; their slugging percentage, on the other hand, was fifth.

  Their OBP of .329 is driven down by a few holes in the lineup–not truck-wide like the ones on the Cardinals, but just big enough to lose a win inside. They’ve got a mess at first base, with Sean Casey having scuffled since reaching the AL and hurting as of late; if they slot MVP candidate Carlos Guillen there, as planned, they open up a spot for the execrable Ramon Santiago. Brandon Inge and Craig Monroe are both low-OBP sluggers of the Juancarnacion variety, and AAA find Marcus Thames, owner of the highest slugging percentage on the team, hit just .199/.278/.432 after the all-star break. Everybody in the lineup can hit for power, but there’s nobody to fear on the order of a Beltran, Delgado or Wright.

• Todd Jones is their closer. The Cardinals had better take advantage of this fact at least once.