It’s Starting To Look A Lot Like Baseball

Posted by JE Powell

The holidays are finally over. Yes, I certainly enjoy them, but as a parent with an ever expanding family (siblings getting married, getting ready to give birth [though not the same sibling], etc) the holidays can be a bit, shall we say, harried. In my neck of the woods we have had several days that were around 50 degrees Fahrenheit and has had a spring feel to it (though reports indicate snow is on the way; stupid Midwest weather) and with that it has served to remind me that baseball is once again right around the corner. In about five weeks St. Louis Cardinals pitchers and catchers will report to Jupiter, Florida on February 19th. That day, for me at least, is the official start of the baseball season.

My little blog will officially be over a year old on the aforementioned 19th. Well, I guess it depends on how one defines the blog’s birthday. I created the blog on February 15th, 2011. My first post was February 23rd, 2011. So, in human terms, I suppose one could argue that my blog had a gestation period of 8 days. Well, I guess that’s not really close in human terms. The closest would be the American opossum, which is 12-13 days and can be as short as 8 days, though, opossums are marsupials and give birth and then let the offspring develop in the ventral pouch of the mother. So, I suppose that my blog’s official birthday would be Feb. 23rd. So it will be just shy of a year old when pitchers and catchers report. But I digress.

Back to baseball. Since I am coming down with another case of Cardinal Fever (as you may recall, it’s a form of Bird Flu), well I guess I have had Cardinal Fever my whole life, so I am not coming down with it, let’s take a very quick peek at the 2012 season.

I hope to cover some of these topics more in depth at a later date, so these will just be quick hits for now. First, some of the questions for 2012:

• Will Adam Wainwright be able to come back from Tommy John surgery and be as dominant as he was before?
• Will Rafael Furcal and Carlos Beltran spend any significant time on the disabled list?
• Will Jon Jay be able to able to produce with the bat having considerably more playing time at centerfield (while he put up good numbers last year, statistically speaking, his numbers declined as his playing time went up)?
• Can Allen Craig come back from knee surgery and play as well as he did with limited playing time in 2011?
• Can David Freese stay healthy and carry over his magnificent play during the 2011 playoffs?
• How well will Mike Matheny manage the team?
• Who will see the most playing time at 2nd base?

Time will be the only one who can truly answer these questions, but they are questions that will affect (effect? I still don’t know which one to use and I have looked it up several times) the outcome of the season.

But the best part, in my opinion anyway, is finding the answers out. I am anxiously awaiting the start to the real New Year, the first day of baseball season (which, as you may recall, I have stated to be February 19th. Sure, the regular season doesn’t start until April this year, but I cannot wait that long. I miss baseball.

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Thoughts After the Non-Tender Deadline

Posted by JE Powell

It looks like the Cardinals have re-signed Skip Schumaker to a two year deal, according to B.J. Rains (of Fox Sports Midwest) via twitter. The Cardinals also non-tendered Ryan Theriot, which means that Ryan Theriot is now a free agent. The Cardinals also tendered contracts to Jason Motte and Kyle McClellan. According to Rains, in a brief article, tendering a contract to Motte was a formality and the Cardinals hope to work out a full contract to avoid going to arbitration in February. The monetary details of the deal with Schumaker are unknown at the time of this writing.