CCD over at WaxPaperBeerCup and Tim at Aisle424 mentioned this on Twitter yesterday during the joke of a game that we saw....I was already thinking this...are we reliving the 2006 season?
Before this season began I asked the question whether this season would more closely resemble 2008 or 2006.
Forget 2008...does this team more resemble the 2007 team or the 2006 team?
The reason I said 2008 was because, for the most part, most of the key players from the 2008 team are still here on the 2010 team. But it has quickly become obvious that the 2 added years on all of those players has taken away a ton.
So, we now officially can say that this team is off to a pretty bad start this season. If this team makes it to the playoffs, they will have to do it in similar fashion to the 2007 team where the team has an unbelievable second half and overtakes a team that led the division most of the year during the last month of the season.
The other option is that the team goes the other way. With a manager in the last year of his contract, a completely clueless group of players just treading water until the major shakeup to come after the replacing of the current manager. And the team continues to play worse and worse as the season goes on.
Why is this not 2007? Well, first, the Cardinals are a much better team than the Brewers were in 2007. The Brewers were playing completely over their heads in the first half of that season...it was only a matter of time before they collapsed. The Brewers also had a really bad manager in Ned Yost. The Cardinals manager, Tony LaRussa, is (as much as we hate it) a good manager. Also, this 2007 Cubs team doesn't have Michael Barrett weighing it down and to trade away.
Why is this not 2006? Well, Dusty Baker isn't here. The overall talent level is much better than it was in 2006. And we don't have Neifi Perez on the team.
But little chance exists for things to somehow alter themselves to the point they were in 2007. This team could very easily regress back into the team that we saw in 2006....it isn't likely, but it possible. The talent level on this team is too high, you'd think...but an injury here, a trade there...you never know.
But one thing that is for sure right now, this team is once again setting itself up to be a major disappointment...and with the exception of one and a half seasons, Aramis Ramirez, Carlos Zambrano and Derrek Lee have been the leaders of a team that has not met expectations every season since the 2003 playoff run. It might be time replace them all.
