Phil Rogers wrote a column today about how the Cardinals have become the team to beat in the NL Central.
How the hell did this happen?
At this time last year, coming off of a 97 win season, the Cubs were the surest lock of any team in baseball for winning their division.
Now, with most of the same personnel, the Cubs have been pushed aside.
And you know what? Phil Rogers, for once, is right. The Cardinals are easily the better team.
Maddog over at ACB did a comparison of the two teams last week and the results were devastating. The Cardinals out matched the Cubs at almost every single position.
How did this happen?
Well, I blame the Cubs for much of this.
Going into last season, I thought the Cardinals were a bit better than most people thought but the Cardinals were rebuilding and were considered the 3rd or even 4th best team in the division behind the Brewers and even the Reds. But when they got off to a good start, and their starting pitching dominated the National League, a weird thing occurred...or didn't occur in this case. The Cubs did nothing. Everyone waited and waited for the Cubs to get hot and to squash this Cardinal team. But as May turned to June, the Cubs appeared to be stagnant.
The result of this was that it awakened a Cardinal front office that had been in rebuilding mode. Suddenly, they were the front runners. It gave them the confidence they needed to go out and get Mark DeRosa and Matt Holliday. It allowed them to risk bringing in John Smoltz.
The Cubs had every opportunity to prevent this from happening...no, not by trading for these players themselves, but by not allowing a team like the Cardinals to feel like they actually had a chance to win the division. Look, the Cardinals didn't exactly have the greatest season ever. They only won 91 games in 2009. Only the Twins had a worse record among the division winners.
If the Cubs had a 5 to 6 game lead by the end of June, or even a smaller lead, that would have been it. The Cardinals probably wouldn't have even made moves in an attempt to get the wild card. There was a psychological advantage the Cubs had last year that they just let get away.
But besides the confidence the Cardinals gained as the season went on, the Cubs did very little to try to remedy the problem. Jeff Baker? John Grabow? Compare that to Matt Holliday, Mark DeRosa and John Smoltz. Um. Ick!
Did all the moves the Cardinals make work out? Well, not really. They did trade for Julio Lugo (remember that?) and, actually, DeRosa wasn't everything they were hoping he would be. But what all these moves did do was make the team and the fans feel good about the fact the management was trying to win it all this year. That is huge for a team of younger players. It worked for the Brewers in 2008 when they got CC Sabathia.
I'm sorry, but trading for John Grabow didn't do that for me, and I don't think it did anything to boost the confidence of the team. The Cubs were at a psychological low by the middle of last year and the Cards were the exact opposite.
So as this off-season continues and we look at what the Cubs have done, has anything been done that should make Cardinal nation fear the Cubs again? Marlon Byrd? Jeff Gray? Um...no. Now the Cardinals are setting up their franchise for years to come by signing Matt Holliday to a long term deal, preparing a contract extension for Albert Pujols, and have a number of other young stars not eligible for free agency but that could be signed for long term deals for a discount. The Cubs, on the other hand, are stuck with huge contracts for players that are has-been's, might-be's, and could-have-been's with no payroll flexibility to make moves and players that no one else wants.
Attendance is up in St. Louis and their payroll is beginning to reflect that. I know a number of Cardinal fans, and a number of Brewer fans and they laugh at the Cubs. They were even laughing that season the Cubs won 97 games. Why? Because they knew that somehow the Cubs would screw this whole thing up.
And they have.
In one year, the Cubs went from the best team in the National League to a joke, and the Cardinals have pounced on the opportunity.
The Cardinals may not be the best team in the National League, but they are near the top...and they have no one else to thank but the Cubs.
