Monday, January 14, 2008

End of an Era

I thought about this now that the Rolen for Glaus deal is official. Anyone could have said that the Cardinals are in a rebuilding mode, but it's kind of strange to think that they're only one season removed from being World Champions. I mean, look at the roster for the 2006 World Series Championship season:

Starting Lineup
C - Yadier Molina
1B - Albert Pujols
2B - Ronnie Belliard
SS - David Eckstein
3B - Scott Rolen
LF - So Taguchi
CF - Jim Edmonds
RF - Juan Encarnacion


Starting Rotation
Chris Carpenter
Jeff Suppan
Jeff Weaver

Anthony Reyes*
Jason Marquis

Relievers
Josh Hancock
Randy Flores
Braden Looper
Brad Thompson*
Adam Wainwright
Jason Isringhausen
Josh Kinney
Tyler Johnson

Bench
John Rodriguez
Gary Bennett
Preston Wilson

Scott Spiezio
Chris Duncan

That's thirteen players gone since the end of the '06 season. And the area of the team that is most intact is the Cardinals awful bullpen, even accounting for Wainwright's move to the rotation. I doubt this season will bring another Commissioner's Trophy, but it sure will be entertaining.

*Denotes trade bait. Likely will be with another team come opening day.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Yeah, sometimes I think free agency really disrupts teams way too much. Look at football: those teams change players a lot less frequently than baseball.

bcnjake said...

True, but look how awful the Rams are. I wouldn't object to some free agency to right that ship.

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