Kuzul

As everyone knows Albert Pujols did not sign a contract extension with the Saint Louis Cardinals by the deadline that was put in place by Pujols.  As a result Pujols will become a free agent after the 2011 Major League Baseball season.  At the Winter Meetings, Pujols will sign the largest contract in the history of baseball, 10 years for $300 million, with the Chicago Cubs.  Immediately afterwards the world will start its decline into the apocalypse.
 
At his press conference Pujols will sacrifice a live billy goat on stage at Wrigley Field.  He will drink its blood and exclaim, “I have ended the Billy Goat Curse.  There is only room for one GOAT in Chicago, and it is I Albert Pujols who is the Greatest Of All Time!”  Michael Jordan will instantly take this as a slight to his Chicago GOAT status and attempt a baseball comeback with the Chicago White Sox.  He goes 0-23 in Spring Training and concedes that Pujols is indeed the GOAT in Chicago and ends his comeback bid.
 
On Opening Day Pujols hits three home runs, two of which land on Waveland Avenue.  The “W” flag is flown above Wrigley Field, and it remains there for the rest of the season.
 
At the All Star break the Cubs will have a perfect record, Pujols will be leading the Triple Crown race with a .666 batting average, 45 home runs, and 153 RBI.  The National League will lose the All Star game because manager Charlie Manuel removed Pujols so that Ryan Howard could get into the game at first base.  Unsettled by even an exhibition game loss Pujols decrees that all black cats in the state of Illinois be euthanized so that none of them can cross his path.  He said the late great Ron Santo would have wanted it that way.  The citizens of Illinois follow his edict since they are still scared of him after watching him butcher and devour an entire live billy goat on stage just a few months earlier.
 
Shortly after clinching the division (in early August), Pujols tracks down Steve Bartman from the witness protection agency location he is hiding out at on one of his off days.  He has a press conference to announce that he has forgiven Bartman and that if someone has an issue with Bartman, they have an issue with him.  Bartman is immediately given a key to the city and is a regular at Cubs games again.
 
The Cubs finish the season 162-0.  Pujols breaks every major single season hitting record in the history of baseball.  He then informs Ernie Banks that he will be now known as Mr. Cub, and that Banks needs to find a new nickname.  Banks dies less then a week later from a broken heart.  Pujols delivers the eulogy at Banks funeral and lets everyone know that Banks was the second greatest Cub of all time after himself.
 
The Cubs sweep the Marlins in the Division Series.  Afterwards Pujols tells everyone, “I took my talents to South Beach, and it will never be the same.”  The Miami Heat immediately trade LeBron James to open up a spot on the roster for their new starting small forward, Albert Pujols.
 
In the NLCS the Cubs sweep the Phillies despite Pujols being intentionally walked in every at bat of the series.  Charlie Manuel defended the move by saying he knew Pujols wanted revenge from the All Star game and feared he would hit a home run in every at bat.  Even more amazingly the Phillies lose every game despite Roy Halladay and Cliff Lee both throwing no-hitters in the first two games of the series.
 
The Cubs then go on to embarrass the Red Sox in the World Series.  Pujols not only wins the World Series MVP, but also becomes the first player to hit a ball through the Green Monster.
 
The Cubs had gone 104 straight years without winning the World Series.  Not a single Cubs fan was alive the last time they won it all.  The streak had reached such a depressing level that even Cleveland sports fans felt sorry for Cubs fans.  Little did we all know that the Cubs were not meant to win another World Series and that by doing so they triggered the end of the world. 
 
Natural disasters started to occur at an alarming rate.  Volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and hurricanes became commonplace.  A quarter of the world’s population was wiped out by the time the Cubs held their victory parade.  Archaeologists soon discovered that the Mayan prediction that the world would end on 12/21/2012 had some validity after the words “Pujols” and “Cubs” were decoded on a newly discovered artifact.
 
On the fateful day of 12/21/2012 an asteroid the size of Alaska hit the earth.  Everything was destroyed with the exception of cockroaches, Twinkies, and Albert Pujols.  Cardinals fans would now get their wish.  Albert Pujols would have to go screw himself for the rest of eternity.
 
DISCLAIMER:  This article does not endorse the sacrificing of live billy goats, the euthanization of black cats, and I hope Mr. Cub Ernie Banks lives to be older then Methuselah.

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After news broke that Adam Wainwright will miss the entire 2011 MLB season, the Cardinals have a serious decision to make whether or not they want to exercise his option for the 2012 and 2013 seasons.

Originally, that option was extended due to Wainwright’s stellar 2010 performance when the “Cards” saw their No. 2 starter end the season second in the National League Cy Young voting.

Even though Wainwright’s option is currently guaranteed, it could also be declined if he ends the 2011 season on the disabled list.

This is become an all-too-real reality for St. Louis and Adam Wainwright.

If the Cardinals decide to decline Wainwright his option for the 2012 and 2013 seasons, here are 10 teams that may be willing to take a chance on Wainwright coming off a whole year missed due to Tommy John surgery.

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When you heard about the season-ending injury to St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Adam Wainwright, you probably immediately wrote off the Cardinals as a World Series contender this year.

You wouldn’t be alone, as many people, including oddsmakers, have pretty much discounted the chances for St. Louis this season without their top pitcher.

That might be a mistake.

Whether you like Tony La Russa as a manager or think he is overrated, there is no denying that La Russa can motivate a team. There is really nothing that La Russa likes more than a challenge and he may turn this season into a crusade for winning without Wainwright.

Do you remember what happened in 2002 with the Cardinals? They won the National League Central even though they had to use 14 starting pitchers that season because of injuries and the death of Darryl Kile.

La Russa motivated his team to win for Kile and the Cardinals surprised everyone. It could happen again in 2011.

Wainwright’s Numbers

There is no question that Adam Wainwright is a great pitcher. He won 20 games for the Cardinals last season and had an ERA of 2.42. There is no replacing Wainwright, but even a great pitcher is worth only about an extra six wins per season over an average pitcher. Six wins is a lot, though, and the Cardinals will need to find an above average replacement.

The Division

There is one thing that could help the Cardinals chances this season and that is their division.

The National League Central is a good division, but it is not great. The Cincinnati Reds won it last year, but they are no powerhouse. Everyone loves the Milwaukee Brewers and the changes they made, but the Brewers were not even a .500 team last season. The Cubs always get attention, but when have the Cubs ever won anything?

And don’t forget that the Houston Astros and Pittsburgh Pirates are in this division, and they are both terrible.

Talented Roster

The Cardinals still have a lot of talent, led by the best player in the game today, first baseman Albert Pujols. They have a solid starting lineup led by Pujols and Matt Holliday and their pitching is still good.

They also have four good starters in Chris Carpenter, Jaime Garcia, Jake Westbrook and Kyle Lohse. If Kyle McClellan takes over as the fifth starter and pitches as well as he did out of the bullpen, then the Cardinals will be just fine.

You may not want to write off the St. Louis Cardinals in 2011 just yet.

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Adam Wainwright got a surprise this week.  It has been determined that he will have to endure every pitcher’s worst nightmare—Tommy John surgery—and will miss the 2011 season.

Will he ever be the same?

That is the big question not only Wainwright is probably asking, but every baseball fan in St. Louis, as well.

With the recent explosion in the field of sports medicine, all signs point to a successful recovery for Wainwright.

The fact that his own teammate, Chris Carpenter, went under the knife in 2007, could be an optimism booster for Wainwright. I say this because the former ace battled through the injury and has re-emerged as one of the MLB‘s top pitchers.

In 2009, Carpenter finished second in the NL Cy Young voting.  The following season he was voted to his third All-Star game.  Since the surgery, his record has been 33-15 with 323 strikeouts.

In order for Wainwright to make a successful comeback there will be two major factors:

1. He will have to be patient and understanding.  It takes time for the replaced ligament to gain enough strength in order to throw the pearl.
2. When beginning rehab, it is vital that he not only stretches his arm, but also his shoulder.  

If he fails to do so, he will be adding even more stress not only to his elbow, but his shoulder and rotator cuff as well.

The St. Louis Cardinals will almost certainly make sure their new found ace gets the best possible treatment.

As long as the hurler takes his time and works hard, we could see a revamped All-Star selection in 2012. 

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The St. Louis Cardinals are coming off of a rather disappointing 2010 campaign that included giving up the lead in the NL Central over the final month of the season to miss the postseason.

St. Louis was fairly active in the offseason, notably acquiring Ryan Theriot and Lance Berkman. The Cardinals already own two of baseball’s best hitters in Albert Pujols and Matt Holliday. Let’s take a look at the starting lineup and starting rotation for St. Louis and make our MLB predictions on their 2011 season.

Projected Lineup

With Theriot expected to leadoff and Berkman projected to bat second in front of Pujols and Holliday, the Cardinals can expect to have one of the more potent 1-4 combos in baseball. A lot of that will depend on what the Cardinals get from Berkman, who  struggled through an injury-plagued year in 2010.

Theriot is going to hit for a nice average which should result in a lot of runs, especially hitting in front of Pujols. Pujols can carry an offense all by himself with his ability to take it out of the park anytime he walks up to the batter’s box. While Holliday isn’t at the same level as Pujols, he has a ton of power and should continue to profit from hitting behind one of the best hitters in the league. 

St. Louis is hoping that they will continue to see improvements from Colby Rasmus, Yadier Molina and David Freese. All three had pretty good years in 2010. Skip Shumaker was a bit of a disappointment last season, as he wasn’t the same player offensively as he had been in years past. For St. Louis to compete in the National League this year, they need these four bats to contribute. 

Projected Rotation

The loss of starter Adam Wainwright is a major blow, not only to the Cardinals’ pitching staff, but to their chances of getting back to the playoffs this year. Wainwright nearly won the Cy Young award last season with a 1.04 WHIP, and you simply can’t replace a player of his skill level. 

It now becomes very important that veteran Chris Carpenter remains injury-free this year, something he has had a hard time doing over the last few seasons. Last year, Carpenter showed he was far from finished, winning 16 games with a 3.22 ERA and 1.18 WHIP in his 14th season. 

The loss of Wainwright also puts a ton of pressure on Jake Westbrook, Jaime Garcia and Kyle Lohse, as they now have to be that much better for the Cardinals to still be a factor in the NL Central.

Westbrook came over from Cleveland in a midseason trade last year, and while he compiled just four games in 12 starts, he pitched well and could be in for a breakout season in St Louis.

Garcia won 13 games with an impressive 2.70 ERA and 1.32 WHIP as a rookie, and the Cardinals are expecting him to be even better this year.

Lohse didn’t pitch well at all last year, going 4-8 with a 6.55 ERA, but there really isn’t a lot St. Louis can do with Wainwright going down. P.J. Walters could end up taking the vacated spot in the rotation unless the Cardinals make a move for another starter. 

2011 Prediction: 4th Place NL Central

The Cardinals are stacked at the top offensively and until the injury to Wainwright, their pitching staff was pretty strong at the top as well. The addition of Berkman, plus the improvements of young players like Colby Rasmus and Jaime Garcia, would have likely had St. Louis competing for the top spot in the NL Central this year.  However, with the loss of Wainwright, we think the Cardinals will struggle to compete with the likes of Milwaukee, Chicago and Cincinnati. The Cardinals MLB odds to win the division are sure to drop now that their best pitcher is out for the season. 

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The injury to Adam Wainwright’s elbow will officially require Tommy John surgery, ending his season and severely damaging the Cardinals’ chances at an NL Central division title.

Now that their season is over before it even began, the Cardinals are going to trade Chris Carpenter, their only remaining ace, and probably try to find a buyer for Albert Pujols, who is set to become a free agent at the end of the season.

They’ll probably sell the team, and baseball in St. Louis will be over.

“Big Mac Land” will become “The Whopper-ville” and pitching coach Dave Duncan will take a job with the U.S. military, developing soldiers who can literally throw their bullets at enemies.

I’m kidding, of course. None of those things are going to happen.

The St. Louis Cardinals still have a pretty darn good baseball team heading into the 2011 season.

Not having Wainwright hurts, but it doesn’t signal the end of the season and there’s no reason to pack it in.

Here are five reasons the Cardinals can still contend in the NL Central in 2011.

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Is this the smartest move for the St. Louis Cardinals to make?

Moving Carpenter throughout the league would open up viable cap room ($15 million), but his contract expires this year, meaning if he hit the dirt, they would just not re-sign him.

The issue now is that pitcher Adam Wainwright will be out for entire season due to Tommy John surgery on his right elbow. If the Cards want to make any sort of attempt at a playoff run, then getting rid of their ace wouldn’t be the best hand they could deal out. 

Still, though, that extra $15 million in their pocket would allow the Cardinals to have the extra cash that they want to re-sign league standout Albert Pujols.

It’s not that Chris Carpenter openly said, “I want to get the hell out of St. Louis,” or anything—he’s open to the fact that if St. Louis wants to market him to other teams, he’s up for the ride. 

“It’s not up to me,” said Carpenter via Mike Axisa at www.mlbtraderumors.com. “If the Cardinals wanted to trade me, obviously I would go. There’s no question about that. I’m not going hold back or veto or do anything like that if they’re looking to move me.”

If the Cardinals were smart they would hold onto one of the only pitchers they really have left and then go out and look for another pitcher to bring aboard in replacement of the injured Wainwright. 

We will have a better calculation of the chance that Carpenter is moved come midseason. If the Cardinals seem to have no chance of getting to the Wild Card, let alone the playoffs, you might just see him on a different team come summer time. 

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With news of Adam Wainwright’s elbow injury and his impending Tommy John surgery, Dave Duncan has his work cut out for him to get a starting rotation ready for the 2011 season.

Duncan has been the pitching coach for manager Tony La Russa since 1983, when he took over as the pitching coach for the Chicago White Sox. Duncan has been with La Russa ever sense, with stints in Chicago as well as in Oakland and St. Louis.

In St. Louis, Duncan replaced Bob Gibson. Gibson was a Hall of Fame pitcher turned coach, as well as a local hero in St. Louis, where he led the Cardinals to World Series championships in 1964 and 1967.

So when La Russa took over as manager in St. Louis, Duncan knew he had big shoes to fill. He knew about pressure. In fact, Duncan is one of only a few pitching coaches that weren’t pitchers themselves. Talk about pressure and criticism.

Duncan has been very successful. It’s no big secret that Duncan has been able to work his magic on MLB pitchers for years. He has even had a few Cy Young winners he has waved his magic wand on.

He will have to start waving that wand yet again in this 2011 season.

With Chris Carpenter and Wainwright, as well as Kyle Lohse, Jaime Garcia and Jake Westbrook, on the roster last season for the Cardinals, they carded the major leagues’ lowest ERA at 3.50

In light of Wainwright’s injury, Cardinals fans have to be concerned. After all, it wasn’t more than three seasons ago Carpenter was out with the same Tommy John surgery. Garcia and Westbrook also had the same surgery in August 2008.

Lohse underwent surgery on his forearm last year because of a compressed nerve, and in 2009 he was out with two forearm flexor problems, as well as leg and back maladies and a pulled groin.

So injuries have to be on the mind of Duncan as he scrambles to find a replacement for Wainwright with that all-important fifth starter.

The good thing for Duncan and the Cardinals is after having Tommy John surgery, players usually come back strong for years to come.

The question is, with three pitchers on the Cardinals staff having had Tommy John surgery, will they be able to put up numbers like last season now that Wainwright is headed for that same surgery?

Will they be strong enough? Results of the surgery say yes. They should be able to handle the pitching chores in St. Louis; however, they will be very careful with Carpenter and Westbrook, Lohse and Garcia for the rest of this spring training.

Dave Duncan is going to be responsible to work that magic wand he has on the rest of that rotation without the services of Wainwright. Will he find that special magic yet again? We will see in the season to come.

Then you have to ask, with Wainwright on the shelf for the rest of the season, will the Cardinals entertain trade offers for Albert Pujols?

Sonny Clark is also a writer for examiner.com. Check out his Dallas and local stuff at http://www.examiner.com/sports-in-garland/sonny-clark . He also does an online sports show called “The Couch Potato Sports Show” heard on BlogTalkRadio Monday and Thursdays at 7PM CST, as well as Saturday morning at 10AM CST. Click Here to go to the show page.

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The 2011 MLB season was supposed to be a season filled with promise and potential for the St. Louis Cardinals. It was supposed to be a season the was to afford the Cardinals a bit of retribution after missing the playoffs in 2010, despite finishing 86-76—heck, even fantasy baseball fans were champing at the bit over the St. Louis Cardinals’ net fantasy baseball value in 2011.

But now? The Cardinals’ potentially potent season is severely in jeopardy thanks to the latest news from GM John Mozeliak regarding staff pitching ace Adam Wainwright, and his apparent need for Tommy John surgery.

So now what?

Fellow pitcher Chris Carpenter now becomes the new head of the starting rotation, but how in the world are the Cardinals going to replace a pitcher who has won 19-plus games for the past two years?

It isn’t as if the Cardinals are out of options, but in the same vein, their options aren’t exactly stellar replacements either.

Kyle McClellan, Ian Snell, Lance Lynn, Brian Tallet and Miguel Batista are the immediate internal replacements.

But McClellan, Tallet, Snell and Bautista COMBINED hold a 39-50 record with a 4.30 ERA (record and ERA are averages for all four pitchers’ career numbers).

The young buck Lance Lynn, the only real potential bright spot, shows a bit of promise in his 25-15 record and 3.01 ERA as a minor league pitcher…but the thought of a hard-throwing rookie filling the shoes of Waino is a bit lofty to say the least.

The Cardinals could also explore other options outside the organization such as Kevin Milwood and Jeremy Bonderman—but again, not exactly the same caliber arms.

And the injury to Wainwright also has additional issues.

If you take a hard team analysis look at the division—as I am currently doing— nearly every team has upgraded in some department which is surely to increase the parity in competition—needless to say, losing your ace doesn’t help counter such offseason moves.

Not to mention the other National League powerhouses lurking in the background such as, but not limited to, Philadelphia and San Francisco.

“So frustrating.”

In any event, the one thing the Cardinals can rely on is their ability to hit. Matt Holliday, Colby Rasmus, David Freese—great sleeper candidate—and of course Albert Pujols are more than capable swinging giants who will now be asked to do just a little bit more with the bat, in an effort to keep this team competitive.

The moral of the story is, the Cardinals will have a much tougher time getting to the postseason without Adam Wainwright, but it isn’t as if it’s the end of the world either.

And for all of you fantasy baseball fans, the aforementioned hitters could have some added value now that they will inevitably have to carry a heavier load, so keep that in mind on your draft day.

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When it became known that Adam Wainwright was injured and may need Tommy John surgery, virtually every sports media outlet was all over it.

like any serious sports fan, questions from every angle must have come to your mind:

“How exactly did he get injured?”

“How will the Cardinals adapt to his injury?”

“Does this affect Albert Pujols?”

However, one person that may be of particular concern is Chris Carpenter.

With that being said, don’t be surprised if he moves on. Take a look.

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