St. Louis Cardinals: Vegas, Baby!

The Cardinals (and the media) are in Vegas.  But the initial reports don't sound like they'll be rolling the dice much while they are there.

Joe Strauss's article today seems to indicate that the "aggressive" Mozeliak may not be around anymore.  Keeping Kennedy?  Bringing in free agents but no trades?  While it's possible this may be effective, it's not exactly the roster-changing offseason that we were led to believe was coming.

Right now, the only new faces are Khalil Greene and Trever Miller.  If Mozeliak really is just checking out the free agents, the offense for next season may look exactly the same save a swap at short.  While that's not a bad thing—offense really was the least of their problems last year—it seems so, well, unimaginative. 

Not to mention it keeps the backlog at outfield (where is Rasmus going to play if, as Mozeliak keeps saying, he gets to start in the majors) and in our minor league third basemen.

The names of the pitchers that the Cardinals are apparently looking at aren't bad either, but they of course all have their issues.  Oliver Perez has seemed to come back to the form he had earlier in his career. 

He's not going to be an ace but he could comfortably fit in behind Wainwright and Lohse and would be outstanding in the No. 4 slot if Carpenter actually does come back.  (Thankfully the news on that is good.)

I'd probably pass on Pettitte, even for a one-year deal.  Finesse pitchers like him tend to lose it quickly.  Wolf and Penny both have injury issues complicating things, though I might like to see Penny in Cardinal red if he is healthy enough and the price stays low.

It is possible, however, that Mozeliak is playing things a little close to the vest.  Ken Rosenthal says the Cardinals are serious about A.J. Burnett and supposedly have interest in J.J. Putz. 

As Rosenthal says, if Carp returned and Burnett signed, that'd be a heck of a rotation.  Some big ifs there, but with that rotation and the lineup scoring runs at a comparable clip to last year, things could get interesting.

Every year they say the news will be big at the meetings, but with Sabathia probably not signing this week, things still may stagnate.  I'd like to see some deals done, but I have a feeling it's going to be just a lot of rumors.

UCB radio this week will talk about the winter meetings and yours truly is scheduled to appear in the first hour.  Which may make you want to wait until the second hour, but try to suffer through if you can.