I think I’m about finished basking in the Cardinals World Series win. Now, it’s time to start looking at next year. There’s no rest for baseball fans these days. The playoffs morph right into free agency and then before you know it, spring training is starting all over again. Between now and the start of the 2007 season, the Cardinals have some decisions to make, namely how their rotation will be made up.
Outside of Chris Carpenter, the only returning starter will be rookie Anthony Reyes. Jeff Suppan, Jeff Weaver, Jason Marquis and Mark Mulder are all free agents (or will be) which means the Cardinals have to find three starters. One could be reliever Adam Wainwright, who shined as the team’s closer in the 2006 World Series. I’d much rather see Wainwright show his stuff over 200 innings as a starter then 75 as a closer. Even then, we have to find two more starters.
I wouldn’t mind the Cardinals going after Mark Buehrle. He’d give us a nice left handed option in the rotation and the White Sox are looking to trade one of their starters to make room for Brandon McCarthy. Of course you have to consider the price, but Buehrle would make a nice option if the Cardinals are unsuccessful in the free agent market.
Then again, Jason Schmidt or Barry Zito would look really nice in a Cardinals uniform. We’ll just have to wait and see how things play out over the next couple of months.
For those of you who enjoyed the 1926 Cardinals diary, I’m going to move up in time and take on the 1967 Cardinals next year. Like last year, I’ll do some bios so you can get comfortable with the players. And while that’s going on, you can also check out the 1967 American League Pennant Race, which was historic in and of itself. So you’ll get some pretty solid coverage of what went down in the 1967.
