Friday 6 January 2012

Cardinals Champs and Off-Season Moves

Sorry again for the big gap between posts, though in my fairness it is now the baseball off-season.

So, the 2011 season concluded with the St Louis Cardinals being crowned champions. Massive post-season performances from Chris Carpenter and David Freese meant the Cardinals turned around a 3-2 Texas Rangers lead into a game 7 clincher after some game 6 heroics.

As I showed in the last blog post, the fact the Cardinals were even in the playoffs was a bit of a miracle. But they had heated up at the end of the regular season, and they carried all that momentum into the playoffs with them, first beating the high-flying Philadelphia Phillies 3-2 on the back of Chris Carpenter outdueling Roy Halladay, and they then beat the Brewers 4-2 to clinch the pennant and move on to the World Series.

For Texas, it was their second World Series visit in 2 seasons, after the heartbreak loss to the San Francisco Giants last year. It is unlikely they will ever get closer to winning the World Series without actually winning it - in fact they were one strike away from world champions on 2 occasions - the first, David Freese, World Series MVP swung away for a two-run triple to tie up the scores. The second, comeback player of the year Lance Berkman lined up the middle for a single to once again tie up the scores. And one inning later, Freese did this hitting a walk off homer in the 11th inning to send the World Series to a crucial 7th game.

Only one inning before, Texas hero Josh Hamilton (another player I have done a piece one - well the only one) hit a go ahead, two run shot to seemingly cap off a fairytale story for himself and Texas but it was not to be. The 7th game didn't have half the excitement of the 6th, as the 36 year old Carpenter twirled a four-hit shut out to crown the Cardinals World Champions, and cap off one of the best World Series in a long time.

So, that brought about the post-season, and with it, two of the more interesting free agents that baseball has seen in a long time. The biggest name - 31 year old World Series winner Albert Pujols - went early, as despite fierce competition from the newly named Miami Marlins, the dark horse Los Angeles Angels made an audacious swoop for him, picking him up in an incredible 10 year, $254 million dollar deal, turning down another offer from his beloved Cardinals. Only the next day, the Angels went one step further, picking up CJ Wilson who had been free-agented by the Rangers to bolster their already impressive bullpen (Weaver, Haren, Santana and now Wilson)

However, the other big name, is 27 year old, power-hitting Prince Fielder of the Milwaukee Brewers, one of the best power hitters in the game. He was originally expected to draw a similar amount of money to Pujols, and with the precedent set by Los Angeles' massive offer, a huge deal is expected for Prince. Once again, the Miami Marlins are expected to be the front runners, along with the Cubs and the Nationals.

So, only a couple of months away from spring training now, where the biggest stars in baseball will once again return to the field. The newly reformed Anaheim Angels look strong, as do the Phillies (as always), the Yankees (as always) and many other teams. My early pick for WS champions? The Texas Rangers. With Yu Darvish seemingly coming aboard any day soon, and their potent batting line-up, it seems only a matter of time before they actually win a WS - third time lucky perhaps?