Last night I watched Game 6 again. What? My seasonal affective disorder has been acting up again, and I didn’t get any WS merch for Christmas, and I needed to watch Berk fully Berk that game, kind of from start to finish. Joe Buck talks about Berkman wanting to shave the gray out of that beard and you can smell winter coming in all its salty exigencies. However: Berk gonna Berk.
No disrespect w/r/t David Freese, who is still the antidote.
The Cardinals are in the somewhat unique position of being a world champion in rebuilding mode. It’s different from 2006/2007, when an old team at the end of a run summarily broke apart. The current state is w/o their truest titans of industry, Tony La Russa and Albert Pujols. Mike Matheny is the manager and his expressed interest in advanced stats combined with John Mozeliak’s now-solidified power will identify the next era. The Cardinals could either be the 2008-2011 Tampa Bay Rays, excelling on a kind of heavily-branded equanimity, or the post-ARod Mariners, who blew everything on one over-the-top Entertainment 720 finale and then collapsed into a funk that continues to this day.
Carlos Beltran, who knows that flincher rhymes with clincher, has been reunited w/ his nemesis Adam Wainwright, which opens up all kinds of fun batting practice possibilities. The two can pose for postage stamps and Vanity Fair scenarios like Thompson and Branca in reverse.
Really though: Beltran is a serious addition, especially at this price. Even if he doesn’t totally Berk, he’ll make the inevitable stretch(es) of Jon Jay hitting his weight way more endurable. And against LHPs the Cardinals could theoretically go Craig-Beltran-Holliday-Berkman-Freese-Molina in some configuration (some restrictions and regressions may apply). It cashes out the Central and really doesn’t resemble rebuilding, at all.
