With a little more than 48 hours until the bright lights of Wrigley Field shine on our Cardinals Sunday night, you can feel the energy starting to ramp up. I have watched many of the spring games this year and I have plenty of renewed hope for our offense this season. However, there are some things that concern me as well.
First, the massive keys to our season that I really like. Number 1 is Jason Heyward. I love having this man on our team. First things first, he is in a contract year and players always seem to have stellar seasons when money is on the line. Two, Heyward is going to be put in a spot to have great success. He will start the year in the 2-hole, but I can see him being put into the third spot if he starts to catch fire. Right now through spring he has 38 at-bats with 12 hits, 3 runs, 1 HR, 4 RBIs, 5 walks, 3 SBs and a .315 AVG. He is going to want to get paid next offseason, so hopefully we lock him up.
From watching the spring games it looks like Matheny is going to encourage running this year. In my opinion, giving Heyward the green light is an excellent decision. Next up, I really loved what I saw with Randal Grichuk this spring. He showed immense power and seemed to be improving his overall at-bats. With 10 runs, RBIs and couple of bombs to deep left, it is hard not to salivate at the anticipation of this kid. I really hope that he winds up taking over center before this season is over. Finally, I like what I saw from the pitching staff. The starting pitching looked very strong, including Michael Wacha who seems to have put injury conversations behind him and has been phenomenal this spring. In 20.1 IP he has struck out 16, owns a WHIP of 1.07 and a pristine ERA of 1.77.
In even better news Carlos Martinez is going to get the 5th spot in the rotation. I know Marco Gonzales had a nice spring, but it is Carlos’ time to shine in my opinion. I honestly was hoping the Cardinals would trade Jaime Garcia before anything on his body would explode again, but as usual he imploded too fast and what value he had is now gone. Martinez’s numbers were almost better than Wacha’s with 21 Ks through 22 innings and owning a 1.00 whip with a 2.86 ERA. It pains me to go there, but since the tragic death of Oscar Taveras, Martinez looks like a different man out there. While honoring his friend wearing 18 this season I fully expect a matured kid will find his ace form out there in 2015.
Tough to come down from those high points from our spring, but there were some glaring issues that have left me feeling uneasy. The biggest stat that bothers me even though I know it is spring and these stats mean absolutely nothing once the season starts is the Cardinals have a grand total of 102 runs scored so far. That is 10 less than the punch less Phillies. That is right; the Cardinals have the lowest scoring team this spring in either league. However, on the flip side we have the lowest allowed runs with 88, which no other team is under 110. Still it is very hard for me to let go of.
An issue I have had since Matheny became the skipper is his usage of the bullpen and handling of the some players (ex Oscar Taveras or Trevor Rosenthal last year). Overall I like him, of course his book on his family values is cute, but I hope he had learned from his head scratching calls in previous years.
I know I’m going to catch a ton of flack for this, but here goes. Please give Peter Bourjos a chance. I am really tired of Jon Jay, he is a mediocre player who shows up in a small part of the season and slaps a lot of singles. Yes, I get it he had a high OBP last year, but people forget he got plunked 20 times last year. To disprove his value look at this, he got hit 20 times and walked 28. That is 48 free passes that he got and only scored 52 times on the whole season. This could mean one of two things; he has zero skills on the bases (6 stolen bases and 3 caught) or our offense isn’t bringing him in. I honestly think it is a combination of both, but imagine if Bourjos had those extra 50 base on balls to run with? Who knows what could happen.
Lastly, I have a strong love/hate relationship with Matt Adams. I just don’t see him as a full time first baseman down the road. He is pretty awful against left-handed pitching and hitting 23 times in 130 plate appearances. The other issue is that he had problems just hitting in general now because of the shift. He is going to have to learn to get those bunts down to make them honest in the field. I don’t see him coming close to hitting 30 homers as some people have predicted, I think 20 would be a high for him. I finish this paragraph saying I hope he makes me eat my words.
Now that I have definitely lead the readers on a roller coaster to start my Arch City Sports writing career, I want to stress this: The Cardinals are a better team this year and I firmly believe that. I think we will be more aggressive in the box and on the bases. I would be surprised if the offense was as bad as last years. The pitching will be better, a healthy Wacha, a grizzled vet in Lackey, a now focused kid with unlimited talent in Martinez, and Waino at the helm that is going to tough to be tough to score on us all year. The Cardinals will definitely be in the running for the division and looked to aiming for number 12 in 15.
