1. Luck
This one goes without saying. The Cardinals got it when the Braves choked away the Wild Card and they ran it all the way. If the Braves hold on, everything changes. Get a few bounces to go your way in October, sometimes that's what it comes down to.

2. Improved defense
We won't get there booting the ball all around the infield like we did last season. The left side of the infield was atrocious. Fortunately, we upgraded there with Gonzalez as Ramirez is pretty much a wash with McGehee. The middle of the infield should be pretty solid now with Gonzalez and Weeks, and we have as good of defensive centerfielders as there in the game.

3. Roenicke must learn from his mistakes
I'll probably always wonder if things would have turned out differently if Roenicke hadn't made the inexplicable decision to start Kotsay in CF for a playoff game, but as Ned Yost would say, "it is what it is." I could sit here and talk about all the decisions I thought he made in 2011 that were mind-boggling, but I can't argue with the fact that his team won 96 games and his players do seem to respond to him, so I gotta count that for something. Still, I hope his decisions this year appear to be a year wiser and more experienced, as watching Morgan lay down a bunt every single time he was up with a runner on first became one of the more predictable events in baseball.

4. Rotation doesn't falter from last year
Wolf, Narveson, Marcum, yep, we need nice seasons from you all again. Let's face it, the rotation is what got us to the NLCS last year and it's going to have even more pressure to carry us with losing Prince. The good news is that we could reasonably expect a little improvement in the pitching from an upgraded defense and slightly down seasons from Greinke and Gallardo in 2011.

5. Surprise contributions from a dark horse player
I'm looking at a few different guys who could possibly be THIS guy and surprise us all with a fantastic year. Perhaps Gamel comes in and plays like a Rookie of the Year candidate both with the bat and the glove. Maybe Gomez puts it all together this year and shocks everyone by evolving into an elite centerfielder. Or maybe even Peralta steps into the rotation after Wolf or Narveson goes on the shelf for awhile and pitches like Yo did as a rookie. We need someone to step up and be more than we think they can be right now like Axford and McGehee did for us in the past.

It sucks to hear Roenicke talk about how it'll be Hart or Weeks in the leadoff spot because he likes Morgan at #2 because of his bunting ability.

So we lost the biggest power bat in our lineup and we'll still be tossing a 30 HR guy into the leadoff spot for about 27 solo HR's because we like that Morgan can move a runner over.

It's really painful to see how stuck this guy is in the disco era of baseball.

1 - An executive order.

LOL. Anytime you're involved in a wondow to win, you aren't going to win.



12 in 12 niggas

horsechukk314 wrote:LOL. Anytime you're involved in a wondow to win, you aren't going to win.

Whats a wondow?

shirt wrote:

horsechukk314 wrote:LOL. Anytime you're involved in a wondow to win, you aren't going to win.

Whats a wondow?

I don't know,but it's getting comical reading chukks posts. This dude called me out for one of the most smiple and basic typos of all time.

And just as I said to him at the time, every other post he's got something in his posts that you have to read 2-3 times to figure out what the fuck he's talking about.