Restoring the rosters: No. 17 - St. Louis

This is part of a series of articles examining what every team’s roster would look like if given only the players it originally signed. I’m compiling the rosters, ranking them and presenting them in a countdown from Nos. 30 to 1. No. 30 - Cincinnati No. 29 - Kansas City No. 28 - San Diego No. 27 - Milwaukee No. 26 - Baltimore No. 25 - Chicago (AL) No. 24 - Chicago (NL) No. 23 - Pittsburgh No. 22 - Detroit No. 21 - Tampa Bay No. 20 - New York (NL) No. 19 - Houston No. 18 - Oakland Producing the game’s best player and one of the top five pitchers only goes so far. The Cardnals’ lack of pitching depth leaves them right in the middle of these rankings. Rotation Dan Haren Braden Looper Anthony Reyes Mitchell Boggs Brad Thompson Bullpen Kyle McClellan Luke Gregerson Chris Perez Jason Motte Josh Kinney Jess Todd Blake Hawksworth The Cardinals haven’t had a high first-round pick since taking J.D. Drew in 1998, but they’ve missed on an awful lot of pitchers with selections in the 20s and 30s. 12 of the 19 first- and supplemental first-round picks they’ve had since then have been pitchers, but only three have reached the majors: Perez, likely bust Chris Lambert and the recently traded Clayton Mortensen. So what we’re left with here is Haren and not much else. Looper, the third overall pick in the 1996 draft, is a mediocre closer turned No. 4 starter. Reyes has No. 3-starter talent, but he may never be able to stay healthy. He’s out until late next year following Tommy John surgery. Boggs is a fringe fifth starter, and Thompson is most useful in middle relief. The bullpen is more promising. Both McClellan and Gregerson are shaping up as excellent setup men, and Perez and Motte still have a fair amount of promise. Todd might end up being better than all of them. Lineup 3B Adam Kennedy 2B Placido Polanco RF J.D. Drew 1B Albert Pujols LF Rick Ankiel C Yadier Molina CF Colby Rasmus SS Jack Wilson Bench 2B/OF Skip Schumaker CF Coco Crisp INF Brendan Ryan OF Terry Evans C Mike DiFelice Another star would be nice, but Tony La Russa would be happy with the flexibility provided by this lineup. Also, the excellent defense will help all of those starters who won’t be recording many strikeouts. Molina, Pujols, Wilson all rank among the game’s best at their positions, and Polanco is still a surehanded asset at second. The outfield defense is a little above average with this arrangement and significantly better when Crisp starts and Rasmus goes to a corner. Against lefties, Ryan should start over Kennedy, Crisp over Ankiel and perhaps Evans over one of the other two outfielders. Summary The Cardinals have struggled to keep pitching prospects healthy and are paying for it in these rankings. It’s worth wondering just how much better off they’d be if they concentrated more on producing hitters over these last 10 years. After all, in Dave Duncan, they have a pitching coach who excels at turning around veteran starters. They could have played to that strength a little better. Of course, it’s not as though the Cardinals are struggling. It looked like they’re set to reach the playoffs for the seventh time in 10 years, and they won it all in 2006. While I generally give a lot more credit to general managers than field managers, in this case, La Russa and Duncan deserve the praise, probably more so than former GM Walt Jocketty.