New York Nine

            On the heels of one of the most exciting and thrilling World Series in recent memory, the World Champion St. Louis Cardinals head into the 2012 season a very different team.  If you haven’t heard (but I’m sure you have) the Cardinals signature player, the man most associated with “The Cardinal Way” since Stan “The Man” Musial, Albert Pujols rejected the Cardinals’ offer and signed with the Anaheim Angels to a monstrous 10 year $254million deal.  To be sure, combined with the loss of their Hall of Fame Manager Tony LaRussa, the loss of Pujols has to leave any halfway sane Cardinals fan feeling like the team is about to go down the tubes, however the reality of the situation is far less dire.  While the loss of the future Hall of Famer will certainly hurt the Cardinals in the short term, the addition of new players or injured players like Carlos Beltran and Adam Wainwright will help alleviate that drop off and enable the Cardinals to not have to pay Albert big bucks as he enters his decline phase as a player.

                Of all the moves the Cardinals have made this off-season, none has the potential to soften the blow of losing Albert Pujols than the signing of six-time All-Star Carlos Beltran.  After a surprisingly quiet free agency for Carlos, Cardinals GM John Mozeliak signed Beltran to a 2 year/$26million dollar deal that undoubtedly has some risk, but a great deal of upside.  Although missing some time to begin the year, between his stints with the Mets and Giants, Carlos displayed his keen eye at the plate and still prodigious power despite playing in some of the worst home run parks in the game, playing in 142 games and hitting to the tune of a .300/.385/.525 slash-line, with 39 doubles, 22 home runs and a .389wOBA.  These numbers, although hardly Pujols-esque, are still easily among the best in the league for an outfielder and should only be improved by the move to a far more hitter-friendly park in St. Louis.  Nevertheless, as any Mets fan (or Giants fan) will tell you, Carlos is not the same guy he was a few years ago.  For starters, Beltran, who has always been injury prone and has some bum knees, one of which required microfracture surgery, but instead chose to undergo less evasive arthroscopic surgery and it has clearly been to his detriment.  No longer a graceful runner in center field, Carlos was forced to move to right field and clearly was not the same player, posting a UZR/150 of -9.2 between his stints in New York and San Francisco, as well as a less than impressive -11.0 RngR.  Entering his age 35 season, Beltran could very well see these knee problems affect his effectiveness at the plate and may turn out to be a bad signing, but the point is the risk isn’t all that great.  While he is older and could very well fall off a cliff, the fact of the matter is Carlos was worth 4.7WAR last season, which comes out to about to being worth about $22million.  Even if it does fall off a bit, the Cardinals are still likely to get a great deal of value from Carlos and be well worth the money over two years.

                In addition to the help coming from outside the Cardinals organization, help from inside the organization in the form of Staff Ace Adam Wainwright should also significantly soften the blow of the loss of Pujols.  Adam injured his elbow last spring training and was forced to miss the entirety of the 2011 season to recover from Tommy John Surgery; in the past this would cause concern that he may never regain his former ace form, however the ridiculously high success rate these days makes him a good bet to be as good as new.  For certain, it is a testament to the Cardinals last year that they were able to overcome the loss of Wainwright and win the Series because he was so damn valuable to them in years prior.  Indeed, in his last full season in 2010 Wainwright was an Ace in every sense of the word, tossing an impressive 230 innings to the tune of a 2.32 ERA (and a 2.86 FIP to back it up) and displaying excellent control, with 8.32K/9 and an even more impressive 3.80 K/BB ratio, which was among the top five in the senior circuit that year.  Of course, like any surgery there is always an element of risk that Adam may not be the same guy he was, but again given his age (just 30) and the success rate of Tommy John (many pitchers are even better after Tommy John), it’s hard to not see Wainwright come close to his 6.1WAR from that season, which again was worth according to Fangraphs.com over $24million to the Cardinals.  Between the two the Cardinals are adding potentially ten wins to their team, which although will not exactly replace what a superstar like Pujols gives a team, undoubtedly gives the team a very good chance to be in the mix come October next year.

                Of course, as wonderful as these players may be for the Cardinals, neither of them are Albert Pujols; though in light of Albert’s age and uncharacteristically down year, the Cardinals may have dodged a bullet.  Of course, at least in the short term it’s hard to not like the move by the Angels in signing Pujols for the simple reason is that he’s Albert Freaking Pujols, the best baseball player on the planet.  While still only 32 Albert has already put together a Hall of Fame resume, accumulating 87.8WAR for his career, 445 home runs, a .328/.420/.617 slash-line, ten all star games, three MVP awards, and two gold gloves; this isn’t just a great player we’re talking about here, we’re talking about a guy on the short list of being one of the greatest of all time and arguably the best first baseman since Lou Gehrig, and he’s not even done.  Nevertheless, while the Angels were smart to acquire a player of Pujols’ stature under any circumstances there are reasons for concern.  For one, Albert is coming off what was easily his worst season to date, where he hit ‘only’ .299/.366/.541 with 37 home runs and 29 doubles.  To be fair, these are not bad numbers by any measure, and furthermore Albert admitted the specter of his contract negotiations affected his play, however these are not numbers of an all time great that the Angels are paying for.  Although most projection systems forecast a return to glory for Albert (Bill James and Fangraphs project him to have approximately a .319/.410/.585 stat line) it is entirely possible that Albert’s best days are behind him.  Players like Jimmy Foxx, Mel Ott, Albert Belle and a host of others saw a steep decline after they turned 32 making it substantially likely that Albert do the same.  Moreover, Albert’s contract, while fair relative to his value as a player could potentially be an albatross to the Angels in the long term.  As reported by Ken Rosenthal, Albert’s contract is very back-loaded, with him getting only around $16million now and the second half getting over $30million which could very well hurt the Angels’ ability to compete if Albert isn’t Albert anymore.    One can’t help but think of the example of Alex Rodriguez, who also got a ten year deal after his age 32 and has declined considerably in the four years since, and wonder if Albert will suffer a similar fate.   However unlike the Cardinals who despite their rapid fans are very much a mid-market ball club, the Angels in light of their huge new TV deal and the decline of the Dodgers in the LA market can afford to make such a gamble.  Given these risks it seems very likely that in a few years Cardinals fans may be very well thanking the Angels for paying Albert all that money to leave for Sunny Southern California.

             Even in light of all these very rational reasons to feel better about the Cardinals long term without Albert Pujols than with him, it will still be hard for Cardinals fans to see Albert Pujols wearing a red hat with a Halo instead of a Red Bird.  Players like Pujols don’t come along very often, so to see him leave in the middle of his career after so many great moments has to be disheartening.  Nevertheless, given the rather astute moves Mr. Mozeliak has made to make the Post-Pujols Era not so frightening, Cardinal fans have a litany of reasons to believe that the division titles, pennants and World Series championships will not leave town with Albert.  And even the Cards aren’t as good as they once were, Cardinal fans should take solace in knowing that for a decade they had the honor and privilege of seeing one of the best that ever lived play in their home town, and that’s a lot more than most baseball or indeed any sports fan can say with a straight face.