It’s time to put a bow on 2014 for the St. Louis Cardinals.
The ending of the season still sucks. The manager is still under fire. And another 1/2 month of Royals love is still to be played out.
The first step in the healing process or something.
- Most Valuable Player: Lance Lynn
There was a time during the 2014 season where the good ship Cardinal was moving past a heavy list into a full on capitulation. Mike Wacha and Jamie Garcia had exited the rotation. Shelby Miller was having trouble producing consistent quality starts. And Adam Wainwright came back from the All-Star game with PTSD.
Lynn, though?
He was the rock of the rotation that many nights had to make up for the lack of runs the team was producing. 33 starts with a 2.74 ERA and 200+ innings of work isn’t a stat line you’re going to be bouncing gran kids on the knee telling tales about. But if Lynn didn’t hold it together, there’s more than a chance the Cardinals never make the 2014 playoffs.
- Least Valuable Player: Mark Ellis
How will you remember the Mark Ellis era in St. Louis?
Baseball season is LONG. I can’t believe that Ellis actually had over 200 plate appearances this season, yet it’s true. So that .180 average with 38 total bases and a .213 slugging doesn’t come with a miniscule data set… he earned it.
- Biggest Surprise (Good): Pat Neshek
It wasn’t that long ago that Neshek was in Norfolk Virginia earning player of the week honors for the AAA Tides. Less than 2 seasons later, he’s coming off an All-Star appearance and his best professional performance ever. He went from veteran insurance to the 8th inning hammer and never looked back.
- Biggest Surprise (Flop): Carlos Martinez
What a mess of a season. Worse, it’s not all on Martinez. He was the 8th inning guy. He got stretched out. Sent to the minors. A run as a starter. Back the pen for long relief. Back to a 7th inning guy. And by the playoffs? The back-up-ish closer?
Martinez possesses, perhaps, the most raw talent on the Cardinals roster. Let’s hope the Cardinals pick a path and stick to it in 2015.
- Most Cringe-worthy Game: May 2nd @ Cubs
It was a Monday. The Cardinals needed a spot start from Tyler Lyons and a win to stay above .500 on the season.
Technically they got the first part, as Lyons pitched 4 innings. But he spotted the Cubbies a 9 spot en route to a 17-5 brutal thrashing that saw the North Side’s 2-5 hitters rack up 14 RBIs and 9 hits.
This was just about the time where we were starting to wonder if ‘slow start’ had metastasized into ‘not as good as we expected’.
- The memory we’ll take away from 2014: Matt Carpenter KO’s Clayton Kershaw
- Most Intriguing Winter Mystery: What About Jamie?
He’s owed 9.25M next season. That number means two things: 1) he’s untradable 2) he’s going to be back with the Cardinals in some capacity.
But how?
He’s made 16 starts the past two seasons combined, not even logging 100 innings. He’s dependently not dependable. His GM?
“I sound frustrated, look frustrated. I’m frustrated,” Mozeliak said. “You try to be patient with people, and I think this organization does an amazing job protecting players. Certainly we would have loved to have heard from him.”
Then again, dude has talent. That’s not nothing in this business. We haven’t heard much on the Garcia front in a long while. Get ready for this storyline to emerge as the cold sets in.
- Stat That Makes You Wonder: Cardinals TV Ratings
Here’s Dan Caesar from the Post-Dispatch:
According to figures from The Nielsen Co., the first four games of the Cards-San Francisco Giants matchup in this year’s National League championship series were seen in an average of 23.2 percent of households with a TV in the market, the worst figure by far for any of the nine NLCS the Cards have been in dating to 2000. (Ratings for Thursday’s Game 5 were not yet available.) This follows a trend. The second-lowest figure was just last year, when the rating was 29.1. The drop from last season to this one is significant — 20 percent.
The Cardinals did set ratings records on both MLB Network and FS1 this post-season, so nationally, it looks like the Cards are gaining a little steam playing the Yankees. While locally? Fatigue has set in.
- Tweet We Didn’t Want To See: @tomfoolery1990
https://twitter.com/tomfoolery1990/status/523855289817530368
Photo: AVCA
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