THE WATERCOOLER

QUESTION: Matt Holliday’s agent Scott Boras was quoted in a Post-Dispatch story Wednesday talking about the Cardinals, saying, “If you’re drawing 3.3 million fans and you’re averaging $50 a fan coming in, I just don’t know that mid-market term.” Is Boras correct in his implication that due to the revenue generated by high attendance numbers year after year that the Cardinals should not be considered a mid-market club? Do you feel the team uses “mid-market” status as an excuse to keep the payroll lower than it is actually capable of paying?

BERNIE MIKLASZ
Scott Boras has a simple job: to pimp for his client and get the most money possible. And he’s criticizing ownership in St. Louis to put pressure on the Cardinals to pony up for his guy. It’s a negotiating tactic. Nothing more, nothing less. Boras is hoping that Bill DeWitt freaks out and offers a blank check to Holliday. It won’t happen. DeWitt is many things, but the last time I looked, he seemed to be rather smart, and he’s also sane. That isn’t what Boras wants. The agent’s success is based on finding the one or two completely crazy owners out there who will rush in, lose their heads and anxiously capitulate to his demands. That’s why Boras is so terrific at his job. He usually gets the kooks to overreact.

DERRICK GOOLD
Mid-market has become a shield as much as a designation for many baseball teams. Some can cower behind the protection of that “mid-market” designation and pocket additional profit while weeping over an inability to keep or sign top-flight players. St. Louis certainly cuts the image of a mid-market city. Its media size is mid-range. Its population is mid-size. Its Fortune 500 footprint falls behind Chicago and Houston in the NL Central Division. So on. So on.

So St. Louis is a mid-market city, but the St. Louis Cardinals are not a mid-market baseball club, and nor do they operate like one. Their fanbase defies the mid-market label. Go beyond the 3 million that Scott Boras cited and consider the merchandising that comes with being one of the most recognizable brands in baseball. Or, think of the broadcast fees the Cardinals command because of the sheer geography of their fandom. It’s Cardinals Nation, not Cardinals Suburb. Boras is correct.

All of that allows the Cardinals to operate with a payroll bigger than their market. There is a symbiotic relationship between attendance and fanbase spending and the club’s payroll. With one ranking high within baseball, so should the other, and vice versa. The Cardinals acknowledge that, and they should be held to that.

RICK HUMMEL
The Cardinals, while certainly mid-market as far as metropilitan area population, are higher than that because of their 3,000,000 attendance every year. However, they don’t have nearly the broadcast revenue of the New Yorks, Bostons, Los Angeles teams and the Chicago teams. Therein lies the major issue in their trying to bid with those teams for free-agent players.

JEFF GORDON
When you factor in media revenue — a huge piece of the puzzle — the Cards are an upper mid-level team. They are well behind the LA teams, the NY teams, Boston and the Chicago Cubs. They are in that next group and that is pretty much how the franchise spends. The Cards will outspend teams like Cincinnati, Atlanta, Cleveland for years to come. This means the team can afford to pay Albert Pujols the going rate . . . but it also means the Cards can’t go deep in the Matt Holliday sweepstakes.

KEVIN WHEELER (Host of “Sports Open Line” on KMOX)
According to Forbes Magazine the Cardinals are 7th in terms of franchise value, a number Boras also cited yesterday, though incorrectly using that ranking for revenue rather than franchise value. Forbes ranked the Cardinals 10th in total revenue for the 2008 season (too early for ’09 numbers to be considered) and they were 12th for 2007.

Based on those rankings, I’d have to say the “mid-market” label is misleading. The Cardinals generate more revenue than teams in much bigger markets, like Houston and Dallas, and the size of the media market isn’t as important as how much money comes in.

Their payroll ranking is generally right where their revenue ranking is. The Cardinals had the 11th highest payroll in baseball in 2006, 2007 and 2008. They were 6th if you go back as far as 2005 and they were 13th in 2009 because they adjusted their season-opening payroll over concerns about the economy. Then they added significant salaries like Mark DeRosa and Holliday as the season went on. They could afford to expand the payroll, I have no doubt about that, but it’s not like they’re pulling a fast one on the fans.

THE WATERCOOLER

QUESTION: Assuming the Cardinals cannot get Matt Holliday re-signed and that Jason Bay stays with Boston, who are some other options out there that you think the Cardinals should pursue to man left field?

JOE STRAUSS
First, it is premature to assume either premise. Holliday’s market may not be as firm as some insist, especially if Bay returns to Boston and the New York Yankees remain on the periphery. But playing along, the leading free agent outfielders remain Bobby Abreu, a Type A who can steal bases but is also a very limited defender who has suffered a significant ebb in power. The Cardinals literally return to where they started if Holliday leaves, becoming a Pujols-centric attack almost forced to put Ryan Ludwick into the cleanup role.

If the club is serious about giving David Freese a chance to win the third base job, its best options become a trade for an outfielder. John Mozeliak acquired Troy Glaus under duress before the ’08 season. It is feasible that the Washington Nationals make Adam Dunn available this winter before he enters the walk year of his deal. Dunn is owed $10 million next season, a relative bargain in comparison to a 6-8 year deal for Holliday or a 4-year splurge on Bay. Bay, however, represents an extremely good fit in St. Louis should talks with the Red Sox stall.

DERRICK GOOLD
One of the reasons the Cardinals’ push for Matt Holliday is so pivotal to their 2010 roster is there is a steep plummet from the class of Holliday and Jason Bay to the other free agents out there this winter. Not one of them is an obvious candidate to hit cleanup behind Albert Pujols like either of those top-shelf left fielders would be. Bobby Abreu or Vlad Guerrero may have the name recognition to do so, but they don’t have that everyday, NL look at this point in their careers.

A name in that second or third tier of free agents that intrigues is Xavier Nady, one year removed from a 97-RBI turn with Pittsburgh and the New York Yankees. He lost 2009 to injury, but had back-to-back 20-homer seasons before that. Nady would be an interesting instant-scratch ticket. Some low-risk options could be found in the secondary market — the players non-tendered by teams. According to reports, the Florida Marlins are likely to non-tender Jeremy Hermida, a lapsed top prospect, and former Brave outfielder Jeff Francoeur could be set free by the New York Mets. Not the big-splash, big bat the Cardinals crave for the middle of the lineup. But if they whiff on Holliday it may be where the Cardinals have to go to supplement the in-house candidates and hope lightning strikes left field.

RICK HUMMEL
Give Allen Craig, one of the top power hitters in Class AAA at Memphis, a glove and work him out in left field all spring. His bat may be good enough but possibly not his defense. Otherwise, sign DeRosa, if his wrist is deemed all right, and make him more or less a full-time outfielder.

JEFF GORDON
I would keep Mark DeRosa and play him in the outfield, if it is determined Skip Schumaker is the long-haul solution at 2B. I’m not sure you can find somebody else with solid 20-homer, 80-RBI potential in free agency. This could also open the door for somebody like Allen Craig to get some OF at bats when De Rosa takes some starts at 3B to spell Freese or 2B when Skip gets a break against lefties.

There isn’t much to deal for, say, a Josh Willingham-type. A guy like Xavier Nady could be interesting to rehab.

QUESTION: What kind of credentials do most hitting coaches bring to the job at the major league level? And does Mark McGwire and his .263 lifetime average seem to measure up for such a position?

JOE STRAUSS

The Chicago Cubs just made Rudy Jaramillo the game’s highest-paid hitting coach and its second highest-paid coach of any description. Jaramillo never played above Double-A but is now the longest-tenured hitting coach in the major leagues. His defection from the Texas Rangers was the equivalent to Dave Duncan leaving the Cardinals as pitching coach. There is only a loose connection between major-league success and effectiveness as a hitting coach. Charlie Lau, whose philosophies revolutionized the craft, was a career .255 hitter with 16 home runs in fewer than 1,200 major-league at-bats. Don Mattingly, a borderline Hall of Famer, is recognized for doing strong work with the Los Angeles Dodgers after serving in the same capacity for the New York Yankees. Like McGwire, Mattingly served no apprenticeship in the minor leagues. Greatness as a player does not automatically translate into the ability to recognize flaws and to communicate fixes. The greatest hitter ever, Ted Williams, quickly became frustrated trying to help those less gifted than he. Tony La Russa on Monday described the job as more art than science. The inability to predict makes the Cardinals’ selection of McGwire all the more intriguing.

BERNIE MIKLASZ

What McGwire did as a hitter in the majors is largely irrelevant, especially his batting average. But to gauge McGwire’s intelligence as a hitter, take a look at his on-base percentage and the average number of pitches he took per at-bat. Charlie Lau was considered one of the best hitting coaches in MLB history and as a player he batted .255 in the bigs, with a mediocre .318 OBP and .365 slugging percentage. Another revered hitting coach was Walt Hriniak, who batted .253 in only 111 plate appearances. One of the current hitting coaches who garners rave reviews is Rudy Jaramillo, who was just signed to a $2 million deal by the Cubs. He never played in the majors and hit .258 in the minors. Terry Pendleton and Don Mattingly are among the former players who became MLB batting coaches with no coaching time in the minors.

McGwire was a smart hitter in the second half of his career; his cerebral approach was an important part of his success. And his work ethic and dedication as a hitter was underrated. But what is his hitting philosophy? Does it fit all hitters, from the power guys to the singles hitters? Can he communicate the philosophy in a simple way? Can he repair a hitter’s mechanical flaws? Can he connect in a way that will reach and lift a struggling hitter’s confidence? McGwire has been praised for his 1-on-1 work with hitters but how will he deal with a roster of position players — 14 or 15 hitters — at the same time? These are all legit questions, and obviously manager Tony La Russa believes that McGwire has the right combination of hitting intellect and people skills. We’ll see.

JEFF GORDON

Intuitively, you would expect a hitter who used all the fields (like Hal McRae) would offer more than a dead pull hitter (like Mark McGwire). But Big Mac is something of a freak when it comes to mental preparation, concentration at the plate and mastery of the strike zone. With an OPS exceeding 1.000 during his Cards heyday, McGwire became one of the toughest outs in baseball. Even without his intentional walks, his latter-day OPS was very good in St. Louis. If some of this can rub off on guys like Ryan Ludwick, great.

KEVIN WHEELER (Host of “Sports Open Line” on KMOX)

There is no such thing as a “set of credentials” that a hitting coach can bring to the table. Their backgrounds are varied and there is no “path” to becoming a successful hitting instructor, no prerequisites that prove whether or not an individual will be good at the job. Some of the best hitting instructors of all time were mediocre hitters during their playing days, some of the worst had what would seem to be perfect pedigrees.

I believe McGwire will be a good hitting instructor for two reasons: because hitting is his passion in life and because he values preparation, much like Dave Duncan does when it comes to pitching.

What McGwire was really good at as a hitter was working counts in his favor so he could do what he did best…hit the ball over the fence. His career average may have been low but his on-base percentage was .394 and he hit a home run every 10.6 at-bats. In other words, he knew how to play to his own strength. That’s what he’ll be asked to do for the Cardinals hitters: refine their approaches and identify the occasional glitch so they, too, can emphasize their strengths at the plate. Plus, he’ll know when to leave well enough (read: Albert Pujols) alone.

THE WATERCOOLER

QUESTION: As the Phillies head to their second consecutive World Series it raises the question, “What does Philadelphia have that the Cardinals do not?”

DERRICK GOOLD
Where to begin? How about where the difference is the greatest? The lineup. The Phillies have one of the deepest, one of the most power-packed and actually one of the most underrated lineups in baseball. Chase Utley may be the most complete lefthanded-hitter in the National League. Ryan Howard, Mr. September to the locals, is a power threat that is emerging as a Mr. October. Jimmy Rollins is a former MVP (Matt Holliday was robbed!) and a switch-hitting speed threat. And if the number of elite hitters doesn’t reveal the gulch between the depth of the Phillies’ lineup and the Cardinals’ lineup, consider Shane Victorino and Jayson Werth are complementary hitters in that lineup — and would be linchpins of the Cardinals.

Too much of the Cardinals lineup is isolated around one bat swinging well. His name: Albert Pujols. The Phillies have many players who can spark a rally, continue a rally or invent a rally on their own. They don’t need three hits to score one run. They often need one hit to score three runs. It’s easy to take potshots at the studio they call a ballpark and acknowledge that it adds to the Phillies’ power threat. But here’s the thing: Take away the power, and the Phillies still have the balance and depth to bombard teams anywhere else, too. The Cardinals just don’t have that many dimensions to their offense.

BERNIE MIKLASZ
The Phillies had a much deeper and stronger lineup. If you go by combined onbase + slugging percentage (OPS), the Phillies have the edge over the Cardinals at six of the eight positions. (We’re not counting the pitchers’ batting performances in this statistical breakdown). The only spots where the Cardinals had the better OPS than the Phillies this season were first base and shortstop. The Phillies ranked in the top 5 in the NL in OPS at six positions, and were No. 1 in the league at second base and right field. Their outfielders, overall, were No. 1. They were No. 2 in OPS at center field and fourth in OPS in left field. The Cardinals lagged terribly in the position-by-position OPS rankings at third base (15th), center field (13th) and right field (12th) and were mediocre in left field (8th) and second base (8th). St. Louis outfielders overall were 12th among 16 NL outfields with a .743 OPS — or 108 points less than the OPS generated by the Phillies’ outfield.

The Phillies also led the NL in slugging percentage and had a lot more danger in their lineup from top to bottom, finishing with nearly 100 more extra-base hits than the Cardinals.

Finally, there was a huge disparity between the teams in their batting performance against LH pitching. The Phillies were the league’s second-best team in OPS vs. LH (.787) and the Cardinals finished last in OPS vs. LH (.674).

RICK HUMMEL
The one thing the Phillies have that the Cardinals don’t have is damage up and down their lineup, from No. 1, where Jimmy Rollins hit 21 homers, to No. 8, where Carlos Ruiz has been a postseason star. Also, they seem to be better hitters with men in scoring position.

JEFF GORDON
Run production! That lineup wears out pitchers. There is danger everywhere. How many at bats would Chris Duncan, Rick Ankiel, Joe Thurston, Khalil Greene, Troy Glaus, et al, have earned in that group? Fans clamor for a one big hitter to protect Albert, but the challenge is to assemble a dangerous attack, one through eight. The Cards can move in that direction, even without Holliday, by weeding all their .230 hitters off the roster.

KEVIN WHEELER (Host of “Sports Open Line” on KMOX)
Power, speed, offensive depth, better left-right balance in the order and better defense. The Cardinals pitching is a little better on the whole but not by all that much.

The Phillies hit 40 percent more home runs (224 to 160) than the Cardinals, plus they stole 59 percent more bases (119 to 75), walked 12 percent more often (589 to 528) and they had a higher OPS (.781 to .747). In fact, Philly ranked 1st in the NL in OPS and HR while finishing 2nd in steals. They had four 30 home run guys this year (Howard, Utley, Werth and Ibanez) compared to one for the Cards (Pujols), which pretty much paints the picture for you.

In fact, 7 of their 8 “everyday players” reached double digits in home runs (Rollins had 21 as the leadoff man) and the only guy who missed out, catcher Carlos Ruiz, hit 9 homers despite missing 55 games.

The Cardinals had a strong team, one whose pitching carried them over the course of the long 162 game season, but the Phillies have a dynamic, explosive team and one that is better suited for a playoff run.

THE WATERCOOLER

QUESTION: What does your gut tell you as far as whether or not Tony La Russa will return with the Cardinals next season?

JOE STRAUSS
There are more reasons to believe TLR will return than not. It’s been 10 days since the Cardinals’ inglorious exit from the postseason. No one needs to tell the manager how much the organization invested into this season. He is soul-searching to examine what went wrong, whether he still commands his players’ attention and, at 65, to determine if he still wants to put himself through the annual 8-month grind. The Cardinals may be prepared to make him the game’s highest-paid skipper, status he briefly enjoyed before the LA Dodgers hired Joe Torre two years ago. TLR says he is not interested in managing elsewhere should he step away. However, there is some intrigue given than Torre and the Atlanta Braves’ Bobby Cox have both indicated next year will be their last in the dugout. The Dodgers job especially may be appealing. That strikes me as a longshot scenario, though.

RICK HUMMEL
Tony is back. One of his biggest concerns is that he is wearing thin with the media, which probably is exaggerated. His popularity with the fans, even though the Cardinals had an abrupt exit from postseason play, rarely has been higher. He is getting along nicely with general manager John Mozeliak and he has the best hitter and the top two starting pitchers in the National League.

DERRICK GOOLD
He’ll be back. The reasons to return far outnumber the niggling little hangups he really has to search to find. If La Russa is going to manage somewhere in 2010, the only somewhere he is ready to consider is the Cardinals. He either just wants to hear how much the team appreciates him and would like him to return, or he’s waiting for the results of Albert Pujols’ surgery to know for sure about the team’s chances to contend …

BRYAN BURWELL
To me, it’s hard to imagine that La Russa would walk away from the Cardinals with Albert Pujols, Chris Carpenter and Adam Wainwright at his disposal.

THE WATERCOOLER

QUESTION: You hear much talk among Cardinal fans about players taking a “hometown discount” to play here in St. Louis. Matt Holliday is the centerpiece of “hometown discount” talk right now. In your professional opinion, how much weight do professional ballplayers give to being in a certain town, playing for a certain manager or having a certain kind of locker room chemistry? At the end of the day, doesn’t money do the talking in almost all cases of free agency?

RICK HUMMEL

Rarely does a player not follow the money, and I think you find that true even more in football than in baseball. I think this especially is true in the early stages of a player’s career, when he first can become a free agent, and his agent is hell-bent on getting the best offer. Near the end of that career, if a player hasn’t won before or is comfortable where he is, his attitude may change.

BRYAN BURWELL

Money is going to ultimately decide everything when it comes to any business. But who can blame them, when they have an opportunity to secure the financial future for their family for decades? The hometown discount is a myth. Players want to win and get paid. If they can win and get paid, they will take a little less money. But if they can’t win but they can get paid? Cha-ching.

JEFF GORDON

Every player is different. Some need to find a comfort zone to succeed in. Others, like Reggie Sanders, can move from team to team and do very well at every stop. This can be especially important to pitchers, who live or die with confidence. St. Louis developed a nice pitching atmosphere, which makes it easier to retain key free-agent pitchers. I think St. Louis is a good fit for Albert Pujols, who reigns as king of the clubhouse. As for Matt Holliday, he didn’t choose to come to St. Louis in that deal from Oakland. He seemed like a good fit here, but it’s not like he fell in love with the place. I would be surprised if he didn’t go to the highest bidder.

DAN O’NEILL

There is overwhelming evidence that money is the bottom line. Jeff Weaver is a recent case that underlines that - comes to the Cardinals, has the most success he’s had in years, but takes more money to go elsewhere the following winter. Ultimately you have to hold the players responsible for that, because their names go on the contracts. And I don’t necessarily blame them for that. The loyalty aspect, or lack thereof, works both ways. But most players rely heavily on advice from their agents, so I think a lot depends on the agent. The Cardinals will find out because they are not going to sign either Holliday or Mark DeRosa before they enter the market.

THE WATERCOOLER

QUESTION: What do you feel should be the Cardinals top priority this offseason?

JOE STRAUSS
Obviously, getting a handle on Matt Holliday’s situation is significant because of what signing him would do to the club’s financial flexibility. Likewise, losing him to free agency frees up significant money to pursue another direction. Holliday is Scott Boras’ leading free agent this winter. Boras typically leaves his top client on the market for an extended period. This tendency does not square with the Cardinals’ desire for a quick resolution. If Holliday reaches the open market, the Cardinals’ task in signing him becomes exponentially more difficult, so much so that Jason Bay’s name now freely floats within the organization. The team’s late-season meltdown against “plus” pitching underscores the need for further improvement.

DERRICK GOOLD
This very public eagerness to work on an extension with Albert Pujols strikes me as a non-traditional strategy, especially with two years remaining on his contract and his leverage likely never better with a second consecutive MVP on the way. It makes sense to do eventually, but why the push to do it now? Unless they want to do something in concert to make sure when they add a new player Pujols is still the highest-paid player . . . hmm. Simply, the priority should be outfitting the lineup around Pujols, Mr. I Want to Stay With a Contender, and to do that with the best bat that fits — the team’s finances, the team’s structure and the team’s approach, all of it. That still is Matt Holliday. Linking his best years to Pujols’ best years is in everyone’s interest.

RICK HUMMEL
The top priority is to explore the prospect of re-signing OF Matt Holliday to a long-term deal. If not, I would offer him arbitration (to make sure of getting two draft picks) and he might even accept that if there isn’t a long-term deal he likes anywhere.

JEFF GORDON
Top priority: Lock-up Albert Pujols for the long haul. Once that is done, the cornerstone is secured and all the other decisions will fall into place. The other matters are minor compared to this one. If he can’t be secured during this offseason, for whatever reason, then the need to re-sign Matt Holliday increases — since this team will need somebody to build a batting order around from 2012 on.

KEVIN WHEELER (Host of “Sports Open Line” on KMOX)
Bringing back the manager and the pitching coach would be at the top of my list. I’m not sure Matt Holliday is worth what the market will bear, so I wouldn’t rate him No. 1. Plus the team has kids like Allen Craig and Jon Jay who may prove worthy of an opportunity to do in 2010 what Colby Rasmus did in 2009. In fact, I’m almost leaning toward letting all the kids battle for the open roster spots early in the year and then dealing for veterans, if necessary, come June or July. I think what the team did this year worked quite well and I’d follow that pattern again just in case guys like Craig, Jay, David Freese, Jaime Garcia, Blake Hawksworth and Mitchell Boggs have breakthroughs. Spend the money to get Albert re-signed and then deal for veterans in-season, if necessary.

THE WATERCOOLER:
Is it smart baseball to spend nearly 40 percent of a team’s payroll on two players as the Cardinals could do with Albert Pujols and Matt Holliday?

JOE STRAUSS:
No. If the payroll were $125 million, then maybe. But with a $100 million payroll as the Cards were last year. No.

RICK HUMMEL:
If it were Pujols and Bob Gibson, maybe. But one of the players has to be a pitcher to be worth it.

BERNIE MIKLASZ:
The Cardinals are up against it unless they expand the payroll. If you count Albert Pujols’ existing contract, they’re alread obligated to pay out a guaranteed $55 million-plus to players in 2010, and it’s about the same in 2011. And keep in mind that the salary number is likely higher than that, because it does not include the arbitration-related salaries that will be paid to Ryan Ludwick and Skip Schumaker. On the positive side, the list does include three starting pitchers who are locked in for the next two (at least) seasons: Chris Carpenter, Adam Wainwright and Kyle Lohse. So they do have a rotation foundation to work with. And there are some young pitchers (Jaime Garcia, Blake Hawksworth, Mitchell Boggs, etc.) worthy of an opportunity. But if Matt Holliday commands, say, $15 million a year, you are looking at $70 million to $80 million guaranteed obligations for each of the next two seasons.And that doesn’t include Pujols’ likely increase if there’s a new contract for him. Either way, it doesn’t leave a lot of spending room for other needs, including third base, a strong fourth outfielder, perhaps a veteran starting pitcher, and the bench. The Cardinals can pull it off, but it’ll be tight. The question is: what is Holliday worth? Is he a $20 million a year player? No. Is he a $15 million a year player? I don’t think so, but he will be if some other team is crazy enough to offer it. I can’t set Holliday’s market price. The teams shopping for left fielders will do that. But I see no reason why he’d have to be paid as much as Pujols. Not even close, really. If the market breaks in the Cardinals’ favor, they might be able to get Holliday at a “reduced rate”, though we’re still talking about an awful lot of money.

DERRICK GOOLD:
If that were the Cardinals only payroll bloc to maneuver around then maybe. But it’s not. The Cardinals also have Chris Carpenter, Adam Wainwright and Kyle Lohse locked up for, possibly, the next three seasons, and in 2011 that trio will cost $33.5 million That means more than two-third of the projected payroll can be isolated on five players. The only way the Cardinals — or any other team for that matter — can lump so much of the payroll on so few players is if they can count on getting contributions from prospects and young stars — not players, stars — who not yet arbitration eligible. Colby Rasmus, for example, is one. Brendan Ryan, for another couple seasons, is another. Lefty Jaime Garcia projects as one. Outside the organization, however, the Cardinals are not viewed as a team that can lean this much on its minor-league system. The depth of the organization has improved. But its depth is mainly in complementary players. The Cardinals have players who will play in the majors. But there is a difference between minor-leaguers who play in the majors, those who stay in the majors and ones who will star in the majors. The Cardinals don’t have the obvious contributors storming up the ranks to paint themselves into a financial corner.

THE WATERCOOLER

QUESTION: The Cards went 5-2 against the Dodgers in two series played back in July and August. That was then. This is now. How do you think the Cardinals match up with the Dodgers?

DERRICK GOOLD
St. Louis’ regular-season success masks the fact that the Cardinals didn’t really hit well against the Los Angeles Dodgers. In seven games this past season, the Cardinals, as a lineup, hit .218 with a .306 on-base percentage and a .343 slugging percentage. The Dodgers were able to contain the middle of the Cardinals’ order, pitching around Pujols (who hit .222 vs. LA, but had a .400 on-base percentage) and handcuffing Ryan Ludwick (.192/.276/.192). Matt Holliday offers somewhat of a deterrent there for the Dodgers, but he too had his troubles with LA pitching (4-for-22 at Dodger Stadium). All of that reveals how the Cardinals went 5-2 against the Dodgers this season: pitching. And that hasn’t changed from the regular season to October. Of all of the numbers that can be tossed out there to illustrate the Division Series ahead, it’s really two names that define the Cardinals’ edge in this series: Chris Carpenter and Adam Wainwright.

RICK HUMMEL
The edge the Cardinals have over the Dodgers is that they have two premier, top-of-the-line starters in Chris Carpenter and Adam Wainwright and the Dodgers have only one — and Clayton Kershaw still is in training. But Kershaw could be deadly pitching in Thursday afternoon’s twilight. The 5-2 mark is very misleading because many of the games were very close but in a five-game series, the team having two outstanding starting pitchers who potentially could make four starts is the better team.

JEFF GORDON
Randy Wolf will be a major pain for the Cardinals, given his ability to exploit their various offensive weaknesses. And LA has hammers at the back of its bullpen. But the Cards have a huge advantage with top-end pitching and with the Pujols/Holliday combo. The Dodgers are still sorting through their pitchers. The Cards seem set up to prevail in a short series. Neither team played great down the stretch and both teams have playoff-tested Hall of Fame-caliber managers, so this will be fun.

GERRY FRALEY
This is, by far, the better matchup for the Cardinals. The Dodgers lack a dominating starter. Their opening-game starter, lefthander Randy Wolf, is the bad-karma pitcher of the season. The Dodgers have nine blown saves behind Wolf, who has trouble getting beyond the sixth inning. Lefthander Clayton Kershaw allowed 4.79 walks per nine innings and also usually departs in the middle innings. The bullpen is fried after working 553 innings, the third-highest total in the majors. (The Cardinals’ bullpen had the fewest innings in the majors at 437.) The Cardinals were also among the first team to discover that Manny Ramirez, the Dodgers’ No. 3 hitter, can no longer handle hard stuff inside. Ramirez went 4-for-28 with no homers, one RBI and only two extra-base hits during the season series with the Cardinals.

THE WATERCOOLER

QUESTION: What do you think the Cardinals’ chances are of re-signing Matt Holliday? And if they are to have any chance at all, how much do you think it is going to cost?

DERRICK GOOLD
Last offseason, Matt Holliday and his family sought a break from Denver and rented a house in Southern California, not too far from where he could seek the batting advice of Mark McGwire. It also made for a short flight up the coast on the day Colorado traded him to Oakland. This winter, Holliday said he is planning another move. He’s thinking Austin, Texas. He’s thinking somewhere more centrally located, somewhere close to his dad (NC State associate head coach Tom Holliday) or his brother (Vanderbilt assistant coach Josh Holliday), or at least somewhere closer than way out west. The middle of the country beckons.

Here’s betting his professional path mirrors his personal. The Cardinals have the best chance of any team at re-signing Holliday as long as they are willing to make a fair-market bid at re-signing him. The worst thing they could do is let him get to free agency and lose all of the momentum created by surrounding him with re-signed players, a division-title run and a ballpark and lineup that brings out the best in him. When he knew his time at Colorado was over, Holliday said he valued a place that was going to give him a chance to win consistently — not cycle through winning and losing seasons. He rejected an extension from the Rockies that could have been worth $84 million over five years. Seems like a place to start for the Cardinals, because they seem like a place he’d like to stay.

RICK HUMMEL
The only chance the Cardinals have is to sign him in the window before he becomes available to everyone else 15 days after the end of the World Series. If it gets to that, no chance. I think it will take about somewhere between $90 to $110 million for five years to sign Holliday. Then you’ll properly hear from the Pujols people about re-structuring that contract.

GERRY FRALEY
It depends on who is calling the shots in the Matt Holliday camp. Will Holliday tell agent Scott Boras what to do? A few Boras clients, such as Hall of Fame-bound righthander Greg Maddux, have done that. Maddux turned down more money from the New York Yankees to sign with Atlanta as a free agent.

Or is Boras in charge? In that scenario, the Cardinals have little chance. Boras does not believe in “home-town discounts’’ and likes to raise the bar with every contract. Boras could easily create enough of a market to get bidding into the annual range of $18 million.

If the price rises, the Cardinals must ask themselves a hard question. Can they afford Matt Holliday and still keep Albert Pujols before he gets into free agency after the 2011 season?

JEFF GORDON
The Cardinals will make a good offer, but not the best possible offer. If Holliday wants to stay, he’ll stay and get a nice bump from his current deal. But with so many big-budget teams looking for a corner outfielder, he would have to leave a LOT of money on the table. He will be the top offensive free agent available. I could see Scott Boras playing that into a $100 million deal somewhere, even in this tougher economic market. If I were in John Mozeliak’s shoes, I wouldn’t offer more than $80 million over five years.

KEVIN WHEELER (Host of “Sports Open Line” on KMOX)
I’d say the chances at the moment are 50-50. Holliday seems to like playing here and he’s having success, so that bodes well. The problem is figuring out whether he’ll enter the free agent market or not. If he does, there are some clubs with a lot of money available that don’t have an Albert Pujols to re-sign in the near future.

When he was acquired I thought Holliday would be looking at 3 years and somewhere between $36-42 million, but the momentum right now is raising that bar in terms of years and annual average salary. He’s not a $20 million a year guy — Manny Ramirez is the only OF making that kind of money — but there are some guys making $15-18 million a year who aren’t better than Holliday — (Vernon Wells, Alfonso Soriano, Carlos Lee, Magglio Ordonez.) I’d say 4 years/$68 million or 5 years/$85 million would be fair estimates. Anything more than that and I’d be tempted to take a pass and look elsewhere for a power.