TOWER GROVE • Coming off back-to-back 100-win seasons, both of which included trips to the National League Championship Series and one of which netted an NL pennant, St. Louis Cardinals general manager Walt Jocketty took stock of hs team each winter and suggested it needed something.
Change.
During the high points of his tenure with the local franchise, Jocketty spoke often about how even the best team needed some roster movement between seasons. He used a word like "stale" to describe a team that stands pat, and he suggested that new blood had a value. It didn't have to come at the core level. Change could come to the bench. Change often came to the starting rotaton or to the bullpen. Change, Jocketty described one day at spring training, was the clubhouse's white blood cells -- attacking complacency.
After the Cardinals reached the World Series in 2004, Jocketty made a deal for lefty Mark Mulder to change the rotation. After the Cardinals repeated as a 100-win team in 2005, Jocketty brought reliever Braden Looper back to the fold to change the bullpen. And so on.
Something funny happened on the way to change in 2007.
The Cardinals won the World Series.
In a series of moves that seemed curious at the time and foolish by the middle of the season, the Cardinals moved quickly to not only re-sign the team that won the World Series but shovel cash and security at those players. Center fielder Jim Edmonds, who was serenaded by fans with "One more year!" during the victory parade, had a $10-million option for 2007. Not content to just exercise that as he wanted, the Cardinals offered him a two-year, $19-million deal that will keep paying him in deferred money to 2019. Several arbitration-eligible players, like Randy Flores, were able to land multi-year deals. Scott Spiezio? The utility infielder who was added in the middle of spring training at the urging of Edmonds landed a two-year, $4.5 million deal.
Of the 24 players who had a role or appearance in the 2006 World Series against the Detroit Tigers, the Cardinals brought back 21. They tried to sign two others.
An audit of the roster that the Cardinals left 2006 with and how many returned for the start of 2007:
Ronnie Belliard -- left for Washington
Chris Carpenter -- signed 5-year/$63.5 million extension
Chris Duncan -- under control
David Eckstein -- under contract
Jim Edmonds -- re-signed 2-year/$19 million deal
Juan Encarnacion -- under contract
Tyler Johnson -- under control
Josh Kinney -- under control
Braden Looper -- under contract
Aaron Miles -- re-signed for 1-year/$1 million
Yadier Molina -- under control
Albert Pujols -- under contract
John Rodriguez -- under control
Scott Rolen -- under contract
Scott Spiezio -- re-signed for 2-year/$4.5 million
Jeff Suppan -- left for Milwaukee
So Taguchi -- re-signed for 1-year/$925,000 with option for $1.1 million for 2008
Adam Wainwright -- under control
Jeff Weaver -- left for Seattle
Preston Wilson -- re-signed for 1-year/$1 million
Gary Bennett -- re-signed for 1-year/$850,000 with mutual option for 2008
Randy Flores -- re-signed for 2-year/$1.8 million
Anthony Reyes -- under control
Brad Thompson -- under control
You know where this story goes. The 2007 was a mess for the Cardinals. An injury cost Carpenter the entire year. Spiezio, Wilson and others failed to deliver an encore. Encarnacion had that horrific eye injury that ended his career. The Cardinals did make some changes, devoting more to second base than they had since Fernando Vina by bringing back Adam Kennedy. He struggled. Of the three major additions the team made for 2007 -- Kennedy, Kip Wells and Russ Springer -- only Springer had a positive WAR. That is, WAR as in Wins Above Replacement, a measure of how many wins a player contributed to the team above a journeyman or neglible-cost replacement. Kennedy and Wells each had a minus-1.8 WAR at their positions.
The Cardinals re-signed or signed seven members of the 2006 World Series team, from the obvious extension for Carpenter to the less clear offer to Spiezio.
Of those seven, Edmonds had the highest war, plus-0.8.
As a group, they combined for a plus-0.4 WAR.
For context, that is a lower score as a group than, say, Todd Wellemeyer had as a pitcher (0.7), Brendan Ryan had as an infielder (1.6), Springer had from the bullpen (1.5) and Wells had as a ... hitter (0.7).
The two things that changed the most for the Cardinals between the final pitch of the 2006 season and the 78-84 record in 2007 were the cost of the roster and the results.
That's not exactly the changes Jocketty had in mind.
Enter 2012.
Again, the Cardinals leave a season with a World Series title to defend in the next year. Again, they got significant performances from complementary players, and again they had some prominent -- ahem, even the most prominent -- free agents to deal with in the winter. (I mean, it's even down to a starting pitcher with Scott Boras as his agent waiting for the multi-year deal. Weaver, meet Edwin Jackson.) The approach the Cardinals have taken this winter compared to the last championship winter is different.
Change has not only been embraced, it has been forced upon them.
Of the 27 players who appeared in the World Series, were injured or appeared at least once on the active roster in the World Series, 20 will be back for spring trianing in a couple weeks. That is, 20, for now. But here's the biggest difference: Only TWO have been re-signed in the same fashion that SEVEN were before 2007. The two players who could have taken the Cardinals to arbitration, Taguchi and Flores, commanded deals that could have been multi-year deals. This winter, the two players who were poised to take the Cardinals to arbitration -- pitchers Jason Motte and Kyle McClellan -- each got one-year deals.
Skip Schumaker comes to the closest to recreating the 2006 decisions by scoring a two-year deal on the eve of tender offers. It's possible that the Cardinals would have non-tendered him, a la Miles, had a deal not been finished by the deadline in December.
Make your own comparisons, by looking at the current roster in the same format as the above 2006 audit:
Lance Berkman -- re-signed in September.
Chris Carpenter -- re-signed in September.
Allen Craig -- under control
Daniel Descalso -- under control
Octavio Dotel -- left for Detroit
David Freese -- under control
Rafael Furcal -- re-signed for 2-year/$14 million
Jaime Garcia -- signed extension during season
Matt Holliday -- under contract
Edwin Jackson -- Free Agent
Jon Jay -- under control
Gerald Laird -- left for Detroit
Kyle Lohse -- under contract
Lance Lynn -- under control
Yadier Molina -- option exercised
Jason Motte -- signed 1-year/$1.95 million to avoid arbitration.
Albert Pujols -- left for Angels
Nick Punto -- left for Boston
Arthur Rhodes -- Free Agent
Marc Rzepczynski -- under control
Fernando Salas -- under control
Skip Schumaker -- re-signed 2-year/$3 million deal
Ryan Theriot -- non-tendered, left for San Francisco
Jake Westbrook -- under contract
Mitchell Boggs -- under control
Adron Chambers -- under control
Kyle McClellan -- signed 1-year/$2.5 million to avoid arbitration
The biggest change, of course, was one the Cardinals attempted to avoid -- that is, the exit of Pujols. The Cardinals have had change pushed on them before 2012 in a way the 2006 team did not. Pujols is gone. Carlos Beltran is here. Adam Wainwright returns after missing all of the season recovering from elbow surgery. Sure, core players like Berkman, Carpenter and Molina are back, but the simple return of Wainwright and addition of Beltran is already a more significant change to the roster after this World Series than anything the Cardinals did before 2007.
The bigger example of whether the Cardinals learned the lessons of 2007 was how they didn't fall in love with October performances -- to a point. Motte didn't turn his run as the closer into a multi-year deal, though the team and his rep did have discussions about one. Flores, a lefty specialist, got one after his 2006 role. Punto, who had a few memorable appearances in October, wasn't locked up before he could field other offers.
Change was afoot.
The 2006 Cardinals won 83 games in the regular season and bottled lightning with an unexpected World Series run. During the offseason, that team was treated like the world championship club and not the 83-win club. The next season was a sharp reminder. The 2011 Cardinals won 90 games and needed a historic closing month to chew up 10 1/2 games in the standings and blaze through October. Oh, and they got help from Atlanta. The moves made this offseason, altered obviously by the departure of Pujols, seem geared toward improving or repeating as a 90-win team, not trying to recapture the alchemy of October.
There is, however, one similarity. In 2006, a group of young relievers sporting a nasty lefty, a first-time closer and a grizzly righty powered the team through the NLCS and into the World Series. The Cardinals felt that was good enough to expect more in 2007 from that same group.
In 2011, a batch of young relievers sporting a nasty lefty, a first-time closer and a grizzly righty set appearance records for the Cardinals. They all return to the bullpen, and the most experienced returning member of the staff is still arbitration eligible.
Some times you can't afford change.
-30-
