A few notes to pass along out of the NL Central, as the Cardinals gear up to defend their World Series title from a year ago …
- The Cubs have officially announced the signing of 20-year-old Cuban left-hander Gerardo Concepcion to a five-year Major League contract. Concepcion joins the 40-man roster but will report to minor league camp. The deal is worth $6MM, which includes a $3MM signing bonus, according to Doug Padilla of ESPNChicago.com.
- The Cardinals will likely turn to a handful of in-house candidates to take Chris Carpenter's rotation spot if the right-hander misses any substantial chunk of time due to a bulging disc in his neck, according to Jenifer Langosch of MLB.com. The Cards may choose from relievers Lance Lynn, Kyle McClellan, Marc Rzepczynski, and Mitchell Boggs, or perhaps minor leaguers Brandon Dickson and Shelby Miller, so it doesn't seem like they'll explore a trade or signing for now.
- Cubs GM Jed Hoyer declined to comment on the team's pursuit of prized Cuban outfield prospect Jorge Soler with reporters, including Paul Sullivan of the Chicago Tribune, as Soler has yet to officially be designated a free agent by MLB.
Renew the Oswalt to Cards rumors. Starting …….. now.
inb4 concepcion joke
Last Spring Training the Cardinals lost one of the top starters in the league and didn’t have a knee-jerk reaction and go out and sign someone. I don’t know why anyone would think because they think Carpenter might be out a few weeks, they would do that this year.
That’s not even mentioning the Cardinals have much more rotation depth this year than they have in years past. Chances are Lynn will get the starts until Carpenter is healthy unless someone else really surprises to earn a spot this spring.
the cardinals ended up winning it all, but for the purpose of your point here it shouldn’t be forgotten that they only made the playoffs by the skin of their teeth in the first place. were it not for a completely improbable collapse in atlanta, 2011 ends up a lost season for STL. losing a top starter is a big deal
I think you missed my point here. My point wasn’t that they won it all so that means they’ll be fine this year.
My point was the Cardinals don’t make knee-jerk reactions. I don’t know why anyone would actually think they were going to sign another starter just because Carp might miss a few weeks. They haven’t made those kind of moves in the past and they’re not going to this year.
He totally missed your point… and it does not matter how you get it in, as long as you get in.
there’s a dirty joke somewhere in there…
didn’t miss it. i think you’re right that they won’t make a move, but “it worked out last year” (i know you didn’t say these words) would be a poor rationalization for that choice. i was pointing out that they probably should have had a knee-jerk reaction last year; it almost cost them their season
The results from last year have absolutely nothing to do with why I said it. My only point was, they lost a much bigger piece of the team for the whole year and didn’t make a move, so for anyone to be writing/thinking that they’re going to make a move this year, it doesn’t make sense.
But to you saying they should have made a move. I really doubt anyone was available on March 1st that could have given much more than the McClellan/Jackson combination gave to them.
it is difficult for me to argue with you about this because we don’t seem disagree about anything
agree……I think.
if the Cards had waited one more day before getting Dotel, Alphabet, and Furcal, they would have finished 3rd in their division. Oswalt is a guy who can fill any spot, any need, at any time. If they miss getting him, they are at risk…
I forgot about soler. Wonder when that’s going to happen.
it’ll be a foregone conclusion that he’ll sign with team X and eventually a mystery team will sweep in an sign him, and we’ll all be ‘shocked’
I like this prediction.
Joe Morgan thinks that Concepcion will be great. He also mumbled something about a “slidepiece.”