Okay, now that I’ve let the Cardinal’s playoff CHOKE leave my mind…I can take a look back and forward.

First, I’ll look back.  Honestly, I think the Cardinals finished about where they should have finished the season.  However, if you would have told me in April we would win 91 games, I would have thought you were crazy.  At the start of the year, we had waaay too many unknows (Skip at 2nd, Carp’s health, protection for Pujols, etc, etc) to feel confident reaching 90+ wins.

Looking forward, LaRussa just laid ink to a one year extension.  Blah.  I’m not super excited about that one.  But, the good news, Dave Duncan is back for another year too.  The weird part of the signing…Mark McGwire is going to resurface as a hitting coach for the Redbirds.  I wonder if this was LaRussa making a last ditch effort to pull his boy McGwire back into baseball before Tony officially retires.

Okay, putting aside the fact that I think McGwire DID use roids and just looking at his credentials…he’s probably a fantastic hitting coach.  Supposedly, he’s already offered hitting instruction to current MLB players.  He does have the highest AB/HR ration of all time…a full AB better than Babe Ruth!

Well, obviously the biggest off-season factors haven’t been fleshed out yet.  We still need to figure out what will happen with DeRosa and Holliday.  That probably won’t happen til after the World Series; especially for Holliday.  He’s trying to maximize his money so I don’t foresee him signing with anyone until the Yankees have had a chance to bid for his services.

That’s all for now.