2008’s Top 5 Stories

today is the day for the final UCB project of the year, the top five stories of 2008. so, let’s get to it.

1. lack of movement…any movement. I’m talking about the trade deadline in july and now, during the current offseason. the silence is deafening. you can hear a pin drop in mo’s office. what the hell? the best he could do was trading anthony reyes for a double A righty reliever. well, that reliever is gone because the giants took him as their rule 5 draft pick. now, all we have to show for this offseason is the greene trade, which is a decent trade I think and the miller signing. this team still needs a starter or two and mo is gotta trade from the plethora of outfielders so as to help this team and not have a logjam in the outfield.

2. ludwick’s emergence. the cardinals have finally found proper protection for albert, as long as ryan can stay healthy. I think this guy is the real deal, he just has to stay healthy. what makes him even more important to this club’s success is that he is the only legitimate right handed power bat in the outfield. joey bombs might emerge to be that kind of bat, but it’s still too soon to tell.

3. MVP! yes, we all know pujols probably should win the mvp almost every season because of the player that he is and the numbers that he puts up. sadly, the writers don’t think that way. so, it was nice to see him finally pick up another one, but we all know that he should have like 5 mvp awards already. picking up the clemente award was nice for albert too…congrats prince albert!

4. lohse’s performance. he was unexpectedly good for a while. although he came back to earth the last couple of months of the season, he was phenomenal the first half or so of the season. he was basically a steal because he had a career year. let’s just cross our fingers and hope that after he was awarded that extension, he pitches the same way over the span of the contract. sure, he is going to regress, but I’m hoping it won’t be that drastic of a decline.

5. the bullpen collapse. I think I kinda saw it coming because of the starting pitching only going 5 innings every night for a while, but the collapse that I envisioned was a lot less catastrophic. wow, was it a collapse…it reminded me of the terrible nightmare that was the 2003 bullpen with pedro borbon jr. and estaban yan, among others. not very good memories to say the least.

those are my top 5….check C70 at the bat for his top 5 and links to other blogs that are participating in this project.