After hearing the outlook on Cardinals ace Adam Wainwright turned south, I immediately saw the Cards stock for the season hit the deck. Of coarse anytime Albert Pujols is in your lineup your going to have a chance. But, losing a Cy Young candidate two years running is never good. The Cards rotation is a big question mark if you ask me now.
Who replaces Wainwright in St Louis? I can see the Cards going after Kevin Millwood. They have a lot of options to try and replace him, but in all reality, nobody they pick up is going to put up the same numbers he would. Their rotation could be a serious problem down the stretch this year. Will Garcia have a year like last year? I'm not putting my money on it, not trying to knock what he did last year though. Chris Carpenter is always a health risk it seems. But, when he's on, he's a huge threat. Jake Westbrook is nothing more than a mid-rotation guy and won't post anything close to what Adam would've.
So how does this change the NL Central for the season? You have to think the Cards are no more than a slightly above .500 team without around 20 wins from Wainwright. Every other team just gained a couple wins from this if you ask me. My favorite to win the Central is still the Reds, while I think the Brewers might be slightly better than the Cards now. This is still going to be a great race all year though! I'm excited for baseball to be starting back up and starting to get anxious for Opening Day.
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