Kicking Off the Offseason

The Cardinals wasted no time starting this "aggressive and creative" offseason, signing Kyle Lohse to a 4 year, $41 million contract yesterday.  This has been an interesting topic in Cardinal Nation, with about as many for it as against it.

All in all, I think we could have done worse.  I'm not thrilled about the fourth year, but it very well may be that, with the escalation of salaries, that fourth year will be a bargain price.  The no-trade is a little disturbing too, because that does limit things that Mozeliak can do, but there are always ways around that.  And, honestly, if I'd found a place I liked enough to give up free agency for, I'd want some assurance I wasn't leaving without some say so.

It'll be interesting to see what this allows Mozeliak to do this offseason.  For example, Aaron over at the Rundown mentioned something about Roy Halladay a few days back.  With this deal, maybe it makes someone like Todd Wellemeyer or Jess Todd more available in a deal like that.  Not that I'm suggesting it, but having close to a full complement of pitchers should give Mozeliak a better hand to play from in the offseason.

We'll see the pitcher hitting eighth again next year, which should make some bloggers happy.  Really, though, why change?  The Cardinals had one of the top offenses in all of baseball this year.  No, you can't credit it all to the unorthodox lineup, but do you think it's possible that had some sort of impact?  And why change when things are going well?

I'd talk some about the Twins/White Sox game this evening, but I think I've already proven I shouldn't venture too far away from the Redbirds!

And, in passing, I'd like to comment on the changing of the guard at Viva El Birdos, the premiere Cardinal blog in the blogosphere.  (Proof?  It won Best Cardinal Blog in the first annual Cardinal Blogger Awards hands-down.)  lboros has done a spectacular job building that place up and it won't be quite the same without his lower-case writing pervading the site.  That said, DanUp is a wonderful writer in his own, well, right, and I know that he'll keep the high standards going. 


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