Cardinals-94 wins?

On the Cardinals message board at scout.com, "Bobreed" posted a very interesting theory on how the Cardinals could win 94 games this year, and for the most part I agree with it, so I felt like posting it:


"But I *like* Kool-Aid.
OK, here's how it works. We start with a base of only 71 wins, which is last year's victory total based on runs scored v. allowed (commonly known as Pythagorean wins). Maroth, Wells, Reyes, Jimenez, Cavazos, Mulder, Carp, Dove, and Miles(!) combined for 392 innings in 2007, with a collective ERA of exactly 7.00. If those innings are replaced by guys with a still sub-mediocre ERA of just 5.00, the Cards save 87 runs. That's 9 additional wins, for a total of 80.

If Troy Glaus equals his *worst* season of the past 4, he'll post an .840 OPS, which would be worth about 3 more wins than the Scott Rolen of 2007 (the difference between them defensively over the past few years is actually negligible).A mostly healthy season from both Duncan and Ankiel (provided they hit nearly as well as last year, of course) adds another couple of wins.
So now we're at 85 wins in 2008.

I'm adding one victory for an improvement at 2nd base. Someone, hopefully Adam Kennedy himself, should be at least a bit better than the '07 Kennedy.

Jim Edmonds had a .728 OPS last season, and was 0-2 in SB's, effectively giving away another 5 or 6 total bases, or 15 points of OPS. If Colby Rasmus posts an .840 OPS or so--or if Ryan Ludwick puts up an .840 while Ankiel plays CF and Rasmus percolates in AAA--the Cards gain about 35-40 runs, or another 4 victories.

So now we're at 90 wins.As pointed out at Viva El Birdos yesterday, the Cards were wayyy below their expected performance with 2 outs and RISP last year. A lot of that is luck, and it cost them 22 runs; assuming they get those runs back in 2008, you can add 2 more wins. Now we're at 92.

The Hardballtimes just listed the luckiest and unluckiest individuals and teams in the majors last year, when it came to "cheap" homers, balls that barely cleared the fence. In 2007, the Cards were the 3rd-unluckiest team in baseball. If they'd been average, they'd have hit 11 more longballs; the average homer is worth a bit less than 2 runs, so our Birds lost about 20 runs in 2007. That's 2 more wins with average luck in 2008.So now we're at 94 wins.

Just hypothetical, of course. But quite plausible to me."

This was a pretty well thought out post, and i think it's quite possible that we could win 94 games. But then again, it's quite possible that we could lose 94. One of the things that I think he failed to mentioned was the loss of Percival and the end of the bullpen, but, then again, we only had him for a 1/2 a year.

Like I've said before, this may not be the best team the best team the Cardinals put on the field, but it will be fun to watch.....