Redbird Rants Recap: 1/8/12 – 1/14/12

Thanks for sticking with us during what most people feel is just the NFL season. Baseball fans, especially Cardinals fans, know that the offseason doesn’t lessen our need for quality reading about the Redbirds. We hope you feel you can get that content here. If you missed them, here are some links from the past week to articles written by the Redbird Rants staff.

I wrote back to back articles commenting on the lineup discussions being had all around Cardinal Nation. The first suggested that Carlos Beltran should be placed in the <a title="middle of the lineup, while the second compared competitors for the <a title="number two spot in the lineup. Ultimately I settled on Jon Jay. Below are posts from the rest of the staff.

Alex Brown – New Year, New Faces, Same Old Expectations

Alex delves into the changing of the guard in St. Louis as well as the personnel changes. He gives us a prediction that the Cards should make a deep post-season run, but won’t provide any “Rex Ryan” promises.

Jason Evans – Who will be this year’s David Freese and Jason Motte

Jason asks the question we all think about when the calendar turns. Who is going to be the next unexpected player to lift up the team? Follow the link to see who Jason chose and comment if you agree or have another theory.

Chris Ferguson – Surviving Without Dunc

Cardinals’ fans and players will certainly miss Dave Duncan. The man is going to be hard to replace. Chris admits as much but says because his replacement Derek Lilliquist is familiar with the pitching staff, Yadier Molina is one of the best catchers in the game, and the new manager is former catcher, the team will be alright.

Justin McClary – 2006 World Champions: Where are they Now – The Lineup

Justin finishes up his series of posts tracing the whereabouts of the players who made up the lineup for the 2006 Champs. A few faces are still around. Read the article to see where some other fan favorites are now.

Dennis McHawes – Mark McGwire and the Hall of Fame: Does he Belong?

Dennis takes a look at Mark McGwire’s lack of love in this year’s Hall of Fame voting. He details why he would give McGwire a vote along with some other players who have been connected to performance enhancing drugs. This is a conversation we will be having for a long time…

Daniel Solzman – Predicting the Lineup

Daniel gives us his take on how Cardinals’ manager Mike Matheny may structure the lineup for the upcoming season.

Once again, thanks to all of our readers and for their comments this week. Your comments provide us with the means to enhance our dialogue and help guide us to deliver content you want to read and pass along to others. Please check out the Current Staff page to view each author’s profile and twitter handle. Please give each author a follow.

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