St. Louis Cardinals: The Competition Revisited

Arizona Diamondbacks

Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports

If you haven’t read Fox Sports’ Ken Rosenthal’s excellent backstory on the Zack Greinke signing, do yourself a favor and check it out. Here’s a snippet:

"The entire baseball world knew that Greinke was close to choosing between the Dodgers and Giants. Greinke, at his introductory news conference in Phoenix a week later, would say that he was “minutes away” from going to a different team, believed to be the Dodgers."

Yes, the Dodgers. The one team St. Louis Cardinals fans can point to and say, “Well, at least we’re not them.” Perhaps no other team in baseball has had a worse offseason. Not only has L.A. failed to sign a major free agent (Hisashi Iwakuma doesn’t count), they didn’t even keep the one free agent everyone presumed would stick around.

Greinke’s signing came on the heels of the Diamondbacks’ huge trade with the Atlanta Braves, which received 2015 overall #1 pick and everyone’s All-American Dansby Swanson, a triple-A pitcher and Ender Inciarte, a good young Major League outfielder. Pitching was Arizona’s problem in 2015. Not anymore.

Next: San Francisco Giants