St. Louis Cardinals: 2017 season and team are similar to 2007’s

One decade later, the St. Louis Cardinals 2007 team shares similar aspects of 2017’s team.

In 2007, the St. Louis Cardinals were coming off an incredible 2006 season featuring the franchise’s 10th World Series title. Riding high off of the previous season’s success, the 2007 team ended up with a disappointing 78-84 record.

Currently, the St. Louis Cardinals are a team mired in mediocrity and inconsistency. Despite adding outfielder Dexter Fowler in the off-season, the offense has not received the spark the front office thought he would bring. Overall, the team just cannot put it all together and they could learn from 2007.

At the All-Star break, the 2007 Cardinals entered with a 40-45 record, and this season’s team entered 43-45. In the second half, the 2007 Redbirds went 38-39 and finished seven games behind the first place Chicago Cubs. Oddly enough, the Milwaukee Brewers were the second place team that season.

Team records are not the only similarities between the two teams. Offensively, the ’07 team had a scrappy player that hustled and provided a boost to the ball club. This player was shortstop David Eckstein, comparable to outfielder Tommy Pham. Pham has been without a doubt the best player on offense, since his call up on May 5th, in seemingly every facet of the game.

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Also both teams had a struggling player on offense, who everyone expected more from and dealt with an injury.

For the ’07 team that was third baseman Scott Rolen. In the present that player is Stephen Piscotty.

However, on the pitching side, the starting rotations are completely different.

Ten years ago there were four players who made twenty starts or more, all of whom had an ERA of 3.70 (Adam Wainwright) to 6.04 (Anthony Reyes).

Now the team has four players who have made twenty starts or more, but their ERA range from 3.20 (Mike Leake) to 4.89 (Adam Wainwright).

The 2007 bullpen did contain some solid pitchers such as Russ Springer, who pitched sixty-six innings and sported an ERA of 2.18, with a FIP of 2.83 and a WHIP of 0.909. Without a doubt, he was the team’s best reliever. His equal on the 2017 team is Trevor Rosenthal.

Even though Rosenthal’s ERA is 3.69, his FIP is 2.21, lowest on the team by 1.02 out of relievers with seventy-eight or more batters faced. Struggling left-handers are another match, Randy Flores and Tyler Johnson are the old school Brett Cecil and Kevin Siegrist.

After drawing numerous comparisons, the big question to answer is what did the 2007 team do to improve for 2008. One big change happened via off-season trades, which was trading veteran players. Both Jim Edmonds and Scott Rolen left, and in return the club got David Freese and Troy Glaus.

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Interestingly enough, the Cardinals had recently promoted a certain individual to general manager who made both of those trades in the off-season. His name was John Mozeliak, who is now the President of Baseball Operations for the St. Louis Cardinals after Mike Girsch was promoted to general manager.