The Cardinals have already made some headlines this winter, with a few offseason accolades, some wise and unwise moves and, of course, the Great Albert Pujols Contract Extension Saga. The year ahead will certainly bring more happy and not-so-happy headlines. As part of the United Cardinal Bloggers’ January project, we present five headlines that we expect (not necessarily want) to happen during the coming year.

1. Carpenter, Freese land on DL — again
   May 1 — The Cardinals placed third baseman David Freese and starting pitcher Chris Carpenter on the 15-day disabled list after neither player responded to treatment for nagging injuries. It was the second trip to the DL this season for each player, Freese having begun the year on the shelf and Carpenter missing time due to a "tired arm." The Cardinal righty faced a career-high 969 batters in 2010, but he denied the possibility that his problems this year are related. The Cardinals moved quickly to sign Jason Marquis to take Carpenter’s spot in the rotation.
2. Berkman cuffs homer, then Phillips, as Cardinals beat up on Reds
   July 4 — Lance Berkman wanted to help his new team win in any way possible. On Monday against the rival Reds, he came to the Cardinals’ aid twice. He broke a 2-2 tie in the sixth inning with a mammoth blast. Then, when benches emptied in the eighth, he bailed out teammate Yadier Molina, whom Brandon Phillips had accosted, by restraining the Reds’ second baseman with a big bear hug.
3. Cardinals clinch NL Central
   Sept. 25 — Jake Westbrook shut down the Cubs at Busch Stadium and Colby Rasmus hit two home runs as the Cardinals clinched their second NL Central Division title in three years. The Milwaukee Brewers won their game against the Marlins, but the Cardinals needed only one more win to secure the championship. It’s possible, though, that the two Central teams will meet again in the playoffs, as the Brewers currently lead the Braves in the wild-card standings.
4. M’s Ryan wins first Gold Glove
   Nov. 10 — With Brendan Ryan playing Wii in his family room, his Mariner teammate Felix Hernandez summed up the news of his shortstop’s first Gold Glove: "Hey, I love that guy. He keeps our clubhouse loose and our defense tight, and he makes me a better pitcher." Leading the majors in Ultimate Zone Rating, Dewan +/- and just about every other defensive metric, Ryan picked up his first Rawlings Gold Glove, a year after the St. Louis Cardinals traded him to Seattle for a song. Chris Carpenter and Tony La Russa could not be reached for comment.
5. Pujols set to test free agency
   Dec. 1 — After failing to reach an agreement before spring training and playing the season without a contract extension, Albert Pujols has perhaps played his final game as a St. Louis Cardinal. Talks between Pujols and the Cardinals deteriorated last night as the two sides made a last-ditch effort to keep the star with the only team he has ever known. But with the Cardinals going to the playoffs for the seventh time in his 11 years in St. Louis, Pujols, who once claimed that it was "not about the money … It’s about winning and that’s it," now appears ready to sell his services to the highest bidder, ending his career as the most iconic Cardinal since Stan Musial.

In our post on Albert Pujols’s contract comparables, we noted that one of many similarities between the Cardinals’ current first base slugger and their former one, Stan Musial, was the fact that each has played only for the Cardinals. As we wait for word on whether that unique player-organization dual loyalty will continue for Pujols and the Cardinals, let’s review those rare relationships that stood the test of time (courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com).

Longest-tenured franchise players of all-time:

Longest-tenured active franchise players:

Longest-tenured Cardinal franchise players:

Now that Albert Pujols has set the deadline for c-day — contract day — for less than a month away, he surely has a target duration and amount for his extension in mind. But what? Given that he is probably the best player in baseball and is one of the few players who have played for only one team his entire career, and that clubs have extended their own or lured free agents this winter with some hefty contracts, he might reasonably compare his own wants to his peers. Here’s a breakdown that shows average annual value (represented by the "thickness" of the $100 bills) of the contracts of Pujols’s various cohorts:

Overall

Signed three years ago, Alex Rodriguez’s 10-year, $275-million contract is the standard here. The Cardinals would have to meet or exceed $27.5 million/year to stay competitive.

First basemen

The sound you heard last April wasn’t merely Ryan Howard and his family popping champagne corks; it was John Mozeliak and Bill DeWitt throwing objects at their television when they saw the ESPN report of Howard’s five-year, $25-million extension with the Phillies. How can they not match that offer, given that Pujols is superior in every way to Howard? "The Phillies made a mistake" may be true, but it’s not a useful negotiating angle.

"Franchise" players

These days, Pujols’s most-apt comparable is Stan Musial, not least because he played his entire career as a Cardinal. With 1558 games played, Pujols has a long way to go to catch The Man, who donned the Birds on the Bat an incredible 3026 games, the second-most for a single team next to Boston’s Carl Yastrzemski (3308). Looking at the contracts for current "franchise" players, Ryan Howard is again the one to beat, though Derek Jeter’s previous, 10-year contract was the longest.

Offseason contracts

It has already been a crazy offseason, with the price of a win above replacement level hitting $5 million. Have the winter contracts upped the ante for DeWitt? Not in terms of average annual value, with Cliff Lee topping the list at $24 million per year. In terms of longevity, the considerably younger Troy Tulowitzi earned a Jeter-like 10 years.

Cardinals

So what about Pujols’s new contract relative to his teammates? Other than Matt Holliday, no one is even in the same league. If there’s any pressure from within, it would be to lower the value of Pujols’s deal so as to not engender too much class envy in the clubhouse.

As many have noted, Pujols is in a league of his own. If he’s basing his minimum contract demands on comparables around the rest of the league, it appears that the Cardinals will need to beat Alex Rodriguez’s $27.5 million per year and possibly Joe Mauer’s and Mark Teixeira’s eight years.

Kudos to the latest Hall of Famers, Bert Blyleven and Roberto Alomar, as well as to those writers who smartly voted them in. They proved that, while the knowledge-based revolution may have stalled in St. Louis, it’s alive and well across the BBWAA — that, or the fear of being continuing to be labeled as anti-knowledge has cowed them. Either way, they made a wise decision in this non-member writer’s opinion.

So now that the writers in tapping Blyleven (and to a lesser extent, Alomar) have redressed a longstanding slight, what’s next?

If you take the view that, with the recent steroid era, we simply don’t know enough to know whether players were truly great or not (as this writer does), we are nearing a momentary pause in the number of new "eligible" candidates. That is, any player who has retired in the last five years and will in due time appear on the writers’ ballot will have played the entirety of his career during the PED era, which we roughly date from the point of Fay Vincent’s infamous steroids memo to teams. Granted, pinpointing the start — and, for that matter, the end — is a bit nebulous, but we can deal with exceptions. For the most part, if you’re willing to forgo voting on the raft of PED users and enablers from 1991 to the present, you’re going to have a finite set of players to assess.

But that’s okay, since we have plenty of players whose candidacies deserve the more serious review afforded by the clarity enabled by suspending the growing list of shady eligible players. Rather than fight the battle of whether or not to vote in the likes of Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, let’s focus our efforts on making sure that we have elected all of the deserving players prior to the circus of the PED era. Plus, with a very weak crop of newly eligible players for the 2012 ballot, what better time to take a longer analysis of players who have been overlooked?

The next to go in

• Barry Larkin: 68.9 WAR would put him 7th among the approximately 19 shortstops in the Hall, ahead of his closest contemporary, Ozzie Smith (64.6). We’re guessing that his strong showing among the voters in 2011 — he finished third with 62.1% of the vote in only his second year on the ballot — combined with the lack of competition in 2012 — Bernie Williams with 47.3 WAR will be the best new eligible — will pave the way for entry next year.

Unlikely but deserving

• Alan Trammell: Like Larkin, an underrated player at a premium position where one player soaked up all the media attention. His 66.9 career WAR ranks him above most Hall of Fame shortstops, and his 3.58 WAR/year (WAR/PA*3.1*162) is even better than his three HoF peers, Cal Ripken (3.50), Robin Yount (3.15) and Ozzie Smith (3.01).
• Keith Hernandez: Arguably the best fielder at his position of all-time, Hernandez actually averaged more WAR/Year than the recently-selected Alomar (3.58 to 3.07) as well as many Hall of Fame first basemen, including Willie McCovey, George Sisler, Orlando Cepeda, Eddie Murray, Tony Perez and Jim Bottomley. His career WAR of 61.0 would rank him sixth among Hall of Fame first basemen, ahead of Hank Greenberg. We’ll let that sink in for a minute.
• Ron Santo and Ken Boyer: Of the roughly 170 men in the Hall as players, only 10 of them were primarily third basemen. Santo and Boyer were statistical brothers, with career WAR of 66.4 and 58.4, respectively, and each averaging 3.55 WAR/Year.
• Ted Simmons: He is the most qualified of all catchers outside of the PED era. His 50.4 WAR puts him squarely in the middle of all HOF catchers, ahead of Gabby Hartnett, Ernie Lombadi and Roy Campanella.
• Lou Whitaker: His 69.7 would rank him seventh among HoF second basemen, ahead of Jackie Robinson and Ryne Sandberg.

The best most-qualified players you’ve never heard of

• Larry Jackson: Yes, one of the most-qualified pitchers not in the Hall of Fame is someone you’ve probably never heard of (unless you’re a regular reader of this blog, in which we noted him back in October). Though he pitched "only" 13 seasons, he racked up 55.6 WAR, which would put him exactly in the middle of Hall of Fame pitchers (27 had more, 27 had fewer WAR), ahead of guys who faced more batters: Red Ruffing, Early Wynn, Waite Hoyt, Catfish Hunter and Burleigh Grimes, to name a few.
• Bill Dahlen: The guy is 64th on the all-time WAR list, ahead of most Hall of Famers. As Cy Morong writes, he’s the best eligible player not in the Hall. Even if he is a Cub.
• Bob Carruthers: He is 78th on the all-time WAR list, and finished in the top three in his league in WAR five times — talk about era domination.

Hard to make an argument against

• Reggie Smith: Compares favorably — 3.96 WAR/year and 63.4 career WAR — to fellow switch-hitter Eddie Murray — 2.61, 66.7.
• Bobby Grich: Eminently more qualified than many HoF second basemen, with 4.13 WAR/year and 67.6 career.
• Dick Allen: An impressive average of 4.20 WAR/year — top that, Wade Boggs and Brooks Robinson!
• Tim Raines: More WAR in his career (64.6) and per year (3.13) than Alomar.
• Rick Reuschel: A ton more WAR (66.3) than Mariano Rivera (52.9) and averaged 3.49 WAR/year, more than HoF shoo-ins Tom Glavine (3.19) and John Smoltz (3.04).

On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me

Twelve bases amassing,

Eleven runs above average a’ fielding,
Ten games above .500 winning,
Nine batters k-ing,
Eight games completing,
Seven years a’ signing,
Six grands a’ slamming,
Five shining stars,

Four hundred home runs,
Three clutch men,
Two golden gloves,
And a vote for the finest rookie.