[Today's United Cardinal Bloggers roundtable question is from Christine Coleman of Aaron Miles' Fastball on behalf of her blogging co-conspirators, Miranda and Tara.]

The first two questions have looked ahead but Miranda, Tara and I are not quite ready to forget what the Cardinals have accomplished in 2011 only days after the World Series ended – and not just October, but the race to get there. We know the September surge and October playoff run were definitely team efforts. But, just like there’s an MVP for the NLCS and World Series, we want to know your opinion of who made the biggest contribution during that entire turnaround.

Our question: who is your most valuable Cardinal from Aug. 25 on?

As much as Chris Carpenter rallied the club with his indomitable spirit, Lance Berkman provided an unflappable, calm performance in leading the team after Aug. 25 with a .446 OBP. More contextually, though, he led with an incredible 1.879 WPA (Pujols had 1.332; Carp 0.396) — his hits mattered most. Big Puma’s Game-6 plate appearance epitomized what he brings to the club, both tangible — he knocked “only” a single, but it (.468 WPA) was worth more than all three of Pujols’s Game-3 home runs combined — and intangible — he approached the at-bat with the insouciance of a spring-training appearance and yet, as F. Scott Fitzgerald put it, “with the single-mindedness of a burglar blowing a safe.”

Which brings us to our second point. Unlike in years past, when Tony La Russa’s high-performing teams tensed up in the absence of an easygoing veteran presence  (as helpful as they are, one imagines that it’s difficult to relax around La Russa and Pujols), the 2011 Cardinals came back to win because they played with a free and easy spirit. We credit Berkman in large part for that.

[Mark from Retrosimba posed the United Cardinal Bloggers' roundtable question for today.]

Who is your No. 1 choice to replace Tony La Russa as Cardinals manager, and why?

Our top choice is Joe Maddon. We see a couple of different paths that the Cardinals could take. First, if they do want to consider Maddon (whom we, like others, have advocated in the past) but only after his 2012 contract ends, they could go with an interim manager next season. Granted, nobody likes the unsettled aspect of the interim manager, but it actually affords the flexibility to either pursue Choice A (in this case, Maddon) or to extend the interim manager (not unlike the 1+1 contract for Lance Berkman). The second option is to hire a “permanent” manager, of course. The most popular pick here is Jose Oquendo, but we have yet to see much objective argument for him, other than some anecdotal evidence that “players trust him.” However, this point is hardly clear, since as third-base coach, he regularly had players (Albert Pujols, Yadier Molina, et al) distrust his baserunning judgments to the point where he became invisible. It’s hard to see how someone who has such little respect in a relatively small part of the game would somehow be able to command it as manager.

[The United Cardinal Bloggers offseason roundtable discussion has begun. Bill Ivie led of I70 Baseball off with the following question.]

Albert Pujols is no longer a Cardinal and has moved on to greener (see what I did there?) pastures.  Put your General Manager hat on for me and tell me what moves you feel need to be made if the team desires to be competitive in 2012.  Is there a key free agent or specific position that Mo should attempt to upgrade?  Should he stand pat?  Anything other than reacquiring Pujols is on the table.

Part of the wisdom of re-signing Lance Berkman was to provide insurance for just this scenario, so the pieces rotate into place: Berkman plays first, Allen Craig goes to right field. That of course still leaves a firepower gap for the offense, which was the team’s strong suit in 2011. Happily, for whatever productivity loss the team incurs with Craig, it gains in payroll, so the Cardinals could afford to buy some offense.

The open spots then are shortstop and second base, with the possibility of centerfield. The rotation of Wainwright, Carpenter, Garcia, Lohse and Westbrook has some high highs and low lows, but overall is actually set up better than 2011’s was. We’re not convinced that a secondary LOOGy should be high on the shopping list, given their relatively low replacement value (for example, take Arthur Rhodes — please!).

Going outside the organization, the Cardinals might end their shortstop revolving door by bucking up for Jose Reyes, though his 2011 OBP of .384 belies his .341 career average. The price tag obviously matters here. Maybe it’s the former Mets fan in me, but Reyes would revive some of that top-of-the-lineup thrill from the Herzog years. And if Cardinal fans can embrace lifetime Astro Lance Berkman, surely they can warmly receive Reyes, right? Otherwise, we agree with Malcolm that Drew would make lot of sense at shortstop, but clearly Arizona, who extended his contract earlier this year,  thinks so too. We’re not sure Mozeliak has any more high-talent ne’er-do-wells to offer in trade. Thinking outside the box a bit, Carlos Beltran (yes, the hated Beltran and another ex-Met) would be a fascinating late-career short-timer (had the fourth-highest WAR among RFs last year). The only problem would be positional, since he probably couldn’t return to center.

Certainly finding a new manager is a important, but the pool of would-be managers isn’t as scarce as top players, so we would actually deprioritize it. And given that the team likely wouldn’t need to spend as much on its manager as it did La Russa (~$5 million), they could use the extra payroll on the field.

[The following is a part of the United Cardinal Bloggers' progressive-game blog, in which several bloggers covered the Cardinals-Brewers May 7 game, each writer taking one inning of the game.]

Facing the bottom of the Brewers’ lineup, Kyle Lohse continued to pitch to contact, keeping the ball in the strike zone — nine strikes to one ball (he finished the game with 67% strikes) — but not getting a single swinging strike in the fourth. After Mark Kotsay and Jonathan Lucroy found gloves on their balls hit into play, the always-spazzing Carlos Gomez reached Lohse for a two-out double. Though rightfielder Lance Berkman had some fielding problems later, Gomez would’ve been on second regardless of whether Berkman or Jon Jay were fielding. Gomez actually hit a pretty good pitch, low and outside, which may’ve been out of zone (the Brewer centerfielder has a relatively poor contact rate on balls outside of the zone, with a career O-Contact rate of 59.9%)

That brought up Yovani Gallardo, himself a decent-hitting pitcher — he’s third among active pitchers in career home runs:

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Perhaps because Lohse was in the zone so much, Gallardo offered at the first pitch — very similar to the 85-mph slider on which Gomez had doubled — and popped out to end the threat.

For some reason, Nick Punto — with a .322 career OBP — was batting leadoff for the Cardinals Saturday and got his second chance of the young game to start an inning. Unfortunately for the home team, he was as feckless in his second attempt, striking out looking to the form-regaining Gallardo after working a full count. Gallardo received called strikes on the inside and outside edges of the plate, then tried to get Punto to fish for a couple of curveballs low and away, then pounded a fastball up and in for strike three. Gallardo moved on to work over Colby Rasmus, freezing him on a 94-mph fastball over the inside half, on the heels of the same pitch just a few inches inside.

Thus emboldened, Gallardo got a charitable strike call on a high slider to start off Albert Pujols, who in 21 plate appearances boasted a .476 OBP and .625 SLG vs. the Milwaukee righty. But Pujols, in a replay of his first-inning at-bat, grounded out to shortstop trying to pull an outside offspeed pitch. That seems to be the Cardinal slugger’s problem this year, continuing an alarming trend from 2010 in which he literally hit only half his career wOBA to the opposite field. This year isn’t much better, as he is at only .239, compared to his career mark of .335. Pujols would later take an outside pitch the opposite way but ground out feebly to Prince Fielder at first base.