I had what was likely my biggest meeting of the year on Thursday, and while it went relatively well, I'm still dealing with the various consequences. That is to say, I've been too busy to focus on the Rockies signing Bo Hart or the latest non-developments during the darkest couple of weeks of the baseball year (it also means I missed Purdue's throttling of Michigan today). So forgive me, I'm a little behind.

Fungoes nails it with his response to Will Leitch's guest column at Baseball Prospectus. The basic premise for BPro's very existence has been that historical results do in fact have predictive value, and by any meaningful measure the current brass has done a fine job over the last ten years. Expanding on two points from Pip:

(1) Busch Stadium was ready to go. I liked the old park, although my last impression of it was "Darn, Casey Stengel was right, it really does hold the heat well." It had history and ironically baseball architecture had evolved to a point that Busch II actually was unique. Like many, I'm not keen on a copycat mallpark or the catering to corporate clients. That said, I've been to 40 or 50 ballparks the last five years, and in terms of "niceness" Busch II was in the bottom half of the list. Is is that unreasonable for a great baseball city like St. Louis to have a park at least comparable in quality to what they have in, say, Pittsburgh or Montgomery? (Yes, Montgomery.)

Certainly there are things to worry about with the new ballpark. But my concerns are the exact opposite of Leitch's: Tickets will be harder to come by, especially in 2006, they'll be more expensive and the crowd will be more interested in the cuisine and less interested in the game. That's not a problem from the Cardinals' standpoint however.

(2) As far as stat-heads are concerned, the offseason hasn't been that bad. See post #67 here, for example. Diamond Mind's projection is the definitive word and it won't be released until March, but there's little reason to expect ugliness. It's weird, compare Leitch's column to Leach's column on Rolen. The BPro writer is engaging in FUD and the writer for the Voice of MLB is quoting VORP and runs created. The times they are a-changing.

I will semi-disagree with one Fungo point. I think St. Louis fans are the way they are in part because Cardinals fans have had it pretty good, starting with the Branch Rickey days in the 1920's. Giving Sam Breadon five years to get the Cardinals' house in order after he bought the franchise, the Cardinals have the second-best winning percentage in baseball since 1924, behind only the Yankees. During the same stretch, they haven't had a 100-loss season, or a 95-loss season for that matter. Outside the 1994-95 strike-infested years, the Cardinals haven't had consecutive losing seasons since 1958-1959. There is some basis to George Will's silliness about Cardinals fans lacking the 'character' of Cubs fans. Of course it's also hard to envision the non-signing of JD Burnett, a mediocre month or two, and a couple of slow concession stand lines rolling back 80 years of good will.

It seems to me the 'winter of discontent' has it backwards, that the problem isn't so much with the 2006 team being that bad (or mediocre) as it is with the 2004 and 2005 teams having been that good. That those two truly great teams blew it in the postseason crapshoot in traditional LaRussa fashion only adds to the frustration. It does seem strange, however, to hold the overall success of the current regime against it.