We interrupt the agonizing over the 2B and LF spots to contemplate the overall roster in a vaguely comprehensive way. The best numbers I've seen to this point are in the March 20th entry here. So with the aggregates out of the way, let's consider the individual goals. I'll start with the starting pitchers, since they're easier honestly.

Chris Carpenter has done something odd to me. OK, I've been around for a while and I've started reading The Book, so I know that spring training stats aren't meaningful. I know Chris Duncan's homer off Randy Johnson in March doesn't tell me much about how Duncan would fare against, say, Andy Pettitte in July. I may squirm a bit, but I know a poor spring from Junior Spivey doesn't hold a lot of water either. So far, so good. It's bothered me though that Carp's been so tough in spring training. Doesn't he know he's supposed to be chucking fastballs over the heart of the plate, just getting his work in? This isn't figure skating, practice doesn't count.

Carpenter's in St. Louis to compete. Forget the fancy numbers and everything else. When he's on the mound, be it March or October, the juices are flowing. It's no accident that his Gibson-like (Gibsonesque? Gibsonian?) hot streak in 2005 started when he faced his former team, the Blue Jays. It's probably not a coincidence that with the CYA on the line, he was allowed to pitch more in September than was in the team's best interest. It's also probably not a coincidence that he signed an extremely friendly extension with the Cardinals, a team that's genuinely devoted to winning ball games while minimizing so many of the side issues. He's fun to watch, and I hope he doesn't burn himself out.

As much time as I've spent pouring over his stats and scrutinizing his pitching, Mark Mulder is still a mystery to me. From what I read in Aces, that's by design. When other prospects were too busy reading about Mark Whiten or whatever, Mulder was building a brilliant strategy to bore the media to death. So let's look at a list.

Pitcher             W<30   A29S
Hal Newhouser*       185   1950
Vida Blue            156   1979
Ken Holtzman         151   1975
Dave McNally         148   1972
Fernando Valenzuela  141   1990
Sandy Koufax*        138   1965
Steve Carlton*       133   1974
Sam McDowell         132   1972
Jim Kaat             128   1968
Tom Glavine*         124   1995
Frank Tanana         120   1983
Johnny Antonelli     119   1959
Mike McCormick       118   1968
Frank Viola          117   1989
Ross Grimsley        117   1979
Mickey Lolich        116   1970
Johnny Podres        115   1962
Curt Simmons         115   1958
Andy Pettitte        115   2001
Claude Osteen        114   1969
Billy Pierce         114   1956
Dick Ellsworth       112   1969
John Candelaria      110   1983
Don Gullett          109   1978 - x
Jerry Reuss          108   1978
Ray Sadecki          107   1970
Mike Hampton         106   2002
Whitey Ford*         105   1958
Jon Matlack          102   1979
Steve Barber         101   1967
Juan Pizarro          98   1966
Mark Mulder           97   2007

Those are the 31 left-handed pitchers since WW2 with more wins than Mulder through their age-29 seasons, listed in the last column. Asterisks indicate Hall of Famers (and, yes, I'm jumping the gun a bit with Glavine). Wins are a troublesome stat for pitchers and some of these guys didn't age gracefully -- Don Gullett was done at the age of 27 after starting Game Ones of three consecutive World Series -- but you get an idea of what Mulder could accomplish if he can solve this declining-K thing and avoid 300-inning seasons.

Jeff Suppan is a clever man, and I'm not referring to his word of the day. He claims he's Catholic, going so far as to visit the Pope and kiss his ring. In reality Jeff Suppan is a leading evangelist for the Church of Mediocrity. Suppan looked at the 2003 Cardinals and saw names like Pujols, Edmonds, Rolen, Renteria and Drew along with names like Tomko, Stephenson, Fassero, Yan and Borbon. Suppan recognized instantly that those pitchers were so awful not even that mighty lineup could carry it, a problem he wouldn't have. Furthermore, the ardent Cardinals fanbase would recognize the value of his work, making it a perfect audience for his demonstration of the difference between mediocre and bad. When the Cardinals' division rivals signed the likes of Maddux and Pettitte, pundits scoffed at Suppan, but this was just part of his cunning plan to convince people that mediocrity is valuable, a plan that reached fruition in Game Seven of the 2004 NLCS with Suppan beating Clemens, the best pitcher in post-war baseball. Of course, Suppan then had to remind us mediocre isn't the same as good, which required something obvious, like running in a circle around third base during the World Series.

So far his plan has worked brilliantly. Nobody says bad things about Jeff Suppan. I hope he's back in 2007, and if he's not, I hope his memories of St. Louis are as positive as my memories of him.

Remember what Brian Gunn wrote a year ago for THT about Rick Ankiel's retirement?

I mean, very few of us get paid to follow our dreams. By the time we reach age 25, most of us have already set aside our ball gloves or our guitars or our paintbrushes and we’ve started looking for more practical ways to settle down, pay the rent, make do.

That's Jason Marquis in its own weird way, only he's setting his curveball aside, and likely with it any Cy Young ambitions. It's never easy giving up your dreams, especially when you make it 99% of the way and you're sitting right next to guys like Carpenter and Maddux who are accomplishing theirs. Suppan can give his testimonial though and things should work out well enough. It'll be just like the final episode of 'Friends'.

Sidney Ponson's story is well-known. The marquee standard would be Bob Welch's well-publicized turnaround from alcoholism, which reached its zenith with the 1990 Cy Young Award. However Welch was more talented and at least on the field he never reached the depths that Ponson did in 2005.

I think I read in the Post-Dispatch back in January that Ponson did NOT blame his poor 2005 on the bottle. So that sent me to the Lahman database looking for the best seasons a year after a pitcher threw more than 100 innings with an ERA over 6.00. Among those with at least 100 innings pitched in the year after, here are the top 15 postwar pitchers by ERA:

Butch Henry         1994    2.43   COL
Juan Guzman         1996    2.93   
Nelson Briles       1971    3.04   
Andy Ashby          1994    3.40   COL
Glendon Rusch       2004    3.47   DIPS
Joe Kennedy         2004    3.66   ANTI-COL
Dave Lemanczyk      1979    3.71   
Mike Hampton        2003    3.84   COL
Kenny Rogers        2002    3.84   
Darryl Kile         2000    3.91   COL
Mark Gardner        2000    4.05   
Jason Johnson       2001    4.09   
Chris Carpenter     2001    4.09   
Ron Kline           1961    4.14   
Dave Cone           2001    4.31

"COL" means the pitcher was recovering from Colorado; Joe Kennedy's 3.66 ERA happened after he moved to Colorado. Special mention goes to Andy Benes, who 'only' threw 97 innings while compiling a 2.78 ERA in 2002. That's a lot of recent names, even if you don't include the immortal Dave Lemanczyk. I'd think we'd all be happy with 200 innings with an ERA of 4.00.