St. Louis Cardinals not to pursue any big player in the Winter Meetings – MLB News
As the Winter Meetings are scheduled for Monday to Thursday next week, the St. Louis Cardinals are reported to have a modest list of goals for the upcoming season as far as the negotiation for any big player is concerned.
Cardinals have so far formally parted ways with two free-agents Kyle Lohse and Lance Berkman. Their 40-man roster did not need any radical change. It is clear the club might not go for signing any superstar.
That is what the Cardinals also referred to. "It's a far different landscape," general manager John Mozeliak said, "than a year ago."
There is a possibility that the Cardinals look for a lefty reliever to be used along with Marc Rzepczynski. However, given the list of free agents available, the Cardinals may encounter some difficulty in acquiring a good lefty reliever.
The list of lefty pitchers has the names of Sean Burnett, Randy Choate, Michael Gonzalez, J.P. Howell, George Sherrill and Will Ohman. Whether or not anyone of them will be good enough for the Cardinals is something that does not have a certain answer.
"I think we knew going in that the lefty relief market wasn't a great place to be shopping, just in the sense that there's not a lot out there," Mozeliak said. "As we look at a lot of our options, it may come from a trade. [We are] still interested in finding one, though."
Other than that, there was some buzz about the Cards’ pursuit of a shortstop given the Rafael Furcal’s elbow injury. However, the general manager had made it clear that the Cardinals were no longer pursuing it as Furcal is said to have made substantial progress.
Before the commencement of 2012 Major League Baseball, one of the setbacks for the Cardinals was departure of the accomplished slugger Albert Pujols. The Cardinals, nonetheless, somehow filled that vacuum.
That could easily be discerned during the regular season as they not only booked a spot in the Wild Card, but also edged past the Washington Nationals in the National League Division Series only to be eliminated by the San Francisco Giants in the National League Championship Series.
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